Harvest Alliance NA Call / 2022-02-03

Good afternoon everyone,

I’m going to be honest. This has not been easy. I have said no to Jim for months, whether it was with legitimate reason, or maybe simply just manufactured reasons, I’m glad he persisted in asking me. I turn 40 this month… in 3 weeks, and I’m not just telling you that so you know that the week we are all together at retreat is a pretty big deal for me… but to give you some insight into my world, and some of my internal mechanisms. For years I have in my minds eye seen myself as nothing more than a child. Especially around other leaders. I have not felt like I belong. I have not felt like I deserve to do what I do. And I’ve struggled with the mentality that what I am NOT rules me out, regardless of how great what I am is.

We were going through some UGBs last week with some of our people here and in the midst of that process I realized that I endorse other peoples strengths, regardless of their weaknesses, because I truly believe we operate best out of how God created us. We all have gifts that are meant to be for the benefit of others. I know that scripture and I like it. The hand can’t live without the foot, the eye without the ear. We know this. So, when it came to other people, I would endorse their strengths, regardless of their weaknesses, but when it came to my own life I realized that I have continually disqualified myself based on my weaknesses, regardless of my strengths.

All of that to say, these past few weeks have been a pretty raw and humbling and a vulnerable process for me.

And on top of that, what I have felt to share today is exactly that, and what God has been doing in me, and through me in the last year is, I feel, so vast and so wide I barely know how to scrape the surface of it. I think I started my notes a half dozen times and just kept going down rabbit trail after rabbit trail, because I am still really just trying to nail down what it is that God has done and still is doing in me.

But I want to talk about grace today because I think in the midst of all we have and are still going through, the grace of Jesus Christ is still the answer.

I’ve shared a bit of this over the last year, but about 14 months ago I was so frustrated with this wall I kept running in to. I know God’s created me with gifts. I know I have a purpose, a calling, and yet I felt like I was consistently slamming into a wall of frustration and holdback. And sometimes it was things I couldn’t control, but most of the time it was all in my head, heart & mind. I didn’t feel enough. I felt inadequate. I felt so strongly that I was going to fail and was so afraid of not measuring up that it was simply easier to just not start. And all of that was probably manifesting itself most in my health, but was certainly not limited to that. In a lot of ways I had just given up on myself.

So, I hired a life coach, not to deal with my health - because, quite frankly I didn’t want to deal with that, but to deal with this inability to move foreward. Within a few weeks my life coach says, “Hey, I want you to meet with a friend of mine about nutrition. I think in this process it would be helpful.” Not what I’m looking for, but ok. He sets it up, and they are both in Ottawa, so we’re on this zoom call. And this friend, not a nutritionist like I thought, but a pastor, and more importantly, an addiction counselor who’s been doing that for 14 years, helping people in recovery. He asks me what’s my story, I tell him, he replies, “ya, I’m pretty confident you have an addiction… and if you’re open I have a course of action for you. Think about it, and get back to me.”

I didn’t like the idea, I didn’t want to deal with this. There’s no way I’m an addict. I’m not one of them. But when you’ve tried everything else, and you’re still not free, what’s one more thing? After a few days of silence I reached out, and found myself shortly after in an all-addictions recovery meeting with an invitation to join a 26 week walkthrough of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, to walk through what it might mean for me to be addicted to food or eating.

That in of itself is a dozen rabbit trails to unpack, but I’m gonna walk right past them… What the journey of this last year has brought me to is that it is in my weakest state that I am truly becoming who I am, because it is in our weakest states that we truly experience His strength.

We have all read 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Paul says, …to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I had a LOT of problems with that. Because I’ve been taught not to claim it, not to own it, but to own the opposite. It is for freedom that Christ set me free, I’m more than a conqueror, Jesus paid it all… but, why am I not free?

Some interesting things in that scripture:

Messenger of Satan - could be a demon, but more likely it’s in reference to a saying, or expression that was used. When an army general would ride into a city after a great victory in battle, he would have one of his servants stand just off to the side and behind him, and as he would wave to the crowds, and the whole city was cheering, and chanting his name… think, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands...” This servant was there to whisper in his ear, “memento mori”, latin for “remember that you have to die...” That servant was called the messenger of satan - to deliver a message that would bring the general back to earth, remind him that he’s still human.

And the second thing is when it says, “Three times I begged...” this is very possibly another literary saying that really meant, “over and over, I have asked so many times I think I’ve lost count...”

This is where I was at. I had lost count of how many times I had begged God to deliver me. To just take it away. And as I read Paul’s experience I realized God doesn’t say, “Ya, of course son, you know I love you and would do anything for you...” and He doesn’t say, “Just give it some time, you just have to learn a couple things here, and then you can move on...” He doesn’t even say, “Pray the right thing” or “do the right thing” or “reach a certain point”… He says, “No!”

And here I am, on one hand I have, let’s call it, my charismatic Christian tradition, and probably my own mind taking what I’ve been taught and scripture way out of context, but it’s telling me to claim my healing, not to embrace the weakness, and on the other hand I’m sitting in a meeting with people who are introducing themselves as 10, 15, 30 years sober, and saying, “Hi, my name is Robert and I’m an alcoholic… food addict… compulsive over-eater… workaholic… drug addict etc...”

And all of my Christian insides got riled up and seriously offended, and of course I’m on zoom and I wanted to just unmute myself, and scream “No, don’t claim it…what are you doing!?!?!?”

The other part I really struggled with was when they called my addiction, which I surely was NOT claiming as my own, a disease. “It’s not a disease.... It’s a me problem. I don’t have enough will-power… And that’s the solution. ME doing better! ME being stronger. ME doing it right!”

Everyone knows that. Every trainer in every gym I’d ever been in, every health coach, nutritionist, dietician, doctor, magazine, TV show and yes, the well meaning close friends and family had drilled that into my head for 30 years, “YOU can do this, YOU just need to stop doing what you know NOT to do, and START doing what you know you SHOULD do...” But see I identified with Paul… the trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.

So, I started to think...hmmmm.... maybe there is something to this…

Maybe I should listen, as millions have found freedom in not denying their weaknesses, but in embracing them. Not to the point of giving up or giving in to the disease, but as a pathway to experiencing the grace that God said would be sufficient for Paul to not necessarily “overcome”, BUT to live with it, to experience God’s strength.... in the midst of it.

Paul got it. Romans 8, after listing all the things we could and will go through, hardship, calamity, distress, and then he says, …despite all these things. or as the ESV says, …IN all these things, which means we’re in the middle of it…we’re in the thick of it... despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours THROUGH Christ, who loved us...

THE ESV says, we are more than conquerors… But it doesn’t say Jesus makes me the conqueror, or in 2 Corinthians 12, pertaining to his weakness, he doesn’t say to Paul that he will make HIM strong. No...

I am more than a conqueror THROUGH, as long as I am connected to, Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 12:10, When I am weak, then I am strong.

He didn’t make ME strong so that I would get this empty notion that I no longer need Him. I am still weak, but when I can come to a place of humility with this human condition and say, “I need grace. I need You. I am weak...” THEN I experience something greater than myself, and it is not my doing, and maybe I am never “better”, but I sure am OK in the midst of it, because in that moment I experience something of Him that I never would have if I simply continued to be strong myself, or even to ask him to take it away.

So, today, I want to share two prayers with you that I’ve learned over this last year. And no, this is not an intervention. I’m not saying y’all are addicted and need to get yourself to a meeting. But what I am saying is that I personally think there is a key in this for our leadership in the coming days that we are living in.

I think people want reality more than anything else. I think people know they are weak, and they’re tired of just being told to be stronger, just change your attitude, just do better… get more will-power.

In my experience, people don’t mind leaders with weaknesses if they are able to see the strength of Jesus Christ at work in them. In fact, the grace of God at work in those of us that lead is really our most redeeming and qualifying factor. The tension and the work of the enemy will always be to try and convince us we can do this without His grace. And it’s when we feel like we need to represent that we’re all that and a bag of potato chips, we’re saying we don’t need grace.

If all we show is that we are strong enough to do it on our own, then the invitation to those we lead is that they also need to be strong enough on their own... but what they really need is grace, and so we are ultimately setting them up for failure.

I think that one of the keys to this next season is transparency and I know that the key to us experiencing the strength of God that we all so desperately need is being OK with our weaknesses.

Paul actually took it a step further. He finished with, So, I will BOAST in my weaknesses… BOAST, which means, to give glory to, or high honor to...

And I certainly didn’t understand that. But here’s the thing, when I started experiencing the grace of God and the strength of Jesus in the MIDST of the weakness and I began realize, all my years of telling God to just take it away, the begging and begging and begging for him to just set me free, more than anything else it produced frustration. “Why won’t God just set me free?!? Isn’t he a good good father? Isn’t he in control???” But when I started to recognize these weaknesses as the very avenue to experiencing His strength and grace, it didn’t matter that I was weak. And I don’t feel broken, or woe-is-me because of it.

This is why Paul says he can be content whether he has or has not. Not that when God finally gives in to our relentless begging and gives us what we asked for, THEN we can be content. No, but that regardless of the physical provision, something greater is experienced.

Do I still eat to comfort myself. Yes. Do I still battle and war against just simply begging God to take it away. Sure. I’m not saying I get it. Most days I struggle, fail, feel broken and complain. But the days I feel Him… all the problems in the world can’t take that away.

So, the first prayer I want to share with you today, and maybe you know it. I certainly didn’t. It’s called the Set-Aside prayer. And it says this:

God, please enable me to set aside everything I think I know for an open mind and a new experience. Help me see the truth about...

Because what was getting in the way the most was what I thought I already knew about what I was dealing with. I even said this, over and over again, “I don’t need to know something new, I just need to do what I know to do!” I was simply just perpetuating the lie that it is all about MY will-power!

This might be about a personal issue, it might be about a ministry in our churches, or a person we are leading, or a situation we’re dealing with. But start with, “God, help me set aside what I think I already know about this SO THAT it doesn’t hold me back from what YOU want to do, how YOU want to work.”

Renee did an amazing job last month talking through Romans 12:2, and when it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that word renewing means renovation. I’m a big fan of HGTV, and when you’ve watched enough renovation shows, you understand that this means a complete tearing down of what was, so that what is meant to be can be built from the ground up! And to truly understand what God wanted to build in me I had to let him renovate my mind, completely tear down what was.

Second is a prayer that is much more well known. It’s prayed by millions around the world in and out of addiction recovery meetings. It’s called the Serenity Prayer. And if you know this one, what I’m about to pray might sound a bit different, because there is a shortened common version that probably 99.9% of people pray, but if you do some research you come across a deeper prayer. Most people pray, God, grant me the serenity… But the original version says this:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Serenity means the state of being calm, peaceful, and untroubled…essentially saying, God, there are things I can’t do anything about, give me the grace that I need, the undeserved, unmerited favor of God, to endure those things with peace... remaining calm, and no longer allowing them to trouble my mind and spirit...

And in every area where I CAN do something, show me and give me the courage to meet those things head on!

Probably at all times, and in all things, but I think in this next season of ministry and leadership we need to be asking these things in our prayer life...

God, tear down what we think we know so YOU can show us a better way…Your way.

Give us Your Grace to be calm, confident and sure of who YOU are in these areas of our lives, our ministries, and in the lives of those we lead, where we can’t make any changes ourselves. Where we can’t do anything about those situations. Give us the grace to endure with peace in our hearts and minds.

And give us courage, overwhelming courage to do all that we CAN do, becoming more of who you say we are, with your grace, acceptance and love behind us as we tackle those things in our lives that we DO have the power to change!

Like I said, I certainly don’t get it all yet, but these two little prayers help me keep my head on straight, and my heart in the right place, and I hope they can help you.