Joe Fontenot's Blog, page 11

Ego of the mind

You know what gets me?

Trees.

When I go for a walk and I see a tree–a normal, unkempt stalky thing coming up out of the ground, it blows me away.

I’m being completely serious here.

I see that and I can’t help but think about how amazing God is. All the intricacies, the internal hydration, the way it reproduces through seeds and flowers. He did all this, and a tree that can’t even walk or think.

But others–some of which are dear friends of mine–see nature and they come to a totally different conclusion. “God? That’s for the lazy, weak minded.”

And then I thought, maybe I’m just not smart enough (which is usually true) to get my head around how it couldn’t be God. Maybe those critics are seeing what I can’t.

And that, in many ways, is also probably true.

Then another thought occurred to me. In areas where I excel, it’s much easier for me to attribute the cause to me and my own means. It much easier for me to think, I did that.

And isn’t that, after all, what a god-less scenario is? We evolved. We survived. We determine the right and wrong.

I suppose one doesn’t always have to be a heathen to be a heathen.

Buy truth and do not sell it.


Buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.


— Proverbs 23:23

P.S. My new book, A Year of Sabbaths, is out! Grab a copy here.

P.P.S. My friend Robert told me he’s ordered copies for gifts. Good man, that Robert.

Apologetic

In seminary, my area of focus was apologetics. The defense of the faith.

It helped me with questions I had (like, How do we know the copy of the Bible we have today is a good representation of the original?).

It’s also helped me walk others through these issues.

But something I’ve seen often overlooked is the non-apologetic. The discipline of not engaging.

After a brief exchange between Jesus and the religious leaders, he tells his followers in private, “let them alone, they are blind guides” (Matthew 15:14).

Jesus knew their hearts. He knew what he was dealing with. Often, the strongest apologetic is just knowing when to disengage.

P.S. My new book, A Year of Sabbaths, is out today! Check it out here.

My new book

For all intents and purposes, I’m a bit type-A.

Case in point, tomorrow my new book (second this year) comes out.

So what I say below comes from a place of empathy, not judgment. There are some people I know, some I work with, who move fast. A bit too fast. And they have a hard time slowing down.

The sticky part here is that people who like to move enjoy moving. It doesn’t feel like you’re missing anything. In fact, it feels like the opposite, like you’re gaining.

I know this well.

What I’ve come to learn in the past few years is the value from slowing down.

I still like to do a lot. But for me, going slower means saying no to a lot more than I used to, so that I can make sure the most important things get a lot of room to breath and grow.

One of those important things is to take a day off, a sabbath.

My new book is a collection of short devotionals designed to help you carve out a weekly time and reflect on God. (And if you’re a regular reader, you’ll recognize a lot of the devotionals have been adapted from here.)

Oh, and it’s just in time for Christmas (plug!).

And, for starting the new year right (another one!).

Comes out tomorrow, I hope you’ll check it out.

List-ing

A few years back I created a document for everything I was praying about. Then, as I saw answers to those prayers, I wrote that down too.

Later I went back and looked at that document.

Two things stood out:

First, I have since forgotten most of the good things God had done.

And second, I immediately felt better today.

So, I started a new list. No waiting for January. October 2018.

And because that first step is the hardest. I made it a template for you to download!

Click here to get it.

(Or go to the resources section of my site.)

P.S. An added bonus. When you write down your thoughts, you see them differently from when they’re floating around in your head. It’s a good way to find things you didn’t know you had.

Hiring part time team members

I saw a billboard the other day for a company who was hiring part-time team members.

The problem is, such a thing doesn’t exist.

Vendors are part-time. Team members, by definition, are full-time.

This is because of the fundamental nature of teams. They’re cohesive. Either you’re on, or you’re off. You can’t be on two teams at the same time without conflict.

A few years back, Thom Rainer wrote a blog post with his top five suggestions to keep people from leaving the church.

The interesting part: all five suggestions were about engagement.

Less engagement means less buy-in, which means less interest.

Perhaps, this is why Jesus asked questions like, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” (Mark 10:23).

Perhaps, it’s because part-time doesn’t work.

(In)Secure

To be known, inside and out, is the heart of intimacy. It’s a nowhere-to-hide scenario.

When you get to this point with another, something unique happens.

You are either destroyed…

Or completed.

Many times, I have found a deep comfort in Psalm 139.

“You have searched me and know me” and you “are acquainted with all my ways.”

“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” “My soul knows it very well.”

To my fears, “even the darkness is not dark to you.” And to my recovery, “see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me into the way everlasting.”

In case it was unclear, in God we find the latter. Completion.

But it requires a no-hide mentality.

Fortunately, though, bad days make that easier.

Planning ahead

Like a fairytale, John, who made his name challenging the Evils charge, was imprisonments in a fortress-style castle. Built on a hill, to be defensible. It even had its own name: Machserus.

It was from here that John sent a message to Jesus…Are you really the one?

Considering the situation, it’s not too hard to put ourselves in John’s place.

And so Jesus responded: Tell him about all the miracles you’ve seen. The work speaks for itself.

When John looked at his own situation, he lost hope.

Jesus gave it back.

And then, as things go, it all went sideways. And John was killed.

This story, from Matthew 11 and 14, is for us.

John went to heaven. All was good for him. The ones who struggle are who haven’t yet seen the end come forward.

Jesus’ response was for us: focus on me.

Cyclic

We know that guy.

Better than most, in fact, because we knew him as a little boy. When he cried. And when his mom would pick him up.

Like all who grow up, he comes back to visit, from time to time.

But unlike many who’ve grown up here, worked hard, and made a reasonable life–he’s become pretentious.

It’s as if he’s come back with the sole goal of telling us what to do, how to live.

***

These are reasonable thoughts.

But they’re also the thoughts that kept Jesus from sharing the blessings they’d all heard about.

“And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.’ And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief” (from Matthew 13:53-58).

Jesus held back miracles, and blessings, because their minds were already shut to them.

I wonder if, perhaps, this is why we, why I, do not see more miracles today?

Maybe it’s because we’re looking with minds already made up?

How I’m praying for God’s blessing (or curse)

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field… he sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.”


– Jesus (Matthew 13:44)

The largest hurricane in a quarter of a century recently landed.

As one from New Orleans, who lived through Katrina and all that mess…I could empathize.

Last week, the morning before landfall, I wondered, how do I even pray about this? Certainly, things will be a wreck. Certainly, even, some people will die.

But as bizarre as it sounds, good can—and will—come from all of these kinds of bad.

And, as time plays out, that good could very well be better than this momentary bad.

So…should I pray against the happenings now unfolding?

This is the thought I was pondering.

And then it hit me. The only scenario that is truly bad, the only one that doesn’t have enough good to balance it, is the one where we move further away from God.

All else can be fixed, either in this life or the next.

But the one objectively bad scenario is the one where we find ourselves apart from our maker.

So I decided to pray that, whatever happens, it will become the one good thing for all the people who find it.

Jog

For the happy heart, life is a continual feast.

– Proverbs 15:15b

When the wind is against you, you feel it.

But when it’s not—or when it’s helping—you don’t.

Even though the second is clearly the better, it’s easy for our focus to get stuck on the first.

The first is automatic. Life is hard.

The second takes discipline. Life is one blessing after another.