Mike Yaconelli on the Desperate, Hungry, and Thirsty
Friends,
I originally posted this at my own blog, but I thought perhaps it deserved a wider audience.
I read this book a couple of years ago. I saw it on the shelf today while preparing lessons for my week of deaning junior high church camp next week. I saw one of those small green post-it flags attached to a page so I turned to it to see what had caught my eye two years ago. Here it is:
My father believes, as I do, that the church is the place where the incompetent, the unfinished, and even the unhealthy are welcome. I believe Jesus agrees.
Christianity is not for people who think religion is a pleasant distraction, a nice alternative, or a positive influence. Messy spirituality is a good term for the place where desperation meets Jesus. More often than not, in Jesus’ day, desperate people who tried to get to Jesus were surrounded by religious people who either ignored or rejected those who were seeking to have their hunger for God filled. Sadly, not much has changed over the years.
Desperate people don’t do well in churches. They don’t fit, and they don’t cooperate in the furthering of their starvation. ‘Church people’ often label ‘desperate people’ as strange and unbalanced. But when desperate people get a taste of God, they can’t stay away from him, no matter what everyone around them thinks.
Desperate is a strong word. That’s why I like it. People who are desperate are rude, frantic, and reckless. Desperate people are explosive, focused, and uncompromising in their desire to get what they want. Someone who is desperate will crash through the veil of niceness. The New Testament is filled with desperate people, people who barged into private dinners, screamed at Jesus until they had his attention, or destroyed the roof of someone’s house to get him. People who are desperate for spirituality very seldom worry about the mess they make on their way to be with Jesus.”–Mike Yaconelli, Messy Spirituality, 33-34
You know what the problem is with us Christians? We become so certain of our faith in Christ, that we have forgotten what it means to be desperate, we forget how to be desperate. We are so confident in our Justification that we forget about Sanctification. So confident in knowledge we forget about grace. We settle. And badly.
Perhaps it would behoove us to remember what it is like to be desperate, starving, dying of thirst. Perhaps if we remembered these, satisfied as we are, it would be much easier for us to understand those who still are in such dire straits. Perhaps we have forgotten how parched the land really is and why we came to Christ in the first place. Perhaps we need, quickly, to remember. All of us, that is.
Soli Deo Gloria!
July 21st, 2008 at 9:18 pm
Wow! You’re right, I totally have forgotten what it’s like to be desperate for Jesus. And you never really think about how there must be so many other people desperately chasing after Him and are being restricted by us, by our actions and lack of love, our pompus attitudes, hypocritical judgement…etc..
Very interesting find Jerry.
BTW…I’d watch it with using “Soli Deo Gloria”, I’m pretty sure it’s trademarked by the reformed sites…
At least stick the “TM” in there.
July 21st, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I’d been meaning to read that book for a long time, and I finally started it yesterday. It’s pretty awesome so far.
The Wittenburg Door is still my favorite Christian magazine.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Great thoughts… it happens that if we forget how desperate we were once, and can still be, that we lose sight of our deep need for Jesus.
iggy
July 22nd, 2008 at 5:11 am
“The situation is desperate…but we are not”
Vance Havner
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:24 am
Amen, brother!
I loved this sentence, “But when desperate people get a taste of God, they can’t stay away from him, no matter what everyone around them thinks.”
Good stuff.
Great reminders.
Shalom
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Jerry -
Excellent word.
I wonder, however, it what ways might put this to practic:
I ask because for those of us who live in the land of plenty it is often hard to remember ever being truly desperate. When I was in Ethiopia I saw a desperation I have never known and hope I never will. Theirs was not just a spiritual desperation but they were literally starving, dying of thirst.
How do we translate the value of a desperate thirst for the living water of Christ to a culture that gets desperate over the new IPhone that came out or the newest video game system or rising gas prices or the race to make not just a living wage but a wage to make them live better than everyone else, etc., etc.?
Thanks for sharing this.
peace,
Chad
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:44 am
Chad,
One way is to hang out with hurting people… sort of like Jesus did.
iggy
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:46 am
My pastor always says relationships are messy. It’s easier just to stick with our little routine and avoid truly getting to know hurting people.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:56 am
Salvation is a messy job… Just ask Jesus…
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 am
Good thought, Iggy.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:25 am
It’s easier if you remember that you are also one of the hurting.
We’re good at hiding not so good at sharing!
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:28 am
I agree, Iggy.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
One of the prayers I pray semi-regularly is “Lord, make me desperate for you.” I don’t always like the way He answers that prayer.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Chad preached a sermon that touched on this.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:41 am
I am impacted by this by putting myself on the alter every day and working on spreading the good news in our community and around town. Paul was so compelled after he got knocked off his horse that he didn’t even care about persecution, danger, prison, or sword. Desperation for God is required, for if you have not come face to face with him and are fully relying on Him, you will fail. If you do not have a compassion that follows your fear of man you will not share the hope that lies within you.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:47 am
This is a good insight. I often do not share because of my fear of man. Compassion sould drive us.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Good words PB…
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Wow, so far something we can all agree upon.
One of my favorite authors is Eugene Peterson. His book Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places is a work of art and surely goes a long way to answering the question of how we translate this when we live in a land of comfort. He quotes a poem on the first page of which I’ll quote only a portion:
I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is–
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces. (Gerard Manley Hopkins)
I was thinking about this on Monday evening when I went for a bike ride with my wife and then we went shopping for food. We spent what we needed on food. Then talked about the mortgage we will have if our loan goes through all right. We will be paying for our house per month what people in Haiti or Guatamala make in year.
Yes, there is something soundly out of balance with that. What do we do? Am I any less desperate than the person in Haiti? It is sort of hard to reconcile and yet at the same time be grateful to God for the blessings we enjoy.
Hmmmm…
jerry
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 am
Good thoughts, Jerry. I can never reconcile the issue that the American church fares sumptuously while people around the world, including brothers and sisters in Christ, go without and even starve.
I guess I believe in a form of Christian communism as practiced in the early church (Acts).
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
How odd this should come up.
The other day I was listening to one of Boyd’s sermons on praying for healing. He used Paul as his example with the thorn or pain in his side, and he’d been praying about how much more useful he could be if the malady were gone. He got a response he wasn’t expecting, but it was one he could live with.
It makes me think about the thorns in my side that keeps me reliant on God instead of myself, and serves as reminder that this ride could be over in a heartbeat, as it almost was almost three years ago when my aorta shredded itself apart from the inside and nearly burst and I had to be rushed in for open heart surgery (I was only 38 at the time).
Since then I look at my relationship with God and my relationship with others through totally different eyes in light of that passage. I wish I didn’t have to deal with Marfan, but it’s my thorn that glorifies God, it keeps me focused on Him, and God has been able to grow me in ways I would not think possible if this had not happened.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Rick,
Your comment reminded me of a post I wrote last year and then recently used as a sermon illustration.
We have so much to learn from penguins.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:48 am
Jerry,
Would you expound on the relationship between “certainty” and “desperation.” I think I know what ya mean, and probably agree…
As I see it, there are many things on which we can have certainty - the veracity of Scripture, our salvation, the uniqueness of Christ, etc… - yet in my own life I have been way too certain about things that are less obvious - dispensationalism for example.
Is this what ya meant?
Neil
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Good post, Nathanael (unique spelling?).
Maybe I need to become Amish. To be honest, Shane Clairborne’s approach to Christian living intrigues me. The more possessions you get, the more worried about them you become and the less you are willing to part with.
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 am
Thanks, Rick.
Biblical spelling…Mr. Hawthorne’s parents were wrong.
:0
Neil (and Jerry)
Could “certain” be repaced with “settled”?
July 22nd, 2008 at 9:59 am
or “complacent”?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:10 am
This is sooo true. Here in SA the rich surrounded themselves with high walls that separate them from the poor and their neighbours. They keep their children and possessions locked inside. When you go to the poor neighbourhoods you see children playing in the streets and people talking to their neighbours, sharing with each other of their possessions.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:12 am
What are the core truths that must be believed to be saved? How much of our different belief systems are not germaine to unity?
Some believers who are baptismal emblematic join with baptismal regenerational believers and see no problem. Yet Rick Warren who believes in faith alone is castigated unmercifully.
Some who believe in the deity of Christ but see God as one persona revealed in three forms are attacked as unsaved. If ever there was a cardinal doctrine that was dealt with in a very light way it is the Trinity. You have to piece verses together including narratives, and you would think that if it was so important it would be taught by Paul in his epistles.
So if you do not accept the three persons doctrine but you believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all the same person revealed in three manifestations are you saved?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 am
Rick,
Where did that come from?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
Jerry - Christ Plays in 10000 places is an awesome book. That whole series is wonderful.
Rick -
I just blogged about this yesterday based on a talk I heard given by Donald Miller. Doctrine is not nearly as important as The Leap.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:23 am
It came from being “certain”.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 am
Got it.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
I think being certain that I am in desperate need of a Savior, and being certain that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is my Savior is pretty core.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
Neil,
You know what it is? Last week I was at a camp with four kids from KCU. One has a 13 year old brother whose body is riddled with tumors.
I have a brother whose 30 year old brain is being crushed by a tumor. He is 30 years old and cannot control his piss any longer, eats paper, wanders aimlessly around the house. In short, he’s dying. 30.
I am about to take on a mortgage for my family, rejoice in God’s blessing, while others in the world are starving. Rejoice in all things, he says. And yet, I want this house so bad for my wife and sons and I shouldn’t feel badly that I have to have a place to live and that after 14 years of preaching I’m tired of living in a parsonage which provides nothing for my future or family.
I believe in Creation and the theological importance of such a belief. But what if Darwin was right? (I”m not interested in debating this so please spare me.) And why is what’s so obvious to me so hazy to others? (I’m not interested in debating so please don’t bother. Here I’m sharing those ‘certainties’ and ‘desperations.’)
What about all the lost? The Calvinist escapes this fear and angst by attributing all the lost to God’s just election. I cannot do that. Every person that dies without Christ tears me apart. What about hell? I don’t want to imagine it in any way.
What if David never really did exist?
What if I die some glad morning and I don’t have the requisite wings to fly away?
What if my sons grow older and end up hating God like my youngest brother does?
Why won’t my church grow even though I am preaching Sola Scriptura? Why does one man in the church continually harp on me about the length of the worship? Why have I been stuck preaching in small churches since the day I graduated while many of my peers have done far more?
Even on the mountain when Jesus ascended some doubted. The problem I have is that sometimes doubts have no answers.
Why have I had to struggle the way I have had to struggle with certain sins? No matter the prayers. No matter the faith. No matter the resistance. Struggle. Struggle. Struggle.
You know what it is? Grace. I cannot, no matter how much I believe and preach it, understand God’s grace. I am desperately clinging to that grace. Desperately.
PS. I don’t get dispensationalism either. Then again, I don’t get mathematics. I cannot reconcile Calvinism with Scripture and yet there are some who see nothing but ‘Calvinism.’ I don’t get ‘Left Behind’ and yet some see nothing but Left Behind. I play guitar and sing, but I don’t understand music. I am desperate.
But I’m learning that I am more desperate for Jesus than I am for answers.
I’m learning to live in the ambiguity of it all. Isn’t it strange that God could have give us straight answers–like the straight forward Laws of Leviticus–and yet he chose more often than not to give us ambiguity? Am I the only one who finds that strange, dissatisfying, and completely unfair?
I guess that’s what faith is about, huh?
jerry
Sorry for the long reply. Maybe this song is helpful to explain my position:
Well, sometimes my life
Just don’t make sense at all
When the mountains look so big
And my faith just seems so small
So hold me Jesus, ’cause I’m shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace
And I wake up in the night and feel the dark
It’s so hot inside my soul
I swear there must be blisters on my heart
Surrender don’t come natural to me
I’d rather fight You for something
I don’t really want
Than to take what You give that I need
And I’ve beat my head against so many walls
Now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees
And this Salvation Army band
Is playing this hymn
And Your grace rings out so deep
It makes my resistance seem so thin
You have been King of my glory
Won’t You be my Prince of Peace
–Rich Mullins
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
THE ESSENTIALS
Jesus in the divine Saviour - God in the flesh
Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead
Believe on Jesus to be saved
Anything else?
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:35 am
I would simply say: Jesus Is Lord.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am
Rick and Chad,
Amen.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
My hiking buddy told me a story once. One of his coworkers was going on a weekend hike. He was going to leave right from work, so he packed his pack ahead of time and brought it to work with him. Another coworker emptied the contents of the pack and placed a heavy stone in the bottom. He then carefully replaced the stuff he removed.
The poor hiker had no idea the rock was in there until he came home from the hike and emptied his pack. He just though he was really out of shape.
I feel sometimes we add rocks and weight onto the backs of seeking souls, weight that Jesus has no intention of making them carry.
…in my opinion.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am
“I feel sometimes we add rocks and weight onto the backs of seeking souls, weight that Jesus has no intention of making them carry.”
Ya think? Just look at what we do to gay people. We’ve made their gate extremely small because our version of grace includes shredding personal sin which of course is not grace at all.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:50 am
“Come to me, ALL of you, who are weak and carrying stone-filled backpacks, and I will give you rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”
Amen, Nathanael.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
Rick brings up a very interesting point. Regarding the Trinity (a doctrine that was actually established 300+ yrs after Christ resurrected) is something that should be examined.
For example: choose ANY epistle Paul wrote and you will see that in his introduction he greets people in the name of the Father and the Son. In the book of Revelation, when the kingdom is finally established on this earth, it talks about only the Father and the Son being the light of New Jerusalem (the bride)… very interesting indeed.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 am
Chad,
The new volume in Peterson’s collection Tell it Slant is scheduled for release in October of this year. I can’t wait.
I have thoroughly enjoyed the books.
jerry
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Paul C -
While I might say that belief in the Trinity is not essential to ones salvation I would argue quite strongly that belief in the Trinity is essential for any real, true, and robust life in Christ. The doctrine of the Trinity is not just some neat head game we play with ourselves but is part of the revealed mystery of the Godhead that goes so far unpacking the practical ways in which we think about community, love, relationships and missions.
As an aside, even with Paul introducing his letters with the Father and the Son you have already moved beyond monotheism if you do not incorporate some sort of trinitarian theology.
peace,
Chad
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:57 am
Sweet! The same month Bell’s new book, Jesus Came to Save the Christians is due to release. October is promising to be a great month - AND we get to dress up as Batman!
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:58 am
Three divine persons
Three manifestations of one divine person
What is the difference and what does it matter? A mystery indeed.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
I’m not sure I follow this point.
My point is that the Trinity was never really outlined by any of the epistles at all, but it was always the Father and the Son. This does not dispute that there is a Holy Spirit (of course there is) but is “It/He” a person of the Godhead as tradition/doctrine teaches? I believe strongly in the power of the Holy Spirit, the gifts and even speaking in tongues…
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:06 am
Paul may not introduce his letters with all three persons, but he does teach in his letters the involvement and action of the three persons of God. Reread Ephesians among others.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as a person, not an “it.” In scripture the Holy Spirit can be lied to, can be grieved, he convicts the world of sin, is the power that raised Christ from the dead, is an Advocate, and so much more that I am not able to recite all from memory at this point.
If you allow for the very least the Father and the Son than you have already introduced a second god (unless you argue the Son is not divine). The belief that the Holy Spirit is also divine is as old as the earliest scriptures and was discussed and ruminated on as early as Tertullian. It is a common mistake to think that this “doctrine” was just dreamed up in the mid 300’s.
peace,
Chad
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Great is the mystery of the Godhead.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am
Well, I can see this conversation is getting off track already. I liked it better when we were talking about our desperation and not debating our certainties.
“Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.”
Maybe that will help.
jerry
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:33 am
Jerry-
There is an unwritten rule (so I have read) that states once a conversation reaches 39 comments it will inevitably veer off course. When that same coversation reaches 450 comments, someone will inevitably be compared to Hitler.
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:36 am
Chad,
I’m glad you wrote that. I needed a good laugh. I’m trying to make sense right now of how Isaiah used the word ‘justice’ in his sermons. The laugh does me well at this point.
jerry
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 am
Glad I could help
Did you know that in Spanish the words justice and righteousness are the same? That’s free of charge
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
Chad - Is that the gift of tongues WITH interpretations?
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Rick, lol.
July 22nd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Christian P.
Yep. Matthew 3:13-17 and Mark 1:9-11 also give a pretty good example of the three being present.
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Jerry, your comment at #33 just blows my mind because except for your 30 year old brother (I’ll be praying for him), I could identify with each of your points/problems/sins/unanswered questions. I have trying to write a post on this at my own blog but the words keep escaping me. May I use that comment as a post on my blog? It describes what I want to say much better as I would be able to do it.
This song came to mind while reading your comment:
July 22nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I agree, comment #33 was incredible.
Real.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Eugene,
Feel free to repost any part of my reply that will help be a vehicle of God’s grace to others. Thank you.
Nathanael,
Thank you.
jerry
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Thanks Jerry, I appreciate your thoughts.
Neil