This week I want to talk about what it really means to be a Jesus follower and how I accidentally found a flaw in how I was treating God.
When I was younger I really struggled with reading. I hated it. I would put off reading assignments and often just took whatever grade that good guesses could net me. I hated the standardized reading test. They were all the same: read a page of story, answer three questions, repeat for 2 hours or until my teeth grinding earned me a potty-break. Part of the problem was that I have a touch of dyslexia. I have never been diagnosed, but I struggled none the less.
I learned to cope and figured out some tricks to help me use my backwards brain more effectively. Today I read lots! I enjoy reading now, but not so much in middle school and high school. Writing was very difficult for me as well. I had to really slow down and focus on each letter or things got very jumbled very fast. Some words and phrases just start off backwards in my head. To this day, I have to slow down when I talk about a coin toss. If I rush through that phrase, I’ll say “toin coss” every time!
On day in middle school I remember racing through some dictation that had the word “dog” in it. In my rush, I spelled it “god”. I didn’t even notice until much later when my teacher put a big question mark on my sentence. Even then I had to read it three or four times before I noticed I had flipped the letters. My sentence was something like: Timmy threw the stick and his god fetched it.
Pretty funny, but sadly this is how some people view God. To some, The Almighty exists for them. They expect the Creator of the Universe to fetch them a happy life, or fetch them a spouse, or even a good grade on a test they did not study for. They make a little effort, like throwing a stick, and expect Jesus to be a “good boy” and bring them back what they asked for.
While it is true that the God of the Bible is personal, it is not true that he is our servant. We are to serve Him and live for His glory. He is the Author of Life (Acts 3:15), He is the Alpha and Omega (Rev 1:8) He is the Potter and WE are the clay (Is 64:8).
Like my reading problem, we can learn how to slow down and put things back in the right order. The cool thing about the solution is that no matter what order you do it in, it works out the same: repent and believe the Gospel. One leads to the other, and it doesn’t matter which goes first, so just go for it!
Your favorite church planter
-Mike Watt