Broccoli, celery, gotta be Veggie Tales
visioncgbc | May 19, 2008 20:42
Dreams, Part II (Chapter 21)
I've blabbered on for hours now about Bible college puppet teams and MTV and polygons and pay scales. I hope you're still with me, because it's time for me to ask you one simple question again: Have you ever had a dream?
Boy, I sure have. I wanted God to use me to make a difference in the world. I wanted somehow to single-handedly offset all the lousy messages immature rock stars were packing into their music videos on MTV My dreams got a bit more specific as I got going, of course. I wanted to make movies and TV shows filled with biblical truth. I wanted to build a theme park. I wanted to create the next Disney. Be the next Disney. And my dreams were all going swimmingly for a while. Everyone loved the shows. Letters poured in from around the world, telling stories of the impact we were having. Kids conquering their fears. Dads deciding Christianity wasn't that "dorky" after all and returning to church with their families for the first time in years. Whole families coming to Christ. All because of VeggieTales.
Inside Big Idea, however, things were not so rosy. My life had become so unpleasant that my Christian background suggested one of two scenarios must be true: (1) I was doing something horribly wrong, or (2) I was doing something horribly right, and, as a result, was coming under withering spiritual attack. My pride insisted it must be the latter, but deep inside I wondered if that were the case. Time and time again I sat down to journal, and invariably I began by writing, "What am I doing wrong?"
And then, finally, it was all over. Finished.
After the bankruptcy sale, Classic Media set up a new company called "Big Idea, Inc." to continue the production of VeggieTales under the direction of Terry Pefanis, the finance executive who had, ironically, tried to buy Big Idea Productions on behalf of Gaylord Entertainment six years earlier. I had brought Terry to Big Idea as a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy after parting company with my second president and CFO in early 2003. For whatever reason, Classic Media decided the "new" Big Idea would be located 'in Franklin, Tennessee, not far from Terry's home. Both of my positions-chief executive officer and chief creative officer-were eliminated. Classic's executives asked me to continue providing voices for my characters and to write one script per year under the direction of the new company's managers. Lacking any other clear direction from God at that point, and in need of income, I agreed to a two-year creative services contract. I was now a freelance writer for the characters I had created.
God did not kill Big Idea. I never for a second blamed God for the collapse of my dream. I dusted the body for fingerprints, and they were all mine. What I wrestled with, instead, was the fact that God could have saved Big Idea Productions. He could have stepped in, erased my mistakes, and kept Bob and Larry in my hands for the sake of the kingdom. I mean, he's God, right? He can do anything. But he didn't.
He could have stepped in when Jonah hit theaters and doubled our opening weekend box office. He could have done that. But he didn't.
He could have shown up when Jonah hit stores on DVD, doubling the sales. That wouldn't have been hard for him to do. It would have saved Big Idea. But he didn't do that either.
And finally, of course, he could have swooped into federal court in Dallas to assure the jury would see the truth in the lawsuit between Big Idea and Lyrick Studios. The case seemed painfully clear to me-it wouldn't have taken much effort. Especially for God. He could have easily done it, and it would have saved Big Idea. But he didn't.
I left the courtroom that day deeply confused. Numb. How could God have let that happen? Why hadn't he shown up? Didn't he care about the work I was doing? The families that were being blessed? How could he just stand back from something that was doing so much good and watch it fall apart?
When I was about five years old, my younger brother fell down our stairs in his walker. They were linoleum-covered stairs with metal edges, and he tumbled down the full flight, head-over-heels in his walker. Amazingly, he came through with only five stitches in his upper lip. My grandmother and my mother both saw it happen, though, which must have been absolutely terrifying. They lunged to try to stop him from falling but couldn't get there in time.
But God can always get there in time. God never arrives "too late." What confused me so deeply is that I knew he saw me fall, and I knew he had the capacity to catch me-to prevent my accident from happening. Yet he didn't. He just stood there, watching me tumble down the stairs.
What kind of God would do that? That is the question this book is ultimately trying to answer. Beyond all the business implications, beyond the interpersonal dramas and the thrill of seeing something wonderful come to life, I'm really chasing the answer to this question: What kind of God would stand back and watch a dream-a good dream, for ministry and impact-fall apart?
It's time to back up again. What we believe about God has a lot to do with how we were raised and the sort of messages we heard when we were kids. As you know by now, I grew up pretty deep in the evangelical Christian subculture. My childhood was filled with potlucks, church picnics, Bible conferences, and missions festivals. Growing up in such surroundings you bump into certain evangelical sayings that stick with you, sayings like, "Only one life, 'twill soon be past-only what's done for Christ will last." As a kid, that phrase really hit me. If the only things that mattered were the things I did for Christ, well, that's what I wanted to do. But there was another saying that stuck with me: "God can't steer a parked car." These phrases may not have been Scripture, but they sure smelled like it. Pithy little sayings like these were so frequently bandied about in my formative years that my personal theology may have been shaped as much by these bumper sticker sentiments as by the Bible itself. As a result, I entered adulthood (1) absolutely committed to spending my life doing things for Christ, and (2) determined not to be a "parked car." I had to get going. I had to get busy.
But busy with what?
Mine was not the sort of Christian family accustomed to "hearing from God." Growing up, I don't believe I ever heard an adult in my family or my church begin a sentence with the words "God told me .. ." That sort of talk was for charismatics. We were logical Christians. Intellectual Christians. God had given us brains, and we were supposed to use them. So rather than asking God directly, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my work for Christ might be. Missionary conferences pitched mission elds at us kids like travel agents pitching vacation packages. latch the slides-make a commitment. But overseas missions idn't seem right for me, so I kept looking. Eventually, I found a lace where my storytelling gifts seemed to line up with a need 1at was tugging at my heart-a need to express God's Word 1rough popular media. And that would be my work for Christ!
That issue resolved, I got busy. I built, and built, and built. ven when I wasn't building, I was thinking about building, dream19 up the things I would build next. And in the midst of it, God 1.0wed up, blessing my efforts. Great! I thought, Look at all the good m doing! But I was just getting started. If I could do that much Dod just by making a few videos, think how much good I could do . I made movies and toys and books and TV shows and theme arks! Think how much good I could do if I built the next Disney!
And so; I got busier.
And the good kept piling up, along with awards and accolades )r my "goodness." God must be pleased, I thought to myself, because sure am doing a lot of good now. I hoped God was pleased, anyray, because all the work was taking a toll on me-on my health, lY marriage, and the good people that had joined my chaotically expanding company.
And then, in the midst of my great goodness, everything started to go wrong. Everything. "Ah! My good work!" I screamed. pedaled and steered furiously to keep my little car on the road - rocks looming on one side, a sheer drop-off on the other-just like 1 the movies. Good thing I was the good guy, I thought, because the good guy never goes over the cliff.
Except that I did. I fell. My dream and I fell all the way to bankruptcy court, where a gaggle of lawyers picked through the wreckage, packed up all the good parts, and mailed them to Franklin, Tennessee, leaving me alone, with nothing. Nothing but my oId Big Idea office chair, my thoughts, and the God who had watched me bounce down the stairs without raising a finger.
For a while, of course, I just lay at the bottom of the stairs and moaned. Then I started asking questions.
"Why, God?"
"Why did you let that happen, because-I mean - wow - that hurt!"
"And I was doing so much good! Didn't you notice? Didn't you see it?"
"Why?"
And then, very quietly, he started whispering to me.
To be honest, God's whispers had started about eighteen months earlier when I received an e-mail from a woman I had never met. She congratulated me on my tremendous success and complimented me on all the impact I was having. But then she closed by advising me to keep an eye on my pride. "That's a little forward," I thought to myself, "considering we've never even met."
The e-mails from the mystery woman kept coming - every month, every other month. For more than a year. ''I'm glad things are going - so well for you," - of course, they weren't, but she didn't know that - "but keep an eye on your pride."
Humph. I filed the messages away as the rantings of an uninformed fan. So God decided to turn up the volume a bit.
Prayer meetings at Big Idea were interesting affairs, because, unlike most churches, the Christians at Big Idea came from many backgrounds-Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, and Pentecostal, in addition to a big bunch of generic, white, suburban evangelicals like myself. We white, suburban evangelicals typically organized the prayer meetings and kicked them off with an opening prayer, which, in typical white, suburban, evangelical fashion, were usually short, polite, and pleasantly earnest-heartfelt, without expressing too much passion or expectation of divine response. Given my background, this didn't strike me as anything but typical. Until, that is, one of our Pentecostals stood to pray-an African-American woman from Chicago's southwest side. Suddenly, I was at a different meeting entirely. Words and emotions and heartfelt petitions rolled through the room, surrounding and enveloping and lifting us all about a mile closer to heaven-so close I was sure I felt God's warm breath on the back of my neck. My music major wife learned early on about the difference between singing from your nose and singing from your diaphragm. For the first time, I was learning about the difference between praying from your head and praying from your heart. The generic suburban evangelicals kept organizing the prayer meetings, but the real praying never started until the Pentecostals showed up.
But that last prayer meeting-the one right before the Lyrick trial-was different. There were only thirteen of us, huddled wearily together like the last survivors in a town under siege, and our prayers were marked more by fatigue and desperation than passion. The company had been battered by five rounds of layoffs and was now nervously considering what further horrors the lawsuit could bring. And so we prayed desperately for God to save Big Idea, to keep Big Idea going, to keep the team together. We prayed that God would give me the wisdom to preserve the company we all loved so much.
But not everyone was praying.
One of the women there that night was a good friend of my wife's and an amazing prayer warrior. But she wasn't praying-at least not audibly. She was sitting there silently, as if she wasn't quite comfortable with the tone of the evening-or something. We finished our desperate petitioning, and folks started filing out. She remained in her seat as the others left, then approached me.
"I think God has something for me to tell you," she began, I tensed up a bit, though hoping internally it was good news-I haps a prophetic word about the court case or the amazing I God was hatching to restore Big Idea.
"I don't think this is about God and Big Idea," she sail think this is about God and Phil."
My throat tightened. This wasn't the word I was looking She wasn't done, though.
"Before it's over," she continued, "I think you might need to say good-bye to all of us."
She turned and walked away. I couldn't breathe. Why would she say something like that? What a horrible "word from God. Besides, it made no sense. How could this crisis not be about Big Idea? Big Idea was my dream-the work I was doing for Christ. Big Idea was so much more important than me-more important to the world, more important to God. No, this crisis had to be about Big Idea. Walking out to my car, I tried to set her statement aside and focus on the work ahead of me.
It was at this point that God apparently got tired of whispering and decided instead to speak plainly. I mentioned my great-grandfather's Bible conference in northwest Iowa. A few years before the bankruptcy, my mother had assumed leadership of the conference. My wife and I hadn't attended in years. We'd just gotten too busy. "You should come this year," my mother implored "the speakers are going to be great." For a moment I consided it, but then I thought, Oh, I'm going bankrupt, and that really takes it out of you. No Bible conference for me, thanks. Not right now. So my mother went, and upon returning, handed me a tape, saying, “I think this was for you."
It was a sermon preached by an old family friend, a pastor named Richard Porter. He opened his talk by saying, "What does it mean when God gives you a dream, and he shows up in it and the dream comes to life, and then, without warning, the dream dies? What does that mean?"
He had my attention.
Rick went on to tell his story. He was, at that time, senior pastor of a large church in suburban Vancouver and had spent eighteen months spearheading an area-wide revival effort. Churches had come together, and a revival service had been staged in a large stadium. The event was a huge success. God had showed up. The Spirit moved. Thrilled to see his hard work paying off, Rick immediately began planning follow-up meetings and couldn't help but wonder if, before long, folks down in the States would start hearing rumors of "something big happening in Vancouver." The revival effort had become his life. His dream.
And then, without warning, 9/11 happened. Everyone got distracted, and the whole thing just died. Dead. Rick was so emotionally and physically exhausted that he couldn't get out of bed. His doctors told him to take twelve months off. His elders told he could have nine. Day after day, he lay in bed searching for answers, finding himself saying to the God he had served his entire life, "If this is what it's like to work for you, I'm not sure I can do it anymore." After a lifetime of tireless Christian service, the emotion of seeing God bring a dream to life, only to let it die, was more than he could bear.
In the middle of that dark period, he attended his daughter's church one Sunday and listened as the young pastor spoke on the story of the Shunammite woman - a story that, for Rick, would change everything. In case you aren't familiar with the story of the Shunammite woman from 2 Kings 4, it goes something like this (Yes, I realize most business books or autobiographies or whatever this is don't delve into deep scriptural analysis. Especially when written by Bible college dropouts. So sue me. It's relevant.)
The Shunammite woman was a wealthy woman in Israel who would prepare a meal for the prophet Elisha whenever he passed through town. Apparently she was a good cook, for soon Elisha was visiting so frequently (here my friend Rick inserted a joke about pastors and "free meals" that I will not repeat), that she went to her husband one day and proposed they build a room on the roof for the prophet. (Which, at the time, was not an insult.) Now when Elisha passed by, he could stop in for a meal and a nap. Well, Elisha was so appreciative of her kindness that he called the woman before him and asked, "What can I do for you? What do you need?" "I don't need anything," the woman demurred. "I have a home among my people."
But Elisha's servant approached him later and said, "Sir, her husband is very old, and she has no son." Meaning, in that day, before long she would have no one to provide for her. She would be destitute. Elisha called the woman back and proclaimed, "A year from now you will hold a son."
Her response to Elisha's promise shows how deep this longing must have been. "No, my Lord," she said, "Do not lie to me." She wasn't calling Elisha a liar, of course. What she was really saying was, Don't go there. Don't touch that. Don't play with my emotions. It has taken me years to put that dream to sleep. Don't wake it up.
But true to Elisha's word, the next year finds her holding a baby.
Even if you have never struggled with the unfulfilled desire to have a child, you still can imagine how much she loves this baby. Not only is he her son, he's also her dream! Her future! Her promise from God! He's everything!
The boy grows and one day walks out to his father in the fields complaining of a headache. "Go to your mother," his father says. And the young boy goes to his mother, curls up in her lap, and dies.
And there she is, holding the dream God gave her, dead in her arms.
If anyone tells you the Bible is "dry," they aren't reading it.
The woman takes her dead son up to Elisha's room and lays him on the prophet's bed. Then she takes a donkey and heads quickly for Elisha. When Elisha sees her in the distance, he calls out, "Is everything all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?"
"Everything is well," she replies. She explains what has happened, though, and Elisha immediately springs into action. "Take my staff and my servant," he says, "Go and lay my staff on the boy."
But the woman refuses. "As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave you."
So Elisha returns with her. Upon arriving at the woman's home, Elisha enters the upper room alone and prays. He then lays down on the lifeless child, hand to hand, foot to foot, nose to nose. The boy sneezes and opens his eyes. Elisha brings him downstairs and hands him back to his mother.
That is the story of the Shunammite woman.
I know what you're thinking because I thought the same thing myself: What is the point of all that? I mean, why put the poor woman through that exercise?
The young pastor concluded his sermon by saying, "If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you-the dream or him."
The Shunammite woman's response is clear. What does she do when her dream dies? She heads straight for the man of God. When he sees her coming and asks, "Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?" she says, "Everything is well." When he asks her to return home with his servant, she says, "As surely as the Lord lives and you live, I will not leave without you." She doesn't understand what is happening, but she is going to hang on to God no matter what.
C. S. Lewis said, "He who has God plus many things has nothing more than he who has God alone." Now, I have no problem with that statement when I think of it like this: "He who has God plus a big, shiny car has nothing more than he who has God alone." Sure. I'm fine with that. Or "He who has God plus a fancy house has nothing more than he who has God alone." No problem. But if God is infinite, we can't add anything to him. Nothing, added to God, can meet our needs any more than God alone. So we need to put everything in that blank.
"He who has God plus a wonderful, healthy marriage has nothing more than he who has God alone."
Hmm. Gee.
And the one that really got to me: "He who has God plus an amazing ministry impacting millions of lives around the world has nothing more than he who has God alone." Nothing more. As I came to the end of the tape, sitting in my car in my garage, Rick said this: "If God gives you a dream, and the dream comes to life and God shows up in it, and then the dream dies, it may be that God wants to see what is more important to you-the dream or him. And once he's seen that, you may get your dream back. Or you may not, and you may live the rest of your life without it. But that will be okay, because you'll have God."
I couldn't get out of the car. I couldn't speak. God was enough? Just God? Even without all the work-all the crazy pedaling and accomplishing? Just God?
I started thinking about Abraham. He, too, had a "dream." God had given him a promise, in fact. "From you I will bring a great nation - your descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the heavens." Whoa. Cool. But somewhere down deep, a little voice in Abraham's head was saying, "Well, that's great, God ... but I don't even have a son!"
"Okay," God replied, "first I'll give you a son."
Fifteen years later, here comes Isaac. Like the Shunammite woman, we can only imagine how much Abraham loves Isaacafter all, not only is Isaac his son, he's his dream! His promise! And then one day God shows up and says, "What do you love more, your dream or me?"
Abraham replies, "Sure, God, that's easy. You!"
"Okay then-put him on the altar. Kill him."
Long pause. Abraham's stomach drops. His eyes dart frantically around the room.
"But God-he's my son. He's my dream! The promise you gave me! He's how you're going to impact the world through me! He's everything!"
"Put him on the altar. Kill him."
And what God learned about Abraham that day was that he would let go of everything before he would let go of God.
And God said, "Okay, now I can use you."
As this truth sunk in, I found myself facing a God I had never heard about in Sunday school-a God who, it appeared, wanted me to let go of my dreams.
But why? Why would God want us to let go of our dreams? Because anything I am unwilling to let go of is an idol, and I am in sin. The more I thought about my intense drive to build Big Idea and change the world, the more I realized I had let my "good work" become an idol that defined me. Rather than finding my identity in my relationship with God, I was finding it in my drive to do "good work."
The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail-a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish. My role here on earth was to dream up amazing things to do for God. If my dreams were selfless, God would make them all come true. My impact would be huge. The world would change. Children would rise up and call me blessed, and I would receive a hero's welcome into heaven. The most important thing, though, was to be busy. Industrious. Hardworking. A self-made man - er, Christian. The Savior I was following seemed, in hindsight, equal parts Jesus, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford. The Christians my grandparents admired - D. L. Moody, R. G. LeTourneau, Bill Bright-were fantastically enterprising. The Rockefellers of the Christian world. Occasionally I would read about different sorts of Christians that would confuse me, like, say, Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa seemed like a great woman, but her approach struck me as highly inefficient. I mean, she was literally feeding the poor. One at a time. Didn't she see that her impact would be much greater if she developed some sort of system for feeding the poor that could be franchised around the world? She could be the Ray Kroc of world hunger! Wouldn't that be better?
And then there was Henri Nouwen. A Catholic priest with a brilliant mind, Henri was invited to teach at Harvard. (Yes, that Harvard.) As a teacher, could you possibly have any more impact than that? God was clearly positioning Henri for some major impact. And then in 1985, after just three years at Harvard, Henri walked away to spend the rest of his life living in a community for the disabled, devoting a significant portion of his time every day to the care and feeding of a severely disabled young man named Adam. Why? Because he was convinced that is what God wanted him to do.
When I read Henri's story for the first time, I thought he was a loon. How could he think God was calling him from his high-impact position at Harvard to a low-impact life quietly writing and caring for one handicapped man? God would never call us from greater impact to lesser impact! Impact is everything! How many kids did you invite to Sunday school? How many souls have you won? How big is your church? How many videos/records/books have you sold? How many people will be in heaven because of your efforts? Impact, man! Clearly, Henri was a loon. Mother Teresa - she was pretty good-but think what she could have done with an MBA and a business plan.
That's what I thought anyway, until I watched God stand back and allow my "world-changing good work" to fall apart. And now my friend Rick and C. S. Lewis and the Shunammite woman and Abraham were telling me that I was off track. Out to lunch. It was like a recess pile-on, and I was at the bottom. But God wasn't done yet. He was about to throw Henry Blackaby on the pile.
Henry Blackaby is a lifelong Baptist pastor and church planter who unexpectedly became a successful author in his late sixties after penning the devotional study Experiencing God, based on his own life experiences. My wife had enjoyed the book immensely, though I was too busy with my world-changing to pay much attention. Still, I was aware of Henry Blackaby and his book, enough so that it surprised me to see his name on the spine of another book tucked casually into a stack of books in our bedroom. It was a study of the life of Samuel. I would later learn my wife had purchased this second book - a devotional about Christian leadership - as a gift for me, then, mindful of prior failed attempts to play the role of the Holy Spirit in my life, had set it aside for a later date. And so here I was, minding my own business, sitting quietly and somewhat lackadaisically on the bench at the foot of our bed, when God decided it was time for Henry to jump on the pile.
"Hmm-didn't know Blackaby had written another book," I said.
I picked it up and opened it to week one, day one. A few paragraphs down I read these words: "If you start something and it does not seem to go well, consider carefully that God, on purpose, may not be authenticating what you told the people because it did not come from Him, but from your own head. You may have wanted to do something outstanding for God and forgot that God does not want that. He wants you to be available to Him, and more important, to be obedient to Him."
Dang. I glanced around to see if Henry was sitting in the room somewhere, chuckling at me. Over the next few weeks, I dug into Henry's study of the life of Samuel with a zeal previously reserved only for my own "big ideas."
Day four: "It is not more head knowledge we need; it is a heart relationship we must develop."
If he sounded a bit like Yoda, the analogy was fitting. My friend Dick Staub recently wrote a book called Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters, inspired by a conversation he had with a frustrated young Christian friend in Seattle. After hearing the young man describe his longing for an older Christian mentor, Dick adroitly responded, "So you're saying you long to be a Christian Jedi, but my generation failed to produce a Yoda." Yep, the young man nodded. That was it exactly.
Suddenly I felt as if I were Luke Skywalker, running through the swamps of Dagobah with a seventy-year-old Baptist church planter on my shoulders. I had found my Yoda.
Day five: "It is not what is in your heart, nor what you want to accomplish for God, nor what you want to see in your church, nor even what you want to see in your group of churches. The key is not what you want to see (your vision), but what is in God's heart and what is in His mind."
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Broccoli, celery, gotta be Veggie Tales
visioncgbc | May 19, 2008 10:20
Ow. Now he was hitting close to home. My life had been all about vision. I was, after all, a visionary, chasing a long line of visionaries like Walt Disney, Henry Ford, and Steve Jobs. I had grown up in a culture where church leaders were starting to look more and more like visionary CEOs, reading books like Built to Last and crafting far-reaching BHAGs for their ministries. "To evangelize the world by the year 2000." That was a good one. And yet here was little Yoda Henry Blackaby, standing alone in the corner of his swamp making such radical statements as, "We have no business telling God what we want to accomplish for him or dreaming up what we want to do for him." And "The people of God are not to be a people of vision; they are to be a people of revelation."
What? That's blasphemy! Or at the very least, highly unAmerican! Of course we're supposed to be people of vision! There's that verse-Proverbs 29:18-"For lack of vision, the people perish." Ha!
I was big on that verse. I'd even been introduced with that verse. '''Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint!' Here's Phil Vischer!" Yet Yoda Henry was ready to skewer that one with his little green light saber, quickly pointing out that when we quote Proverbs 29:18, we always quote the King James Version. Check a modern translation like the New International Version, he advised, and you'll find the verse reads, "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint."
What? Why so different? Because the King James Version was completed in the sixteenth century, long before the word vision had become a descriptor of creative brainstorming. Think about it. Who in the Bible had a vision? Well ... Peter. Peter had a vision for taking the gospel to the Gentiles. What was his vision? He saw a sheet come down from heaven filled with every kind of animal, and a voice said, "Get up, kill, and eat." That was Peter's vision for taking the gospel to the Gentiles.
I know what you're saying "That's not a 'vision' like we mean today! That's more of a, well, a divine revelation!" Exactly. What we have here is a linguistic issue. Proverbs 29:18 has nothing to do with the children of God being "visionary thinkers" and everything to do with the children of God falling into chaos and sin when they ignore what God has revealed to them through his Word.
Yoda Henry was rocking my world. But I didn't seem to be alone in my delusion. Megachurches, megaministries, megaChristian celebrities-we all seemed to be drinking the same cocktail. We were all casting our visions, emblazoning our BHAGs on banners, lapel pins and Power Point presentations. And quite often, as the crowds cheered, we were standing behind entirely inaccurate interpretations of one little verse in Proverbs.
"So what are you saying, Phil? That we aren't supposed to do good works? We aren't supposed to strive to help others?"
Of course we're supposed to do good works. Good works are the fruit of our faith. As the apostle Paul put it to the church at Ephesus, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works" (Ephesians 2:10). There you go. Gas up the car! Let's get busy!
Wait a minute, Paul wasn't finished: " ... which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10).
That second part of the verse is kind of interesting. According to Paul, God had in mind even before I was born the "good work" he wanted me to do. I don't have to dream it up, I don't have to read a hundred business books and craft a "vision paper," I don't have to try a bunch of stuff and see what works. I just have to stop and listen.
The problem with the saying "God can't steer a parked car" is that, while it's cute, it isn't biblical. When people of great faith in the Bible don't know what God wants them to do, they don't just run off and make stuff up. They wait on him.
"Wait." Wow. You can't get much more un-American than that. Now. Bigger. Faster. More. Very American. "Wait." Hmm. The word brings to mind Russians shuffling in line for toilet paper and meat. Is it any wonder young Christian kids can't wait to do something big? I've met hundreds of them, fresh from Bible college or film school or art school, eager to get busy and write that one hit Christian song or make that one hit Christian movie or start that one hit Christian ministry that will change everything. That will save the world. You know, like Noah. He actually got to "save the world"!
"Where's my ark? I wanna save the world too!"
Yes, Noah was given "a vision." Or more accurately, a revelation. It came with blueprints and everything. But how old was Noah when God tapped him on the shoulder and gave him something big and dramatic to do?
He was nearly five hundred. Five hundred years old.
I think we need to focus our attention a little more on what Noah did with the first five hundred years of his life. "Well, waitwe don't know what he did!" No, we know exactly what he did. Genesis 6:9 says, "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God." What did Noah do for the first five hundred years of his life? He walked with God.
"That's it?" Yes. That's it. That's it exactly. There at the bottom of my Yoda Henry Blackaby, Abraham, the Shunammite woman, C. S. Lewis, my friend Rick pile, I started to get it. The Christian life wasn't about running like a maniac; it was about walking with God. It wasn't about impact; it was about obedience. It wasn't about making stuff up; it was about listening. Noah didn't hit the groun running and get "busy," sketching out visionary ideas on his whiteboard. He didn't spend five hundred years randomly building things - whacking pieces of gopher wood together and saying, "It kind of a ... rowboat. And look! I made sort of a helicopter-ish thing .... Need one of those, God?"
No. Noah walked with God. He waited on God. He shared the love of God with every single person who crossed his path. He lived righteously, following God's commands. Even the little ones. Especially the little ones. And when God needed someone at a specific time in history to advance his will in a specific and dramatic way, he knew who to call, because he knew who was listening.
As I write this, I am growing increasingly convinced that everyone of these kids burning with passion to write that hit Christian song or make that hit Christian movie or start that hit Christian ministry to change the world would instead focus their passion on walking with God on a daily basis, the world would change. What is "walking with God?" Simple. Doing what he asks you to do each and every day. Living in active relationship with him. Filling your mind with his Word, and letting that Word penetrate every waking moment.
So why do I believe a thousand kids walking with God w have more impact on the world than one kid making a hit movie. Because the world learns about God not by watching Christian, movies, but by watching Christians. We are God's representatives on earth-his "royal priesthood." We are his hands and feet. What I put in my movies is more or less irrelevant if it isn't corning out in my life. I realized I had become so busy trying to "save the world" with my visionary ministry that I was often too stressed and preoccupied to make eye contact with the girl bagging my groceries at the supermarket. And where does Christianity actually happen? Where does the "rubber meet the road," as it were? Up on the big screen in a movie theater? On TV? No. Across the checkout line at the grocery store, between me and a girl who makes a fraction of what I make and assumes I don't give a rip about her life. That's where it matters. And that's where, I realized, I was blowing it every day.
Week two, day four: "When God encounters His people ... sin is exposed immediately. People cry out to God, 'Oh God, forgive me!'"
Yoda Henry struck again. In the quiet of our attic, as the remains of my company were being packed up and carted away, I realized my total preoccupation with my own dreams and ideas had rendered me virtually useless to the people around me. Useless. I was failing to demonstrate God's love. I was failing to walk with God. "Oh God, forgive me," I said, falling to my knees. On my next trip to the grocery store, I made a point to smile at the checkout clerk and ask how she was doing. I meant it too.
And then I decided it was time I learned how to wait on God. How did that go, you ask? For a while, very poorly. Unaccustomed to waiting on anything, my first thoughts after the bankruptcy involved elaborate plans to get it all back-to get back in the game. But then God buried me under that pile of spiritual giants and just left me there, unable to move. I kept going through Henry Blackaby's study of Samuel and reading the Bible more voraciously than ever before. I went through all of Paul's letters, writing down every instructive or directive statement. After the bankruptcy, I had taken a small office a couple of blocks from my house in the Chicago area, just for me. And every day I would walk to my office and spend the morning reading the Bible and praying. No agenda. No video to write, no sermon to compose, no strategy for global evangelism to craft. Just reading and praying.
This went on for weeks. At first I was anxiously expecting God to reveal the next "big thing"-the next mountain he wanted me to climb-the next life-changing story he wanted me to write. But after a few weeks stretched into a few months, I didn't so much anymore. Eventually it struck me that I no longer felt the need to write anything. I didn't need to have any impact at all. Whatever needs I had were being met by the Scripture I was reading and by the life of prayer I was developing. My passion was shifting from impact to God.
It took several months, but what I was starting to feel only describe as a sense of "giving up" -of "dying." It actually frightened me at first, because I wasn't sure exactly what was dying in me. And then one day it was clear. It was my ambition. It was my will. It was my hopes, my dreams. My life.
There is a scene in C. S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader involving Eustace, a boy so selfish, prideful, and greedy that he wakes up one day to find he has literally turned into a dragon. Life as a dragon proves so lonely and the dragon skin so uncomfortable that he soon longs to return to his friends, longs to be human again. In this scene, Aslan the lion leads Eustace the dragon to a pool. Eustace enters the pool and tries unsuccessfully to scratch off the aching dragon skin. Then Aslan says, "Lie down. This is going to hurt." And with a long, terrible claw, AsIan digs deep into Eustace's skin, ripping it wide open. It is the most painful thing Eustace has ever experienced, but when it is over, he stands up, a boy again. Reborn.
God could have spared me from the pain of Big Idea’s collapse. He could have spared me from the consequences of my own mistakes and missteps. But he didn't. And it wasn't about “God and Big Idea." It was about "God and Phil." My ambition, my dreams, my misplaced sense of identity and value were dragged kicking and screaming up onto the altar. And now they were dead. Ripped apart like dragon skin.
I realized this when I heard myself say to my wife one night, I don't want to write anything." I was ready to be done, if that's what God wanted. To just rest in him and let everything else fall away. At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just God.
And then, a few weeks later, something interesting happened. I was lying in bed, pondering a spiritual truth that God had impressed upon me. Hmm, I thought, I should write that down and save it for a speaking opportunity. But then suddenly the lesson sprang to life in my head, not as a sermon, but as a story about two pigs in business suits who, though they live right next door, don't know each other's names. Within an hour the whole story was clear in my head. I walked to my office the next day and, a few hours later, had the finished text for a picture book based on a story so simple, yet capturing such a deep spiritual truth that the t time I read it to my wife, she cried. And I thought, "Oh ... is this how it's going to work now?"
And the next week, another idea came. And then another, and another. And before long, I had more ideas than I knew what to do with. Some ideas so small I could lose them in the cushions of the couch and others so big they took my breath away.
But what astonished me is that each one was either derived from or confirmed during a time of waiting on God. Each one came without a hint of anxiety about what it should be, how far it should go, how many lives it should touch. If Big Idea felt like rolling a giant boulder up a hill, this new life - this "abundant life” -felt like gliding on ice.
I took a couple of my new stories to a Christian agent to see if they should become children's books. The agent suggested I spend a day with his staff at a whiteboard talking things through. The first question they asked was "Where do you want to be in five years?" I almost choked. They were asking me for my "vision" for my new ministry. After a long pause, I gave the only answer I could think of: "In the center of God's will." The guy at the whiteboard didn't quite know what to do with that one. I insisted that he write it down at the top of the whiteboard so that it would frame the rest of our discussion.
Like Eustace, I have a new life. It is a wonderful life marked in ever-increasing measure by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is a life almost entirely free from anxiety and stress, except on the days when I let my focus shift from God to the "impact potential" of my new projects. Then I feel the dragon skin slowly creeping back up my legs. But even at those moments, I know that a half hour to an hour spent meditating on God's Word and waiting on him is all it will take to set me free again.
God doesn't love me because of what I can do for him. He just loves me-even when I've done nothing at all. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). That's wild, wild stuff.
I started a new company in 2005 called Jellyfish. Why the name? Well, jellyfish are cute and sort of silly, but there's a deeper meaning. Jellyfish can't locomote. They can't choose their own course. They can go up a little, and they can go down a little, but to get anywhere laterally-to go from point A to point B-they have to trust the current. For a jellyfish, long-range planning is an act of extreme hubris. Lunacy, really. And so it is for me. I believed I could change the world, and the weight of that belief almost crushed me. But guess what-apart from God, I can do nothing. I can't get anywhere. I'm useless. Spineless. Without form. My ability to accomplish anything good is dependent on my willingness to dwell in the current of God's will. To wait on God and let him supply my form and my direction. Like a jellyfish.
Here's the deal, and this is important, so listen closely: If I am a Christian-if I have given Christ lordship of my life-where I am in five years is none of my business. Where I am in twenty years is none of my business. Where I am tomorrow is none of my business. So our plan at Jellyfish-and it's an odd one, I'll admit-is to make no long-range plans unless God gives them explicitly. No BHAGs," no inspiring Power Point vision statements. Just a group of people on their knees, trusting God for guidance each day. -holding everything loosely but God himself.
This was my message as I stood to deliver the commencement address at a large Christian university just a few weeks after the bankruptcy sale. It seemed to me a good candidate for "worst commencement speech ever," but I was convinced it was what God wanted me to say. I was to stand in front of a thousand Christian graduates, eager to make their mark on the world, and tell them to give it up. To take their dreams and aspirations and let them go. Kill them. To find their peace in God alone. I was terrified - half convinced that the school president would pull me behind the curtain and chastise me for undoing four years of hard work in one twenty-minute talk. Nervously, I gave my speech, then returned to my seat on the platform, bracing for the fallout. But no one grimaced. No one yanked me behind the curtain. Instead, there was applause. And then one student near the front stood to his feet, and then another and another, until 2,500 students and family members stood together, applauding. A line of students and parents met me afterward, thanking me for the message. Several middle-aged men thanked me profusely, fighting back tears as they told stories of their own failed endeavors and the waves of self-doubt and confusion that had ensued. An older faculty member remarked that it was the first standing ovation he could remember in his long tenure at the university. The head of the business school vowed to make my talk required listening for all future business students. "You should write a book!" several said.
I was flabbergasted. I was the VeggieTales guy-the guy who makes silly Bible stories for kids-and now middle-aged businessmen were fighting back tears as they listened to my story, a story not about talking vegetables, but about me. A story not about my inspiring success, but about my failure. Within weeks, my speech was being passed around on CD and circulating on the Internet. Christianity Today asked for a copy for an upcoming story, then several Christian publishers called to talk about a book. "No, thank you," I said, "I write fiction for children, not nonfiction for adults." But the story kept resonating.
A few months later, I was asked to speak to a crowd of 3,500 children's pastors, so I spent a day or two expanding the commencement address to a forty-five minute talk about "dreams" and "vision." Again, the response was overwhelming, and within two months I was getting letters from as far away as England, from people wanting to tell me they had heard my talk and it had changed their lives. "And by the way," they'd say, "you should write a book."
Finally, I could take no more. "Okay, God," I said in frustration, "What are you trying to pull, here? My ministry is to kids! Through funny stories!" But God was clearly working, and, as Henry Blackaby says, one of the easiest and best ways to experience God is to identify where he is working and join him there. "But I don't know how to write a book for grown-ups!" I griped. Then I thought of a story about my father, a hot air balloon, and the mayor of Muscatine-a story that might be a good way to start a book. And I thought of the first line: "Evelyn Schauland was a fancy woman." And I thought, Okay, that wasn't too hard - maybe I can do this. Eighty thousand words later, you may be convinced I was wrong. But that would be okay, because God has taught me to focus not on results, but on obedience. Not on the destination, but on the journey.
So what's the point? What should you take away from my first attempt at adult nonfiction, other than, perhaps, an inkling that I should return to my day job?
Simple. First, God loves you. Not because of what you can do, or even because of what you can become if you work really, really hard. He loves you because he made you. He loves you just the way you are. He loves you even when you aren't doing anything at all. We really shouldn't attempt to do anything for God until we have learned to find our worth in him alone.
Second, when it is time to do something for God, and that time will come quickly if you're listening, don't worry about the outcome. Don't worry about "10 percent more" or "30 percent less." That's his job. Your responsibility is simply to do what he asks.
Finally, and I am very serious when I say this, beware of your dreams, for dreams make dangerous friends. We all have them - longings for a better life, a healthy child, a happy marriage, rewarding work. But dreams are, I have come to believe, misplaced longings. False lovers. Why? Because God is enough. Just God. And he isn't "enough" because he can make our dreams come true-no, you've got him confused with Santa or Merlin or Oprah. The God who created the universe is enough for us-even without our dreams. Without the better life, the healthy child, the happy marriage, the rewarding work.
God was enough for the martyrs facing lions and fire-even when the lions and the fire won. And God is enough for you. But you can't discover the truth of that statement while you're clutching at your dreams. You need to let them go. Let yourself fall. Give up. As terrifying as it sounds, you'll discover that falling feels a lot like floating. And falling into God's arms-relying solely on his power and his will for your life-that's where the fun starts. That's where you'll find the "abundant life" Jesus promised-the abundant life that doesn't look anything like evangelical overload.
The impact God has planned for us doesn't occur when we're pursuing impact. It occurs when we're pursuing God.
In 2003, my dream died. And I discovered, once all the noise had faded away, what I had been missing all along.
"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, a God" (Psalm 42:1).
My soul is no longer longing for the impact I can have, nor for the megachurch I could build, nor for the mark I could make on the world. Nor for the happy wife, the healthy child, the meaningful work.
"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God."
Let it go. Give it up. Let it die. Let Christ shred your dragon skin and lead you into a whole new life. Trust me. It's worth it.
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I actually won Scrabble
visioncgbc | May 19, 2008 07:46
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