What is the Point?: Discovering Life's Deeper Meaning and Purpose (19 page)

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.

—H
EBREWS
12:12–13

Having a wrong view of God and what He owes us or having a wrong view of how life should be can cause discouragement, lead to a broken walk, and then to bitterness of soul. This passage is painting a picture of a person slumped over with their hands hanging down in a defeated position. It is a picture of a person in self-pity. Feeble knees speak of fear. This is a person paralyzed with self-pity and fear, seeing himself as a victim. How often have I been in this posture with complaints in my heart: “God is rejecting me. I am neglected. People do not understand my pain. I am overlooked. I have been wounded. I am hurt. The church is mean to me. I am sick. I have no money.”

On and on we go in a spirit of complaint. God does not buy into self-pity but rather tells us to strengthen ourselves. Shake it off and rise up. Self-pity is disgusting. The pain we experience is real, and He has great compassion on us, but self-pity is not the way out. It just goes in circles around and around. He says, “Stand up. Strengthen yourself.”

“So that which is lame won’t be dislocated.” The picture is of the person running the race and their leg gets dislocated. When you have a dislocated leg, you have to pull it back into place or else it will heal crooked. It is incredibly painful but so necessary. You can leave it dislocated and eventually get over the pain, but your walk will be with a limp. There are times in our lives where our walk has a break in it. It is caused by something that happened to us or something we did. Often wrong paradigms of God or life will cause a root of bitterness. There are many things that cause this hindrance, but we cannot ignore them if we are going to persevere in love to the end. Disappointment, relational pain, unforgiveness, covetousness, and many other issues cause this break to happen. Those little things will cause a hindrance in your race that will set you on the sidelines or cause you to quit prematurely.

B
ITTERNESS

. . . looking carefully lest you fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled.

—H
EBREWS
12:15

Look careful lest you fall short of grace. Many have a doctrine of grace that would say, “My leg is broken. My arms are weak. I am feeble and afraid. God, You know that I am broken. Grace. Grace. Thank goodness for grace. Grace covers me in my brokenness.” Then they just stay there defeated for decades!

No, you are falling short of grace. Grace is the power to stand up, to straighten your arms, and to fix what is broken in your walk. What He is asking us to do is not too difficult. It is not too hard. When we say, “I cannot do it,” we are accusing God’s character. We are saying that He is asking us to do something impossible and that He is too harsh and not good. No! He is not asking me to bear anything that He will not help me bear. He is not giving me a burden that is too heavy. He has not given you a life history that is too hard. He has not given you anything that is too heavy for you to bear.

Get up and run. Do not fall short of grace. Do not take grace in vain (2 Cor. 6:1). Grace is the power to run the race, to shake off the self-pity, shake off lethargy, shake off complacency, shake it off and get up and correct the broken leg, whatever the issue is, and run the race. You have need of endurance.

Be careful that bitterness does not spring up in your heart. Bitterness is so sneaky and rarely admits itself. Bitterness is cynicism and says things like, “I already tried that. I have been there and done that. I tried that radical thing when I was young. I was radical when I was a teenager, but you know, you kind of lose your zeal when you get older.” That is bitterness, cynicism, skepticism, unbelief, the inability to stir yourself up again because you have “already tried it.” These are sure signs of bitterness.

One of the primary ways I think we grow bitter is because of our own failures. We are so tired of failing. That is one of the quickest ways I grow bitter. I get tired of getting up and falling and sinning and having to resign and back up. I think, “I cannot do this.” It is an accusation against God, even though it is directed toward myself. I am accusing Him of being too difficult. I think, “I cannot be holy. I am obviously going to sin, so I am just going give up. Holiness is too hard. I am too weak. I cannot do it.” This is bitterness.

We must be very careful that we do not let bitterness spring up in our hearts, because many people get thrown off by this. It is the most common threat to the devout. As I am getting older, I watch the people around me get jaded. When we were young, we all signed up for this thing, but over time things got harder. The delay in the promises lasts longer. Our lives get more complicated. I have seen many who were devout in their youth or in their twenties but now unmovable in their thirties and forties. They are cynical. It is hard to get them motivated.

The longer you walk with the Lord, it actually gets harder and not easier. Some aspects get easier. A lot of times young people think that they have it bad because they are teenagers, and I think, “Wait until you are in your thirties.” Then I say to myself, “Wait until you are in your sixties.” When I see a sixty-year-old, seventy-year-old, eighty-year-old, or ninety-year-old fiery believer waking in the first commandment and fulfilling their life destiny in God, it is the most gorgeous reality. They did it! They are not bitter! They are still running. I admire men and women of faith who have endured for decades. That is not easy, because of bitterness. He says, “Be really, really careful that you do not get bitter.”

P
REPARED FOR THE
G
LOBAL
P
RESSURE
(H
EB
. 12:25–29)

God is going to wake up a generation. Hebrews 12 says, “Once again I am going to shake everything.” He instantly goes to the Great Tribulation. He starts to prophesy of a future generation that would be alive in the time Jesus returns. He is quoting Haggai. He is talking about the glory of the latter temple. He says, “I am going to shake everything, and you have received a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” There will be a generation that will run this race with endurance and will finish stronger than the race began. He will do whatever it takes to make it happen. He is going to take the globe, shake it, and loose us from everything that gets in the way. He is going pry our fingers off of our distraction, our unbelief, and our humanism. He is going to shake everything.

The writer of Hebrews goes from personal to corporate to global. There is a global pressure coming, and we are forerunners. We are messengers who are trained in the furnace of personal affliction. If we will get the message, if we will go through the fire unoffended and through the blessing untainted, and if we learn about His heart and get a testimony of His faithfulness and kindness, then we might have something to say when He shakes everything globally.

T
HE
A
RROW

Jesus was the ultimate forerunner, and He was trained in hiddenness and pressure. Isaiah 49 says He was like a polished arrow hidden in the quiver of the Father (v. 2). In the same way He is forming us into vessels who will hit the mark. An arrow is made with the purpose of hitting a target. Each person is uniquely shaped by God as an arrow aimed at a specific target. We may never have a public ministry on a microphone. It is not about a platform, but it is about our words piercing the darkness in people’s hearts. That is the plan. Jesus said, “I am in the shadow of God’s hand. He is making Me a polished arrow, and He hid Me in His hand, in His quiver.”

Each of us is being prepared like an arrow. He is preparing you like a polished arrow in the same way He prepared Jesus. The arrow starts as a piece of wood on a tree, and then the grueling process begins. The branch is cut from a tree, stripped of its leaves, the bark is torn off, and it is immersed in hot water. It is this gnarly, old, bent-up branch that has to be straightened. They straighten the branch by putting pegs at the ends of it, creating pressure, and over time it straightens little by little. It is grueling, and it takes time. In our lives today we feel like this gnarly, old bent-up branch that is being pulled and stretched, but if we endure, we will have something to say and hit our God-ordained mark in this life and in the life to come.

He says He is going to shake everything that can be shaken, and only the kingdom that cannot be touched will remain (Heb. 12:28). His kingdom primarily starts on the inside of our hearts—what is going on, on the other side of your face. What we do in the political, social, economic, and natural order when it is done in righteousness will also remain, but all else will be shaken. We need to get the five-year-olds ready. We need to look at the children and be honest with ourselves; we are not moving very fast, but we are going to try. We are going to “mend the broken leg,” and we are going do our best to run in the grace of God. We are going to get a young generation ready for the return of the Lord because we want to give the Lamb what He is worthy of. He ran with endurance, and He wants a bride who is equally yoked in courage, love, and strength. It takes courage to run the race.

He will make sure this race is finished in glory. He is an all-consuming fire, and He wants all generations. He is saying, “I want you. I will do whatever it takes to get you. I am an all-consuming fire.” (See Hebrews 12:29.) The chapter goes on to say that if the people in the old covenant were judged because they did not believe what Moses spoke, and they had to wander around the wilderness, how much more will we be judged if we do not rise to the occasion?

We have come to Mount Zion. We have come to a multitude of angels. We have come to a great cloud of witnesses, and most of all we have come to Jesus, the mediator of the covenant! He will empower us to love Him fully and to endure faithfully. Let us fight the fight of faith to the end. And let us prepare the children for what is about to hit the planet because He is about to shake everything. If you do not have a theology of God who is going to shake everything, you need to read your Bible. He is going to shake everything. This is New Testament, after Jesus was resurrected from the dead. He says, “I am going to shake everything.” Therefore let us run with endurance.

To top it off, you have to read Hebrews chapter 13. The writer breaks it down really simply and explains what it means to run the race. He talks about brotherly love and godly marriages. He is very practical. Wholeheartedness is not hype, volume, or a personality trait. It is holiness. It is living from the inside out and living that way for the entirety of our lives. We are weak, and we are broken. We will stumble many times, and there are hurdles to jump in this race. All He asks is that we persevere in patience to the end. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. If you don’t quit, you win.

9
THE END OF THE STORY

T
HE MOUNTAIN OF
questions I have faced from my youth gets resolved only one question at a time. That mountain gets conquered as I see the bigger picture of what Jesus desires. The meanings behind life’s perplexities are primarily found in His original created purpose of the human race. They are found in His eyes. Often the tensions are great and are not always easily resolved, but I am committed to a lifelong climb up that mountain. The journey has led me to glorious discoveries. I have had many tears of frustration and many tears of joy as I have made it my primary life purpose to search Him out and discover the knowledge of God, and therefore the meaning of life. The more I grow in the understanding of His desire and dream for humanity, the more my individual life begins to make sense in the midst of it. The pressure, pain, blessing, and all the paradoxes of life start to make more sense as I hear the voice of the Bridegroom, wanting a bride equally yoked in abandonment, love, and humility. (See Revelation 19:7.)

I want to be caught up in His story as the Holy Spirit pours that fire of love into my heart. I want to become preoccupied with being His inheritance and His reward (Eph. 1:18), knowing that in satisfying Him, I will be satisfied. The story is a stunning one, though not always ecstatic or euphoric. It is a steady unfolding of the most profound mysterious reality, and we are wrapped up in it.

We must know at least the broad strokes of the end of the story in order to understand where we are going. Aimlessness is lack of vision, and despair is often the result of the lack of purpose. Truly we can endure anything if we know it has significance.

Since the beginning of the world the Creator has been working on a plan. His plan will not fail. Throughout the ages Jesus has been moving toward something and has had a purpose that will be accomplished. As Creator He has a sure plan that will come to fullness, and we have not seen it yet. But even today we are each participating in the beginning stages of that dream. Life as we know it is not the end of the story. This is not “it,” but this is part of it. This isn’t “as good as it gets,” but this is part of the process, and for six thousand years He has been working toward something. The end of the story must be kept in view in order to not lose heart in our individual journeys and to not lose hope when looking at the scope of human history.

The first two chapters of the Scriptures begin with a bride and a bridegroom in the Garden of Eden, and the last two chapters end with the bride and the Bridegroom in the garden of paradise (Gen. 1–2; Rev. 21–22). The story in between the first chapters of Genesis and the last chapters of Revelation is breathtaking and glorious in the mercy of God. It describes the heroes of faith who rose up and said yes in the grace of God, even in their weakness. It also includes the stories of those who refused the kindness of God and the tragedy that came because of this refusal.