Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor (2) advice to the ordinary

Last week I told you about Don Carson's tribute to his father, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. This week, I'd like to share Don Carson's 9 reflections on his father's depression and discouragement in ministry.

You'll appreciate these 9 reflections if you minister to others in any way, especially if you sometimes struggle with feelings of inadequacy and discouragement in ministry (and don't we all?!).

• People in ministry (especially workaholics!) need to remember the proper place of rest, and that we live in the freedom of God's grace. "The ministry is so open-ended that one never feels that all possible work has been done, or done as well as one might like. There are always more people to visit, more studying to be done, more preparation to do. What Christians must do, what Christian leaders must do, is constantly remember that we serve our God and Maker and Redeemer under the gospel of grace."
• "Mum used to tell us kids, 'Work hard, and play hard, but never confuse the two.' ... Mum's maxim should be posted on the mirrors of most ministers."
• "It is always disconcerting to see other ministers in your own sphere of service working effectively and fruitfully while you are plagued with stagnation. When that happens, there may be things to learn from more fruitful ministries, but sometimes one must simply rejoice that some ministers are more fruitful and more blessed than you are."
• "Tom had a remarkably tender conscience. On so many fronts this is a good thing. Indeed, it is an almost universally recognized truth that the closer a believer is to God, the more deeply he or she recognizes and feels the weight of personal sin. This might become an insupportable burden if it is not joined with an ever-deepening grasp of the limitless dimensions of the love of God (cf. Ephesians 3:14-21). ... In Tom's case, he not only felt his own sin, but the failures and sins of those in his congregations ... Tom was developing a glass-half empty analysis of himself that was not, finally, realistic."
• "To his enormous credit and his family's good, at no point did he ignore his wife and children. ... Tom did not fall into the assorted temptations that sometimes detach a minister from his family or even lead him to betray them."
• It helps if we're aware of the most effective way of ministering in our particular fields (in Tom's case, he was slow to realise the importance of single language French congregations in Quebec).
• "Much Christian contentment turns on perceiving things in the right grid." When we're experiencing failure in ministry, it's hard to combine contentment in our situation with humble confession of our sins and failing.
• It's important to know ourselves, and how we minister most effectively. "Tom worked best on a team on which others were ordering his life and work for him, and he was set free to play to his strengths. ... Self-knowledge ... is vital."
• "We should recognize that Tom's journal entries expressing deepest anguish frequently have the texture of biblical lament. Tom never stands in judgement of God; he never curses God. In his gloomest moments Tom ends up with a cry for help."

I pray that when you and I face inevitable discouragements in ministry, we would remember these lessons from the life of a faithful, ordinary pastor: the importance of rest as we accept the limits of our creatureliness and enjoy the freedom of grace, the ability to rejoice in the success of others without despairing over our failures, the wisdom to see ourselves clearly and to work effectively in the situation God has placed us in, the faithfulness to care for our families, and the faith to cry out to God when we feel discouraged and alone.

These 9 reflections are from Don Carson's Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor pp. 92-96.

ageing beauty

This post appeared at Sola Panel today. I thought I'd reproduce it in full here, with pictures. I hope you enjoy it!

I'm sitting outside a cafe at a wobbly iron table, my pen moving lazily and messily across my notebook as I dream and write, dream and write. I sip from my mug-sized chai latte. A European wasp hovers hungrily above the frothed milk.

I look up and see a slim young Asian woman, neatly dressed in white shirt and charcoal bootlegs, smooth, dark hair in a ponytail, discreet silver rings in her ears. She tugs gently on the padded front bar of a walker.

Behind the walker is an elderly woman, bent sideways and stooped over like a crooked L. She shuffles one foot forward and slides the other up to meet it, swollen ankles hanging in soft folds over slippered feet. Her skin is crumpled and spotted with age, her white fly-away hair scant and dry, her patterned shirt and pleated skirt thrift-shop polyester.

She lowers herself carefully onto a bench. The young woman fetches a cup of tea and an easily digested sweet biscuit, and sits and chats about whatever comes into her head: the balmy weather, a boyfriend who left her, how she likes to sit in the garden after work. The older woman listens attentively, a small smile on her carefully lipsticked mouth.

Here is a greater humility than I have yet learned—not just to serve, but to receive service—to patiently accept help with simple tasks like walking, personal tasks like choosing which bread rolls to buy, and intimate tasks like showering. It would be even harder (for me, at least) to respond graciously when, inside, I'm longing for solitude and silence—to trade this lovely coffee shop stillness (how I love sitting alone in coffee shops!) for a constant companion who feels the need to make cheery conversation.

It looks like the younger woman is serving the older, but I suspect a different dynamic is operating. A sweet and unassuming gift is being given from older to younger—a gift of experienced wisdom, cheerful forbearance and patient stillness. It's a wisdom gained through a lifetime, a cheerfulness won during who knows how many battles with irritation and anxiety, and a stillness that has been reached after many years of cooking and washing and cleaning and serving.

How easy it would be to become bitter and self-absorbed and grumpy and anxious and shrill as I grow old! Instead, I pray that I will become like this woman, whose gentle spirit shines from her sweet face with a soft radiance. I pray that as my joints ache and my skin wrinkles, my heart would grow more lovely year by year. I pray that even now, I would be planting the seeds of humility, gentleness, cheerfulness and forbearance that will one day blossom into the beauty of lovely old age.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. 1 Pet 3:3-4

images are from stock.xchng

JI Packer on wisdom and the fear of God

Probably the most common definition for the fear of the LORD is reverence or awe. After weeks of trying to work out what "the fear of God" is, I've come full circle and decided that this is a pretty good definition.

The reason I don't just stop there and be done with it is that "reverence" and "awe" are very slippery terms, and I'd like to unpack exactly what they mean (a vague feeling of devotion? obedient service? fear without the scary bits? all of the above?).

Here's a great passage from JI Packer where he defines "the fear of the Lord" as "reverence", and explains how it leads to wisdom.

Where can we find wisdom? What steps must a person take to lay hold of this gift? There are two prerequisites, according to Scripture.

First, we must learn to reverence God. 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 9:10; cf. Job 28:28; Prov. 1:7; 15:33). Not till we have become humble and teachable, standing in awe of God's holiness and sovereignty ('the great and awesome [fearful] God', Neh. 1:5; cf. 4:14; 9:32; Deut. 7:21; 10:17; Ps. 99:3; Jer. 20:11), acknowledging our own littleness, distrusting our own thoughts, and willing to have our minds turned upside down, can divine wisdom become ours.

It is to be feared that many Christians spend all their lives in too unhumbled and conceited a frame of mind ever to gain wisdom from God at all. Not for nothing does Scripture say, 'with the lowly is wisdom' (Prov. 11:2 KJV).

Then, second, we must learn to receive God's word. Wisdom is divinely wrought in those, and those only, who apply themselves to God's revelation. 'Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,' declares the psalmist, 'I have more insight than all my teachers:' why? - 'for I meditate on your statutes' (Ps. 119:98 f.).

JI Packer http://www.amazon.com/Knowing-God-J-I-Packer/dp/083081650X 113; emphases his, bit in square brackets mine.

image is from stock.xchng

Proverbs (4) the fear of the LORD

My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,
turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,
and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Prov 2:1-6)

What a great picture of a young man desperately seeking wisdom!

He's learned from his father that wisdom is like a beautiful young woman, eager to grant him riches beyond price. He's heard that wisdom brings honour, power, pleasure and long life. He's been taught to value wisdom beyond gold and silver, to search for it as for buried treasure.

I can see him in my mind's eye, going to a field where he's been told this priceless treasure lies buried. Perhaps, like the young man in Jesus' parable, he's sold all he has to buy this field (Matt 13:44-46). He digs and digs, sweat stinging his eyes, hands blistered and muscles aching, until the field is a wasteland of turned earth.

Suddenly his spade hits a chest with a ringing sound. He furiously throws the dirt away, first in spadefuls and then in handfuls, until the chest is uncovered. He dusts the remaining earth from the lid with trembling fingers, and reverently raises the lid. He says to himself, "At last! Here's wisdom! Here's the treasure I've been looking for!".

But what does he find inside? He finds the words the "fear of the LORD". It's like one of those bad Sunday school activities where you expected lollies, and were given a moral lesson instead. I can picture him saying, "The fear of the LORD?! I was looking for wisdom, and you give me the fear of the LORD?! What's going on here?"

He storms home, disappointed, and shouts at his father: "You told me I'd find wisdom! You told me that wisdom will give me riches and honour and power! But all I find is the fear of the LORD! What do I need fear for? I wanted people to fear me! I don't want to fear anyone else!"

His father takes him to one side. "My son, you were looking for wisdom, because you thought that with wisdom you would win respect, power, and riches - and so you will. But the way to wisdom is not as simple as uncovering a treasure chest. You see, wisdom is hidden in God. Only he knows the way to it (Job 28:20-23). There's only one way to find wisdom, and that's by starting with the fear of the LORD:

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Prov 9:10 cf 1:7)."

And so the young man begins a new search. What is this thing called "the fear of the LORD"? Where does it live, and what does it look like?

At this point our Bible study group became a little lost, and so did I! There are few concepts in the Bible more debated and harder to understand than "the fear of the LORD". We learned lots about "the fear of the LORD", but we weren't able to decide exactly what it means.

And so my own search began. I've been hunting through concordances and commentaries for weeks. I'm going to interrupt my series on pride to share what I'm learning about "the fear of the LORD". I'm no expert, so if you've got any ideas or useful resources to share on "the fear of the LORD", please tell me so we can learn from each other!

images of chest and mattock are from stock.xchng, image of boy discovering chest is from Clyde Bentley at flickr, image of "fear God" banner is from EmerandSam at everystockphoto

green pastures

Andrew is climbing up onto my desk, standing in front of the computer screen so that I have to peer around him to type this, and jumping into my arms. He declares:

"I'm getting down on gween pastures!"

It seems he's been listening while the older kids and I have been learning Psalm 23 during breakfast. It's good to know that God's word can even sink into the heart of a 2 year old.

And what are the "gween pastures"? Well, according to Andy, they're his mum. A bit of a theological misunderstanding, but we'll get there! In the meantime, I don't mind being thought of as green pastures.

bellbird

The other day, as I was shepherding my straying 2 year old across the tanbark on the way into school to pick up the kids, I heard a familiar "tink!" in the gum tree above. I looked up, and there it was: a small green bird, flitting from branch to branch. A bellbird!

I grew up with bellbirds in our backyard. There's no more beautiful or evocative Australian bird song that I know of, apart from the carolling of the magpies in the early morning. Like the single metallic chime of a high-pitched bell, but far more piercing and beautiful, the bellbirds' "tink!" rings through the bush. You don't often see them, but you can't help but hear them.

I heard another bellbird as I woke up the other morning, chiming from the lemon-scented gums behind our bedroom. And another "tink!" just interrupted my thoughts as I wrote this post. Yes! There's another! And another, and another! Somewhere in the trees near our house there's a bellbird, dancing from tree to tree, piping his little song.

The bellbirds no longer come to the backyard of the house I grew up in. You don't often hear them inside the city limits. But here they are, in the homely surroundings of our suburb. I think they might be fugitives from the burned bushland only 30 minutes to the north of us.

Welcome, little refugees! I hope you've come to stay.

If you've never heard a bellbird (or, more properly, a bell miner) you can listen to it here or here.

image is by Fir0002/Flagstaffotos from Wikimedia Commons.

Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor (1) to be faithful

Don Carson's Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson is a tribute by a son to his father. It's a moving and encouraging book, and a wonderful antidote to pride.

The man who transcribed the English part of Tom Carson's diaries says,

I used to aspire to be the next Henry Martyn [heroic British Bible translator and missionary to the Muslim peoples of India and Persia]. However, after reading your dad's daires, the Lord has given my heart a far loftier goal: simply to be faithful. I know we as men are but dust, but what dust the man I read about in these diaries was!

Tom Carson was an ordinary pastor, but also that most extraordinary of things: a man who sacrificed himself to tell others about Jesus, who didn't seek the praise of men, who spent much of his life in his knees, who dealt with conflict with humility and forbearance, and who struggled through his own "dark night of the soul" (brought on, as mine is so often, by perfectionistic guilt - but also, as mine so often isn't, by passion for the cause of the gospel) with perseverance and faith.

I cried when I read the closing paragraphs of these memoirs:

When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcement on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. In his hospital room there was no one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing.

But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to theh only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man - he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor - but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord."

I went away from reading this book determined to aim for that rarest of things: not to be praised or respected, but simply to be faithful.

The highlight of the book for me was the chapter on Tom's depression and discouragement in ministry. What Don Carson says is so significant for anyone in ministry, that I'm saving it for another post.

tangles untangled

For a long time now - just over a year, to be exact, since I started this whole blogging business, and forcibly ripped my brain from the murkiness of breastfeeding and babies into the competing demands of childrearing and ministry - I've been struggling to keep the different strands of research projects and family needs and books to read and household tasks and ministry responsibilities separate in my head.

Like a tangled ball of yarn, they knot themselves around each other, a mess of incomplete ideas and unmet responsibilities and unfinished tasks, and sit somewhere inside me, an undigested mass in my gut, pressing upwards on my diaphragm, pressing on my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

I pray for God to untangle the ball. Occasionally, I tease a thread loose and pray about it. God responds, and unknots a strand or two, relieves the tightness and anxiety, and replaces it with his peace. But I glance away from him, and before I know it, another pressing responsibility, another incomplete project, another forgotten task tangles itself into the ball, and there it is again, cutting off my breath. Am I the only one who feels this way?

Some weeks ago, as I sat on my rock and prayed, an amazing thing happened: my perspective shifted sideways and I saw things differently.

The tangled ball of yarn was still there - the threads of ideas half-examined and tasks half-done and topics half-tackled and responsibilities half-met and books half-read and people half-cared for. But the threads were no longer tangled in my mind's eye.

Each thread lay, a separate and glowing strand, weaving over and under one another, but without knots or tangles. Some strands had been laid aside for a time, to be picked up later; others ended or began at certain points; still others lay in my hand, being woven into the pattern. Not a mess of knotted and tangled threads, but a neat bundle of coloured yarn, with each strand finding its place in the whole.

What this means for me, perfectionist and control-freak that I am, is that I don't need to keep track of every thread. I can lay one down and pick it up again or not as the case may be. My life doesn't depend on my ability to keep things organised, understood, and under control. Thoughts come and thoughts go, responsibilities are taken up and laid aside, projects are tackled and abandoned, but I can trust God to take care of the whole.

And if I (speaking sententiously and in cliches now!) am God's tapestry, and he is the weaver, who am I to think I can keep every strand clear and distinct and in my sight at all times? My job is to be faithful to God's word and to the people he has given me to care for, but only God sees every motive and perceives every thought and watches over every responsibility. I make plans, but he is the master designer who shapes my days (Prov 16:9, 19:21).

When I look back over my life from the perspective of heaven, I will see how every thought, every task, every responsibility was taken and used by him for the glory of his Son. And that is enough for me. That is knowledge too wonderful for me.

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

images are from stock.xchng

John Milton on Satan's pride and fall

These are the words of Satan to his lieutenant Beelzebub after being cast out of heaven, as imagined by John Milton in Paradise Lost. They describe the essence of pride at its first beginning, handed down to all of us who know what it is to be proud.

What though the field be lost?
All is not lost—the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield:
And what is else not to be overcome?
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power
Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
Doubted his empire—that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall ...

Farewell happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

pride (4) a short history of pride

Pride: to seek for yourself the glory and authority that belong to God, forgetting your dependence on him.*

If this is pride, then before humans were made, there was pride. Satan and his cohorts, bright and glorious angels, raised themselves against God, seeking his glory and power for themselves. They were cast out of heaven into the depths of hell (2 Pet 2:4, Jude 6 cf Isa 14:3-23, Ezek 28:1-19). But the fruit of devilish wisdom is still pride.

If this is pride, then the first sin on earth involved pride. Why did Adam and Eve rebel against God? Because the serpent promised they would become "like God" (Gen 3:4). They doubted God's true word, threw off his rightful authority, and set themselves up as mini-gods, masters of their own destiny. God ripped away their immortality by throwing them from the garden (Gen 3). But we still bear the proud likeness of our father Adam (Rom 5:12-21).

If this is pride, then it’s the main characteristic of humans when they get together. The Tower of Babel was supposed to be a grand monument to human achievement, built "so that we may make a name for ourselves" (Gen 11:4). God, of course, stepped in and showed just how much bigger he is than puny humanity: he scattered humans to the four corners of the earth, separated by different languages and cultures (Gen 11:1-9).

If this is pride, then it fuels all opposition to God and his people. Through the Bible there's a line of kings, obsessed by power and wealth, who want to throw off God’s rule and turn themselves into gods, to be worshipped and obeyed (Isa 14:3-23, Ezek 28:1-19): Pharaoh (Exod 5-15, 9:29-30), Nebuchadnezzar (Dan 3-4), Sennacherib (Isa 36-37), Herod (Ac 12:19b-25). God laughs and scoffs at them, for they are puppets in his hands, to be raised up or cast down as he sees fit (Ps 2, 37, 73).

If this is pride, then it lies behind all the long history of God's people. Raised up from a single wandering herdsman (Gen 17), the smallest and most insignificant of nations (Deut 7:7-8), like a woman lying in her filth and chosen to be God’s bride (Ezek 16): there’s no reason for pride here. But God’s people continually become puffed up by their God-given blessings: they forget what God has done for them, turn to more easily manipulated gods, and refuse to submit to God’s word. He brings them low, they repent, he raises them up, and the cycle starts again (Neh 9).

If this is pride, then we are still guilty of it. Every time we try to earn God's grace, or doubt his love because we haven't lived up to it (Rom 4:2, 10:1-4, Eph 4:9). Every time we're motivated by envy and selfish ambition (Phil 2:3, Jam 3:14-16). Every time we quarrel (Prov 13:10, 1 Tim 6:3-5), show favouritism (Jam 2:1-12), oppress the weak (Isa 13:11, Ps 10:2, Ezek 16:49), or boast (1 Jn 2:16, Jude 16). Every time we become secure in our wisdom, beauty, wealth, or strength, and forget we are like wild flowers, here today and gone tomorrow (Jer 9:23-24, 1 Tim 6:17, Jam 1:9-11).

If this is pride, then it is time to humble ourselves before the Lord, for we are all guilty of pride. It is time to grieve, mourn and wail, to acknowledge our need for God's grace, and to seek his forgiveness, knowing that he is the one who opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble (Jam 4:1-10).

If this is pride.

* I took this definition from verses like Deut 8:14, 2 Chron 25:19, 32:25, 2 Kgs 19:22, Ps 10:4, Isa 37:23, Jer 9:23-24, 13:15, 17, Hos 13:6, and Neh 9:16, 29.

If you want to read more about the history of pride, you can view John Stott's excellent article "Pride, Humility and God" from Alive to God: Studies in Spirituality online at Google Books.

Images of statues are from stock.xchng; fresco of Adam and Eve is by Masaccio's fresco in the Santa Maria del Carmini church in Florence, Italy; "Tower of Babel" woodcut is by MC Escher; Israel poster is available from All Posters.