Alexis and I were talking recently about the idea of missional living - living a lifestyle of serving others for the purpose of fulfilling God’s promise of blessing in their lives. We got to thinking about this lifestyle while we were taking a missions course earlier this year, and during that time we learned some surprising things about our motives for doing so.

We had thought of missions or a service-oriented lifestyle as being primarily one where we would go to some peoples that were in need of our assistance - seeing ourselves as God’s gift to the world, so to speak.

Putting it that way, of course we see now how arrogant such a view is
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This weekend was a long weekend, not just because we had an extra day off with Monday being Memorial Day, but because it was so full of significant time spent with significant friends.
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Probably the most reckless aspect of the abundant life God calls people to live is the secret nature of its expressions:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.

So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

For all my slamming of the sermon-centered mechanisms of western spirituality, I must admit that I encountered one of the most powerful insights into the spiritual life through a sermon preached by Bruce Wilkerson (NOT the Jabez guy) at Grace Chapel in Lexington some five years ago. His sermon was titled “The Discipline of Secrecy” or something like that, it was about giving and praying in secret, and it continues to challenge me today.
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“He who dies with the most toys… still dies.”
~anonymous

Last Friday my wife made plans to hang out with her friend Joli in Worcester. Since Worcester is about an hour east of where we live, and I drive by it on my way to work in Natick, that day my wife rode in with me and dropped me off at work in the morning. She then drove out to Worcester, hung out with her friend, and then picked me up in the evening.

In the morning, though, as we drove in to Natick, we realized the car was low on fuel, so I pulled into a gas station a couple of blocks before my office to fill up on gas so that my wife wouldn’t have to worry about fuel during her drive out to Worcester.

I know, am I not sweet? My wife said so too when I got back into the car after I pumped the gas, she said, “Aww, thank you honey!”

I said: “Well, shucks sweetie, no problem. I figure, it’s about 29 miles from Natick to Worcester, and 29 miles back, so that’s, let’s see, 58 miles, and let’s add in another 5 miles so you can have some leeway if you wanted to go to a bookstore or something, so hey I filled up just enough gas for you to go about 63 miles.”

I know, am I not sweet?
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As I was clearing out old notes from my car, I ran across this quote that I had scribbled on a piece of paper when I heard it referenced during a sermon at church sometime ago. I remember being inspired by it at the time because it resonated so deeply with my own thoughts on living a reckless faith. I found solace in the thought that a much wiser Christian named Oswald Chambers had expressed it so much better more than 70 years ago, before the decline of modernism:

“… gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh…”

I looked up the complete quote today, and it’s from his classic work “My Utmost For His Highest”, which can be found in several places online. Turns out there are a couple of versions - the text as originally written using the English of the 1920s, and an updated text. Both are wonderful versions to read:

Original Version (1935): “The Graciousness of Uncertainty”
Updated Version (1992): “Gracious Uncertainty”

I love the writing - it’s expressing such a reckless thought, but it does so in a way that’s reassuring and inspiring instead of being condemning and strident! I especially loved the wider context of the quote:

“…
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life— gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. This is generally expressed with a sigh of sadness, but it should be an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. As soon as we abandon ourselves to God and do the task He has placed closest to us, He begins to fill our lives with surprises. When we become simply a promoter or a defender of a particular belief, something within us dies. That is not believing God — it is only believing our belief about Him. Jesus said, “. . . unless you . . . become as little children . . .” (Matthew 18:3 ). The spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, just uncertain of what He is going to do next.

If our certainty is only in our beliefs, we develop a sense of self-righteousness, become overly critical, and are limited by the view that our beliefs are complete and settled. But when we have the right relationship with God, life is full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy.

…”

How true!!