Masters Of The Art

How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?   Habakkuk 1:2

Plain and simple.  One question.  What is the antidote for God's silence?  Read his word more?  Pray more? Serve him more?

No really...what is the antidote for God's silence?

What are we to do when that one thing that's plaguing us won't go away?  Why won’t he fix it?  What is he doing?  He’s not even listening.  What are we to do when the Bible seems to be taking a break...the heavens seem to be on vacation...our prayers seem to never leave the room?
 
Why is it when my son or my daughter want to talk to me, I am all ears?  And I speak back to them.   Why is it when they ask me to play with them...I go play with them...even if I don't feel like it?  Why is it I can't bear the thought of the slightest bit of suffering or injustice coming to my children?...but God seems to not only allow it but intend it?

It must be okay to ask why…Habakkuk did...

"From the moment they awake, they devote themselves to the perfection of that which they pursue"   The Last Samurai

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?"

What if the world saw us as black-belts in Christianity instead of religious bigots and judgmental extremists?  It fascinates me that many of the religions around the world pray regularly, accept hardship as the norm, live as mystics, and study with discipline...and we're supposed to be the people who know the one, true, living God!  We run into problems and we build a better flat-screen TV, make a better drug, build a cooler phone with more apps, take more vacations...while our debts increase...and we grow more stressed....

Both of my kids are in karate. One is a blue-belt and one a red-belt. They are well on their way to browns, then blacks. It really is amazing to watch their form mature.  When I first came to know Christ I was given a couple of "starter" books that helped me learn the Word.  I loved learning and memorizing those first scriptures. I loved the way others seemed to know them so well and could apply them to their daily lives. And of course, I loved watching or listening to the "masters" like Charles Stanley unpack this living book that I had discovered. I loved the way they prayed.  It was beautiful and powerful and “other-worldly”. 

 

I wanted to be like one of them so badly...I wanted to know the word like that...I wanted to know this amazing God I had met...like they did.  I wanted to know what it was like to be involved in real intercession.  Every few months…then every few years I would think, I'm getting there...its happening.  It was as though every so often...I would get a new belt. Like learning to play an instrument, mastering a foreign language or developing in a sport, the more I practiced the better I got.

The world has its disciplines.  Medicine, law, language, etc.  Our faith is a discipline…an art...and a science. We must master it.  We must become Masters in the Art of following Christ.  Yes, he is silent sometimes.   Yes, we struggle.  Yes, we all have a "thorn in the flesh".  But I believe he is trying to develop us into masters of the faith.  I believe there are unknown depths of maturity that he would like us to grow into this side of heaven.  Why can’t we walk like Paul or Moses or David or Gideon or Peter or John did?  We have the thorn so we might as well grab the revelation!

"And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ"

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."

"Until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ."

He is a mystery.  We are called to a mysterious walk/life.  He has revealed it to us in part.  I believe that in our Christian culture in America we are in danger of losing this truth, this depth.  We have a shallow faith.  We rely on modern technology to fix everything for us.  We only accept hardship as the norm when our goal is monetary…not mystery…when it will get us more things…instead of more revelation…more power…instead of more mastery over the flesh…more vacations…instead of more retreats…to find him…know him…love him.

The world will never like us.  God's word promises that no servant is greater than his master and since the world hated him, they will hate us too.  But what if they began to respect us…even fear us a little...as those who walk in a different kind of power, a different kind of love, a different kind of discipline, a different kind of mystery…as those who carried a different kind of weaponry…weaponry that “demolishes strongholds” and battles “spiritual forces of wickedness in high places”…what if they began to recognize us as black-belts in Christianity…as masters of the art…?