There is a great story that came out in the paper this last May. It’s about a good man from Kenya named Kip Keino. Kip was an Olympic Gold medalist – one of history’s best long distance runners. Born and raised in Kenya, he was a runner through and through. It was how he got around in Kenya. It was what he did, it was who he was. Kip was a runner. In 1968 he was a part of the Olympic Games in Mexico City because he was a great runner. Until 1968 Europeans and North Americans dominated the Olympic games, including the middle and long distance running events.
Since 1968 Kenyans have dominated and Kip is a big reason for that. In 1968 Kip ran in the 10,000 and 5000 meter races before competing in the showcase event, the 1500m. During the 10,000m race he doubled over on the track as a result of stomach pain. Later, before the final, big event (the 1500m) he was diagnosed with gall stones and infection. The doctor told him he could die if he tried running the 1500m race.
So on race day his coach left him in the hotel and went to the track without his sick star runner. In his hotel room, troubled by the fact that his country was counting on him, Kip jumped out of bed, hailed a taxi and made his way to the race in spite of the doctors’ recommendations. Over two kilometers from the track, traffic became jammed and Kip was going to be late for his race. So he got out of the taxi and while his competitors were resting before the run, he ran those 2 kilometers to the stadium as fast as he could. When he got there he had missed the first call to the runners so he put on his racing shoes on and lined up. He bolted to an early lead running the first 800 meters in an amazing 1:55. With American favorite Jim Ryun back several seconds everyone expected to Kip to slow his pace and fall back. Instead he kept it up and while the rest of the pack petered out at the end, he powered down the homestretch winning by the largest margin in Olympic history.
When I read this story I had questions. How could a guy not only be ready to run a race like that but be ready to run it while sick and after having to run to race beforehand? How could he be ready to accomplish such a feat? While the other guys were healthy and rested to run the race he had to run twice the distance and with gall stones. I wondered what his life looked like before this race… how could this guy be in a spot to be ready to accomplish something like this.
How do you become ready for something like that? How do you become ready to tackle enormous obstacles? How do you become ready for overcoming hardship? How do you become ready for life? Here we are at the beginning of another year which will no doubt be filled with a mixed bag of good and bad.
Are you ready? That question can cause a little anxiety, can’t it? Think about when you’ve been asked that. I remember my brothers asking me that question at the top of one of those free-fall rides in a big theme park when I was 12 – just before the bottom was removed from under me. I can remember asking my brother that just before we jumped out of a plane on our first sky-diving experience. I can remember the minister at my wedding asking me that just before I made my way to the alter. This is the question students ask each other on their way into the classroom before an exam. And depending on the reality of our situation, our preparation, the feelings that come with that question can vary. Maybe it’ll create a lump in our throat. Maybe it’ll feel reassuring. Maybe it’ll cause us to second-guess ourselves.
At the outset of a new year it seems appropriate to ask ourselves, “are we ready?”
Last year at this time were you ready for the year you had? If there’s one thing that stays the same, it’s change. Life throws a mixed bag at us again and again. Just when you think things have stabilized, your world gets turned on its head. Just when you thought you arrived, you begin another journey. Change is one of few things that stays the same. Could we possibly be ready for this year?
Think about some events that took place over the last year…
I think of my friends Mike and Sandi Gingerich who had no idea last year at this time that in 3 months they would be pregnant and that their baby would be a little boy named Samuel, born 3 weeks ago. Life is full of surprises.
Life is also full of humor. How great was it when the big salary New York Yankees fell to the cursed Red Sox after being up on them 3 games to none?
We can’t avoid the fact that life is full of tragedy as well. The beaches surrounding the Indian Ocean in Southeast Asia were lined with people expecting to spend the end of 2004 along some of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. No one was ready for the Tsunami that overtook them. And how could they be ready for what has come after those waves? Life is fragile.
There’s a wonderful family a part of this church who had no idea last year at this time that they only had 5 weeks left with their 12 year old son Jordon – Jordon, an amazing boy who died in a tragic accident. How could they know? How could they be ready for such a blow?
We know for sure that none of us are exempt from life’s mixed bag. Is there anything we can do to be stable in middle of life’s storms this year? Is there any way to become ready and anchored in preparation for what’s to come?
I went and watched the movie “The Incredibles” with my son over the holidays and there was one line in that movie that I believe is the key to going into this year. Some advice was passed from Mrs. Incredible to her daughter. She said this: “Protect your identity… it’s the most important thing you have.”
As we go into this year… getting ready for the mixed bag life will throw at us, I’d say the same thing is most important for us… our identity.
Our identity is how we mark who we are. For some of us, our identity is clear. For others of us, it’s muddy. Many of us spend much of our lives “finding ourselves.” Well what have you come up with? How do you mark who you are? Who are you? And as we look into the future, who we are - our identity - will be either our anchor or our weakness this year and in the years to come. What’s our identity?
Marketing companies would love our identity to be an inch deep. That we are what we eat or what we wear or the music we listen to. Our employers might like it best if we are defined by the job we hold - what we do - That we’re accountants or teachers or shippers/receivers or stay-at-home parents or pastors. Our coaches might like it if we only think of ourselves as hockey players or basketball players and our teachers might like it if we think of ourselves as piano players or painters or simply students. But we can’t put the cart before the horse. We can’t let what we do define who we are. Doing will affect being but being leads to doing every time.
If you’re more than just what you do, then who are you? If you’re more than the accumulation of the titles you carry, who are you? If that is a tough question to answer, then we’re probably not ready for life’s mixed bag of joy and tragedy in 2005. What is your identity?
I know one way to find out. I know of an identity test. It’s a little extreme but I’ve seen it work. I think the best way to know who we really are is to strip everything from us – our jobs, our families, our schools, our plans, our savings, even our transportation, shelter and food. To strip it all away and have a look at who we are then would say much about us.
To strip it all away and have a look gives us an accurate look at who we are but it’s not a complete look. To go to the other extreme would round off the test. To be offered our dream jobs, the family we’ve longed for, the money we need to do and have all those things we’ve wanted, to have power and authority and prestige. If we loaded ourselves up with all of these things and had a look at who we were we’d again learn something of our identity.
The big question is… if we participated in both those scenarios – if we had it all stripped away and if we had it all at our fingertips - would our identity look the same in each scenario? If the answer is yes, we’re likely in good shape. If the answer is no, we can expect to be tossed around by life’s waves.
I know of one person who took the identity test that I just explained. Jesus went through this and his experience is recorded in Matthew chapter 4. Matthew is the first book of the New Testament part of the Bible.
Read Matthew 4:1-11
This story could only have come from Jesus’ lips – he chose to share a page out of his private journal so it could be passed on to us. James Stewart says “We must approach this story with a unique and special reverence, for in it Jesus is laying bare his inmost heart and soul. He is telling us what he went through. It is the most sacred of stories for in it… He draws the veil from His own struggle to help us in our struggle.”
Even though life’s mixed bag usually hits us externally, the experience Jesus has here reminds us of the location of most of life’s struggles. If someone had gone out into the wilderness to see him they’d have seen Jesus alone… alone but in anguish. He was in a battle in his mind. Our minds are a battlefield and if we don’t have a strong anchor in there, we’re in trouble. And our identity has to be our anchor.
One of the first things we realize about Jesus was that he let the identity test happen. It says he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. We know that what follows wasn’t pretty. And ya, we should acknowledge at this point that God will lead us into the wilderness to test us. Thinking about that makes me feel angry at times but when I look at the big picture I know and trust he has our best in mind.
And then we see what happens when God tests us. Because these tests are always painfully stretching for us and because they leave us tired and vulnerable, the enemy capitalizes and takes advantage of our weakened state.
God tests and let’s us be tempted but he doesn’t do the tempting. The enemy is the one who takes our test and makes it temptation. We can count on the enemy complicating things when we’re being tested.
The test itself has Jesus in the wilderness stripped of everything. He was without companionship, position, shelter, food, everything. And it was while he was in this state that the devil does three things to shake his identity. See if any of these things are familiar to your life.
First , he capitalizes on the physical wants that Jesus has. Jesus was hungry. He hadn’t eaten in 40 days. The devil got him focusing on negative circumstances – he got him focusing on what he didn’t have. I go there often. It’s easy to believe that we are little more than consumers. And it’s easy to see that we’ll go there with our identity in a heartbeat – if it wasn’t true we wouldn’t be showered by ads that tell us what we’re missing at every turn. Just look at Christmas. At its core, it is a time to remember and be thankful for what we’ve got but its known more as a time to get the things we don’t have. The devil turned Jesus’ attention to what he didn’t have. But this didn’t shake Jesus because someone whose identity is anchored doesn’t dwell on or get rocked by negative circumstances – they don’t focus on what they don’t have. And Jesus didn’t.
Second , the devil tries to come between Jesus and God the father. He tried to undermine Jesus’ faith, distorting the character and reputation of God the father. What better way to shatter our identity than by defacing that which we believe is good? Take away a person’s values and they have little to stand on. Distort the character of God – making him unfair or unjust or unloving – and things will unravel quickly. We’re made in God’s image and if that mirror is cracked we won’t be able to see anything good in ourselves either. This is why Jesus’ first petition to God in the Lord’s Prayer is “Hallowed be your name” – it means reveal and protect your character for all of us to see – Hallow your name - don’t let your reputation be muddied, father – don’t let our foundation be taken away. The devil tried to muddy God’s reputation. But this didn’t shake Jesus either because someone whose identity is anchored doesn’t buy into the lie that God is not good. And Jesus didn’t.
Third , the devil tried to get Jesus focusing on the easy way out. He tried to sell Jesus on the idea that life doesn’t have to be difficult – there is an easy street. Jesus knew that serving his father was a long jouney uphill. Life was going to be painful, not easy. Since the devil knew Jesus was going on to be king through the cross, the devil offered him an easier way. Worship me, he says, and I’ll give you everything… the whole world can be at your fingertips – it’s your choice. But Jesus knew he was to be a king by serving, his crown would come through the cross. The devil tempted Jesus with an easy way out. But this didn’t shake Jesus either because the person whose identity is anchored doesn’t need to forgo the right way for the easy way. Jesus didn’t and here’s why.
In order to overcome these kinds of attacks on your identity you have to have your identity in the right place, anchored and secure.
So, what was the secret of Jesus? How is it that when he was stripped of everything that his identity stayed intact? And when offered everything it remained strong? The answer comes in the event immediately before he was led out into the wilderness….
At the end of chapter 3 in Matthew, it says Jesus was baptized. And at the end of the baptism, God pulls back the curtain that separates the earth from the heavens and he affirms Jesus in his identity… He says this, “This is my priceless son, I am deeply pleased with him.”
That’s the place to have our identity – the child of God the father, creator and sustainer of life itself… Child of the most high God.
Is there a better way to identify yourself? I mean, it’s safe under his arm – who else’s opinion matters when you’re there? It’s inspiring at his feet – is there a better place to learn that at the feet of our creator? Its joy in his embrace – – he knows us inside out and loves us completely. What affirmation counts like his? His ways fit like a glove – every other way is wandering blindly.
Jesus is affirmed at the age of 30 at his baptism as the father’s son but this wasn’t new. There’s a story in Luke where it describes Jesus as a 12 year old boy. His parents were worried sick because for 3 days they couldn’t find him. They looked everywhere, finally finding him at the temple. He was shocked they didn’t know where he was and he said to them, “Why didn’t you guys expect me to be with my father? I had to be with him.”
The secret Jesus knew was that he was his heavenly father’s son… nothing more, nothing less. And that being a child of God meant sitting at his father’s feet learning about him and from him all his life.
He was well anchored in his identity by the time this test came along… and as planned, he was even better anchored on the other side of this test.
He knew that even in the worst of circumstances, having the father with him is more than enough.
He knew through experience that his father was good – anything contrary to that was a lie.
And he knew that even though his father led him through some dark valley’s that those struggles would be redeemed with great value.
Here’s the good news for us: God the father invites us to be adopted as his children, just as Jesus is his child. And as we follow the lead of Jesus – sitting at the father’s feet – we’ll please the father as well.
Jesus wasn’t a child of the almighty because he did all the right things. The father loves everyone he has created – the whole Bible attests to that. It isn’t because Jesus did everything right.
Jesus is the child of the father because he trusts the father and sits at the father’s feet. Being leads to doing. Being at his father’s feet led to him doing his father’s will.
And its clear Jesus had been at his father’s feet. In each of his responses to devil, Jesus responds with scripture – the Bible calls scripture God-breathed.
He soaked in God the father’s words and used them to fight off the enemy. He had sat in the word of God – It was a light for his feet, his defense, his offense, his bread and his breath – he knew it in his bones. He knew truth from lies, right from wrong…
Jesus had been making himself available to the father all his life. We see that in the fact that he knew scripture well. Also, that’s what fasting is. Fasting is one of many spiritual disciplines designed to make us available to God. He’d been fasting from food for 40 days which tells us that he was no rookie to fasting. If I tried that today I’d die. But if I start at a 1-day fast and work my way up over the next several years I might have a chance. Fasting is nothing more than making oneself exceptionally available to hear from the father. Jesus had been sitting at his father’s feet.
While Jesus was out in the wilderness he was stripped of everything. He was without companionship, position, shelter, food, everything….
And then he was offered everything. He was offered position, provisions, health, and power, everything…
Neither poverty nor prosperity changed things. Without a thing, he was his father’s son. With everything at his fingertips he was his father’s son.
The question we need to be asking ourselves as we go into this New Year is, “who are we at the core?” Because who we are at the core will determine who we are when the world comes crashing down or when the best of the world is offered to us on a platter. Both are enough to destroy us if our core isn’t made of the right stuff.
What’s clear is that Jesus didn’t luck out in the wilderness. His responses were the result of having his identity anchored in his father. As I said earlier, being leads to doing and Jesus had his being nailed down. It didn’t happen overnight.
Here’s a saying that was thrown my way almost 15 years ago to encourage me to work on my identity. Just 4 words: “As now, so then.” 4 frustrating words meaning that where we find our identity today will result in what we do in the future. As now, so then. Who Jesus was when he was 12, resulted in what he did when he was 30.
Good news is that it’s not too late. Being leads to doing… as now, so then. Who you are becomes what you do. Who we are today affects what we do tomorrow. The choices we make this month will unfold in the following 11 months. Each day we decide who we’ll be the rest of our lives. Being leads to doing: as now, so then.
Good news is that we will always have a choice of who we’ll be. Famous Psychiatrist Victor Frankl survived the atrocities of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany in WWII. While there, he not only saw people stripped of everything, he experienced it. The goal of the Germans was to strip the prisoners of their humanity. They stripped them of companionship, food, dignity, clothing, safety and shelter. They took everything they could. But as Frankl noted after the war, there was one thing they could not strip them of. They could not strip them of the last of the human freedoms: The freedom of choice. Frankl learned that when everything else was gone, he still had the power to chose who he would be – they couldn’t steal his identity. Who will we choose to be in 2005? As now, so then.
There’s stability in having our identity in God. There’s also freedom in having our identity as God’s child. I’m a pastor and I was a construction worker. I’m a husband and a father. I’m a son and a brother and a neighbor and a friend. But all of these things come after being God the father’s child.
And if I sit at his feet and care greatly about who he is and what his thoughts are, I do every one of these other things way, way better. I love my family better, do my job better, everything. Because he cares more and better about those things than I can because he’s also the creator of my wife and kids and he knows how to do my job far better than I do.
Kip Keino stepped up and ran that race in 1968 because he was a runner through and through – it’s who he was – decades of being led him in doing. Because he lived as a runner in Kenya he could step up when all the odds were against him and be a great runner at the Olympics even when the chips were down.
When life happens, the chips will be down. That’ll be the case for most of us at some point in 2005. The only way we can overcome the challenges of life is by being a child of God through and through.
Being his child means sitting at his feet – that’s all. It’s at his feet that our identity is anchored. It’s at his feet that we become ready for anything.
Two things remain the same: change will always be; and God will always be unchanging.
If we sit at the father’s feet and become his children through and through, none of life’s changes good or bad will pull our anchor up.
There isn’t anything he isn’t ready for… there isn’t anything we can’t withstand under the shadow of his wings.
He’ll lead us down some tough roads but he’ll always be with us, he’ll always be good and he’ll always be shaping us into the children he knows we can be.
Are you ready for life’s mixed bag in 2005?
Here’s a worthy resolution that outweighs all others. Start each day at the father’s feet asking him to anchor your identity as his child. Tell him you trust him or at least that you want to trust him. Then ask him lots of questions and listen to him just like Jesus did.
Who are you? You’re God the father’s child. Sit at his feet. Just be his child. Just be and the doing will come. You’ll be ready for anything.
As now, so then. |
