Embracing Uncertainty

[podcast]http:/www.revkwon.com/podcast/embracing_uncertainty.mp3[/podcast] I think some of us are bored to death with our faith and I’ll tell you why. We’ve settled for certainty. If we actually stepped out in faith relationally or financially or spiritually, we’d be anything but bored. We might even be stressed out. I know one thing about life. You can’t plan for everything. At the beginning of last night, you can look in your booklets, but no encounter Benaiah had was planned. He didn’t exactly wake up one morning and sketch out every detail. It wasn’t scheduled on his smartphone. It wasn’t on his to do list and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on his wish list. Let’s look at 2 Samuel 23:20-21 again. ²⁰There was also Benaiah son of Jehoiada, a valiant warrior from Kabzeel. He did many heroic deeds, which included killing two champions of Moab. Another time, on a snowy day, he chased a lion down into a pit and killed it. ²¹Once, armed only with a club, he killed a great Egyptian warrior who was armed with a spear. Benaiah wrenched the spear from the Egyptian’s hand and killed him with it. (2 Samuel 23:20-21) Start sharing your faith, start tithing your money, get uncomfortable with people you know you can’t help. Quit walking the path of certainty and end up somewhere you never even planned on going. When you start following Christ, anything can happen. All bets are off. Jesus promised us high levels of uncertainty– the element of surprise. Probably ten years ago I went camping with a few of my buddies. Back then my friends and I were wild men. We went to the gym all the time and we grunted. We took nothing but a knife, a lighter, two fishing rods, some water and a tent. No food, no utensils, no anything and set off for a 4 day camping trip to the middle of nowhere. We were going to rough it out in the wilderness, hunt our own food and find our own water. It rained every day we were out there. We eventually went to a camping ground as opposed to staying out in the forest and then found a Walmart off a close by freeway. Following Jesus is like a camping trip with no supplies. ¹⁸ Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. ¹⁹ And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” ²⁰ And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” ²¹ Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” ²² And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” ²³ And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. (Matthew 8:18-23) This was the story of the first disciples. Just imagine, Jesus says, come follow me and these guys left everything they knew behind and got off the boat and started following Jesus. They left behind their families, careers and their livelihood. Peter Andrew, James and John could have spent the rest of their lives fishing, but they chose instead to follow Jesus. Here’s what that meant: you will never know where you’re going to end up. Anything will happen. All bets are off. In fact, all of the disciples did this. That was exactly Jesus’ instructions to them. When we look back on our lives, the defining moments are going to be those forks in the road where we could have stayed on the path of certainty, but we made a decision to walk down the path of uncertainty instead. This is having a relationship with Christ. When you chose or will choose to have Jesus as the LORD of your life you are signing up for an adventure unlike any other will journey on. Expectations needed to be changed. When these guys agreed to get on that boat with Jesus, this is what happened. And he called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, ² and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. ³ And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics. ⁴ And whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. ⁵ And wherever they do not receive you, when you leave that town shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” ⁶ And they departed and went through the villages, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere. (Luke 9:1-6) Write this down because this important: you are given power and authority. There are some classic movies like “The Fugitive” or the “Gladiator” where you’re on the edge of your seat the entire movie because there is a high level of uncertainty. The outcome could go either way and it makes such a great story. But here’s what you know about the protagonist of those stories: there is power and authority that comes from somewhere unseen. That is the power of and authority of God. When Jesus sent his disciples out with what seemed like nothing, he made sure that the best life they could live was at the crossroads of embracing circumstantial uncertainty and spiritual faith. That is to say that Jesus gives them something better than meets the eye. Why else would Jesus say to his disciples that they shouldn’t take anything for the journey? In fact, doesn’t it imply here that Jesus was saying these things will be taken care of, don’t worry about that, just focus on why and what you’re doing? I love to hate on people who are always waiting for the perfect conditions. Michelle and I have an older friend who isn’t married and the biggest hindrance to marriage is that the potential wedding candidate isn’t perfect or maybe the candidate thought perfection is needed on this end. Whatever it is, it is certain that if they were waiting for the perfect conditions, neither of them will ever do anything. That’s pretty much the conclusion. There’s a time to be cautious and a time throw caution into the bottom of the sea. There’s a time to be prudent and a time to valiant. It takes an awful lot of discernment to know when to do which. Regardless of when you act, if you wait for certainty, you’ll never do anything. I once heard a pastor down in ATL said this once, 80% certain is the most certain you’ll ever get. If you wait for anymore, then you’ll miss out on an opportunity. When the disciples got on the boat in Matthew 8:23, I suppose those guys could have spent the rest of their lives fishing, but they made a decision to walk the path of uncertainty. One of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made was deciding to make a career move after establishing a name and reputation in a career I was thriving in. I didn’t just do it once, I did it first by choosing to go to seminary, then by getting out of the government game and joining a consulting firm. I had to start over from the bottom, at my second master’s degree, and then again at the bottom of a new company and build my reputation and influence all over again. We have to learn to enjoy the unplanned, unscripted, unpredictable moments in life. We’re being led by the Holy Spirit– it’s done with our antennas up praying to God and sitting back on the backseat waiting for God to drop us off without telling us were we’re going. It’s improv. There’s a book called “The Barbarian Way” I read a while back by a guy named Erwin McManus, and in it he describes what a group of rhinos are called: a crash. You know rhinos can run 30 mph. Just imagine a 2000 pound beast running at 30 mph. But the funny thing about rhinos is that they can only see 31 feet in front of them. The problem is at full speed, the rhino runs 44 feet per second (travelling at 30 mph). “The future is uncertain, but we need to move toward it with confidence. There is a future to be created, a humanity to be liberated. We need to stop wasting our time and stop being afraid of what we cannot see and do not know. We need to move forward full force because what we do know.”