When you don’t get what you want

The world will tell you just to say “Eh, sour grapes anyways. Wasn’t worth it in the first place.”

But God says: “It is from My hand. I am all wise. I am all loving. My ways are greater than yours. You may indeed have missed out and may in fact get nothing better, but you missed out because I have plans to free your heart from loving this life and incline your heart to love the Next far more. Reel at the loss, acknowledge it, and then lay it at My feet, trust Me, and anticipate Heaven with all your heart.”
And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”
- Job 1:21
“It is the LORD. Let him do what seems good to him.”
- 1Sam 3:18
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
- Rom 8:28

Pulled every which way, and seeming uncaring

Sometimes I feel like I give the impression that I don’t care about people. As if all I’m concerned about is what’s next on the schedule, what time it is, and if you’re doing what’s Scripturally right and walking in obedience to the Lord.

To some extent, you’d be right. I am very much a slave to the clock and the calendar at times. Need to work on that. The Lord is in control of everything, and as the old adage goes, “He is always on time, but never in a hurry.” I could learn from that.

But I’m getting at something else. It’s quite a struggle, and oftentimes I feel rather torn by it. You see, I do care. A lot. And for a lot of people. And that’s where the problem often lies. In caring for so many people, sometimes your care for each person gets diluted. It’s reflected in the physical world too. You get a piece of Play-Doh, and it can only stretch out over so much surface area. Or pour out a cup of water, and it can only soak into so much.

I wonder how Jesus did it. Or how our pastors do it. It sure is tough at times. You feel like you wanna encourage and care for everyone’s soul.

That’s where some helpful reminders come in. Steve-o, Jesus is the true Shepherd. You’re just a sheep-dog whenever you minister to someone. The Holy Spirit sanctifies, encourages, and helps far far more than you can, and even any help you give is made effective by Him. And how dare you forget about prayer. Did hanging out in a discipleship context for two-plus years with Paul Ushijima and one year with Justin McKitterick teach you nothing about True Productivity? Yes, pray for those you care for, because God takes much much better care of them than you can. Trust in the Almighty Hands, bro. Trust.

That all make sense? Hopefully. That was a helpful stream of consciousness for me. Hopefully it was for you too, dear reader.

G’nite.

I don’t know who I’ll end up marrying…

But I do know that I deeply desire to receive a letter like this 20 years into our marriage, and have it be as true of me as it is of Jon Bloom (Exec Director of Desiring God). What strikes me most is how profoundly Pam Bloom admires, is drawn to, and is inspired by the godliness of her husband. Dude, I want to be that kind of man.

July 15th marked 15 years since you started as John Piper’s assistant and soon started Desiring God and became the Executive Director. (People wondered what you would do with that anthropology major!)

As your wife I’ve been watching, admiring, and learning from you through this adventure of faith. And today I want to publicly celebrate God’s grace in your life and honor you, my dearest earthly love.

A passion for God has characterized you since before we met (me at 15, you at 17). That’s what I found so attractive and still do. You not only talk about abiding in Christ, you do abide in him and his Word abides in you.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)

I’ve watched you dream big and watched God do more than you expected. The fruit of abiding in Christ is evident. You are a joyful and grateful man. And your joy and gratitude grows as you draw near and celebrate the cross of Christ. You are a Christian Hedonist!

Thanks for wonderfully leading our home. You patiently help me grow in my faith. You bear with me and gently correct my selfishness. I admit I’ve not always been so joyful when ministry calls you away from home.

During busy seasons and long hours you model kingdom values, happily work hard in the strength God supplies, and lovingly shepherd me. God uses the demands of our roles to sanctify my heart and the trials to strengthen my faith.

By God’s grace, I truly love my role and am now your happy helpmate. And our kids increasingly share the vision and support you as well. What a blessing to have such a godly man to lead us! I love this sweet union…of now 20 years!

Jon, I appreciate your joyful submission to your employer, John Piper. You carefully take John’s biblical convictions and values and embody them personally. Then with sensitivity to God’s lead, you take his teachings and distinctives and shape a ministry that creatively spreads a passion for supremacy of Christ.

The way you submit to John as your boss inspires me to submit to you. You learn what is important to John and look for ways, consistent with his wishes, to serve him. You seek to improve your skills to bear the most fruit and glorify God. I want to do that, so our home reflects biblical values and honors your unique preferences. I’m learning to better manage our home so your joy and fruitfulness are maximized.

I marvel at God’s answers to prayer and abundant provision for DG. In face of big decisions, personal and spiritual crisis, financial shortfalls, staff needs, growing pains, building projects, and more, I’ve watched you respond with prayerful dependence, preaching the gospel to yourself.

You don’t lean on your own understanding or even the conventional wisdom of proven business models. You obediently take “risky” steps of faith that may look foolish (the whatever-you-can-afford policy and free audio downloads).

When it is budget-forecasting time and the numbers don’t add up, you don’t shrink back. You do the next thing in faith, knowing God is at work. Your example and God’s provision at DG repeatedly encourage me when life and homeschooling are hard. Like Eliana’s name reminds us “our God answers.”

What more can I say? Time would fail me to tell of…

…your humility.

You are quick to admit your sin, weakness, and the fact that DG is not dependent on you. You are not impressed with notoriety.

…your pastor-like care and wise counsel.

You often lay aside mounting tasks to care for co-workers and family.

…your letter-writing.

It is full of the Word, wisdom, and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

…your worship leading.

You do not only lead from behind the guitar or piano but with your life.

…your sense of humor.

You laugh loud and freely. No one makes me laugh like you!

Your godliness and life bring great joy to me! I praise God for these 15 years and am eager to see what God will do through you in the years to come.

I love you,

Pam

From “A Letter to My Husband, Jon Bloom.” Desiring God blog, 7/17/08

Brainerd, why is your journal only 300-something pages?

And why can’t it be like a thousand?

First, a quote.

“Oh, [I think] I could bear any sufferings; but how can I bear to grieve and dishonor this blessed God? How shall I yield ten thousand times more to honor Him? What shall I do to glorify and worship this Best of beings? Oh that I could consecrate myself, soul and body, to His service forever! Oh, that I could give up myself to Him, so as never more to attempt to be my own, or to have any will or affection that are not perfectly conformed to him!
“But, alas, alas! I find I cannot be thus entirely devoted to God; I cannot live and not sin. O ye angels, do ye glorify Him incessantly; and if possible, prostrate yourselves lower before the blessed King of heaven? I long to bear a part with you; and, if it were possible, to help you. Oh, when we have done all that we can, to all eternity, we shall not be able to offer the ten thousandth part of the homage that the glorious God deserves!”

- The Life and Diary of David Brainerd, Monday, Feb 7 1744

Paragraphs like that are why I’m so riveted by the journal of this man. The depth and intensity of devotion to God is shockingly clear. The desire to kill sin and replace it with delighting in Him and serving Him positively screams from the page. The longing for Heaven is can’t-miss-it obvious.

David Brainerd makes me want to sin less, honor Christ with every molecule of my body and every nanosecond of my time, share the gospel of the blessed God, and devote every last thought to the contemplation of His “diverse excellencies” (thanks JEdwards for the awesome phrase). In short, he makes me really, really, really… really, want to be more like Christ.

And get this: nearly every entry in his diary is this intense.

Pneumatology

Nothing like page after page of an older godly man showing you passage after passage of Scripture that scream loudly: “YOUR WALK WITH THE LORD IS SUPERNATURAL. LIVE AND WORSHIP LIKE IT!”

Thank You, Father, for giving Your Spirit to help us at all times. Amen.

Well done, good and faithful (but not necessarily results-producing) servant

I have found that in the course of my ministry, the Lord has undeniably made this lesson real to me through the many people I’ve ministered to and been humbled by: He wants good and faithful servants, and that those servants may be misjudged by all those around them because people look at external results, but the Lord looks at the heart and the amount of Biblical faithfulness demonstrated. See Luke 19:12ff for the parable of the minas, and Matthew 25:12ff for the parable of the talents. The main point of the two parables is unquestionably preparedness for the Return of Christ manifested in faithfulness, but an inescapable side point is that the Master will reward based on faithfulness to what He started us with, and that there’s a very distinct possibility that the results may seem minuscule in the eyes of man. Ponder this: the wicked and lazy slave with one talent in Matt 25:12ff started out with over 5 times more money (1 talent = 60 minas) than one of the good and faithful slaves in Luke 19:12ff ended with (11 minas)! Clearly, faithfulness is the issue in this text, not results. In the world’s eyes, the servant with more (60 minas) would very possibly be more praised than the servant with less (11 minas), and yet God says otherwise.

CS Lewis puts it more eloquently than I ever could:

Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man’s psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us : all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.

Brainerd quote that leaps off the page and slaps you in the face

“was made sensible in some manner, how exceeding vile it is not to be wholly devoted to God.” – p66, The Life and Diary of David Brainerd

When you read something like that, you feel an intensity emanating from Brainerd’s life that you undeniably want to emulate.