Christian Living
Who Am I? Such a question is far more than just a philosophical one. Instead, the question goes right to the core of our individual struggles to define our selves apart from the labels our lives have created for us. Who am I apart from my profession? Who am I apart from my prosperity? Who am I apart from my relationships? Who am I apart from the person I’ve spent a lifetime becoming? In God’s Call to Be: When Being Precedes Doing, acclaimed pastor and author Al Cadenhead Jr., helps us to peel back the layers of our selves to discover the beings that God intended us to be. “The place to begin,” Cadenhead writes, “is to claim that I am convinced that at the center of my soul is life, not life that is determined by the beating of my heart, but life that comes to me by the Creator God who gives to us the small, but important, piece of His divine image. We may be created out of clay, but through that clay runs just enough of the divine image to make us always long for Him.” God’s Call to Be will help you rediscover a sense of peace in your life through your own natural and spiritual connections to God.
Having covered faith in the Carolinas for more than a decade, I have seen noisy, overworked congregations stress “doing” over “being.” In this thoughtful, accessible book written for us all, Al Cadenhead reminds us that we can feel the power of God’s love in the quiet moments. In that quiet, we learn not just to appreciate God’s love but to more deeply appreciate the life he gave us. — Ken Garfield, Religion Editor The Charlotte Observer Amidst our 24/7 fast paced, high-tech world, we find ourselves overstimulated, overscheduled, hurried children of all ages. We fear that we would be a “nobody” without position and prestige, office and authority, and power. Somehow we have come to believe that our being is totally defined by our doing. Moving beneath the layers of profession, geographical address, financial resources, health and aging, Al Cadenhead takes us on a journey to the spiritual headwaters of being a child of God. It is a journey from the head to the heart. If your occupation has become an overwhelming preoccupation and your identity is dependent on your job, then this book is for you. —Jim Pitts Chaplain and Professor of Religion, Emeritus Furman University
AL CADENHEAD JR. is Senior Pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is also the author of My First Last Day at School, Time Flies When You’re Having Fun, and When You’re Not, and Hurry Up and Rest.
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 6
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 45
Chapter 5
Being: The Discipline of Waiting . . . the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to go. —Acts 16:7b
S
eldom is there a time when “being” stands more in contrast to “doing” than when we are forced into the discipline of waiting. For the majority of us, waiting is in the top-ten list of the most challenging disciplines. Rare is the person who truly enjoys waiting. In the minds of most of us, waiting equals loss of time. It is life placed on hold. That is the case with the small, relatively insignificant experiences of waiting, those times when you are in the checkout line and the person in front of you debates the price of every item. Life on hold seems to describe those times when you are stuck in traffic because some unfortunate soul up ahead has rear-ended another car. It is
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 46
GOD’S CALL TO BE
waiting in line at the DMV office when everyone in the county decides to take care of business the same day you need to change your auto title. Waiting can also include considerably more life-changing experiences. For some, an illness forces inactivity and waiting. For others, it might be the endless wait when you are looking for a job and family resources are stretched thin. It occurs when you struggle for a promotion and for some reason it never seems to happen. Whether you are waiting for the repair service to finally arrive or whether life is on hold due to a serious illness, waiting can be a challenging time. Life on hold can also be a serious issue of faith. We must remind ourselves that times of waiting are not indications of God’s absence. Often they can become moments of learning and strength and clear indicators of God’s presence.
The Change of Perception The first hurdle we must jump is to move away from the perception of waiting as a totally passive experience. Waiting is not unlike the task of active listening. We can listen with a passive ear, or we can listen actively, fully engaging ourselves in what we hear. There is a huge difference between passive and active listening. The same comparison can be made of what often seems to be life on hold, in other words, waiting. An interesting story in Acts 16 may demonstrate how waiting is often God’s way of drawing close and preparing us for the work He has given us. It can become God’s way of dramatically redirecting our paths. In this story, Timothy has just joined Paul and Silas. Paul is wired up and fired up to go. The text indicates that Paul and his group want to preach in the province of Asia. For some reason, the Spirit prevents them from doing so. At that moment, there is no clear explanation of why. I have to believe that freely accepting any restriction was a serious challenge for Paul. After all, he was doing the Lord’s work! The text goes on to say that when they tried to enter Bithynia, “the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to.” These areas were a part 46
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 47
BEING: THE DISCIPLINE OF WAITING
of their ministry plans, serious plans to evangelize the region. We learn later that it was for the best of reasons that Paul was forced to wait. Because of his having to wait on his targeted area, he went down to Troas. As we might expect, Troas was exactly where the missionaries were supposed to be. While Paul was forced to wait there, he had a vision that would forever change the growth plan of the gospel in that part of the world. In his vision, he was instructed to go to Macedonia and help start a series of new churches. This was not in Paul’s original plan, and it took a brief period of waiting to bring it about. If Paul had not been restrained and had gone on with his original plan, this new work would never have been a reality, at least not due to Paul. Is there anyone among us who has not had a good plan interrupted? Nothing is more difficult for us than to leave good work unfinished. This kind of experience is even more difficult when we believe our work is being done for the best of reasons. We might ask, “Why would God interrupt such generous and well-meaning plans?”
Service of Waiting We must learn to accept that just as God calls us to the service of work, there are important times when He calls us to the service of waiting. God’s call to be involves not only action but at times inaction. Those moments may even include isolation. How can such inactivity possibly be a good thing when we are so ready to get on with our plans? Yet, the harvest may be far richer in those silent, inactive moments than when we seem to be in full power and moving ahead.
Being Is Being Led “Being” means allowing God to lead even when opportunities have been postponed and the doors seem closed. That is exactly what happened to Paul. If he had not been forced to wait, he would have never heard the call to Macedonia. The same is often true for each of us. Often the outcome is that in actively waiting we see another door that would never have been visible in the rush of activity. Resting secure on the confidence and trust of the One who works through us, 47
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 48
GOD’S CALL TO BE
we come to see that our best service may be that we are called to do nothing.
Do Not Despair The psalmist knew well the challenge of waiting. In the twentyseventh Psalm the writer’s experience is described: “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD. Wait for the LORD, be strong, and let your heart take courage” (Ps 27:13-14). The psalmist believed that at the end of waiting would be understanding of what God was trying to accomplish. God will be faithful. We dare not forget one clear fact of life: Never overlook the reality that waiting provides an open window for despair. We become disheartened and our faith seems to stagger under the trials and testing that come into our lives. We may believe we cannot go any further or wait any longer. Even when we try not to despair, the temptation is great. When we become tired and faint, we should do in our relationship with God what we have done at other times when we approached the end of our physical strength. What happens when we have been weak and physically incapable of doing anything? We come to terms with the fact that we have no choice but to depend upon someone else, to lean upon them. The answer is to lean upon the shoulder of a friend. While leaning upon them and depending upon them, we are granted the opportunity to cease and rest, trusting in another’s strength. Are we not to do the same in our relationship with God? When we reach the end of our own strength and ability, God does not say, “Be strong and courageous.” The writer of Psalm 46 describes our instruction: “Be still and know that I am God.” To follow that instruction is not passive surrender. It is not giving up or folding into the pressures of life. It is claiming the gift of waiting, which is being still and claiming the reassurance of God’s presence. Hudson Taylor was so weak and feeble in the last few months of his life that he told a friend, “I am so weak I cannot write. I cannot
48
Gods Call To Be_v5tp
3/17/05
1:41 PM
Page 49
BEING: THE DISCIPLINE OF WAITING
read my Bible. I cannot even pray. All I can do is lie still in the arms of God as a little child, trusting Him.�1 Waiting is not passive surrender. Waiting is not life on hold. Waiting is a verb. It means using the moment to gain perspective, to lean on One who sees the unseen future, and to know that God has not forsaken. It means we claim our understanding of time is different than the clock God uses. Waiting is a verb. Waiting is not the enemy of life; it is the friend of being. Note 1
L.B.Cowman, Streams in the Desert (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1997), 188.
49
Christian Living
Who Am I? Such a question is far more than just a philosophical one. Instead, the question goes right to the core of our individual struggles to define our selves apart from the labels our lives have created for us. Who am I apart from my profession? Who am I apart from my prosperity? Who am I apart from my relationships? Who am I apart from the person I’ve spent a lifetime becoming? In God’s Call to Be: When Being Precedes Doing, acclaimed pastor and author Al Cadenhead Jr., helps us to peel back the layers of our selves to discover the beings that God intended us to be. “The place to begin,” Cadenhead writes, “is to claim that I am convinced that at the center of my soul is life, not life that is determined by the beating of my heart, but life that comes to me by the Creator God who gives to us the small, but important, piece of His divine image. We may be created out of clay, but through that clay runs just enough of the divine image to make us always long for Him.” God’s Call to Be will help you rediscover a sense of peace in your life through your own natural and spiritual connections to God.
Having covered faith in the Carolinas for more than a decade, I have seen noisy, overworked congregations stress “doing” over “being.” In this thoughtful, accessible book written for us all, Al Cadenhead reminds us that we can feel the power of God’s love in the quiet moments. In that quiet, we learn not just to appreciate God’s love but to more deeply appreciate the life he gave us. — Ken Garfield, Religion Editor The Charlotte Observer Amidst our 24/7 fast paced, high-tech world, we find ourselves overstimulated, overscheduled, hurried children of all ages. We fear that we would be a “nobody” without position and prestige, office and authority, and power. Somehow we have come to believe that our being is totally defined by our doing. Moving beneath the layers of profession, geographical address, financial resources, health and aging, Al Cadenhead takes us on a journey to the spiritual headwaters of being a child of God. It is a journey from the head to the heart. If your occupation has become an overwhelming preoccupation and your identity is dependent on your job, then this book is for you. —Jim Pitts Chaplain and Professor of Religion, Emeritus Furman University
AL CADENHEAD JR. is Senior Pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is also the author of My First Last Day at School, Time Flies When You’re Having Fun, and When You’re Not, and Hurry Up and Rest.