Driven Life

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=168 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="002a11c3.png"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Home Page"><U>HOME</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id4.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Book Page"><U>BOOKS   </U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id6.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles"><U>ARTICLES</U></A></div> <bR> <div>  <A HREF="id7.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tapes"><U>TAPES</U></A>   </div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id8.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Spiritual Warfare/Occult "><U>SPIRITUAL WARFARE, OCCULT   </U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id77.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sexual Abuse Issues"><U>SEXUAL ABUSE ISSUES</U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id11.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Exposing the Darkness Seminar"><U>***EXPOSING THE DARKNESS SEMINAR***</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:greid@elp.rr.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:greid@elp.rr.com"><U> <img src="HTMLobj-713/aniGif.gif" border="0" align="bottom" width="67" height="50">  </U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#DDDDDD" TEXT="#080000"> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="27f2ccf0.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="207" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FF0033" FACE="Trajan" ><B>The Driven Life</B></FONT></div> <bR> <div> <B>Our church recently went through the Rick Warren series, “The Purpose Driven Life.” It was good. But the title got me thinking about the word “driven.” I want to speak to you about the “driven life.”</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Yesterday I saw a news report on the newest communication fad. It's called “texting.” Now it's not enough to be “online”, have e-mail, and have a cell phone with a hundred sounds and ten inboxes. NOW you can get and receive text messages by CELL PHONE. The news clip showed a teen girl “texting” her friend across town. I wanted to scream, “Just pick up the phone and CALL HER for cryin' out loud!!!” Even though texting may have a few practical applications, I can't help but see it as just another addition to the push to make us human cyborgs, add to our manic lifestyle and keep us from developing REAL relationships. This is the “brave new world” where kids only communicate by quoting movie lines to each other and only share real thoughts and feelings behind the protection of e mail and “instant messaging.”</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I don't like this brave new world. I mean, it's ridiculous. Picture it: here I am in my office: I'm online, doing research with three internet sites opened. I'm trying to answer the 150 or so months-old e-mails that I can never seem to get down to ten. My cell phone rings. Then as I'm talking to the caller, someone else calls; I switch over. It's a recorded ad! And then my office phone rings, and it's a recorded sales call. At that moment, my server dumps 15 more e mails into the folder I've just answered three e mails from - when my cell phone gets an e mail message from someone in Juarez chattering away in a language I still don't get. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This is when the vision comes to me of a huge fire in my backyard piled with my computers, scanner, two printers, cell phone, fax, office phone, and a partridge in a pear tree, as I laugh maniacally at the digital inferno, screaming, “Free at last, free at last!!!”</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I mean, how did we LIVE without being so “connected”?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>As I recall, we did just fine. Maybe better, in fact, than we're doing now. And isn't it amazing that Jesus and the apostles turned the world upside down without instant messaging? Just think.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>And while Microsoft softly asks, “Where do YOU want to go today?”, God just picked up Philip by the river after completing his assignment and whisked him off to his next one. Hm.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>We are a driven people. We do not rest. We do not reflect. We do not STOP. Our culture is high-gear madness, driven to make everything faster. We are losing our soul to the electronic Beast.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>It makes me sad, because Christians are just as driven. I don't WANT a “purpose-driven life”. I don't want to be “driven” at all!</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Did you notice that the Psalmist didn't say, “You drive me in the paths of righteousness for Your Name's sake”? No; He LEADS us. We follow.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I remember a frightening true story written by a man who, while in Israel, wanted to actually see sheep, a shepherd and a pasture so he could mine the true riches of Psalm 23. As he spoke to a shepherd, he saw a man with a stick driving sheep down a hill. “Why is that shepherd doing that?, he asked. “He is not a shepherd”, the man replied. “He has been hired to bring the sheep to the slaughterhouse.” What a stunning revelation!</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I do not take away from the urgency of the hour by saying this. Jesus said, “Work while it is yet day, for the night is coming when no man can work.” We ARE to work in His Kingdom. But it is HIS work that we do, not ours, and there is the problem. We used to sing the old hymn, “Without Him, I can do nothing....” But the sad truth is, without Him we can do PLENTY. And we DO. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Jesus LEADS us to work beside Him. Satan DRIVES us just to “Stay busy for God.” As I've often said, if satan can't get you to do one bad thing, he'll get you to do twenty good things that aren't God's things - things He has NOT led you to do!</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>With our lives already innundated with techno terror, work and family responsibilities, just add religious busy work, and you are being driven by the devil and you're a candidate for religious burnout.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Wait a minute, you say - I thought we were supposed to burn out for God! Poured out, yes - but NOT burned out.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I once had a ministry friend who couldn't tolerate the fact that I took days off. He told me HE was going to “burn out for God.” He was too busy to rest. I reminded him that even Jesus left the crowds to rest and pray. Then I told him about my beloved 2</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FF0033" FACE="Tekton" ><B>nd</B></FONT><B> car, a VW Beetle that I drove into the ground. I drove and drove and drove, ignoring the pretty red dot flashing on my dashboard. My oil light. I burned the engine to a crisp because I ignored the warning light and I never added oil. End of car.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Dad taught me: Change the oil every 2,000 miles, and you can keep a car forever. Since I took his advice, ALL my cars have been long-livers. Even Dad's car I inherited when he died, an '86 Toyota Camry, is still purring at 200,00 miles!</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I told my friend - burn out if you want to, but I'm oiling this baby to last for a lifetime. God's temple deserves good care.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Which brings me to another subject. The Shabbat. (That's the Sabbath, for my Goy friends.) Do any Christians REALLY observe it? Observing the Shabbat was a command, you know. God created in six days, rested the 7</B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#FF0033" FACE="Tekton" ><B>th</B></FONT><B>. He said, “You do the same.” God designed our physical, emotional and spiritual lives to require a day to stop, be with Him, rest. It was so serious that Israel spent 70 years in slavery for continuing to ignore the Shabbat.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This is where grace-o-philes say, “We're not under the law! We're under GRACE! We don't HAVE to1” (No, you GET to.) Okaaay....then why did Paul address it at all? He did NOT say don't keep it. He simply said the DAY is not the issue - it is that you do KEEP a day for God. And frankly, I do have some questions about the switcheroo from Saturday to Sunday, but that's another article...But keeping it is for OUR benefit. Jesus said the Shabbat was made for man, not the other way around. In other words, it's for your blessing. Ignore it if you want, but believe me, you do reap the consequences in many ways.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Which brings me to my next issue. Having been a minister for over 28 years, I can tell you - for Pastors, Sunday is NOT the day of rest! It's hard labor!!! For that reason, every pastor needs to designate another day as their personal Shabbat, disconnect the phone, and STOP. We fail to do so at the cost of their health, relationships, and even anointing.</B></div> <div> <B>But the Shabbat is not just for ministers - it is for all of us. And so few of us even give it a serious try. We do not take a day to rest, to pray, enjoy the peace and beauty of God, worship, be with family and friends in God's fellowship. And because we do not, we are driven the rest of the week. And the devil is the driver behind the wheel.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>So how do we stop the madness of the devil-driven life and enter into true Shabbat-rest as a lifestyle? (Strive, the book of Hebrews says, to enter into His Rest.) How do we ensure that we are truly doing God-led work and not devil-driven busywork?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Here are a few things to consider:</B></div> <div> <B>Without having one day committed to rest and honoring God, you have not conditioned your heart, body and mind to receive His leading. You can't be LED while being DRIVEN, and God gives us one day to stop so He can take the lead. A Shabbat day, by the way, is not mowing the lawn, running 100 errands or finishing up office work at home. I know because we're so frantic in the way we live that this seems like just an ideal rather than an attainable goal, but shouldn't we at least give it a try?</B></div> <div> <B>Examine your heart & motives for “doing things for God.”</B></div> <div> <B>Am I doing things for God just to please others and make a good impression?</B></div> <div> <B>Am I doing it to look spiritual?</B></div> <div> <B>Am I doing it so God will love me more?</B></div> <div> <B>Am I doing busy things for God to avoid the horrible silence and wounds and hurts that silence would reveal if I am still enough, long enough to listen?</B></div> <div> <B>Am I doing it to give me a sense of worth before God?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>All of these could be a sign that you are being devil-driven. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I have had to deal with all of these issues at one time. And I still have to fight to maintain my time alone with God, daily, and my day of rest once a week. When I do, everything goes better. I am more productive, less stressed and a much nicer person to be around! If I let that time be taken from me, I have to fight to get anything done. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I have had to learn that my worth to God has nothing to do with what I do for Him. It is a BLESSING to work for Him. And it is a shared labor, a labor of gratefulness and love, one born of the heart and not of panic or a sense of worthlessness. Men especially struggle with this - so much of our sense of worth comes from what we do. And God wants you to know that your are worth just as much to God when you are doing nothing as when you are doing something. My spiritual seasons involve months at a time when I am just WAITING. It is hard. But it is heart-preparation. I would rather wait and know that what I do is given by God, then constantly striving to “make something happen.” That is why I determined long ago not to promote myself. The scriptures say that promotion comes from ABOVE. And God has never failed to bring those open doors, when I simply wait and trust. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Father, help us to have done with the driven life. Help us to take time to rest - to honor You in the Shabbat - that we may be fruitful by allowing You to have the best of our time. Help us begin to watch less TV, fewer movies. Help us to listen to the silence where You dwell. Give us the courage not to give in to the many demands that You have not authorized us to respond to. And help us to find our worth, not in what we do for You, but in the fact that you simply love us and chose us to be your children. Divest us of anything and everything that creates a chaotic life and burns us out. Let Your peace rule in our hearts and minds, a peace that only comes from letting You LEAD us - a peace that comes from taking Your yoke on us, and learning from You as we rest in Your holy presence. Help us to know that all good things, and all fruit that remains will be born of a life of quiet confidence that You are leading us, and will not fail to fill our lives with all the meaning and purpose we could ever hope to have.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Gregory Reid</B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shock and Awe"><U><B>NEXT ARTICLE</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id6.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles"><U><B>BACK TO ARTICLE PAGE</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>