Gatekeepers

“The four chief gatekeepers, all Levites, were trusted officials, for they were responsible for the rooms and the treasuries at the house of God. They would spend the night around the house of God, since it was their duty to guard it and to open the gates every morning.” (I Chronicles 9:26-27)

Food For Thought: Let’s hear it for the gatekeepers! Today we probably call them church custodians. They are the unsung heroes who don’t get much recognition—unless something goes wrong. They guard the house of God. They prepare it for worship. They unlock the doors for services and batten down the hatches when everybody else abandons ship and heads for home at the end of the day. They make sure the temperature is just right—although in my experience, the gatekeepers will never achieve that lofty ideal. They make sure the restrooms are presentable and keep all the light bulbs working. Their work really never ends.

They are truly heroes of the faith—but they don’t get credit for it. They are mostly unnoticed, underappreciated, and probably underpaid. But they did make it into God’s bulletin—they got listed in I Chronicles 9 along with the star quarterback and the wide-receivers—i.e., the priests and tribal leaders. They were the gatekeepers, and they were “trusted officials.”

I’ve been in church all my life—I cut my teeth on the backs of the pews, even carved my initials in one—and all my adult life has been in vocational ministry. And in each of the churches that I’ve been a part of, the “Gatekeepers” played a significant, but underappreciated roll in the ministry of those houses of God. And I have to confess, I don’t think I did a proper job of appreciating them.

So here’s what I’d suggest: This week, write a note to the “gatekeeper” of your church, and tell him or her how much you appreciate them and value the work they do to prepare God’s house so that you might enjoy worship. Perhaps you can take it a step further and take them out to lunch or buy them an appreciation gift. And make it a regular practice—they deserve it. Oh, and one more thing: Encourage others in your fellowship to do the same…and by all means, teach your children to show respect for them.

Prayer: Lord, I want to acknowledge the scores of people throughout my life that have served as gatekeepers in your house. Most of them have been behind-the-scenes type people, and I am not sure I ever remember any one of them ever being singled out for special appreciation. I pray that you will honor each one in some tangible way. I ask for blessings to be poured out upon them and that deep within their spirit they will sense your love and affirmation. And Lord, the ones who are in my life currently serving as gatekeepers, I will commit before you in this moment that I will do something to show my appreciation for their labor of love.

One more thing… Albert Einstein said, “A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”

You Go Girl!

“Ephraim had a daughter named Sheerah. She built the towns of Lower and Upper Beth-horon and Uzzen-sheerah.” (I Chronicles 7:24)

Food For Thought: Reading through the first 8 chapters of I Chronicles is like reading from the phone book. If you are not careful, you can zone out. Honestly, you won’t miss much—can I say that about the Bible without getting struck by lighting?—name after name that meant something to them back then, but have very little value to us today. Except that within these mind-numbing lists there is occasional interruption of something very interesting, surprisingly inspiring, and quite intriguing. In fact, the little bit of information you get leaves you longing for more. And if you had allowed yourself to sleepwalk your way through these names, you could have missed one of these gems.

I have to confess, as many times as I have read the Bible, I don’t remember the story of Sheerah. Apparently I have been guilty of habitual sleepwalking when it comes to chapter 7. But I was awake today, and what an interesting story Sheerah’s is. I wish I knew more about her.

She was born to Ephraim after two of his sons were killed trying to steal livestock, the text tells us. Her father had been in mourning for these two sons—how old they were we don’t know, why they were stealing we don’t know—all we know is that they were dead and their father was distraught . And the Lord had comforted his grieving heart by blessing him with another son and this daughter, Sheerah. What is perhaps most interesting is that her story gets space in the record that is normally dominated by male figures. In that culture, at that time, women weren’t prominently featured and even a passing mention would have been rare. So when a women does make the front page, hold the press—this is big news. Sheerah must have been quite a gal!

And Sheerah was! She built three towns. How she got people, probably men, to follow her leadership will remain a mystery, but she did. She obviously had great leadership skills, personal charisma, a fearless personality, and the favor of the Lord. And she knew how to use it. And for all of time, and perhaps even in eternity, her story has been memorialized in the Word of God.

The Bible has been accused of being a sexist book that regards women as nothing more than the property of men. I’ll grant that most of the stories in Scripture feature men. But just read the Good Book and you will discover enough inspiring stories about a few good women of impact to see that God is no respecter of persons. He doesn’t look at the outward appearance or the genetic makeup of an individual, he looks at their heart. God uses people—men and women—who have a large faith capacity and a willingness to be stretched.

So let’s hear it for Sheerah! You go girl!

Prayer: Lord, just as you look at the heart and not the outward appearance, teach me to do the same. Help me to look at the person’s heart, to celebrate her faith capacity, to encourage his spiritual potential. Enable me to speak hope, courage and vision into the lives of the many people I come across every single day who deep within, perhaps even at some subconscious level, are struggling with insignificance and wrestling with obscurity. God, if I have a ministry at all, may it be one that is known for helping people to become all that you have designed and destined them to become.

One more thing… Stephen S. Wise said, “Vision looks inward and becomes duty. Vision looks outward and becomes aspiration. Vision looks upward and becomes faith.”

The Winning Formula

“They cried out to God during the battle, and he answered their prayer because they trusted in him.” (I Chronicles 5:20)

Food For Thought: I’ll be short today—I promise. After all, it is the Lord’s Day—a day of rest, right!

Speaking of brief, I read this short, simple, to-the-point verse this morning and here’s the first thing that hits mind brand: Victorious Christianity truly isn’t rocket science, is it! It’s actually quite simple:

Trust in God + Passionate Supplication = Answered Prayer
Answered Prayers = The Victorious Christian Life

When we so order our lives to do the will of God, we have every right—in fact, we have an invitation from God himself—to come before him in bold, expectant prayer, and his promise is to answer us when we call on him. When you string a bunch of those experiences together, you have the makings of an inspiring witness of a life surrendered to and used by God.

That’s the kind of life I want to live.

Prayer: Lord, I need your help today as I step into the battle. I am going forth in your name to do your work in order to extend your kingdom. Enable me to do mighty exploits this day as I fight for you. Work in me and on my behalf to bring about a great victory that will result in high praise to your name. I ask for none of the glory for myself. I ask only for a day that can be chalked up in the win column for your kingdom. So I boldly ask that you would answer this prayer. I offer it in faith in the name of the ultimate victor, Jesus Christ. Amen.

One more thing… English apologist C.S. Lewis wrote in a letter: “Our prayers are really His prayers; He speaks to himself through us.”

Rising Above

 “There was a man named Jabez who was more honorable than any of his brothers. His mother named him Jabez because his birth had been so painful. He was the one who prayed to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain!” And God granted him his request.” (I Chronicles 4:9-10)

Food For Thought:  Much has been written about this little, obscure verse in resent years.  Jabez has been forever popularized by those who’ve written about him, and in the process, his biographers have become wealthy.  I have no problem with that—someone needed to discover Jabez and tell his story.

In just two verses hidden among long lists of forgettable names, Jabez suddenly appears and then, just as suddenly, disappears.  But his brief story is anything but forgettable—mainly because he had the temerity to rise above his circumstances and ask God to bless him with a distinguished life.

In his book, The Pursuit of Excellence, Dr. Ted Engstom writes these challenging words:

Cripple him, and you have a Sir Walter Scott.  Lock him in a prison cell and you have John Bunyan.  Bury him in the snows of Valley Forge and you have a George Washington.  Raise him in abject poverty and you have an Abraham Lincoln.  Strike him with infantile paralysis and he becomes a Franklin Roosevelt.  Burn him so severely that the doctors say he’ll never walk again, and you have a Glenn Cunnngham–who set the world’s one mile record in 1934.  Deafen him and you have a Ludwig van Beethoven.  Have him born black in a society filled with racial discrimination and you have a Booker T. Washington, a Marian Anderson, a George Washington Carver.  Call him a slow learner, “retarded,” and write him off as uneducable, and you have Albert Einstein.

All of these people, like Jabez, and like most of us, have this in common:  We all have things, challenges, obstacles, what we often refer to as baggage in our lives that we have to carry around that can either keep us from becoming what God intends for us to be, or can motivate us to become all that God has designed us to become.

Basically, our baggage comes in two or three different categories.

Physical—some of the baggage we bear we were born with.  Birth defects; from injury or illness; that which came from our parents gene pool…chromosomes and DNA which causes us to has wrong height, weight, shape of face, color of skin, even determines to some degree the kind of personality we have.

Familial—some of the baggage we pick up comes as the result of being wounded by the most important people in our lives—our parents and other family members.  Some of the heaviest baggage we carry comes from the mistreatment or even abuse of the people we trust…physical, sexual, emotional abuse.

Failures—many people carry the baggage of the guilt of past mistakes—a failed relationship, a failed marriage, a failed business, academic failure; the baggage of a moral failure, a sin, whose consequences you live with everyday.

Whichever baggage we carry, the reality is it can weigh us down and keep us from enjoying a happy, productive and significant life, or it can be the very thing that motivates us to turn it over to God and receive his help to overcome and become all he wants us to be.

Jabez is the patron saint for those who are courageous enough to confront the baggage in their lives and tap into God’s willingness to empower them to overcome it.  A couple of things stand out in these two verse about Jabez:

One is his unique personal history of Jabez.   And what stands out about his history is that it was marked by obscurity.  I mean, who is this man…where did he come from…and who were his brothers?  As a matter of fact, doesn’t it seem that this little vignette is totally out of place with the rest of the chapter.   It’s as though the writer spaced out in writing this genealogy and slipped in this tid-bit about Jabez, which has no connection to the rest of the chapter.  Jabez appears out of nowhere.  There’s no history…no family line to trace…no story.

Or is there?  Is there a story here in his obscurity?  I think there is.   I like what the great Bible commentator Matthew Henry says about these verses:  “The Spirit of God singles out Jabez out for notice and lingers over him with delight.  He is a bright gem on an apparently hard and uninteresting surface shinning with brilliancy…His name would have not notice…but for what there is of God in it…it is this that gave Jabez a name in eternity.

Jabez is not known for any heroic act; Scripture remembers him only for his bold prayer.  I like that about this man.  Most of the time our heroes of the faith are people we elevate to such a height that they become untouchable.  By nature a hero is someone far superior in character or in deed that we are.  We can’t really identify with them in everyday life…we can only look up to them.

But Jabez is just like us.  He’s a nobody, a non hero, an obscure man who found his way into the pages of history, not because of a great act, but because of an act of faith.  What gave Jabez significance in an otherwise insignificant life was that he boldly called upon God.

Here is a special truth that we can derive from this:  The obscurity of the most obscure life can be shattered by the power of a bold prayer; the most insignificant person becomes significant when they reach out to the God of heaven with the boldest of requests.

The second thing I notice in these two verses is the unique character of Jabez.  And what stands about his character is that he was disadvantaged from the get-go.  He had a less than ideal background and a tainted nature thrust upon him by his mother at birth.  The very first thing we read in verse 9 is that he was more noble than his brothers.  Apparently he lived in a family of scalawags.

It is noted that he was more honorable than they because he rose above the character flaws that seemed to haunt his family.  His brothers gave into their flawed nature;  he rose above it through prayer. You also see that one of the greatest influences in this flawed character was the outlook of his mother.  She named him Jabez, which in the Hebrew language meant, he will cause pain.

Why did she name him that?  Because the birth of this child was more difficult than usual.  Now this is important because in the Hebrew way of thinking, a negative name, which in this case commemorated the pain of his mother during childbirth, made him a born loser.

He was destined to fulfill these negative expectations; his named became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And this name created an emotional hang-up which kept him from leading a full life.  His character stuck with him.  His mother’s prediction became his predilection…it became his nature.  He was a real pain.

It has been well document the influence a parent’s words and attitude has on the outcome of their child’s future.  The story is told of two men, Bill Glass and Jim Sundberg.  Jim Sundberg’s father told him he would end up in prison someday, just like others in his family.  And that’s exactly where Jim ended up.

Bill Glass’s father told him as a young boy that one day he would grow up to be a famous ball player.  Years later Bill Glass became a famous athlete in the professional ranks.

Several years ago Dr. Robert Rosenthal, a professor at Harvard, conducted an intriguing experiment involving three groups of students and three groups of rats.  He informed the first group of students, “You’re in luck.  You’ll be working with genius rats…they’ve been bred for intelligence and are extremely bright.  They will get to the end of the maze in nothing flat and eat lots of cheese, so buy plenty.”

The second group was told, “Your rats are just average, not too bright, not too dumb, just a bunch of average rats.  They will eventually get to the end of the maze and eat some cheese, but don’t expect too much from them.  They’re average inability and intelligence, so their performance will be average.”

The third group was told, “These rats are really bad.  If they even find the maze, it’ll be by accident and not design.  They’re really idiots, so naturally they’ll be low in performance.  I’m not certain you should even buy cheese…just paint a sign at the end of the maze that says cheese.”

And for the next six weeks the students conducted their experiments under exacting scientific conditions.  The genius rats performed like geniuses.  They reached the end of the maze in short order.  The average rats—well, what do you expect from a bunch of average rats.  They made it to the end but didn’t set any records getting there.

And the bad rats—were they ever sad!  They had real difficulty, and when one finally made it to the end, it was by accident.  Now the interesting thing is there is no such thing as genius, average or idiot rats.  The difference was in the attitude of the students toward them.  In short, the students treated them differently because they saw them differently, and different treatment brings different outcomes.

So it was with the treatment Jabez received from his mother and others who saw his as a pain.  But the truth is, even if we’ve been saddled with a bad reputation, a flaw in our character, expectations of others that are extremely negative and low, a future that doesn’t look too positive, we don’t have to settle for it.

In a moment God can take your flaws, your weakness, your propensities and turn them around.  He is the master of taking weakness and turning them into strengths; of turning scars to tars, tragedies to triumphs, disadvantages to advantages, when you boldly submit them to him and expect him to change them.

You are just a bold prayer away from rising above.  I think maybe God is just waiting for you to send of a big, bold, bodacious prayer.  Who knows, maybe you’re the next Jabez!

Prayer: Lord, I need to rise above…above my circumstances, my family background, my physical, emotional and intellectual short-comings.  So I boldly pray that you would bless me a lot; that you would extend your hand of grace toward me and enlarge my capacity to know you, love you, serve you and be used mightily by you.  Lord, keep me from experiencing pain, and keep me from being the source of pain.  Make my life a modern Jabez story.  Amen.

One more thing… Character is made by what you stand for; reputation, by what you fall for. (Robert Quillen)