The Story Of With by Allen Arnold (Allen Arnold, 2016)
Bear Trap Ranch is a place that holds a significant spot in my heart. God has done some pretty incredible things in my life at that place in the mountains, and it is one of my favorite locations on this planet because of that.
Bear Trap is run by a ministry called Band of Brothers, who seeks to encourage men to be who God has created them to be. So the gift shop at Bear Trap carries a few books that help meet that goal. It’s small, and they only carry a few titles. But one of them caught my eye.
Before I could purchase it, a friend of mine bought it and gave it to me as a gift. And he couldn’t have given me anything better.
The Story Of With, by Allen Arnold, is a fictional allegory of a young lady who is seeking out the meaning of her life. As she struggles to discover her identity — not what she does, but who she is — she is taken on a journey where things are very black and white, allowing her to see the reality of our world. Combining allegory with application, this intense story helps you to see yourself more as God sees you, and more as God loves you.
It’s a quick and easy read, but it bears a closer scrutiny than just simply reading through it. Even though it is fictional, it contains several insights and nuggets of truth that may just knock the breath out of your lungs.
As I strive to “be” and not just “do,” this idea of “with” takes that whole learning process to a new and deeper level. It is impacting my soul in ways that I couldn’t have imagined as I looked it over in the gift shop at Bear Trap Ranch.
Thanks, Ron, for the gift that has impacted me deeper than you’ll ever know.
If you would like to read The Story Of With, you can get it on Amazon.
Things change. They just do. And sometimes that change can be hard to understand, and even harder to view with the proper perspective, a Kingdom perspective. But that’s something that we have to strive for continuously.
In early October, I spent a week outside of Colorado Springs at Bear Trap Ranch. This is an annual event that I utilize for my spiritual life as sort of a “spiritually fiscal review” of my life for the past year, and for the year to come. This is a cornerstone event for me, impacting my spiritual growth in ways that I cannot even fathom sometimes.
God uses that literal mountaintop experience to help form a spiritual mountaintop experience that helps me navigate through my life and ministry in the months to come.
It’s not the only thing that I intentionally plan through out the year. I also incorporate single day retreats, called Personal Retreat Days, to review my life and ministry, spend time in prayer, and seek God’s continued direction. I strive to do this at least every six to eight weeks through the year. And it helps, being built upon the foundation of the week in Colorado, to maintain a Kingdom perspective.
That was the theme for Wilderness this year. We looked deeply into the Sermon on the Mount, seeing how God is calling us to be Kingdom oriented people. He didn’t call me to “do” ministry. He called me to “be” a Kingdom person, in my life, in my family, in my ministry, and in every other aspect of my life.
Conceptually, that’s pretty easy. I can conceive what that looks like in an academic fashion pretty easily. But when the rubber meets the road, when life throws some things my way that don’t fit into my routines, that don’t align with my regular, day to day, life flow… Then what? How do I keep a Kingdom perspective in the middle of things like that?
With only three stanzas left in Psalm 119, the psalmist seems to be increasing his pleas for God’s salvation and provision against his enemies. His conclusions should help us understand God’s desires for our own lives better. Take a look at Psalm 119:153-156:
The author of Psalm 119 has described more than once his enemies and the persecution that they bring to him as he strives to follow God’s Word. As the psalm progresses, there seems to be an increasing urgency in his cries for help.
And yet, at the same time, the psalmist’s pleas are focusing less and less upon himself and have become more of a prayer as the stanzas have gone by. As Psalm 119 progresses, the author has grown to the point where he is now calmly waiting in obedience.
As this section of the psalm begins, he calls out once again for protection and deliverance. The psalmist reminds God that he has kept his laws, and that he hasn’t forgotten them. He knows that obedience to God’s Word isn’t an option for him, and it’s not an option for us either.
Our culture dislikes the notion of obedience. We want to do whatever we want, whenever we want, and to do it on our own. We have become overly independent, refusing to submit to any authority whatsoever.
This isn’t a new problem, and has been around for centuries. Jesus spoke very forthrightly about obedience, and about the need to submit to his Lordship. Paul writes in several places of the need to submit to Christ, to submit to others, to submit to authorities, and more.
The peace of God is first and foremost peace with God.
The first half of this stanza contained a couple of instructions on prayer that the psalmist has learned while facing opposition in his life. This passage gives two more. You can see them in Psalm 119:149-152:
As mentioned when we looked at the first half of this strophe, the author of Psalm 119 has learned to rely upon God mainly due to a single factor: his prayer life. He has come to rely upon God for protection and provision, and knows that it is only through his ongoing conversations with God that this relationship can stay vibrant and healthy.
In the first half of the passage, the psalmist gave two ways that using God’s Word in his prayer life gave him the strength he needed to continue following God fully. First, he stated that we must pray earnestly. And second, that we must pray continually.
In the final verses of this stanza, we can see two more characteristics of our prayer life, and the need to use God’s Word within it.
The frightening thing is that, to enter hell, all one has to do is nothing.
DiscipleShift by Jim Putman & Bobby Harrington (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013)
I am in the mountains near Colorado Springs this week for CIY Wilderness, and one of the books I am reading is DiscipleShift, by Jim Putman and Bobby Harrington.
We are called to make disciples. Jesus made that very clear in the Great Commission, and elsewhere throughout the New Testament. But how do we become churches that produce disciples that produce more disciples?
Throughout history, the church has taken different approaches to disciple making, not all of them effective. And in an increasingly apathetic culture, how can we continue to fulfill this mandate? Perhaps it’s time for a shift in our thinking. Perhaps it’s time for a shift in our mindset. Or, as these two authors point out, perhaps it’s time for five key shifts in our approach to disciple making.
I’m really excited about reading this book where I can discuss it with so many other ministers. I am excited to see how God might impact my thinking in this area through this book in the context in which I’m reading it.
If you would like to read DiscipleShift, you can order a copy on Amazon.
