WHY MOST CHRISTIANS BELIEVE

GOD IS A CHILD MOLESTER

FATHER…USE ME

I met Linda in my conference room at work.  After a short time of small talk I could tell she was very sharp but also very “down”.  She was definitely an extrovert but also guarded.  We went to a Christian college together, Anderson University, and even after 20 years I could remember having deep conversations about God with her on campus.  But after 20 years a lot had changed.  In college we all had dreams of “the future” and what that would mean to our lives.  After all, isn’t that what college is all about...

“Wow, it’s been a long time.” I started.

“Yeah, it sure has.” Linda smiled through a frown.

“What’s going on?”

“I wasn’t sure who to even talk to about this but someone told me to talk with you.”

“Oh, boy…the pressure’s on!” I laughed.

“I thought you went to school to become a Certified Public Accountant?”

“I did.”

“Then why are you talking to people about…God and stuff?”

“CPA’s aren’t supposed to talk with people about God?”

“You know what I mean.  Why are so many people coming to you to talk?”

“Actually, I don’t know.  I just try and meet with people when they call…simple as that.”

“Hmmm.”

“How about you, Linda?”

“I don’t really use my college degree for anything.  I guess, now that I think about it, maybe that’s part of the issue.”

“What issue is that?”

“I’ve really been struggling with depression.”

“Is that what you want to talk about?”

“Yeah.  I can’t seem to beat it.”

“So you’ve tried to overcome your depression but you can’t?”

“That’s right.  And talking about college just makes it worse.”

“What about college makes it worse?”

“All my life God has been an essential part of my life…and,” Linda started to cry, “and I haven’t really given to him.”

“Given to him…what do you mean?”

“Derek, you know, you went to Anderson University.  It’s the home of Bill & Gloria Gaither, Sandi Patty, Steven Curtis Chapman and myriads of other people whose ministries have impacted the world.  God used them.  I want to be able to make a difference, too.  I just want God to use me, too.”

“Let me make sure I understand.  You are depressed because your Father isn’t USING you?”

“Uh…yeah, I think so.”

I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO DO

THINGS FOR GOD?

“Linda, do you have children?”

“Yes. I have one son.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s 7 years old.”

“When was the last time you looked down at your son, grabbed his chin and raised it up so he could see you and looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘Son, I want to USE you.’”

“That sounds a little gross, Derek…you are making me sound like a child molester or something.”

“I agree…so why do you think your Father wants to USE you?”

“Wow. I’ve never thought of it that way.”

“Would you love your kids more if you could USE them more?”

“No, that doesn’t even make any sense!  I just like hanging out and being with my kids.  They don’t need to do anything for me.”

“That’s pretty normal, huh?  Imagine having a Father who doesn’t NEED anything from you, but instead, simply longs to hang out with you.”

“I think I’d like that,” Linda smiled.

“Me too.”

“So are you saying that I’m not supposed to do anything for God?”

“Well, let’s see.  Do you do things with your kids?”

“Yes.”

“So what makes you think that God doesn’t want to do things WITH you?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve always thought of God as someone who expects me to do stuff FOR Him.”

“Is there a difference between doing stuff FOR HIM and doing stuff WITH HIM?” I asked.

“Yes!  A big difference.  Believe me…my kids love doing stuff WITH me but it gets a little tougher when life is all about my kids doing stuff FOR me.”

“That’s why God is only interested in doing stuff WITH YOU.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Jesus put it this way…

‘Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined WITH me.  I am the Vine, you are the branches.

When you're joined WITH me and I WITH you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire.

But if you make yourselves at home WITH me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.’

John 15:4-8 - The Message

“Wow, that’s amazing.  That makes sense, but HOW do I do it.  How do I join WITH God?”

GRAFTING

“The HOW is pretty simple really…just open your eyes.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you ever see the movie ‘Joe Versus the Volcano’”?

“Was that a movie with Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I thought it was pretty boring.”

“Yeah, it was a little boring but Patricia (played by Meg Ryan) in a moment out on a lake made a comment I don’t think I’ll ever forget.  She said…

“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”

• Joe Versus the Volcano

“Derek, I don’t understand.  When you talk…I get totally lost.  Eyes open…Awake…I just don’t get it.”

“That’s ok, Linda, it’s really not about understanding…it’s about it being revealed.”

“See, there you go again.”

“You’re right; lots of people find me very…”

“Oh my gosh.”

“What?”

“This morning a neighbor came and knocked on my door.”

“And…”

“She told me that she baked some rolls for breakfast and wanted to offer me some.”

“That was nice of her to…”

“No, Derek, you don’t get it.  She handed me the rolls and then mentioned that she’d like to get together and talk sometime.  Derek…that was God wasn’t it?  I see it now.  But my eyes weren’t open this morning.  THAT was God wanting to join WITH me.”

“Amazing huh?”

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“But is that really all there is to it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, look at the people we went to college with and how God…I don’t know.  Can having coffee with a neighbor really be important enough for God to join WITH me?  Besides--don’t you think that if I was ‘good enough’ God would give me something a little more important than a cup of coffee?”

USELESSNESS

“So you think in order for God to join WITH you that it must be something important?”

“I don’t know…I guess.”

“Important to who?”

“Hmmm.  Yeah, I guess it really doesn’t matter whether I think it’s important… it matters whether God thinks it’s important.”

“Do you think God will want to join WITH you in something that is NOT important to Him?”

“No.  But I guess it’s easy to think that in order for it to be important to God then it must be recognized as important from the world’s perspective.  You know…Billy Graham, Bill Gaither, Rick Warren types.”

“And that belief creates a strong feeling of…”

“Depression.”

“You are right, because it’s just not True.  In fact, how incredible is it when we get picked to be USELESS?”

“Ok, now you are freaking me out again.”

“I think Oswald Chambers summed it up best…”

“Notice God's unutterable waste of saints, according to the judgment of the world. God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say - God intends me to be here because I am so useful. Jesus never estimated His life along the line of the greatest use. God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.”

• Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Thinking about it,

Derek

P.S.  As always I want to thank all the people involved in the Lives Transforming newsletters and message.  For those of you that don’t know, the stories that are told are ALL based on real life, true stories of Lives Transforming!