Staying on the Journey
It’s hard when you have to face your own words. Sunday was frustrating on many fronts for me. When I arrived at home from preaching two services and a pre-marital counseling visit, Donna sensed something was not quite right with me. After visiting with me awhile, she said, “You feel defeated, don’t you?”
I admitted that is where I was at the moment — well, where I was most of the afternoon.
Preaching post-mortems are always pretty rough for me; I am nearly always too hard on myself and how the morning went. I am just frustrated that we seem to have the same technical problems over and over and in the process, my heart-felt response in worship has become dampened. Part of it is that I have been a bit depressed, off and on, since returning from Africa. So much of what we focus on — what I focus on — when discussing church seems so shallow and selfish. Yet it still matters to me as a matter of excellence and offering my best and our best to the Lord. When I lose my passion in worship, I’m a whole lot like a sailboat without a keel and rudder: I’m left to blow in whatever ill wind catches me.
Thinking through my message convicted me that I am guilty of not hearing my own message about staying on the journey — my Heartlight article today covers some of the same emphasis. I want to see movement and passion. I want to see message move us to mission. I don’t want to feel like I’m dosing out spoonfuls of water to sponges and then watching the water evaporate over the course of a week only to see the same dry sponges return the next week without any observable movement or change, they’re just back for their weekly dose of water.
Is it the process of preaching?
Is it the way we do church?
Is it me?
I know late Sunday nights are not the best time to look at such things. I may feel totally different by tomorrow morning — or at least a little different.Thankfully for me, friends from our care group came over and I was profoundly blessed by their friendship and conversation. Donna was precious as she showered tender attention on me after our friends left. During the process, through friends and family, I was gently nudged to hear the words the Spirit game me to share … words I needed to hear.
Remember your destination: becoming like Jesus — be like Him until you go home to be with Him.
Remember the journey can be long: stay committed.Remember what maturity is: realizing you haven’t arrived until you’re at home with Jesus.
So I’m just before sleeping myself into the beginning of another week with many of the same challenges of the previous week … and the one before that and the one before that … But I’m trying to trust the words I shared with others are words I must hear and apply to my own heart.
But it’s hard staying on the journey when the landscape doesn’t change very quickly and the problems seem to be the same from week to week. And it’s hard to stay on the journey when you’ve come to the conviction that we’ve got to change some significant, meaningful, organizational things about how we do church and refuse to be misled by cosmetic and faddish things.
Let’s help each other hang in and stay on the journey!
If you got some suggestions for me and others who are reading the blog, then please suggest to me resources that have blessed you on your journey. What words of encouragement you would offer to someone who, like me, gets a little bogged down and distracted on the journey? How do you find strength to stay on the journey?
“Let’s help each other hang in and stay on the journey.”
Phil,
To often when we are down and suffering, even just a little. We hear words from those around us, similiar to the words Job received from wise friends who were witness to his trials. Words of wisdom, of understanding. Words we already know and understand.
While it may be of some comfort, though at the moment it rarely feels that way, that isn’t what we need in trials that disturb and depress us. The only thing we can do that makes those times bareable is hold our shield of faith close and slightly cocked above our face and over our head to ward of the flaming arrows of the enemy that seem to be raining down on us.
In my minds eye, I see myself, with shield raised often, putting one foot in front of the other. Often walking into a hail of flaming arrows. But I know our Lord is always with me and at times by his graces I’m blessed with an inspiration from him that lights a fire of passion in my heart and the rain of flaming arrows stops for a moment and I’m able to run…
I just weathered an onslaught of a multitude of those flaming arrows. I sat in my path under cover of my shield beginning to wonder if my Lord was still with me.
After overcoming that brief moment of doubt, I stood up, shook myself and resumed my walk…
Still shaken, disturbed, and mildly depressed, I went to my email box and found this message from you.
What I think most of us fail to realize, in moments like this. Is though we are all on an individual journey of discovering how to be more like Christ. We are never alone. It may seem at times, as though we’re clinging to a rock on the side of a mountain, during a whiteout, but what we fail to see, through the storm, is everyone else that’s weather the same storm on the side of the same mountain we’re on…
In moments like these, I always get back to the basics, our foundation, the truth and wisdom of His word, my Bible…or maybe a Heartlight or Phil file.
Thanks for all you do and the words of Gods wisdom and understanding you share…
blessing to you,
David
David
3 Mar 08 at 1:22 am
Phil,
Your message and David’s response opened the portals to my heart so the Spirit could infuse me this morning. Last week left me drained, and I’ve been seeking replenishment all weekend. Like David, I seek relief for spiritual hunger in God’s word in my Bible. Easing into it with your Heartlight is usualy the first step into my day. The hardest thing to do is submit to that yearning to be still and give God some time to draw near. There are so many priorities yelling for attention that it is hard to answer the one that should always come first.
In His love,
Gaylin
Gaylin
3 Mar 08 at 5:56 am
Dear Phil,
First I want to tell you that I receive a great blessing from your website. I usually use the Bible reference almost every day looking up verses and words to get a better idea of what is being said in the Bible. So I appreciate this website so much.
Also I am just getting into the devotionals and praying with Paul is so good for me as it shows me how to pray the Scriptures. It is helping in my prayer life. So again I want to thank you for this part of your site.
I know when a Pastor spends hours and hours studying the God’s word and not getting response from his people can be very discourging. I know our Pastor says by the end of Sunday night he is totally exhausted and even into Monday. So I can see how you can be discouraged.
When I am discouraged, I have a lot of health problems which makes me tired and exhausted without hardly doing anything. So I go to my Bible and just read it and allow the Holy Spirit to show me what He wants me to know for that day. It has worked wonders in my life.
I also have a special time with God. It may sound silly but I think of God and I in a garden some what like the Garden of Eden before the fall. And we sit and just talk. I tell Him what is on my mind and through verses or events He shows me how I have done during the day and what I need to work on or what I have done right. It is such a special time. I talk to Him as I would a Father.
Reading about other people who serve or have served the Lord helps me see how they trusted the Lord. Muier, Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael are some of my favorites. If they could do it so can I.
I also have “It is written verses”, like the Lord did in the wilderness with Satan.
Here are some of my favorites but you will have some of your own. So when I am depressed or having a trial I go to these verses.
II Peter 1:3-4
ACCORDING AS HIS DIVINE POWER HATH GIVEN UNTO US ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virture; by which are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Psalm 62:5
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.
Philippians 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
One more thing. You be guided by the Holy Spirit in how your church service should be conducted. To many churches are going with praise groups, all kinds of instruments, screens, and such. In our church we don’t even have a piano player. Not by choice but a lot of time we sing with no music at all. We have one person who plays guitar but sometimes he is not there. And our Pastor just preaches the Word as it is and I receive such a blessing from hearing God’s Word. It is a simple church but oh how the people love the Lord. And they show it by being their for others and some go door to door inviting people to our church and giving them the Gospel message.
Being simple is fine.
I hope this is a help.
Bonnie
Bonnie
3 Mar 08 at 9:02 am
Phil, perhaps many of us do not express, or express well, to you, our feelings about your sermons, and indeed your life among us.
Thank you for your continued study of the Word, the way you share it with us, even when it may not be what we had heard, maybe believed, in the past.
What you have to say to us transcends the technical difficulties, although I understand the frustration that causes for you, and maybe for others who don’t hear well. I am thankful that I can hear you!
Love and thanks also to Donna. She is a sweet, kind lady.
Robert and I are both so glad you came to Southern Hills and hope you are here for a very long time!
Martha
Martha
3 Mar 08 at 9:51 am
Hi Phil,
Can I just first tell you that Heartlight has been a spiritual staple for me ever since I became a Christian about 10 years ago?! I know for sure that you have a ‘message (that) moves us to mission’. I am also thanking God for your precious wife and care group members who love you enough to be the church to you.
Many of us are asking and seeking answers to the questions you ask. A resource? I just started reading Reveal, Where are You? By Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson. I can’t say much about it yet, but it is the result of asking a bunch of questions that convinced Willow Creek they weren’t addressing spiritual growth adequately or effectively. I think the rest of us need to come to the same conclusion. You probably already have, given your questions posted here. You just came back from Africa where you saw (and were) the church in a dramatically different way. You had lots of wonderful diverse fellowship with your blog buddies – and maybe you tossed around answers to some of these questions. It was exciting and energizing! No wonder you are restless, bogged down and depressed now that you are home again and face to face with the same old church stuff. You wouldn’t have been called to preach if you didn’t have a passion for others to grow, but you just experienced exponential growth yourself. I imagine God gave you that revved up opportunity for many reasons, not the least of which is probably to inspire and lead your flock on to new heights. So go for it! Be strong, be VERY courageous! I wonder if maybe you, as one of the leaders of your assembly, see the crossroads, have been shown the direction and are overwhelmed with the notion that drama will ensue when you head further into the land of promise. You know it…you’ve seen it – we just don’t want you to take us there. We are a stiff-necked people. Going there forces us to trust our God, not to just say we do, and frankly we don’t hear or see much of that kind of faith going on around us in our culture that has so much, but not so much of the right things. I am right there with it. As I prayed my first prayer of the new year, this was the verse that imprinted itself into the walls of my fearful little heart “`You have stayed long enough at this mountain’ (Deut 1:6). You sit here Sunday after Sunday, hearing what I have commanded, knowing what will please me, knowing all I have given you, revelation after revelation of all I have in store for you, and still you don’t trust me – I am God for crying out loud! Now move!”
Is it the process of preaching? No. It is the process of listening, loving and leading that is missing. Preach less – worship and pray more!
Is it the way we do church? Yes. Too much ‘doing the church, too little ‘being the church’. We need to learn how to love in the presence conflict – we need to practice NOT being offended. We fear disintegration and disharmony above God himself.
Is it you? Yes and no. It’s us! The next step on the journey, and the next, and the one after that, starts with a mind set on believing God. Oh help my unbelief! Phil, you have helped me stay on this journey, because you have stayed on it, you have devoted yourself to sharing His fame and His mighty deeds and I thank Him for you. Be strong, be very courageous!
Beth
3 Mar 08 at 12:25 pm
Thank you for the blogs and comments today. They have really helped me. I am going through a deep depression as the result of delayed grief from the loss of a husband, 2years later both of my parents within 6 months of each other. I had to quit my wonderful job in order to care for them–something I did by choice. Now I have nothing to fall back on–no safety net of a job. I have remarried a wonderful man and moved to a new city, another loss of my hometown.
So, I needed to hear about “the journey”. I know I am on a journey, but right now, my spiritual well is dry. I can relate to what is being said, but cannot offer any advise. I, too, am seeking answers, and what I read from everyone was helpful. Thank you for all the words I read today! I enjoy Hearlight so much. Today is the first day I read the blog.
Please pray for me. I would so appreciate it.
Betty
Betty Hardy
3 Mar 08 at 12:46 pm
You’re the real deal, Phil. Thanks for being human enough to share your moments of weakness, and thank you for being man-of-God enough to let the Spirit work powerfully through you… and your struggles.
Stephen
3 Mar 08 at 2:04 pm
being a middle aged man trying to find my way back to God after having turned my back to him for more years than I care to admit. I anxiously look forward to reading your inspirationals before work in the a.m. when i have a few moments of solitude to pray. You are very relevent to many people sir, thank you for your powerful messages.
tom
4 Mar 08 at 5:19 am
I’m struggling with what you are right now. Staying focused and staying on the journey. Where is my place in the SH family? What do I
need to be doing at the moment. This scripture has helped me, and I share this with you, Phil,
hoping it helps you also. Phil 2:1-11. Read this
passage every day for 2 weeks. THen the one in Psalms where it says “Be still and know that I am
God.” I’m praying for you every day. Please continue praying for my folks and I. Mom will
be here at home for several more weeks getting
her strength back. Mom & Dad had their 58th weeding anniversary this past Sunday, March 2nd.
Take care and keep looking up to God.
Your Friend, Donna Altman
Donna Altman
4 Mar 08 at 11:07 am