Of Furniture and Sanctification

Well friends, it's been a few weeks since last I've written and in that time we have successfully and safely made our move from Hawaii to California. Thank you for your prayers and help through that transitional time. It served as a refining time of patience and trust in God to see us through and provide for our needs.


Since arriving back in Mill Valley, we have been on a hunt for furniture. In another season of my life I would have been content to drive to IKEA and buy flat-packed particle board furniture that I could put together myself in thirty minutes with a screwdriver and IKEA provided Allen wrench. This time around, however, I have found myself wanting furniture of substance, pieces made from real wood in its more natural state. Along with that, I have also developed a desire to take old pieces of furniture and refinish them to fit our style and restore a long forgotten beauty in those pieces. To date, we have acquired an antique dresser for Abi's room, a vanity bench to match, and this orange chair.


We found this chair at a yard sale for $4. And immediately upon seeing it, I was drawn to the lines in the chair back and front legs. I hated the color, this rusty, carnival tinged orange, splotched with thick stray drops of white, originating from some unknown project. But I saw potential in the chair and bought it with the intent of stripping the paint and refinishing it. I started the project this week. 


The project began with a simple paint scraper and sandpaper, but after an hour and a half of scraping and sanding and only one rail of the chair back actually cleanly stripped, I knew I needed stronger stuff. The next day, Abi and I traveled to Home Depot and bought chemical stripper, a paint brush, a steel bristled brush, and gloves. I returned home to begin the process of applying chemical stripper and attacking this stubborn paint. I have been at it for the last three days during Abi's naps and all I've managed to clean is the front of the chair back. Very quickly I noticed that removing the built up paint was going to be a tedious and stubborn task.


Yesterday, as I was scraping and sanding away at the blistered and bubbling paint pulled up by the caustic chemicals I thought deeply about the process of sanctification in the lives of those who follow Christ. Sanctification is often described as the process of being "cleaned up" by God. In truth, sanctification is more than being cleaned up, it is being cleaned up for the purpose of being made holy, set apart as someone dedicated for service to God. When I reflect on my own life, I find that sanctification is a difficult process.


Paul writes to the church in Rome, "now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life" (Rom. 6:22). The apostle is adamant that once we give our lives to Christ, we become slaves of a new master. In fact we become more than slaves, we become sons of God and our allegiance in life shifts from sin to God and the effects of our allegiance change from death to life. But in the process of changing allegiance, of shifting eternal outcome, sanctification happens. 


Those of us being sanctified, know that this process sometimes hurts and is difficult. Just as I bought this old chair to refinish and repurpose it, God purchases us for his own purposes through the death of Jesus, and from the point of purchase onward, he takes it upon himself to clean us up and make us into something beautifully crafted for his purposes and glory. 


While sanding and scraping yesterday, I noticed that some areas of paint came off easier than others. Some layers literally just fell off, revealing the natural wood beneath. Yet, other parts of this chair held fast to the paint that covered it. Some stubborn areas were obviously stubborn. The seat for instance just will not let go of the paint. But other parts, like the little nooks and crannies, hide their stubbornness well.

I made a lot of progress yesterday, but during the whole process I felt at times that I had to use a very heavy hand, that if I were the chair I would be under a great deal of stress. This is often the reality of being sanctified. As God goes to work on us, he strips us, layer by layer, of all the things we have added to our life apart from his will, including the nooks and crannies that are difficult to get to except by a heavy hand and much work. I thought about what God must feel as he works to strip me of the layers of sin in my life. Honestly, the process hurts me at times and there are areas of my life that I make much harder for God to get at than others, sluffing off the sin that is easy to be rid of, but holding fast to those more obscure things like pride, anger, impatience. 


As the orange paint flaked away giving view to layers of green and white I was also made aware of the many layers of sin in my life. The person I am today is a product of years of layering sin upon sin, of covering up my defects with false righteousness and religious lip service. It hurts to be stripped of those things.


Two hours of applying stripper, scraping, sanding and cleaning eventually revealed the beautiful grain of the wood beneath the coats of latex paint and a preview of what the finished project will look like, and I was really pleased. It was hard work for me. And it was hard work for the chair; I put it through a great deal of stress. At the end of the day's work I thought of Peter's encouraging words to the early church in his first letter when he says that the salvation kept in heaven for us is worth rejoicing in "though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." The things of this life for those of us who follow Christ often pose great trials and difficulty for us, but Scripture promises that these difficult times lead to our sanctification, to the revelation of the purity of our faith which results in God's glory at Christ's coming.


God has bought me, an object covered by thick coats of varnish and paint, applied through sin and to cover up sin, and he is sanding and scraping away at this vessel to reveal something that will glorify him. It hurts at times in the present, but I'm excited to see the end result of his handiwork.

-Stephen

Some Thoughts on bin Laden's Death

Last night around 6 o'clock our time, Nikkie came into the kitchen as I was finishing up preparing some pad thai for dinner and said, "They killed Osama bin Laden. It's all over the news." "Really? Like they're absolutely certain he's dead?" I said with some disbelief. Two seconds later I was in the living room watching the special news reports and President Obama addressing the nation, confirming the outcome of the raid on bin Laden's compound in Afghanistan. As the President left the podium the television screen was filled with images from Times Square and streets in Washington D.C. with people in the streets cheering and chanting. Shouts of "USA! USA!," "Na na na na, hey, hey, goodbye," rose in the air across the nation last night. In our house, I sat quietly on the couch and shuddered.


Nearly ten years ago I watched on television in a college classroom the second airplane hit the World Trade Center and the hours of coverage and carnage that ensued afterward. I was incensed at the senseless acts of violence and terrorism and immediately all of my classmates and I were talking about revenge and justice. Ten years, trillions of dollars, and thousands of American lives later, we have it. And I cannot feel more differently today than I did ten years ago.


Let me first say that I am ever so appreciative of the efforts of our service men and women to bring us to this point today. They know sacrifice better than most, and the cost of war in terms of lives is not lost on them. 


I shuddered as the news unfolded last night because what I saw on television and Facebook and Twitter were the unabated and untempered cries of jubilation at the death of a wicked man. Yes, Osama bin Laden was a wicked man. He masterminded a horrific attack on unsuspecting and innocent men, women and children. His actions were and are deplorable and of the highest rank foul. Yet as I watched people fill the streets of America singing and shouting to celebrate his death, what I saw was not all that different from the shouts of men brandishing AK-47s and celebrating the death of thousands of Americans at the hand of terrorists.


Something within me felt off about the whole situation. I was relieved to hear that bin Laden was dead, but I was deeply bothered by the reaction of many Americans to the news of his demise. The mood in our house was less than celebratory as I reflected on what God says in Ezekiel 33:11: "‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’"


This word from God to Israel implores them to repent from their wicked ways. Why? Because God does not enjoy the death of wicked people, and we are all wicked people. Scripture states and explains time and again that we are all evil, wicked people, separated from God by our sin and recipients of his wrath because of our own defiance of his Lordship. Osama bin Laden was a sinful man of the highest degree. But I am sinful too. Is my sin or your sin as disgusting or murderous as bin Laden's? Likely not. Does my sin make me an object of God's wrath as much as bin Laden's? Absolutely. Bin Laden is a sinner the same as I. The only real difference between bin Laden and me is that my faith is in Jesus Christ for redemption and reconciliation to a just God.

While our God-given desire for justice spurs us to breathe a sigh of relief and say prayers of thanks for the events of yesterday, our knowledge of our need for Christ in light of our sin should bring temperance and humility to our time of rejoicing.

Let me exhort my friends, family and those who read this that for we who are in Christ our allegiance belongs to Him and His Kingdom. Our nation is not our god, and neither are its politics or military campaigns. As we rejoice in this symbolic victory over the wicked plans of an evil man, let us remember that very literally, "There but for the grace of God, go we."

May the events of May 1, 2011 remind us of the world's need for a Savior, and inspire Christ's followers to be good and humble citizens of His Kingdom, living to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to ends of the earth.

Every season has a turn...

Aloha Friends and Family,

It's been far too long since I have updated the blog to fill you all in on our life in Hawaii.

A lot has happened since last I wrote. Foremost among updates is the status of our employment at Baptist Collegiate Ministries here in Hilo. In mid-December the Big Island Baptist Association placed a request with the North American Mission Board for me to appointed as the USC2 missionary at the BCM. Shortly after the request was made, I received a phone call from NAMB stating that USC2 program was only designed for single graduates of college or seminary and that no provisions are made for married couples with children. I had been aware of the USC2 guidelines, but we had been assured by those who hired us that this would not be an issue as exceptions had been made in the past. Nevertheless, NAMB is holding to their bottom line regarding this situation.

Needless to say, Nikkie and I have had a lot of talking and praying to do considering our future in Hilo. The Big Island Baptist Association and Hawaii Pacific Baptist Convention rely heavily upon their relationship with NAMB and the funding they receive from them for ministries like BCM. In light of this, Nikkie and I have decided that it would be in the best long-term financial interest of BIBA and HPBC to be able to fill the position of BCM director with someone who fits the guidelines NAMB has set for the program. That said, we have announced our resignation as directors of the BCM, effective the end of this academic year.

This decision did not come easy and was not made without much consideration of other options for staying. In the course of figuring out what the rejection of the request meant for us, we explored other possibilities for raising funds, seeking funds elsewhere, and going bi-vocational, but none seemed reasonable for our family situation and the timeline we are working with.

We have a lot of plans for this semester pertaining to outreach to the campus and leadership development among our current students, and are excited about what the semester holds. We know that the ministry here is bigger than both Nikkie and myself and trust that God will continue to change the lives of students in Hilo through BCM.

Thank you all for your prayers and support. We will certainly need them in the coming weeks and months. Please be in prayer for our students as they get ready for a big transition and for their leadership in and through this ministry in the years to come.

Aloha,
Stephen, Nikkie and Abigail