Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. (Heb 12:1-3 ESV)
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! (Hebrews 12:1-3, MSG)
Running has taught me a lot. I’ve run in the rain. Hard rain. Rain so hard that the UPS driver said, whoa brother, that’s intense. Run so hard that muscles I didn’t know I had hurt from how heavy my shoes became as I ran through inches of water. I’ve run in the snow where my forehead is screaming in pain from the cold wind and my moustache and beard are covered in ice from my breath freezing and hardening. I’ve run in blistering heat — that’s by far the worst. I’ve run through my stupid hypoglycemic blood sugar crashes where I can’t go on and every muscle is shaking and I’m thinking, “If I pass out how long will it take for my wife to come looking for me?” The reason I run is not because I like it. I run because I’ve found it to be one of the single most effective tools to fight my body’s chemical imbalance that leads to crushing depression. I say NO to letting that enemy steal my life while I stand by watching. I’ve run in the mountains of colorado, the treadmills of Redding California and Lancaster. I’ve run in the black asphalt of seaford, after midnight. I’ve run, my favorite place of all, in the woods. I’ve run in circles on the track. I run hurt. I run tired. I run weary. Sometimes I run well. Lately I’ve been running with a torn hip flexor muscle. I’m sure it would heal faster if I’d back off. But if I get to choose between depression and muscle pain, that’s not even a choice.
And do you know what’s harder than running? Making the choice to put on my shoes and go out the front door. The choice to actually show up is a more pernicious enemy than the fight that awaits me when I do. Whether we’re talking about prayer, writing, running, or any other thing you’re called to, the real fight is the fight to show up and begin. If you win that fight, you win.
So showing up is the deal. And in between you and showing up is the real war. It’s the war of your life. It’s the war against the universal demonic forces that fight every calling of God on every soul made in God’s image. In between you and showing up stands the war.
Resistance and Divine help…
The Misery of soul that comes of giving into resistance, missing your calling, and how we can see the evidence of it ALL around us in our society and in our own lives.
Family sabotage when you are faithful to your calling. Drama, drama, drama. No one can fulfill their calling because they are too busy blowing up their or each others lives with endless drama.
And so many different forms of fear. What if they leave me? What if others reject me? What if I bring hurt on my people, shame on my family? What if it doesn’t work? What if I’m wrong? What if it’s too late? What if I’m a fraud? What if it’s too hard for me? And then the greatest fear some of us fight, what if I succeed? What then? What if success comes to me and proves that I really am accountable, responsible, capable? What if I succeed and then I lose all my well worn comfortable excuses? And then would I have to keep living up to success? So many fears. So many reasons to not show up.
Legitimate failure vs illegitimate success. Most people fall the first time, so success means starting by having your first legitimate failure. Failing in the path of calling is called a legitimate failure. Better a legitimate failure than an illegitimate success.
Get up tomorrow and win again. And what do you do the day after you win the fight and showed up? You beat that enemy the next day again.
What do after your greatest success? My climbing hero, Alex Honnold, free soloed El Capitan in just under four hours. Unbelievable. What did he do that afternoon? He trained on his hanging fingerboard. Pull Ups designed to give exceptional strength to a climber’s fingers. “Just another day. Keep pushing.” That’s a warrior’s mindset.
Validation comes from doing the work. It comes from the pleasure of God in the act of creation, not how the work is received or rejected.
Genesis 2 implies that eternal life was doing God’s good work in the physical world, partnered well with your spouse and family, and then resting and relating to God intimately when the day’s work was done. I’m not gonna lie, I’m super happy that heaven isn’t going to be an endless church service, and I love church services, but not as much as living normal life in the path of the vocation for which I was born. Some people think of heaven as a never ending song set. I think of heaven as waking up, showering, put on my shoes, and get to my work beautifying the world, bringing order from the raw materials. Learning. Creating. Relating. And resting. Looking. It’s good. Let’s pack it up for the day. Let’s do it again tomorrow. Good life. Good work. Good God. Until earth looks like heaven. Heaven on earth is my calling. It’s also my destiny. It’s my eternity. And I’m already living in it now.
Rationalizations. Like, “One of these days.” One of these days I’m going to get in shape, write that novel, take that guitar out from under the bed, crack open that Bible, take that kid out fishing, start my resume and go after that job. One of these days I’ll go back to college. “One of these days” is what we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face our self. “One of these days,” sounds better than, “not today.” “One of these days,” sounds easier than admitting that we’re clearly choosing NOT to follow that path.
Start, inspiration or not. If you wait for inspiration to carry you, you only start occasionally. Very rarely, actually. But if you show up and start, inspiration seems to eventually join the activity.
Heaven’s aid. In fact, though inspiration, that thing we can’t produce by force of will, that grace of God whereby we become sails propelled by a wind we don’t control, but can ride, inspiration rewards the disciplined. Inspiration is out there looking for vessels to give her flesh in the world, and when she finds one laboring at their post, already working, already available, she finds a vessel through which she can take on flesh in the world. A womb through which to be born. Inspiration rewards the disciplined.
Somerset Maugham was asked if he writes on a schedule or only when inspiration strikes. His reply? “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at 9 o’clock sharp.”
Lamps trimmed and burning. Jesus said the kingdom is like a groom who could return at any time, and some of those waiting were ready, lamps with oil and trimmed, burning, others were asleep, no oil, unprepared. I submit that the Lord has visited many of us and we never even found out, because we weren’t awake, at our post, laboring in the work we were born for. I know that parable has been used to scare people to say a salvation prayer before Jesus returns to send all the unconverted to hell, but I think it’s Jesus describing what the reign of God is already like right now. When we’re at our post laboring, God sees us and is moved with desire and delight, heaven bends to fill and speak and brood over the one who shows up, inspiration or not, and begins.
Jude reminded believers to build themselves up in their most holy faith by praying in the Spirit. Fascinating. As we do what we can do, God does what we cannot. As we take Godward action, God fills our steps with divine strength. But he won’t’ make the choice for us. And we all know what it feels like to be working “on our own.”
It’s better to fail in the path of your vocation than to succeed at anything else.
I’m in the arena! On your worst day, when it’s falling apart, and you’re feeling like a failure, like quitting, like getting out, if you’re doing what you were made to do, then be grateful. You’re in the arena. The right arena. Do you know how many souls are in the wrong arena? Be grateful you have put yourself out there to be spat on and rejected, a.,2 postle Paul, be grateful you’re in prison and made a spectacle while others get their faces on billboards as great heroes. Because you, Paul, are known by God, and you are proclaiming the gospel as he called you to do, and you can sleep tonight in this prison in Philippi in peace knowing that you are doing what you were born to do.
In season, out of season, be about it. You can’t treat your calling like its a hobby if it’s a calling. You’re either about it, or it’s gnawing at you, like a divine discontentment grinding away at your core. If you’re a writer, it’s writing, if you’re a builder, it’s building, if you’re an intercessor, it’s actually praying, not talking about praying, not going to conferences about praying, not listening to sermons about praying, not even saying prayers, but praying. A kind of praying that comes from that part of you that’s saying, “Can we please get to work?”
2 Crappy pages. 2 crappy pages per day. It’s a little trick I learned from Annie Lamott. In her book, “Bird by Bird,” she said you have to write crappy first drafts or you won’t write anything at all. There’s too much fear of failure to start if you think what you’re writing has to be good. You’ll never write anything good with the crushing pressures of needing to write good things. Your goal has to be doable. Realistic. And I can’t guarantee that if I make myself sit down to write every day that it will be good. But I can set a realistic goal. Two crappy pages. And you already know what happens then, don’t you? If you said, “It’s crappy.” You’re right! I succeeded at my goal!
Gimme your bad ideas. Sometimes nobody speaks because they are afraid others will scoff at their views and shoot down their suggestions…so we say — I hope we say — “Give me ideas, any ideas, bad ideas, I want your worst ideas!” Why do I say “I want your worst ideas?” Because I want to take the pressure off and break us out of the stuckness of perfectionism and fear and get our minds moving and imagining and working. I want to get us playing in the sandbox as a kid, not performing before judges who will grade us. I know the only way to do “great” is to do terrible and until we hit on “maybe good” and then sweat and labor over it until it’s “great.”
“Get the rust out.” Ed Sheeran said he writes songs every day. Every day. He writes like two songs per day. Can you imagine how many songs that must be by now? No wonder he has so many good songs. He’s written so many crappy ones. He said you have to get the duds out. You have to get them out because they’re in your soul, and they have to be excreted to get out of the way for the good stuff. He said it’s like the rusty water in the pipes. It must come out so the clean water can flow. The failures in the path of your calling are successes, because they are what must come first so that the successes can come. They matter as part of the process of your calling. You hear me. Failure in the path of your calling is success. Falling down by walking toward faithfulness is faithful. Everybody falls down who walks. Not everybody walks, and that’s a greater tragedy.
Discipline = freedom. I read a beautiful book by Jocko Willink called, “Discipline Equals Freedom,” which I love. It’s about how his little victories over weakness and procrastination each day create the momentum for him to be a person who can be free. Start your day with little victories. He gets up early to workout with weights. I feel like that when I read my bible and run. Little victories where I act against my resistance, my weight, my excuses, my distractions. I act. And momentum comes. God comes. I love that book. Read it. He’s hardcore.
One of the Beastie Boys’ dad was a playwright. His example of discipline greatly impacted his son, who said that dad would get up, shower, have breakfast, put on his suit as though he were going to work at a law firm or an office full of professionals, and then go into his study at home, shut the door, sit down at his desk, and write for 8 hours a day. No one was to disturb him during work hours. His work was creative and his craft artistic, but he approached it with utter discipline. He could have easily stayed in socks and a t-shirt or pajamas, unshowered, all day. Would it have hurt the writing? If it hurt his mental approach, yes. His approach reveals gives us clues to what separates the person fully engaged in their vocation from a hobbyist. He’s all in. His routine reveals that.
The clay bowl experiment. Rob Bell wrote a little book called “drops like stars” about the creative process. He mentioned a study where people were assigned to work with clay. One group was assigned to make a perfect bowl. Another group was assigned to make as many bowls as you could make in the same amount of time. The group assigned to make a perfect bowl made one. The other group made as many as ten bowls. And here’s the interesting thing. Many of the bowls the second group made were much higher quality than the “be perfect” group. Because they had the benefit of hundreds of tiny adjustments they didn’t even know they were making as they churched out bowl after bowl. Show up. Work. Repeat. Don’t hang your hat on today’s performance. It’s a day. Tomorrow is another. Did you show up? That’s success, my friend.
10 to 1. So how many songs do you have to write to get 10 or 12 good enough to make it on the album. Some people say the ratio is 10 to 1. So get on with it. Nowadays people post everything they think on the socials…which means 90% of it should probably be in the trash can. Just saying.
Victor P. My Old Testament professor from College, Victor P. Hamilton told us that when he researches and writes his biblical commentaries, 80% of what he learned in his research doesn’t make it into his books. But, he said, the 80 percent that doesn’t make it in greatly enriches the twenty percent that does. The waste of the creative process isn’t wasteful.
10,000 hour rule. Malcolm Gladwell made the 10,000 hour rule famous. That states that the determining factor in terms of excellence in a given field or skill is not as simple as aptitude, though that’s a very important factor. The determining factor that separates good from great is how much time someone has put in. The magic number of hours to become very proficient was identified at ten thousand hours.
Kobe Bryant is called the Black Mamba. People talk about the Mamba Mentality. His coaches said he was there before practice, practicing. He was there after workout, working out. One day, I think it was Tracy Mcgrady’s team came to play the Lakers and he thought he’d get in an early workout. Kobe was there alone, shooting. Not just shooting. Moving real moves. Breaking a sweat. No one was there. Tracy worked out. When he left, Kobe was still there. They played a game that night and Kobe put up huge numbers. He admitted later he noticed his opponent come in and he was going to win the mental battle by showing him, “I’m outworking you. No matter what. I’ll do more.” https://www.nba.com/news/kobe-bryant-quotes-oral-history-kobe-bryants-work-ethic-unmatched/
Judah Smith’s dad was always on his knees beside the bed, praying. They went around preaching, and he brought little boy, Judah along to share testimony. He’d make him kneel next to him, and his dad would kneel and pray for soooooo long! Judah was restless and bored but dad was pressed in. His dad would ask him before he let him testify, “Did you have your time with God today son?” He’d say, “yeah dad, but why is that important, I always just share the same testimony everywhere we go and I have it down pat?” “Did you or didn’t you?” “Yeah dad.” That IMPRINTED Judah with so much more than I know how to explain.
Conclusion: This week I was busy, as usual. I had made pages of handwritten notes on unlined paper with my fountain pen and inkwell. I had also read an excellent book by Steven Pressfield, called The War of Art, about the resistance to us starting. That was incredible, I highly recommend it. But when it came to sitting down to put my rough ideas together, it seemed so heavy. But I made myself start, and very quickly I found myself sitting and feeling totally engaged with my work, in that state of flow we’ve been talking about in this series, focused, everything else decreases its volume and time fades away and my typing struggles to keep up with this thought as the thoughts almost graciously slow down for me to keep up. “Hey can I talk to you about,” from my wife gets a hand up, my face doesn’t even turn away from the page, “Not now.” It isn’t rude. It’s about preserving the sacredness of this state.
And then this other thing begins to happen as I type. I know what all people of all kinds talk about with flow. This is different. This thing that happens to me while I’m writing is different. The presence of God manifests, and I feel his pleasure in what I’m saying. He hovers over me and seems to increase when I say something he and I both love. I took a break to run, and while I was running I realized that this thing that happens to me when I write is all I need out of life. If I can pay the bills and get there, I have what I mainly need out of my daily schedule. Because that is the fulfillment of my calling. That thrills my soul. Co-laboring with God, and putting in sweat and challenge at my highest level, and feeling his pleasure in it. And the cool thing? When I sat down to do it I did not feel like doing it at all. AND I knew I am internally prepared enough through the meditation I probably don’t need notes that badly. BUT, I also know I’ve committed that this sermon series serve as the chapters for a book. So I forced myself to start, and just like I’ve been saying, heaven was drawn to the effort born of faith in the divine call.
I don’t know what you are called to. I really don’t. I do know that is a matter between you and God. Maybe you’re called to prioritize being a mom to your kids, or start a new business, or prioritize working in that part of your business that you are passionate about and your success has actually pulled you away from the thing you shine in the most. Maybe you’re called to serve the homeless or you’re called to work in counselling others to emotional health, or maybe you’re called to teach, or maybe you’re called to paint, or web design. Maybe you’re called to farm. I don’t know what you’re called to do. You might be a champion for a particular mission field or justice issue, the kingdom is broad and deep and diverse and has never seen whatever kind of creature you are before, so what you’re called to do is a deeply personal thing between you and God. But whatever you’re called to, you must begin.
I feel like some of you are like Abram, before he was Abraham. And you’re hearing the call to leave your land, and community, and father’s house, and go to a land he will show you. You’re beginning to hear that call, but you’ve not yet made up your mind to follow it.
Others of you are crystal clear on whether you’re living out what God has for you. You aren’t. And you’re miserable. And in your misery you’ve turned to destructive coping behaviors.
Others of you are on the path, and this sermon is just cheering you on. But I’m pleading with every one of you to not ignore your calling, to not live under the resistance, and to show up. We need you. The kingdom longs for you. And heaven is yearning to come to your aid and put wind in your sails. Please. Please. Show up. Please don’t waste your one life living someone else’s dreams. Please, I’m begging you to show up.