Personal Responsibility

I have been constantly remined over the last twelve years, of the importance of personalizing my faith.   It was a lesson that I was forced to learn when the severity of my wife’s health condition was beginning to be made clear to us in 2008.  Over the ensuing years I found myself questioning just about every Biblical truth that I had ever believed.  Now, that may be thought of as a rather blasphemous statement coming from a man that had been in active Christian ministry for the vast majority of his adult life.

In my defense though, I would also say that I did things rather unconventionally in my ministry training… some might even say a bit backwards!  The mainstay of my training was learned in hands-on experience within the various churches we attended and served in.  And although my wife and I did attend countless seminars, conferences and hours of Christian leadership and Bible study classes throughout the years, I didn’t actually attend an accredited Bible College until after some thirty plus years in staff ministry positions at five different churches in northern California.

I entered Bible School thinking that I knew a lot… only to find out how LITTLE I actually did know!  Those classes brought new levels of understanding to me that I didn’t even think was possible.  It made me re-think many of the ministry approaches, decisions, counselling and teaching that I had engaged in since the early 1970’s.  Don’t get me wrong here though… not all of it was of a negative nature, but it definitely gave me a great depth of understanding to the heart and purpose of ministry. 

I guess you could say that it took the “ME!” out of our ministry.  It reminded me of a class that Piper taught a few times in our Children’s Church classes on the subject of PRIDE.  The point that stood out to me was that “I” is the middle letter in the word PRIDE!  And believe me… I could see that there had been a lot of “I” in many of my ministry endeavors… especially in the early years.

When we returned home after Bible School, I was immediately faced with some tough decisions.  With everything I had learned at school, the reality of Piper’s rapidly declining health and a lot of family and friends feeling like it was their responsibility to share all their hopeless, negative, doubt-filled and faith stealing opinions about her with me, I quickly discovered that in many respects… I was on my own when it came to keeping the stand of faith that Piper and I had agreed upon in prayer, while she was still lucid in Oklahoma.

It was at that point that I realized that in order to stay the promise that I had made to her, that I had to really know that I know the Biblical truths I was standing on and exactly WHY!  That it was firmly and unequivocally based on what was in my heart and that I wasn’t just believing it because someone else believed it or because it sounded good to me.  In other words, my faith HAD to be founded on my own deeply entrenched and intimately understood convictions of the truth of God’s Word!  I had to KNOW without any hesitation that God intimately knew and loved Piper and I so much, that He would always be true to His Word for us… to the Word that we were standing on! (See: Ephesians 3:19)

Paul’s writings to the Corinthian Church in 1 Corinthians 2:5 perfectly summarizes the lesson that I learned.  Paul explained that the intentions of his teachings to them was “that your life of faith is a (personal) response to God's power, not to some fancy mental or emotional footwork by me or anyone else.” (The Message Bible)  In other words, their faith life was up to them, not someone else.  It all depended on how they understood it and put it into personal usage in their lives.  In effect, he was saying, that each of us have to take the responsibility for our own faith.

I do not believe that I could have made it through the difficult years of Piper’s final journey… nor that I can face today and tomorrow without her… except that I now know WHO, WHAT and WHY I believe… and come any storm… God and His Word will ALWAYS stand firm for me and with me!

Can you say the same?  Who is responsible for your faith?