Best Served Hot – Trip Ups

This past August, we had the honour of hosting our first school Sports Day since the pandemic-induced school closures. It was our second sports day ever and we were all excited. Caleb and Chiara were beyond excited, both of them ready to take the winning cup for their house. When they realised they were on opposing teams, unable to fully process this, they decided they would cheer for one another. Chiara did a much better job at this, learning Caleb’s house chants and singing them along with him, sometimes a little too enthusiastically. As the big day approached, we received daily reports about how training was going at school. Chiara was a fast runner but her desire to see everyone win was costing her the race. According to her teacher, each time she would zip past her friends, she would stop a little shy of the finish line to wait for them. This was comical for me to hear but her Daddy, who is very competitive, was not amused. He challenged Chiara to cross the finish line first and then cheer for her friends. She reluctantly promised she would and much to her father’s dismay, her daily training reports remained unchanged.

When the day finally arrived, the energy was electric and the excitement was palpable from parents, teachers and pupils alike. Caleb and Chiara were ready, and with Daddy’s final words of encouragement and Mommy’s prayer, they set off to the field where the other participants awaited their turn to hit the track. Caleb participated in two races. As he stood on the starting line, he was focused. The starting whistle blew and off he went, his long arms and long legs giving him a little advantage. A few meters into the race, his yellow headband, denoting his house colour, began to slip from his forehead. It wasn’t long before it dropped down to his eyes and became a distraction. Caleb pushed it back up as he continued to run but that split-second distraction had cost him. He came third and was surprisingly content. He had done his best under the circumstances. His second race was a relay. I know his team didn’t come first in this one either yet I remember seeing on his face how much fun he was having running back and forth.

Chiara also participated in two races even though that was not the plan. A few pupils did not turn up for their designated races and so she was placed in a relay race which was not the race she had been practicing for. Nonetheless, as she stood at the starting line, she had her game face on. She wanted to win and her body language said it all. When the starting whistle blew, she had to wait for the three participants in the relay to get to her so that she could run the anchor leg of the race. Sadly, her teammates were slow and even though she gave it all she had in that final leg, she was third to finish. When she crossed the finish line, shock and horror filled her face. The first thing she said was, “Can we do that again?” She couldn’t believe she hadn’t won the race. It was outside what she had grown accustomed to during all the afternoons of practice. As the reality of the situation settled into her little mind, the tears started to flow. My poor baby had to face the reality that she had not come first, so she did what any logical person would do, she insisted on racing again. Her coaches indulged her and placed her in another race that was also low on participants due to non-attendance. She was not going down without a fight. Though this second race was much later in the program, she had that same game face on as she stood on the starting line. This was redemption time, and she was going to make it count. The whistle blew, the race began and Chiara was off. As I stood at the finish line recording the outcomes, I saw my little girl give that race all she had and finish second. She didn’t cry that time, I guess she could live with being second.

“I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!” ~ Revelation 3:15-16 (NLT)

“But if I say I’ll never mention the LORD or speak in His name, His word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!” ~ Jeremiah 20:9 (NLT)

I have always thought Revelation 3:15-16 was strong language and during times when I was ‘lukewarm,’ I thought it was a rejection from God who promised to never leave me. As I have grown in my walk with the Lord I have come to understand that God’s heart in this is not rejection. He is simply reminding us that we were not made to be lukewarm. His Word is designed to set us ablaze because our purpose can only be accomplished when we are burning hot. We often get fired up at church on Sundays or during our small group meetings but as soon as life comes at us it chills us down to a half-hearted and complacent lukewarm state. Hey, we’ve all been there. I come in peace, not with judgment but with encouragement. I would like you to take a moment and place a thermometer in your life. If you find that you are lukewarm, process that reality with the Lord and ask Him to show you how you got there. I have three scenarios that can help you get started as you assess what may have gotten you to cool off when you were once so on fire for the Lord.

Disappointment

How do we know if we are lukewarm towards God and what He has called us to? I would assume there are several ways of determining if you are in this predicament, but I have one very quick and simple way. Call it a quick check if you will. Do you still feel righteously angry when you see or hear things that you know your Heavenly Father hates? Do they get your full attention or just a simple shrug at best? What about the things that your Father loves? Do they still bring you joy or are you numb and unable to find fulfilment in those things anymore? If your answer to any of these questions is no, then I would submit to you that you need to find your fire again. You may even already know this yet the reality that this fire can only be refuelled in His presence leaves you feeling uneasy and even angry. Are you willing to return to the One you blamed for disappointment in your life?

When God first speaks purpose over us and we catch fire, we feel like we are on top of the world, like we can do anything and kill all the giants that will be sent our way (que Pompi’s Giant Killer right here). Sadly, this doesn’t last. Why? Because disappointment, often in an unrelated area God spoke to you about, gets in the way. You see, we are one being, made in the image of our Father, the Lord who is One. Our faith is not segmented into parts and subparts, it is one. This means that when disappointment makes us cold in one area, it spreads and reduces heat in all the other areas. We don’t notice it at first but little by little, we lose our edge. I want to encourage you today, by telling you something that may make you angry at first… Your disappointment is not God’s fault. I have learned the hard way that disappointment comes when we ignorantly expect from God. We misunderstand something He says to us or promised in His Word and when we don’t get it the way we imagined we would, we assign blame to God. We blame Him and because we have an offence with Him, our Source, we start to lose steam. Where has your faith been disappointed? Where may you need to go back to your Father and iron out some of these kinks? Don’t put it off too long lest your heart becomes hard.

Discouragement

When God calls you to be a trailblazer, which we all are, we are almost immune to negativity. We almost expect it because we know that most trailblazers will have to go it alone without much encouragement from others. Why? Because people often only encourage what they understand and if you are blazing a new trail that hasn’t been seen before, they will not understand. As I said, we come out of God’s presence with some level of understanding of this and the expectation that there will be some naysayers, right? But after some time, after what we believe is much progress, we expect that people closest to us will begin to see God’s hand on our lives. After all, wisdom is proven by its results. When we don’t get the attaboy or attagirl we hope to get from certain significant people in our lives, discouragement comes up against our flame, and we begin to fizzle out. Can we get real about certain disappointments in our lives? I have had many and I would be lying if I said they haven’t affected my flame and slowed me down on my race to purpose. It’s funny how part of my purpose is to encourage others and yet there are times, many times, when I, myself, need encouragement. Let’s run to God when we need to get that all-important pat on the back. Pretending we are tough and we don’t need it is a trap. If Jesus was affirmed by the Father, who are we to say we don’t need that affirmation? We need it, so let’s go and get it.

Distractions

This world is working overtime to distract you and me from doing what we are supposed to be doing. I would argue that the biggest threat to us reaching our destiny is distraction. Understanding this will cause us to rely more heavily on the Holy Spirit to stay focused and disciplined. Think about it, distraction is literally in the palm of our hands: our phones. I don’t know how people can get any work done if they allow themselves to be interrupted by their phones throughout the day. There are times when my phone is on silent because I know it will steal my focus away from what is important at that moment. Everyone who knows me well knows that I hate being called on the phone from the blue. Why in the world would you call me when you can text me or send me a voice note? It may be the millennial in me or the introvert in me, but I feel like random phone calls are borderline criminal. How have you determined that I am just sitting around waiting to drop what I’m doing to talk to you? Oh Lord, don’t get me started on this! Text me to ask me if you can call me! Send me a voice note if you don’t want to lose your thought and I will happily respond in kind when I get around to it. Now look, I don’t condone leaving people on ‘read’ for days on end. That’s just rude. It takes one minute of your life to respond to a text! What I am saying, is that I think we have become slaves to our devices which are supposed to aid us in our race to purpose, not rob us of valuable time.

We have fallen for the lie that we have all the time, focus and energy in the world to accomplish our purpose. This is such a foolish and entitled assumption. Your destiny requires all of you. You will need to invest everything you have, and then some, to get the thing done. Our devices and social media have driven us to obsession with other people’s destinies. As we scroll, we look at everyone else and if we are not careful we will start to believe that their destiny must be better than our own. Guard the fire of your purpose from the chill of distraction.

Your purpose is best served hot. Only blazing hot can you run your race with excellence, discipline and integrity. What has made you lukewarm, complacent and content with being ordinary? You were called to be hot. Settle your disappointments so that you can freely go back to God for the encouragement you need along this journey and then stay on guard for distractions that come in very subtle ways to steal your attention and focus away from the finish line. I pray that as you do these things, God’s word will burn in your heart like a fire.