Week of June 13, 2010

  • Pastor Duane Cross
  • Jun 14, 2010

PATHWAYS

In a wonderful book by Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership, the author describes 7 different pathways through which people learn and connect with God.  In the next few weeks, I would like to share them with you.  Sacred pathways are like doors that open into a room where we can feel particularly close to God.  We all have different personalities and spiritual gifts, maybe in understanding your pathway to God; you will be able to revitalize your own walk with God.

THE ACTIVIST PATHWAY

Unlike contemplatives, activists are at their best at a speed of Mach 2.  They’re happiest when white knuckled and gasping for breath.  Because of their wiring they need—actually they revel in—a highly challenging environment that pushes them to the absolute edge of their potential.  It’s when they’re right on that edge that they feel closest to God.  In fact, they feel so close to God that they invoke his name with great sincerity, “Oh, God!  Oh, God!  Oh, God!”

Other people tend to fear those on the activist pathway.  It seems as though these activists are consistently biting off more kingdom work than they can chew.  Casual onlookers start to feel sorry for them.  They might even attempt to bail them out until they realize that activists like to live this way.

Christian activists choose a fast pace.  No one has a gun to their heads.  No third party stuffed a rocket in their britches and lit the fuse.  They’re not victims.  They love riding rockets.  Put them on an Amtrak train and they’ll figure out a way to double its speed.

Do you think God made a mistake when he wired some leaders this way?  Be careful.  The church of Jesus Christ wouldn’t be what it is today without some of these characters in her past.  Read about John Wesley.  The guy was a ministry maniac.  Learn about George Whitefield.  He preached himself into near exhaustion throughout the course of his life.  Then there was D.L. Moody, who kept all his associates wondering how one person could do all he did.

Scores of such men and women received a calling from God, burst out of the starting blocks, and ran full speed from the day they received their orders until the day they keeled over and died.  Along the way they ignited all kinds of kingdom activity.  Ask activists when they feel closest to God and they will respond, “When I’m way out on a limb of faith flapping in the breeze.  When the battle against evil is the fiercest and the only hope for victory is divine intervention.”  Activists are fond of saying, “I feel closest to God when I have wrung out every last drop of my emotional, physical, and spiritual potential for a worthy kingdom cause.  Or when I collapse on the pillow at night and say, ‘There God—I gave you my all, my best, my very last drop.’”

That’s as good as it gets for activists.  I know a little about this because this is my primary pathway. (Surprise! Surprise!)  Believe me, I’m not advocating insanity.  I’ve done insanity.  It’s highly overrated.  But some activists feel guilty about the extraordinary energy with which they attack ministry.  My counsel to them is to accept that God made them that way and to lean into their pathway.  Come into God’s presence—even if it’s with your hair on fire.  He knows our kind and enjoys us completely.  Really!

Sincerely,

Duane's Photo-Signature

Pastor Duane

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