Seth Lewis's Blog, page 13

More Than You Can Handle

John the Baptist was dead. Beheaded. It was unjust, brutal, and senseless. On hearing the news, Jesus left what he was doing and went with his disciples to a solitary place. He must have wanted to mourn, and pray, away from the crowds. But when he arrived, there was no solitude: somehow, word had spread about where he was going, and now a large crowd was waiting for him. Matthew records that Jesus didn’t send them away or throw himself a pity party—“he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” They were suffering, too. 

As the day wore on, Jesus’ disciples began to be concerned: what would these people eat for dinner, out there in the middle of nowhere? No one had planned logistics for a gathering like this. Taking stock of the situation, they made a practical suggestion that Jesus send the crowd away so that they could get to the villages and buy food for themselves. Jesus replied: “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

I’ve heard people say that “God will never give you more than you can handle.” I don’t think that’s true. Look at the job he gave his disciples: “you give them something to eat.” 

How?

The disciples found five loaves and two fish between them. That’s it. The crowd was more than 5,000 people—probably a lot more. There were no restaurants or shops nearby. “You give them something to eat” was an impossible command. Jesus knew that. So did the disciples. But he commanded them to do it anyway. 

And they did.

No one left that solitary place hungry. In fact, the disciples gathered twelve baskets full of leftover food after everyone was satisfied. How did it happen? It happened when the disciples gave Jesus the little that they had, and his power turned their insufficiency into provision for everyone.

Later, Jesus gave one of his disciples another command to provide for others. “Feed my sheep,” he said to Peter. He was commanding Peter to give provision to spiritually hungry humans. Once again, Peter’s resources were laughably insufficient—as he had recently proven when he denied Christ three times. What did Peter have to feed God’s people with? Not enough to sustain them. Not even enough to sustain himself. The command was impossible. Everyone knew that. But for the rest of his life, Peter kept it. Not in his own strength, not out of his own resources, but out of the strength and provision of the one who gave him the command. 

If you belong to Jesus, you can rest assured that he will absolutely give you tasks that are far beyond what you can handle. An honest look at his commands will show you that he already has. Don’t worry about that. The size of your lunch, or your ability, or your strength, is never the point. Bring your insufficiency to Jesus, and take the next step into impossible obedience. He will do the providing. He can handle it.

The Green

When we moved from America to Ireland fourteen years ago, one of the first things we noticed was the architecture. The buildings in Ireland are quite different from the ones we grew up in, all the way up from the thick concrete (or stone) walls to the slate tiles (or rarely, thatch) on the roofs. The unique climate, resources, history, and culture have all helped to shape these buildings. And they have shaped not only the individual buildings, but also the way the buildings relate to each other and the spaces around them. For example, it makes sense that our village is compact enough to walk everywhere when you consider that it was built hundreds of years before cars were invented. We have cars now, but that’s still a great feature—I love being able to walk easily to any building in town. But one of my favourite features of Irish design is not a building at all. It’s not a structure of any kind, and it doesn’t take a degree in architecture or urban planning to understand it, imagine it, or built it. It’s just a bit of grass, and it’s known as “the green.”

Most housing estates have at least one green. Where we live, the green has houses most of the way around it. In the middle, between us all, there’s the common green with grass and a few trees along one side. That’s it. That’s the green. And I think it’s brilliant.

Our house sits on a small sliver of land, mid-terrace. Our back garden is only big enough for a few flowers, some fruit, herbs, a bench, and the smallest shed I could find. I can cut all the grass with a strimmer in less than ten minutes. I don’t even need a lawn mower. But when I open the front door, there is a large, open stretch of green grass right in front of me. When the schools let out, the green is often a soccer field. It’s also been the scene of nerf battles, teddy-bear picnics, hurling practice, volleyball, snail-racing (yes, really), and a wide variety of other games, many of them invented right there on the spot. When a big snowstorm came through five years ago (we called it “The Beast from the East”), the green was where we built our snowmen and had our snow-ball fights. There have been impromptu watch parties for New Year’s fireworks, and countless chats between neighbours. The green is our space together, and it’s our children who make especially good use of it.

I’m a big fan of the green. Yes, it’s often worn down from all the soccer matches. There’s a mud hole in the middle where I don’t think the grass will ever regrow. There’s a ball stuck high in one of the trees that shows up every autumn when the leaves fall. There are random holes here and there where children have been digging for worms. In other words, it’s a beautiful place.

The Inner Circle

“It’s all who you know,” they say. If you want to get ahead, it really helps to know the right people in the right places. People on the inside, in the inner circle of influence. If they know you, they’ll be more likely to use their positions to help you. If they like you, or if you’ve done something for them, that’s even better. 

The trouble is that most of us were not born into powerful families. We don’t naturally rub shoulders with people in influential positions. Which means that if you want to get ahead professionally, socially, or any other way, you have to start with the people you already know, and work from their circles of influence into the more powerful circles above them. If you make it that far, you’ll see that the inner circle is not one circle at all—it’s a maze of layers within layers and circles within circles, a labyrinth of increasing levels of power and influence. Wherever you are in the maze, there is always a circle just above you—a circle with a little more power to leverage for your goals, a little more potential to answer your problems, and a little more influence to unlock your dreams. To work your way up to it, you have to develop the right connections, impress the right people, and maybe benefit them somehow so that they will also want to benefit you. If it works, you’ll be well positioned to see that just beyond that higher circle is another, even higher circle, with even more potential. And beyond them, the same. How will you get those ears to listen to you? If they do listen, how will you leverage that access to gain the attention of the higher circles you will find beyond them? Where does it end? 

It does end. There is a top, above which no other power or government or influence can reach. The highest, most inner circle of power and authority is the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the God who spoke the universe into existence and rules it absolutely. But this inner circle is different. He doesn’t play by our rules of social politics. He is not corrupt, or corruptible. You can’t manipulate him. He is perfectly just, perfectly holy, never swayed by underhanded deals or promises of personal favours. And yet, amazingly, he is welcoming.

It might seem presumptuous to think that we could ever have access to this innermost circle, to the nerve centre of power and authority over everything, ever. And it would be, if God himself hadn’t told us to come. Through the work of Jesus Christ, God’s children are invited, and encouraged, to “approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We don’t need the assistance of holier people that Jesus might like better than us—he is, himself, the one who loved us enough to die for us to save us from sin and make us his people. We don’t need to go through anyone else’s access to him—we can have our own. And with access like that, why would we worry ourselves over the shifting power politics and never-ending labyrinths of all the little inner circles on earth? If you belong to Jesus, you can go straight to the top, straight to the innermost of all circles. You can’t have Jesus’ throne, but you can have his ear, and you can trust that the one who gave his life for you will give you what is right for you. His power is limitless. His love is already proven. He has invited you to come, and you can. Right now. 

Don’t Miss The Moment For A Picture

“Pictures or it didn’t happen!”

Believe me, it did. Or don’t believe me—it still happened. Every moment doesn’t have to be pictured to be real. Every picture doesn’t have to be shared to be precious. My camera roll is bigger than what I share online, and my life is bigger than my camera roll. And I’m happy to keep it that way. Usually.

I admit that I have at times thought carefully—too carefully—about the things I could share online. Even in the middle of a happy family moment or unexpected joy, it’s easy to be distracted by thoughts of dramatic picture angles and clever captions. My mind takes off like a drone, rising above ground-level reality in an attempt to widen the audience and impact of my happiness. The problem is that sometimes my soaring mind disconnects from the very happiness I want to share, focusing more on a far away audience than what’s happening right in front of me. Before I know it, the happy moment is gone, and all I have to show for it is a perfect picture.

I enjoy having beautiful photos, and showing them. I love looking through old snaps and remembering the moments they represent. I love seeing the photos my friends share online. Capturing memories and sharing them is great. But it’s not as great if the real memories behind the photos are actually just memories of working hard to get great photos. When I let the pictures become the constant focus instead of the memories being captured, I rob myself of experiencing my own life. The pictures may all be in perfect focus, but my priorities are not. If I’m always thinking more about how I’m going to share my moments with far away people online then I am about how I’m going to live them well with the people right in front of me, I am missing the point. My life is not a reality show. It’s reality. And the reality of it will always be far more important than the show I put on for others. I don’t need to be the full-time publicist of my own life. Life is made to be lived, not live-streamed. Want to talk about it? Let’s get a coffee. We don’t even have to take a picture of it.

The Last Wall

Two weeks ago I wrote about how easily I can go blind to the world around me, forgetting to look at the familiar things I see every day. Sometimes it takes effort to really look at what I’m seeing, but the effort is worth it. I have found that the tangible world around me can often help me regain a proper perspective on my life. The ocean reminds me that my worries are smaller than they feel. The flowers remind me of God’s provision, the birds remind me of his care (Luke 12:22-31). In the following two poems, I tried to capture what a ruined wall behind our village and the couch in our sitting room reminded me of:

The Last Wall

In a graveyard
Near our village
Time runs slowly
Like molasses
And above the
Planted crosses
Is the church’s
Last wall.

Lonely wall that
Holds up nothing
But the vines that
Hold up it
And a memory
Forgotten
Of a time
And of a living
No one living
Ever saw.

Sitting Still

I am moving very quickly
As I sit here on my couch.

Earth is spinning underneath me
As I fly around a star.

And the galaxy is dancing
And the universe expanding—

So though I am sitting still
I am not really still at all:

Forces that are far beyond me
Have been working all along.

How To Quit The Comparison Game

If you want to be thoroughly dissatisfied with your life, you can do it quickly in one easy step:

Compare yourself to others.

There will always be someone who is more successful or talented or good-looking or clever or confident or has more of whatever it is you want. Guaranteed. You might measure up pretty well against some people (as long as you’re careful to measure the right things), but eventually you’re bound to find someone who surpasses you at the very strengths you take pride in. The world is a big place. That’s how it goes.

It’s easy to say, “I’m my own person. I don’t care how I measure up to others.” It’s harder to mean it—especially when others are constantly and clearly measuring us. The comparison game goes on all around us, whether we want to play it or not. It goes on and it never ends. No player ever gets permission to relax and say “that’s it, I’ve made it!” Staying ahead requires constant effort. There will always be more to reach for, more to prove, more to fight and compete for—right up to the moment we die and everyone else hurries on to outdo whatever legacy we left behind. And they will. The world is a big place. That’s how it goes.

Which is why Paul’s letter to the Philippians is so surprising, when he writes:

“…whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him”.

Here is a man who found a way to quit the comparison game of gains and losses and relative statuses, and he did it in just one simple step:

He compared the comparison game, with all its promises and prizes, to Jesus.

Paul beat the comparison game on its own terms. He measured it up and found that everything it could ever offer, everything in the whole world put together, is not much at all compared to the riches of knowing Christ and belonging to him. In Christ, he found forgiveness (Ephesians 1:17). In Christ, he found life that never ends (1 John 5:11-12), hope that never fails (Hebrews 6:19), and a love that nothing in heaven or on earth could ever shake (Romans 8:38-39). In Christ, he became a child of God, a Royal Heir of Heaven (Romans 8:17). You want an impressive title? You can’t do better than that. How can “President” or “CEO” or “Superstar” compete? Presidents have term limits. CEOs retire. Superstars are eventually superseded. Children of God are forever. And the royal title isn’t even the good part—the great thing about children of God is that they get to be close to God, which is better than any title could ever be.

The piled-up fortunes of earth eventually become piled-up inheritances for others. Fame is forgotten. Pleasures fade. Getting ahead of others can only last so long, and it can never give you lasting significance, real meaning, unshakable joy, or anything else it promises so freely like an ever-shifting, just-out-of reach mirage.

That’s ok. If you have Christ, you don’t need the mirage anyway. You already have the reality. There’s no need to compare when you’re already an heir. There’s nothing to prove when you’re already secure, already loved, already full. You don’t need to be jealous of those who have more of the good things this world has to offer. If you belong to Jesus, you already have the greatest treasure possible: him. There’s no need to get bogged down in the person-to-person comparisons that our world is obsessed with. As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10:12, “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” Don’t go there. You don’t have to play. You can beat the comparison game with its own measuring stick. Pick it up and compare the whole game, complete with everything it could ever offer you, to Christ. In the light of his surpassing worth, the power and glory of the comparison game will fade like a shadow in the summer sun.

Slowly Going Blind

We had some friends visiting last week who had never been to Ireland, and we got to show them why this place is called the Emerald Isle. The beautiful postcards tell the beautiful truth. And the castles, churches, and monastic ruins dotted across the countryside add a layer of historic mystery to the impossibly green landscape. We have a castle in our own village, and the patchwork fields beyond it eventually lead down to the rocky coast. You could hardly go anywhere on this island without seeing something historic or naturally magnificent. Welcome to Ireland. Let me show you around… 

Or will you show me? 

When our friends visited, one of them kept pointing out the architecture of ordinary buildings like houses and shops. I would expect him to find castles interesting, but what is there to notice about a standard house, or a normal row of shops? It took me a little while, but eventually I saw what he meant. Those ordinary buildings really are interesting and different from their counterparts in other places. When he saw the symmetry, the brightly coloured doors, and the flower-filled window boxes, it helped me see them, too. It helped me remember that I used to see the same things myself, when we first arrived in this country. I’m not sure how that changed, but somewhere along the way I stopped noticing. Many of the unique beauties of this place became ordinary to me, and I started overlooking them. I was still looking at the same things, but I wasn’t really seeing them anymore.

It seems to me that one of the surest ways to go blind to the wonder of the world we live in is to see it too much. Imagine if you only ever saw one songbird, or one daffodil, or one rainbow in your whole life—wouldn’t you be overwhelmed? So why are we not overwhelmed when we’ve seen a thousand? Somehow, when we see things regularly, we see them less clearly. This is true of nature and architecture, and unfortunately it is also true of the people we love most dearly and see most often. Sometimes what we need is a friend to see for us, to remind us of what we used to see ourselves before we started going blind with all our seeing.

Interrupted By Jesus

On the first Easter week, Pilate, governor of Jerusalem, handed down a sentence that Jesus should die. He had nothing against Jesus of Nazareth. He wasn’t the one who hunted him down, arrested him at night, or hired Judas to betray him. In fact, Pilate tried multiple times to release Jesus. He told everyone Jesus was innocent and didn’t deserve the death sentence the crowd was shouting for.

But he still had Jesus crucified.

He knew the decision was unjust. He also knew that it was more politically expedient to let the crowd have the blood they wanted. While we rightfully condemn Pilate as a corrupt, power-hungry government official, his response to Jesus isn’t unusual.

Many today also know about Jesus, and remain indifferent to him. They aren’t mocking him or taking out their anger on his followers, they aren’t burning churches or condemning the Bible as hate speech. Like Pilate, they are simply content to live their own lives their own way, without any reference to the troublesome carpenter from Nazareth. Like Pilate, they aren’t seeking to meet Jesus or know more about him. In Pilate’s case, the meeting came anyway. The Nazarene invaded his space, and his presence threatened to throw Pilate’s carefully planned ambitions off course. Suddenly, Pilate found himself caught between an innocent man he couldn’t understand and an angry mob threatening to denounce him to Caesar. He could serve justice and release the inconveniently innocent man, but was he willing to sacrifice his power and position…? No. The innocent man would have to die, because Pilate’s life goals were more important.

Like Pilate, our society tells us to prioritise our own personal dreams and ambitions above all things. But like Pilate, we will all eventually stand face to face with Jesus. Whether we’ve loved him or hated him or thought about him at all, the man who rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday is not someone we’ll be able to ignore forever.

Hebrews 9 tells us plainly that “man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment.” Like Pilate, we will all stand before Jesus in a court of justice, but when that day comes we will not be the ones judging him—he will be judging us. This sounds hopeless and frightening, if we’re really honest about ourselves and our lives. Who could stand before perfect justice?

This is why Easter is so important. The good news of Easter is that our judge is also our saviour, if we put our trust in him. As Hebrews 9 puts it, “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Instead of coming to judge and destroy, he came to bear our sin in our place, to offer forgiveness to all who come to him. Hebrews goes on to say that “Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.”

The day will come when we stand before Jesus in a court of ultimate justice. Amazingly, if we trust him now, we don’t have to fear that day—we can “eagerly await him” and the salvation he brings.

This is why we celebrate Easter.

Walking Home

Richard Baxter lived 400 years ago, but he still was able to help me recently with some good advice. He wrote that God’s people should “take one walk every day in the New Jerusalem.” He meant that we should intentionally remember God’s promises, and live right now in the light of them. But I love the way he said it, and that’s where this poem came from:

Walking Home

In my mind
I walk the street
The golden street
That leads me home
And all around is
Peace and song
Within the gates
Where I belong

With joyful tears
I greet my friends
Until the golden
Pavement ends
And at the Throne
Where life begins
I know, at last
I’m home

And everyday
I take this walk
Inside my mind
Though now I find
My path is thorny
Rocky ground
But I can see
My destination
And I start my
Celebration
Knowing that
This road will
Lead me home

If I Can Do It, Anyone Can

There’s a lot of helpful how-to content online, and I’m often thankful for it. If I want to fix a broken appliance or learn a new skill, there’s bound to be a video tutorial posted somewhere that I can follow. In some ways it’s sad that our first place to seek advice is now Google instead of a real life social network of family, friends, and neighbours. However, my friends and family have almost certainly never replaced a ball-bearing unit on a Hotpoint X350KW. So I am thankful for strangers who make online tutorials.

They certainly make a lot of them. You can get how-to content on pretty much anything these days. One popular genre, which I’m sure you’ve seen, is successful influencers and millionaires posting about how they made their money or gained their audience, and how you and I could do the same if we would just follow their five-step fail-proof system. First, they talk about how they started with so little (showing their common, ordinary origins), and then they describe their ascent to greatness before coming back around to their humble beginnings and finishing with an encouraging comment like, “If I can do it, anyone can!”

Are you encouraged? Because I’m not so sure I am. It seems to me that the phrase has a bit of a backhanded bite to it: “I’m just an ordinary person. I’m just like you. Except I’m fabulously wealthy, and massively successful and influential. And you could be, too, if you just get moving and do things like I did. What are you waiting for? You’re already behind! You could be living in luxury enjoying your millions already if only you were more like me!” Which might very well be true. But I wouldn’t call it encouraging.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against success or wealth or influence. I believe in hard work, and I do think we all need good examples to inspire us. I am, however, against the idea that being ordinary is just a shameful starting point that we should all be trying to move away from as quickly as possible. I’m against the idea that bank balances and wide platforms are the most important measurements of a meaningful and significant life. The hidden assumption underneath this kind of content often seems to be that my ordinary, unnoticed life is something I should be dissatisfied with, and that their luxurious wealth and influence are clearly much better and more desirable than anything I might think I am enjoying where I am.

I know I am small, ordinary, and emphatically average. Just one more face among billions. But this face is smiling. When I look around at my ordinary little life I see a wealth of blessings. I feel the richness of relationships and the love of my Creator, who designed me for a purpose in his kingdom that is more significant than any bank balance could ever be. So maybe the influencer millionaires are right—if I was more like them, I could have more of what they have. Maybe I could be rich, or famous, or fabulously successful. Maybe. But I’m aiming my ambitions in a different direction. I want to use my time and energy and hard work and yes, even my money to store up “treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” I don’t need to be rich to have a life rich with meaning. I don’t need a big platform to have a big purpose in God’s kingdom. The most important things in the world are right in front of me, right now—loving God and loving the people he made, as Jesus said. I don’t need to wait for a big break, or discover a secret key, or follow five fail-proof steps in a helpful video. I can invest in eternal treasure today, right here in my ordinary life.

And if I can do it, anyone can.

These thoughts are developed more fully in my book Dream Small