When The Struggle Defeats The Dream

(excerpt from "Going Deeper With Christ" teaching series, 3/27/2011)

My Junior hear of High School I had the opportunity to play in a state championship football game against the Kingswood Knights from Kingswood, NH. For anyone unfamiliar with HS football, the state championship is the ultimate dream game for any HS team. The championship was what you worked so hard for. It was what made all the hard work worth it. I remember the game quite vividly. Fans surrounded every square foot of the field. Television crews were there to take brief shots to show on the news that night. Bands, cheerleaders, parents, old alumni players and radio announcers. I remember the lockeroom conversation prior to the game. I remember the quiet and serious bus ride to Kingswood. I remember walking out to the field suited up, pumped up, wondering if I would ever get this chance again. It was a dream day.

Go back 2 months, 6 or 7 games prior, to a weekday practice after school. Practices were brutal for me. 2 ½ - 3 hours, hot, tiring, non-stop running, non-stop yelling, non-stop put-downs from coaches who seemed to know only swear words. All I wanted to do some days was take off all my equipment and go jump in the river that ran beside the practice field because it was so physically and mentally strenuous.

I remember on 3 or 4 different practice days the practices became so hard for me that I literally said to myself, “This is my last day playing football. This is not worth it to me.” And as I think about the championship game that we played in Kingswood that year that we lost, and next year’s championship game in Kennett that we won, I think to myself, “How sad it would have been if I let the struggle defeat the dream."

Sometimes life becomes so strenuous for so long that we let the struggle defeat the dream of wholeness. We come to points in our lives where we say, “It’s easier to go jump in the river than it is to keep fighting for the dream”. It is easier to stay the way I am than it is to go through this struggle. I give up. I turn in my pads. I resign from the team. It’s too difficult. And jump in the river we can. Stay the same we can. Remain lame we can; but not if we want to see a championship.

When Jesus asked the lame man in John 5, "Do you want to get well" I believe Jesus knew something about the lame man we don't. After 38 years of lameness I think it is reasonable to assume that the man's 38-year struggle may have defeated his dream of wholeness. It could be that this man's main problem was not his paralyzed body, but his paralyzed will. Perhaps he no longer wanted to get well. The solution to a paralyzed will begins with a gut check from Jesus, "Do you want to get well?"

Going Deeper With Christ: Discipline Desire

My family and I recently watched the movie Hachi, a story about a dog who shows incredible loyalty to his master. Hachi was found abandoned at a train station back in the 1930’s by a man returning home from work. A puppy with no one to care for him the man picked him up, asked the train station manager what to do with the puppy and ended up taking him home for the night intending to bring him to a pound or locate its owner the following day.

As the story goes one thing leads to another, the owner cannot be located, the man does not have the heart to put Hachi in a pound, and so he keeps the dog.

Over time Hachi grows to love his master and his master loves him. One day the master came home his usual way on the train to find Hachi sitting outside the train station waiting for him. Surprised and bewildered by the fact that Hachi found his way to the train station all by himself, the master walked home with Hachi. From that point on Hachi would faithfully meet his master at the train station each night, day after day, year after year to walk him home.

But then one day while Hachi was waiting for his master the master did not show. Hachi waited and waited and waited until a car pulled up late that night. It was the master’s son-in-law arriving to take Hachi home. The master had died of a heart attack while at work that day.

Hachi went to live with the master’s daughter in a nearby town. The master’s home  was sold and all that was familiar to Hachi was now gone. Something was not right with Hachi from this point forward. He lived in a nice home with familiar people but he was not the same. He was depressed. Escaping one day out of the house, the daughter and son-in-law searched all day for Hachi finally finding him sitting at the train station waiting for his master.

Hachi was brought home that night but the daughter knew that Hachi was not well. And so, compassionately, she let Hachi go. For the next 9 years Hachi lived under an abandoned rail car close to the train station. Every day for 9 years Hachi would make his way to the train station to sit in his special place and wait for his master's return.

Folks, Hachi had a one-desire heart. Nothing would ever again satisfy Hachi’s heart except the presence of his master. Not a plush dog house. Not flavored kibbles n bits. Not a new home with laughing children. For Hachi his heart desired nothing other than to be with his master.

Hachi’s desire for his master’s return dictated everything he did. It dictated where he lived, what he ate, what he spent his time doing. Everything in Hachi’s life was centered around his desire to be with his master.

This is exactly what building life around Jesus is for us: It is an intentional centering of all of life around Jesus our Master. It is not that we abandon all that we are currently doing in our lives in order to live for Jesus; although some may be called to that. Instead, we bring Jesus into everything we are doing. Everything we do gets transformed into God's work as we bring Jesus into it. Now some things we cannot bring Jesus into. There are just some things Jesus will have no part of, and those things must go. But for most people there are ways to do what we are currently doing in Jesus name.

The story of Hachi reminds us that if we desire to go deeper with Christ we must discipline our desires such that we do not desire anything other than our Master. Listen to what Paul said,

"I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!” (Phil.3:7-11, NLT).

Let me suggest three practical things we can begin to do today to discipline our desires for Christ alone. There are surely more and perhaps better things to try, but here's a place to start:

• Make Every Thought Captive To Christ. We need to question every thought and every intention we have. Never assume that what you automatically think about is what you automatically should be thinking about. Paul said to the Corinthians, “We demolish arguments and every pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Cor.10:5). 

If, when you have nothing to think about your mind automatically goes to your Fantasy Football League, you may a divided heart. If in your downtime your automatic thoughts go to food or alcohol or drugs or women: let’s face it, you have a divided heart. We need to clean out our minds so that Christ can reside there.

• Understand the Urgency: Death and damnation are real! Earthquakes and other natural disasters are all too frequent reminders of the reality of death. None of us are promised another day. For this reason we must heed the urgent call of the bible to get on board with the Savior: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

We must discipline our desires now because the consequences of a many-desire heart are eternally real.

• Lastly, Make time to go to the train station (figurative of course) to sit before the Master and pray. Pray big prayers. Make note of this passage: "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generation, for ever and ever! Amen" (Eph.3:20-21).

This passage reminds us that God is able to do more than we can ask Him to do and more than we can imagine He can do. As you sit before the Master be bold enough to ask God for big things. Not cars, houses and other perishable things; but ask for people. Ask for souls. Ask for revival. Ask for miraculous change from the inside out. Ask for those you know to be released from the debilitating way of life they have been lured into. We can even ask God to heal people of their diseases and ailments. The important thing is that we pray believing and we pray humbly.

Let me encourage today to go deeper with Christ by disciplining your desires. Let me encourage you to desire One.