Creative vs. Reactive

Creative vs. Reactive Philippians 3

(Firstly, read Philippians 3 or glance over it whilst reading this blog, I didn’t want to include it as it is lengthy.)

So, this latest blog post comes from a personal place of me seeking God’s heart in a place of desperation and simply hearing Him say to me (and you) that “In God we are Creative, but outside of Him we become Reactive.”

Now...hopefully, with some prayer - I will begin to unfold these two states of ‘being’ – also, I did preach this message...although only to myself this morning in my devotional time, as is quite customary of me :-) weird as it may sound...it works for me, and my congregation of couches & walls show up faithfully, every time!!

A view taken from Servanthood
Going low in humility is something of value in our Christian walk as we go about doing life and I felt as though becoming a servant and a servant of all, as Jesus did is going to cost us. I felt that there are particular aspects/levels that we are to overcome and will explain them as such:-

1.    External: when you feel this urging or nudge from within to be that guy (or girl) that has to offer up of yourself and your comfort for the sake of others – you may call this serving (servanthood). Yes, it should be so part of our ‘walks’, but for some it does take time and we have grace for that because I believe that Jesus does!!

Now the reality is, it’s way easier when you and I decide to step into something when the whole world is doing it, when you and all your buddies are set on something and you go for it, it’s awesome and sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it costs...because it plainly doesn’t cost you a thing, in terms of our comforts etc.

So one of the first obstacles to cross is this attitude of, “Why me and what about them?!” looking to the outside (external) and wondering why has God chosen me and not in this angelic awe-sens of God’s favour towards you, the ‘chosen-one’, but rather – ‘why me, I seriously don’t want this!!’ kind of attitude.

2.    Internal: picking up from that last thought and secondly, feeling to serve in a particular area may lead to questions about, ‘Am I ready?’, “Am I even good enough?” etc.

One may argue that it exposes insecurities but hey, whatever surfaces – that’s fine, God is certainly big enough and not nervous about choosing you – and I believe that He will deal with you and the root of whatever it is that causes you to tense up when even just thinking about the task up ahead.

3.    Serving: you have finally overcome your fears of being alone, isolated and self-worry and you have risen to the occasion and have stepped out in service and all is going great. You are focused on God and He totally delights in you and your only response to Him is to worship Him – because He alone is worthy!!

Yet, somewhere along the lines your heart gets tested and your motives are exposed for the world to see...WHAT NOW?!

You see, in God we are Creative, right :-) We are called to co-labour and release Kingdom in all we do and all this functions so well apart from the fact that in some cases we find this downward spiral of becoming self-serving!!

4.    Self-serving: the enemy of true servanthood!! This happens when our joy slips away and all of a sudden we find that the poo-poo has hit the fan!! Everyone can see the fan, the poo-poo and your hands...all covered in poo-poo!!

Yet, we become Reactive with shouts of, “You told me to do this”, “Don’t you remember that time, when you said this and that”, “Hey you, can you remember that time that ‘Jack’ said bla bla bla, do you remember!!??”...”IT’S NOT MY FAULT!!”

All of a sudden everyone around you, your great cloud of witnesses, are no longer routing for you and they become those that have deceived you and you play the blame game until you are drained. Everything you worked for, laboured at and saw being created is now coming tumbling down at a rapid pace and you cannot do a thing about it because you are stuck in a self-serving state and when the ground work should have been done, you had your eyes on everything else but serving your Master...it’s almost too late, but never really is, as God will always help you along, in His merciful way.

One thing I really felt to explain is this self-serving vs. serving concept – as I believe it’s either one or the other. Either you serve and you serve God or you serve yourself!!

The servant’s heart attitude is one of plain servanthood – not expecting anything in exchange for the serving, yes the serving (job etc.) may include remuneration but what or rather who are you serving – the Master or His riches?

God’s Kingdom, the Kingdom of Light is not at loggerheads with the kingdom of satan, darkness. The battle has been won and Jesus has conquered death, but long before Jesus conquered the grave He conquered flesh!!

This is quite important for me and every believer in fact as yes it’s awesome that Jesus arose from the grave and now that’s the amazing story of the cross but most (probably ALL) of us reading this havn’t been to the grave yet, but we are living and in fleshly bodies, just as Jesus did!!

So what’s so dramatically radical about that, well Jesus knew no sin but was tempted the same way as you and I. Just a tiny disclaimer, I don’t by any means downplay Him overcoming death but do we realise that there was no temptation that Jesus faced that you and I don’t either OR rather, every temptation that you and I face, He did also – and yet He stayed above water...that’s miraculous!!

You see; if we go back and forth playing as if one moment the Kingdom of Light is winning but then the next moment, the kingdom of darkness is winning we have a wrong view of what Christ has accomplished – once and for all!! If we swivel between sacrificial servanthood and self-serving, all we are doing is deceiving ourselves and it’s not long before the choice we made to follow Christ comes into some serious question and doubt rocks up!!

When we trade Creativity for Reactivity we come into this place of choosing whatever god you want to serve at that moment. Every belief out there has a paradise and some sort of enemy and every belief, believes that their god will get them to paradise (eventually) and when we bow down to this we got a ‘all-roads-lead-to-heaven’ gospel, which is no gospel at all!!

It reminds me of a Tweet I read this week which I shall paraphrase, “Getting drunk is easy, getting high is easy but choosing to follow Jesus is hardcore, it’s rebellious.”

For us, following and modelling Jesus is going to be rebellious, rebelling or rather moving in the opposite spirit of this world!!

You see, everything about God’s Kingdom is C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E and everything that the enemy has lined up for us is the kinda stuff that tires one out, the Reactiveness and forever having to explain or defend your position on matters, when what really matters is just becoming a servant and when you do muck up, to own up but carry on :-)

To end, I asked God to give me a little bit of an example to cement this Creative vs. Reactive concept and it takes the form of a rugby game, which I guess is God’s sense of humour as I am not in the least clued up on the game of rugby, but I have watched quite my fair share of games lately.

My understanding is that the perfect game would be one where the teams playing are adhering to the rules of the game 100% and making perfect passes, tackles and setting up plays that will eventually lead to a tri being scored.

A tri therefore can only be scored when there is a deficiency in your opponents attack.

So, watching your favourite team go; playing beautifully and doing just everything right, you sing from the sideline, “Go!! Boytjies!!”, with much enthusiasm and encouragement. This I would call being Creative – spurring each other on :-)

The flip side is the supporter of the defeated opponent, watching with much nail-biting and negativity brewing inside, little Johnny exclaims something like, “No!! Idiot, you can’t play this game, why did they even choose you...you are useless!!”, ja ja...that’s none of us, hey!? But do you see how that is a very Reactive approach :-(

When the cards are in our favour, it’s easy to praise and be creative in our ways but when the chips are down and ‘it-is-what-it-is’ we become reactive to every little thing and the very people that need our support we end up just driving them further away and in fact if you are the one caught out, the last thing you should be doing is having a shouting match with all those around you – realise your mistake, own up and carry on...don’t leave any room for bitterness to take root.

So in closing I really hope, pray and trust that Holy Spirit has been speaking to you about living your life out in Creativity :-) and being one that rebels for JESUS!!

Love you all muchly,

Ryan

A Father and his Son

Hey!! I hope you enjoy this post and I would actually like some feedback or revelation on this which you may get, my e-mail address is: ryanodendaal@gmail.com – I am yet to be a father myself but am just enjoying growing as a son for now :-)

I was at gym yesterday morning just rocking out on a treadmill and to my left were the squash courts. I often notice fathers and their sons playing squash and it always intrigues me - I have a real heart for family - and seeing fathers and sons sharing each other’s space are quite unique nowadays!!

Anyway, so there was a father and son having a great time playing squash but I noticed the son wasn’t quite the strongest player and returned quite weak shots, yet it didn’t seem to throw the game off or anything. Big ups to the father for his patience and love on display!!

After some time, the father and son swapped racquets and all of a sudden the son’s game improved...huh!! Cause now the dad was playing with the son’s original racquet but his game didn’t all of a sudden drop...

Something was up here and I felt God speak some simple truths to me:

1. “Opponents playing with each other” – usually a sporting activity has a competitive aspect to it, one wins and the other looses or maybe even a draw. In this case the pair would be said to be playing against each other, yet I felt and saw how they were playing ‘with’ each other. Obviously now, the father had way more skill and know-how of this game and he was teaching his son as they were going along. Yes they were playing against each other...but where else would you enter an environment where a game was taking place and your ‘opponent’ stopped to teach, motivate and encourage you, especially if a result is expected at the end?

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I was expecting the father to get upset and frustrated with his son – yet this was never the case. The two of them just played on and the dad’s body language never gave any hint of anything but love and honour. I was reminded of the above scripture and it spoke to me of how a father just by being gentle and kind can draw such amazingness out of his children.

2. “The Father is always routing for us to win” – wow, Daddy was showing me how He is always routing for you and I. When we get onto that court with Him, He is our biggest encourager and He celebrates us always!! It doesn’t matter what the ‘court’ platform is in your personal scenario...Father God is always routing for you and He loves to see you and I win!!

As you endure this divine discipline, remember that God is treating you as his own children. Who ever heard of a child who is never disciplined by its father? If God doesn’t discipline you as he does all of his children, it means that you are illegitimate and are not really his children at all. Since we respected our earthly fathers who disciplined us, shouldn’t we submit even more to the discipline of the Father of our spirits, and live forever? (Hebrews 12:7-9) 

God was reminding me that in our childish rebellion, sometimes we want to retaliate – ‘throwing our toys out of the cot’ and just getting plain angry that we can’t do whatever it is that is before us. That son could have given up, thrown down his racquet, hung his head and thrown a tantrum!! But you know what...there was a relationship between the two. A relationship that is built on trust, grounded in vulnerability – one of loving commitment. Man, I wish you could see this; I was actually quite blown away. I think the truest or simplest definition of a son would be one that always allows the Father’s discipline and then within that relationship everything is dealt with – fears, faults, failures, triumphs, victories...you name it.

Lastly, the issue of how when the father and son exchanged racquets all of a sudden the son’s game improved. Yoh...how we long to mimic our dads. As a son growing up you look up towards your father and want to be a man just like him – I am reminded of those images of the father shaving and the son looking at the father with great intrigue or maybe a young preschooler wearing a collared shirt and tie to school on one of those ‘what do you want to be one day when you grew up’ vibes...all with a longing to grow up like dad.

So what was the deal with the racquet exchange, well I am not to clear on that but the simplest imagery to me was that the father was passing onto the son, his (the father’s) tools and somehow the son was able to do better...to go further.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28)

So, whatever your idea is of a father or even God our Father – know that Pappa God is a God of love of grace and mercy – One that is always routing for us and preparing great victories for the obstacles hindering you and I.

His goodness knows no bounds and His heart for you and I is massive. He loves you with a great and eternal love – a love which will never run dry, die out, become flat, cold or dead but His love is fiery and hot. It motivates and causes us to achieve great victories!!

God loves you and just as this simple father and son squash story was unpacked to me, so the Father is keen to reveal Himself to you in ordinary ways. Yes your hurts and pains are real but dare to believe that He is also real and He is alive and wants to encounter you with His presence – it’s in that presence that wholeness comes!!

Awesome, till the next post...love you guys!!

Ryan

Family

God loves family.

In my city, Port Elizabeth, there are many churches – many different spiritual homes made up of families – spiritual families and God loves us all!!

No matter your denomination...God desires to inhabit us and be in our midst!!

This was now so evident in my life as my phone just rang and I got to speak to my own dad, just a short nonsense conversation of how are you and some other random babble but how good it is to hear the voice of a father and wow, how amazing to hear the voice of our Heavenly Father.

So with all of this laid out – my heart is just to say, honour the spiritual home that God has placed you in and realise that there is family in your midst. Seek out your leaders and the rest of your family (congregants) in your church. When you start going astray, realise that leaders and our family members are gonna get stuck in...why...well who in their right minds wakes up one morning to discover missing family members and then does not go after them!!

This process of walking out a relationship with Jesus can sometimes be a tricky one – and I had to chuckle a while back when I just felt in me that usually we ‘warn’ people about Jesus, in the sense of really just His life story spent here on earth and then eventually having to depart earth; but Jesus, far above anyone else was totes excited as He knew that we would receive the Holy Spirit and sometimes we treat Holy Spirit with much clever euphemisms and lotsa nervousness – when I actually felt it’s more that we need to ‘warn’ people about church...now with beads of sweat running down your face, let me unpack this rather quickly, cause I dig local church.

Church 101

“...cause I dig local church.” Because this is my blog, inevitably you’re gonna get some of my personal insights and thoughts. My statement about loving local church is rooted in a deep desire and faith that I would love to see the whole of my city, Port Elizabeth come to faith in Jesus Christ – tomorrow hopefully or as soon as possible!! So with this kinda miraculous expectancy comes a logistical effort of desiring strong Spirit ravaged (or filled) church families in and around my city – cause when all of us are now serving Jesus it would be lekka to have some places to fellowship. With that said, how gnarly would it be to worship Jesus in a mosque perhaps...just saying or whatever else.

But church is, yes – you and me – everyday life as we are temples of Holy Spirit and how awesome that is that God’s presence is no longer restricted to a building etc. but yet we have church buildings and praise God for that. Now it’s just up to you to define your church building or where you and your ‘family’ come together and fellowship.

But how do you define your natural family? Your house...no, cause you and your mom, dad & siblings are still a family wherever you might come together or even when you are apart. But most families do have a home and it’s in this place that a lot gets dealt with.

Coming back to that earlier illustration of waking up one morning and finding ou-boet is nowhere to be found, one becomes suspicious and will go after him or her etc.

The case may be that your family member is hacking in some areas and just needed to get out or has become rebellious and so decided to abandon the family and casually strolls along to go find another family...YOH!!

Serious kinda stuff – is this the love of Christ??!! Pack up and off you go when life gets tough...

You see readers :-) Christ is not confined to a building but He is very present when we meet. So yes, you will find Him in a building and at the same time on the street, homes, cars, work places...you name it. So that’s not the issue here – the simple yet catastrophic issue is the one of family and as mentioned before we form part of spiritual family’s fellowshipping in churches.

So what’s the big deal then...

...God has created you for fellowship. He has made you so awesome that He wants to share you with others. All that awesomeness deposited inside of you needs to come out and reach out to others, whom at the same time are probably just as nervous and sometimes insecure as you are – but why should that stop you? Your life is not a performance; you are not being weighed up daily and then given a pass or fail. At the same time stop looking at others and thinking yeah, he gets it right all the time...he probably gets a ‘pass’ everyday – don’t put peeps on pedestals from which they will topple off of.

You are uniquely you and designed for intimacy and fellowship with God – for His great pleasure and then He was so excited to show off, He somma knitted you together in your mother’s womb and something like 9 or so months later you got released into a world that God wants you to change and rip it up for His Kingdom.

You have a purpose!! To fulfil that purpose God placed people around you and you will find a lot of them in your local church, your spiritual family in your spiritual home!!

Don’t resent them, love your leaders and honour them. Grow up as a son, adopted into Christ’s family and watch how Pappa draws the leader out of you. Enjoy the ‘organic’ process – it takes time and is well worth it. So when the paw-paw hits the fan and you are feeling stretched, you will stick around because it’s family you have around you and not some religious organisation.

Also when you have had it!! and you pack your things and wanna go and okes call you back and try and instil discipline that you don’t dig your heels, but rather let go and watch how when you empty yourself and rid yourself of all the junk...that God restores you to wholeness and surprise-surprise, He reached out with His long Daddy arms and uses other sons and daughters to be His hands and feet – this is the love of Christ, found in spiritual families and homes all around the world...so please don’t take church lightly or an optional extra, it’s God’s very expression of family on this earth.

If it’s still hard for you to comprehend, just start calling it HOME. That’s what I did and something happened in just that simple acknowledgement for me. My home is Harvest Christian Church (PE), but I just simply call it home!!

Wherever God has called you too...make sure it’s home :-)