The Jen Young

It’s Not Fair!

April 19th, 2010

“It’s not fair!” Who do you picture saying this? I know my first thought is of a child; probably one who isn’t getting their way and is fussing about it.

I most recently heard this out of the mouth of an adult. Incidentally, it was also one who wasn’t getting their way and was fussing about it….

As our culture has been shifting away from a biblical world view for some time, there are some principles that are being lost, redefined and perverted. I’ve noticed that “fairness” is one of them.

The concept of “fair” or “just” has been replaced with “entitled” and “equal.” But if you take a biblical look at it, “fair” does not necessarily mean “equal.” Often what is decried as “unfair” really isn’t “unfair” or “unjust.” But somehow this generation has been trained to expect that they should receive an equal share in privileges and benefits without any of the costs, and with disregard to any agreements or contracts that were in place.

Shall we mess the culture’s view of “fair” a bit? Let’s look at Matthew 20, for example.

In Matthew 20:1-16 Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The Readers’ Digest version is this:

An owner hires some workers at the beginning of the day who agreed to work for 100 bucks a day. (Well, a denarius, but we’ll say $100.) He kept hiring additional people throughout the day, so at the end of the day there were people who worked all day, and people who only worked an hour.

When the owner handed out paychecks, he paid the people who were hired last and worked the least $100 for the day - the same as those who were hired first and worked the whole day.

But, it’s not fair! Right? Or, is it? Those hired first agreed to work for $100 per day, and they were paid $100 per day. Where is the “unfairness” of being paid exactly what was agreed? Was the pay “equal” to everyone based on their work? No. Were the first workers “entitled” to more because they worked more? No. They agreed to work for $100, and the Bible says it was “fair” that they were paid what they agreed.

This may not be one of the nice, happy parables that gets preached on regularly, but it is truth. The next time we think something is “unfair,” we need to really stop and evaluate: Is it really “unfair,” or is it exactly what we agreed, but we just think we should be entitled to more?

I have been part of the hiring process of new employees at our company for some time. In one instance, we were preparing to hire someone who would be my subordinate, but we were proposing would be paid more than me. The owners were a little concerned at how I might take this. I assured them that I agreed to work for my current pay, and what anyone else gets paid does not change what I agreed to work for. I appreciated the owners’ concern, but the new person was worth the increased wage, and I had no right to think I should be paid more because someone else was.

The world might say this was unfair, but it was genuinely settled in my heart that it was fair and just to receive what I agreed. I had no resentment toward the new person or their pay, and I enjoy a great working relationship with everyone involved to this day. Things could have gone very differently if I didn’t have a biblical view of “fair” in this instance.

Truth can mess you up, but if you let it get in you, truth with set you free.

What truth messes with you? More importantly, what truth messed with you until it set you free?

Posted in Business Stuff, Spiritual Stuff | 1 Comment »

Running The Race

March 21st, 2010

One year ago this weekend I ran my first “distance” race… I ran an 8K (5 miles). Since then I have run two 8K’s, two half marathons and a full marathon (26.2 miles!). This has been much to the surprise and amusement of anyone whose known me longer than this past year. Though always an athlete, I was very vocally “anti-running.” I’ve had to eat a lot of my words!!

I have been remarkably surprised at how enjoyable distance running is, how achievable it is, and what a spiritually growing experience it is as well. The latter really shouldn’t have surprised me, seeing how the Bible contains numerous running metaphors and illustrations. Nevertheless, I’ve gained a whole new appreciation and understanding of what those scriptures are REALLY about having now experienced it first-hand!

Endurance and perseverance take on whole new meaning… especially after about 10 miles! So does “running the good race,” “counting the cost,” and “keeping your eyes fixed on the prize.”

I think going on a long run is similar to fasting in many ways. Disciplining your body to do something that is not easy or comfortable develops character, and brings what is really in your soul to the surface…. both good and bad. There’s no faking it or sugar-coating who you are at mile 18! Denying your body what it wants (to STOP running!) makes your flesh take a back seat and can give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak things you might not otherwise hear. I’ve had some awesome and enlightening spiritual experiences while running… often during the crappy miles, no less!

Today I ran a half marathon without a running partner/friend. I really like running with someone. The conversation and encouragement make it a lot more fun and a lot easier. But today I didn’t have someone else to lean on when miles were getting tough. Today I got to REALLY learn about “fixing my eyes on the prize,” and how it applies to our spiritual walks as well.

If you concern yourself with people you are passing along the way, you get arrogant. And unless you’re a Kenyan, you’re never going to pass EVERYONE. If you concern yourself with people who are passing YOU along the way, you get discouraged. Ultimately, whether you pass people or they pass you doesn’t matter; what matters is that you FINISH. You have to keep your eyes on the goal and run the race to finish it! Lots of people start a race with zeal and enthusiasm, but when the excitement fades and fatigue sets in, you must have your eyes fixed on something greater that what is happening around you or in you if you are going to keep going.

Don’t worry how you compare to anyone else. Fix your eyes on Jesus and run your good race, enduring and persevering! Encourage someone else to keep going, and count on someone else encouraging you, too!

Posted in Running Stuff, Spiritual Stuff | 3 Comments »

Under the Influence… of Snow?

January 31st, 2010

Okay…. I’ll just get this out there now: snow is no big deal to me. I was born and raised in Minnesota, and went to college in Duluth. Snow? Been there, done that. All the blizzards of the eighties, 1991 Halloween Blizzard, even the storm this past Christmas… I was there and still have the dirty car to prove it. It better snow at least 15 inches for me to be impressed.

But now I live in Virginia Beach. Any place with “beach” in the name does not invoke thoughts of snowmen and sledding. We rarely see snow here, and if we do, it usually doesn’t last long enough to hit the ground.

This weekend, though, we actually got snow in Virginia Beach. Maybe 6-8 inches. Not at all noteworthy by Minnesota standards, but enough to grind a metro area that doesn’t own a snowplow to a halt for days. I’ll drive 1300 miles through blizzards each Christmas to see my family, but the mere idea of Virginia drivers in snow will keep me at home.

With all this time at home, it reminded me of my long-held theory of snow: Snow is like alcohol.

There’s nothing really spiritual or edifying about this theory, but I’ll share it anyway! Here are my reasons why I think snow is like alcohol:

1) Snow makes everything prettier. When the sun comes up and the snow melts, you may be in for a rude awakening, but a snow-covered city is anything short of magical and everything seems more beautiful than it really is.

2) Snow makes you feel more peaceful. Snow muffles everything. Snow keeps folks off the road, and quiets the traffic and other noise that is still out there. Everything slows down and gets softer. When life gets hectic and stressful, a nice little snowfall is an oasis of peace.

3) Too much snow can impair driving and mobility. It is not unusual to see people driving poorly and falling down in snow. Enough said.

4) Snow lowers inhibitions and brings out the playful side of people. Especially in an area that doesn’t get snow often, snow brings out the the playful side of people. Grown adults who never otherwise “play” will find themselves throwing snowballs, building snowmen and careening down hills on pieces of cardboard crashing into total strangers. Snow draws people out of their houses and gets them interacting with one another in ways they never normally would.

5) Moderation is the key. A little snow is wonderful. Too much snow makes life awful. For everyone.

So there you have it. While I’m neither a lover of blizzards or an advocate for drunkenness, I raise my glass to the occasional snowfall at the beach. It’s just one of the good pleasures of life.

Cheers!

Posted in Random Stuff | 2 Comments »

Tell Me What To Do!

January 23rd, 2010

“God, tell me what to do!” Ever prayed that prayer? I know I have.

Especially when facing important decisions, I want to hear from God on the right thing to do. I’m always very generous about it to the Lord, of course… I tell God how it doesn’t matter HOW he tells me, whether a scripture, a sign, a prophetic word, a song on the radio, the message the pastor preaches, the message from a commercial for crying out loud… I’m very flexible as long as God speaks, right?

Life just doesn’t always work that way, though. Sometimes we just don’t have a clear leading or specific direction from the Lord. It’s in those times the temptation is then to do nothing. To make it seem spiritual, we’ll say we’re “waiting on God,” but most of the time we’re just too chicken to make a move for fear of being wrong. Waiting for the neon sign with the detailed directions doesn’t exempt us from moving forward in life, though.

In the absence of specific word or direction from God on a matter, we must always look to the principles of God and act accordingly.

So often we are looking for God to talk to us about something, and He has already told us His will on the matter in His Word. We’re waiting on Him to speak, and He’s waiting on us to act on what He has already said!

What job should I take? Where should I live? What church should I join? We can get so hung up on the specifics that we forget God has spoken abundantly about the topic in general already. It probably doesn’t matter whether you work at Company A or Company B… but it does matter if you are diligent, faithful, honest, a blessing to your leaders, and do everything as if unto the Lord. If God hasn’t told you which job to take, then just pick one, and then do it with all your heart and with integrity that glorifies Him!

I’ll take the ‘joining a church” example, since I am facing that situation right now: After eleven years with my last church, I found myself having to find a new church home. I could have visited a different church each week until God said “join this one.” Or, I could have gone to NO churches until God told me which one was “His plan for me.” In the absence of a specific word about it, I had to just act on the principles of God. The Word says we’re not to forsake the assembling of ourselves, so not going until I knew which church to go to was out. We are to be planted in the Lord’s house and to know those who labor among us, so bouncing from church to church to church indefinitely was out, too.

To be honest, after several months I still don’t have specific leading from the Lord that the church I’m in now is the church I’m ’supposed’ to join. I’m in agreement with the fundamental doctrine and vision, and could see myself plugged in and growing… and I could just as easily see myself doing the same at a church down the street, too. But in the absence of a specific word about it, I am obeying the principles of the Word and moving forward in increasing commitment, relationships, service, etc., that I may obey what God has already said all members of the Body of Christ ought to do. At this point, unless the Lord intervenes with other directions, I will be joining.

Ultimately, we are accountable to the Lord for our obedience to His Word. He can always adjust us on the specifics if we need it, but we can never go wrong simply living according to His principles in all that we do.

What principles can you stand on for your situation?

Posted in Spiritual Stuff | 4 Comments »

Who Pooped On The Floor?

January 18th, 2010

Or, “We’re Gonna Need a Shovel in Here!”

[I am so fortunate to work in an openly and unashamedly Christian company in the business world. There is always lots of prayer and "hallelujahs!" amidst the very hard work and professionalism. Our staff meetings often feel more like church services than business meetings. Because of this, when we are delivering encouragement, direction or even correction to the staff, we are completely free to do so from a Biblical point of view.

This is what I shared at our staff meeting last week. Only in our office could I give a talk about poop, complete with scripture references!]

Proverbs 14:4 “Where there are no oxen, the stalls are clean, but from the strength of the oxen comes abundant harvest.”

Loosely interpreted, this means: If you’re going to have great harvest coming in, you’re going to have to shovel some poop!

The Israelites were largely an agrarian society, meaning most of their livelihood and survival centered around crops and livestock. While I’ve heard this verse and principle applied many times to ministry, churches and even families, this was first and foremost a parable about business! If you wanted the ability to sow, plow and reap great crops to live on and make a profit, you needed oxen. And where there are oxen, there will be manure.

Things stay nice and neat and mess-free when you aren’t producing anything. But if you are going to have a lot of growth, production, profit and harvest going on in your business, you’re going to have some messes along the way. That’s just the nature of things.

Rather than doing everything you can to avoid problems, it is important we know how to properly deal with some stinky situations when they come our way. What should you do when you’ve got some poop to clean up??

1) KEEP PERSPECTIVE – If you’ve got some messes to clean up, take heart! It means you’ve actually got something going on, and the potential to bring in a harvest at some point! If it’s quiet and clean, that’s when you should be nervous!

Granted, in a business we don’t want to be fixing the same problem over and over again, but as you grow and increase, some messes are going to occur. New systems may need to be implemented. Procedures will have to be tweaked as you go. Additional training may be needed, and likely some apologizing will be needed, too.

If you’ve got some poop to shovel, don’t get so upset about the mess that you kill the cow! You might feel good eating steak for a week or two, but you’ll lose out on the greater harvest if you cut off that which is going to ultimately be very productive!

2) DON’T GET MAD AT THE PERSON WITH THE SHOVEL – Oxen can be temperamental, and they will kick! If you are the one has a pile of poop in your office, and you or someone else has to step in to do some clean-up (co-worker, manager or boss), don’t get all mad and kick at the one with the shovel!

Messes have to be cleaned up. If barns were never cleaned, the animals get stressed and sick, filth begins to contaminate everything, and eventually there isn’t any room left to function. Production suffers, and eventually ceases.

Keep a flexible attitude and learn to adjust if procedures have to change. Grab a shovel when necessary, or be willing to graciously step out of the way if someone else needs to do some clean up in your area. It is for a longer term goal we have a good attitude about dealing with some poop in the here and now.

3) WHAT CAN YOU GROW FROM YOUR POOP? – Don’t forget: manure is a fertilizer! As unpleasant as the shoveling process might be, a good farmer doesn’t waste a truck full of manure. He takes it out into the field and spreads it around so he can produce an even greater harvest!

Every pile of crap you encounter is an opportunity. Just because you had a mess, don’t waste the opportunity to benefit from it. When you’re cleaning up a mess, consider how you can apply the lesson on a broader scale and benefit in other areas! Don’t just focus on getting rid of the poop, because the very thing that you have to clean up could become the key to an even greater harvest!

Have you had to deal with any messes in your company lately? What did you learn?

Posted in Business Stuff, Spiritual Stuff | 3 Comments »

Blast From The Past (Or, my response to: “Haiti = God’s Wrath?”)

January 16th, 2010

WOW! There really is nothing new under the sun! [Ecc. 1:9]

I was studying and preparing to post regarding the already emerging debate in Christendom over Haiti: Was it the judgment of God or not?

I was reminded of how Christians began debating this same topic when we faced Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I pulled up my articles and posts from 5 years ago, and I decided to post my initial response to that event here, verbatim. No edits.

While I’d love to elaborate, tweak and refine my comments on the subject 5 years later to sound much smarter and wiser, I’m going to stick with my 2005 response as my “final answer.” Just substitute “Katrina/New Orleans” with “Haiti.” This is still how I feel about it.

___________________

September 5, 2005

God is serious about sin, no doubt…. HOWEVER, I would be VERY, VERY wary of those jumping on the “Katrina-was-the-judgment-of-God” bandwagon.

Case in point:

The Lord warning his people to get out of the city, and then raining down burning sulfur on Sodom & Gomorrah—undeniably the judgment of God. Burning sulfur raining down to destroy a city has never happened before or since.

Case in point:

The Lord telling Moses & the Israelites to move away from leaders of a rebellion, and then the ground under them splits apart and the earth swallows them & all their family & belongings…… and then fire comes out and burns up the 250 people who had joined the rebellion—undeniably the judgments of God. The earth opening up to swallow and destroy a rebellion has never happened before or since.

These are just two of numerous examples in scripture.

Katrina was a natural disaster. Hurricanes have happened before ‘Katrina,’ and two more have already happened since.

The devastation of Katrina has simply escalated the spiritual battle for New Orleans. We have already seen continued degradation of morals, violence & sin in the aftermath— people are being raped, beaten and killed in shelters and on the streets. People are looting everything to be had, and turning against authorities and those who are there to help.

I’ve got news for people– God never fails! When God brings judgment– He finishes the job! So, if Katrina was God’s judgment, then why does sin still abound in that city? God couldn’t finish the job? I don’t think so.

This hurricane was not the wrath of God, nor was it the work of the devil….. it was a natural disaster whose end result has yet to be seen.

Sin, witchcraft and debauchery could rise to rebuild that city. Or righteousness and justice of God could rise, rebuild and rule New Orleans.

This is the time for God’s people to take authority in the spirit realm and the natural to bring the Kingdom of God to New Orleans. The Church needs to quit sitting around worrying about whether or not this was God’s judgment, and join in strength with the faithful already there to declare and decree God’s Kingdom rule on the earth.

________________________

What say ye?

Posted in Spiritual Stuff | 3 Comments »

Throwing God Under The Bus

January 11th, 2010

Thanks for joining me for the FIRST post on the new site!

The top 2 places that God talks to me are in the car and in the shower. (Incidentally, those are also the top 2 places where I am a totally awesome singer. Legendary, really, and lucky for me there are no witness to dispute this claim!)

One of the things God was talking to me about in the shower recently is how the world is slow to give the credit but so quick to place the “blame” on God, especially for things He didn’t do. It’s an easy out to just to throw God under the cosmic bus when things get ugly. God could have stopped the holocaust if He wanted to. The homecoming queen was killed by a drunk driver on prom night because ‘God needed another angel in heaven.’ America suffered the attack on 9/11 because our country had strayed from God. We’ve all seen the train of His robe dragging from underneath one of those buses, and it doesn’t take a spiritual giant to see that these are simply the desperate attempts of a hurting world to make sense of something horrific. We can have some compassion and let it slide in these cases, because the middle of a painful disaster is really not the time to set an unbeliever straight on their theology. No problem, I get that.

But, the world and even our young Christians aren’t the only ones letting God take the fall when something bad happens. Of course we like to dress it up with scriptures and try to make it sound all spiritual, but the church can be as quick to slander God as anyone without even realizing we’re doing it. It’s the subtle deceptions that will undermine the very foundations of our faith if we let them run unchecked.

Here’s one for you: ”God allowed me to have [insert sickness or disease here] so that I would slow down, and learn to be humble and let other people help me.” You can spin this one a lot of different ways, but the gist is always the same: God allowed someone’s sickness in order to have them to learn a certain lesson.

Sounds really holy and spiritual, right? It even gives God glory for the lesson learned and now being a better person for the experience, right? The problem with this thinking is that it isn’t biblical, and it doesn’t agree with the nature of God.

There’s a difference between God causing “all things to work together” for your good (Rom 8:28), and God being the cause of something bad that ultimately produced some good. There’s a difference between God speaking a lesson through an illness, and God making you sick to teach you the lesson. Many times over in scripture we see where a situation was intended to cause harm, but God worked something good out the bad situation. (Gen 50:20 for example) But, that doesn’t mean God caused the bad situation in order to get the good.

The problem with believing God will allow or cause sickness in order that we learn a lesson is that we can never fully believe in God’s healing at the same time. If God might want you sick for some reason, then praying for healing would be going against God’s will, wouldn’t it? The truth of the Word is that God is good, and God is the Healer. Not once in the Bible did God make someone sick to teach them a lesson. Jesus healed every person that came to him, without exception. Mark 16:18 says “we will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” It doesn’t say “and they will recover, unless God made them sick for a good reason.”

If we’re going to believe that God is who He said He is, then we have to settle in our minds that sickness is not from God. God is the Healer. Always.

Here’s another one that the Holy Spirit corrected me on recently: ”Those who hope in the Lord will not be disappointed” (Is 49:23) There have been deep things of my heart that I put my hope and trust in the Lord for, and I still ended up wildly disappointed in the end. And what did I say? God, I trusted in You, and You didn’t come through. You know what God ever so kindly told me? If you’re disappointed, then your hope wasn’t really in Me after all. Your hope was in something else. In my pain I was so quick to blame God that I never considered that I was the one who was wrong. I threw God under the bus when really I was the one who set up an idol and was trusting in someone else to fulfill God’s promise.

If we’re going to believe that God is who He said He is, then we have to settle in our minds that God does not let us down. God is faithful. Always.

God doesn’t lie. God doesn’t make promises and not keep them. (Num 23:19) Settle in your heart and mind once and for all that God is good. This is the key to believing Him for anything else He has promised us.

How about you? Have you ever thrown God under the bus for something?

Posted in Spiritual Stuff | 3 Comments »