I was on my way home from a fantastic week of ministry when I heard this on the radio.

I’d rather light a match than curse the dark (Rend Collective) 

The line hit me like a ton of lead. I’d been trying to understand my struggle with social media for a while now. I’ve cut my use back lately (well at least most of the time) and in the past week, the busyness of a great week of ministry really helped me with that. Still I wondered why social media affects me the way it does at times. When I heard this line from the Rend Collective song Hallelujah Anyway, it kind of became clear. 

Social media (and the news, etc.) can make me angry, and I don’t want to be angry. I see so many things that are wrong in our world and it makes me want to “curse the dark.” I’m starting to wonder if that is really the best cause of action. After all most of the things I read that anger me come from people who couldn’t care less if I’m angry. So does me being angry about a situation really help? Will it change anything? For the most part, that answer is no.

Some might want to take me to Ephesians 4:26 which says “Be angry and sin not.” And that’s true. I’m not condemning the emotion of anger. It has it’s place, but a little further in the verse it also says, “let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27 Neither give place to the devil.” The kind of anger I can experience over these things often goes far beyond sundown. I’m not condemning anger, but again, I question the value of my anger. Does it change anything but my mood and my attitude? I think that answer is no, and cursing the dark might be allowing the devil to live rent free in my head, as negativity can follow anger and negativity is the exact opposite of the positivity I desire.

The thing is my head and my heart should have a “No Vacancy” sign. My heart and mind should be filled by the Savior. Am I saying ignore sin and the evil in our world? No, I’m saying why curse the darkness when I can light a match. I can be the light of the world that Jesus called all believers to be. I saw it this week. I got to minister to a bunch of wonderful people with a bunch of other wonderful people. We had struggles from time to time, but it was a very positive experience all the way around, and it was a real joy. We weren’t spending a lot of time cursing the darkness. Instead we were shining the light of the Lord. I agree with Rend Collective. There ma y be a time when I will need to curse the darkness, but I’d rather be a light. After all, anger and cursing don’t overcome darkness, they enhance it. What overcomes darkness is light. 

Remember what Jesus said to us in Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Next time you feel like cursing the darkness, maybe it’s time to light a match.

A long time ago, when I was just a little kid, I knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to make art and tell stories. I used to love to do puppet shows and ventriloquism, and all kinds of stuff, largely to entertain my sister and my cousins. As I grew, the storytelling part became problematic. Years of being a human target in school drove my desire to stand before people and tell my stories deep into my psyche, to the point where public speaking terrified me, and I largely forgot about it. That part of my dream died because no way could I speak in public. So I decided I would be a professional artist. 

That dream died too. Oh it fought valiantly, and there were some bright shining moments, but eventually I was reduced to doing things that had some artistry to them, but they really didn’t allow me to be overly creative. I told myself I was still an artist, but most of what I was doing really didn’t feel very artistic. I earned a living designing things, most of which involved making things fit into existing formats, which was about as fulfilling as it sounds. I still made some art on my own, and tried to promote it, and yes I got some really fun freelance work, but never enough to strike out on my own, and it often felt like something was missing. 

The struggle to hit my artistic goals was taking it’s toll, My priorities got all out of whack, and I suffered for a while. Then one day something weird happened. God called me to ministry. The fact that by now I was pretty terrified of public speaking made this seem that I was missing God’s point. Speaking is, after all, a pretty large part of ministry. I started to work in youth ministry as a volunteer. I began to feel led to use art as a teaching tool and some of the pieces began to fall into place, but something was still missing. I was bivocational, and earning most of my living in my design work. This was problematic, not because there was anything wrong with being bivocational, but I really think it came down to a matter if identity. Deep down inside I still identified as a professional artist. 

It all started to come together when I began to realize art was not to be my profession. It was to be a tool for me to use to communicate God’s Word. It was never designed to be my career. I began to realize that what I had desired since childhood was God’s design for my life. I was created to make pictures and tell stories. No, as a child I didn’t realize I would be telling His story, but that was His design for me nonetheless. Since I have been using art in ministry, I have found my sweet spot—the thing God created me to do and the person God created me to be. Does your identity line up with God’s call? What were your earliest dreams? Could those desires give you a clue to what it is that you want to do and finally what’s your sweet spot? 

This week, I am doing something I absolutely love. I am ministering at Haven Camp—a camp for people with developmental difficulties in Rome, NY. I was given the opportunity to try this ministry about 8 years ago, and it has blessed me beyond belief. The campers are some of the most loving people I have ever met and they have just really touched my heart. A lot of these folks have faced some pretty tough battles, but many of them have mastered something that I have sometimes struggled with. They live their lives with pure joy. They model the childlike faith Jesus called all believers to. They have questions, but for the most part, they just believe. I deeply love this type of ministry and praise God that He allows me to be a part of it. 

That being said, according to EFCA.org, People with disabilities and special needs are one of the largest unreached communities in the nation. About 56.7 million people—19% of the U.S. population—had a disability in 2010. More than half reported the disability was severe, and only 5 to 10% of the world’s disabled are reached with the gospel. This means among this population there is a tremendous opportunity for the church to do great good and to make an eternal difference in the lives of some pretty special people. 

One night as I was hanging out with the campers in one of their social functions in the evening, I was overcome with emotion, because in that moment I felt the love of God for these people and for me. When I think about where God has brought me from, and the precious lives He has entrusted me to teach, I was overwhelmed by gratitude. I remember all the years I spent as a frustrated artist, wondering if anything I ever did really mattered at all. I thought being an artist was the be all, end all for me, and success was elusive. All I ever wanted to do from childhood was make pictures and tell stories, and it felt like it was never going to happen. It turns out I was looking at my gift incorrectly. I wasn’t meant to hang works of art in galleries and museums. I wasn’t meant to create the next Ninja Turtles and make a fortune in licensing. Art was not the be all end all, it was a tool to be used to tell a better story, His story, and I could not be happier.

The truth is between the church I love and these opportunities to go beyond the walls, I have never worked harder, and I have never felt more fulfilled in my working life. And I’d like to think the joy I receive is flowing over into the rest of my life as well. So today I want to take a moment to thank God for all He has done for me, and especially for what He has done in bringing me to this place. The campers are an absolute joy. The staff who work here, many of whom are very young, are the kind of people who will restore your hope for humanity. Their love and compassion for these folks is completely inspirational. When I started this journey of ministry a long time ago, it was at least in part because of hearing 1 Peter 4:10. “Each one should use whatever gifts He has received to serve others…” The implication here is that everyone has at least one gift and it comes from God. How are you investing your gift? I truly believe that it is in the investment of our gifts, that we can find pure joy. 

“Everyone is replaceable.” It was said to me more than once by more than one employer. I probably had coming. I was probably getting too big for my britches, as it were. And I suppose it’s true… except it isn’t. Oh, please don’t get me wrong. Your employer can fill your role, and they will before your seat cools. The problem is, this allows people to be seen as nothing more than cogs in the machinery and that is sort of what we’ve become, at least since Henry Ford “invented” the assembly line, but that doesn’t mean you and I are replaceable, and to think it does devalues our humanity.

No, no one is replaceable. Each person is a one of a kind unique creation. Each person brings unique gifts and talents to this world, and yes, that includes you. [You] are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [you] to do. (Ephesians 2:10 but personalized by me, stay tuned) This means you and I bring something special to the table, because we are special creations of the perfect Creator, created on purpose for a purpose. The question then becomes, since we are, in a very real sense, irreplaceable, how then shall we live?

Well first of all, if we are talking about that which we do for a living, we need to be more than a cog. We need to bring our best selves to the role in which God has placed us. Do whatever you do as if you were doing it for the Lord. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. For years I looked at things I was doing as unimportant, something anyone could do, and I did them accordingly. I filled a roll, punched the clock, and waited for the time to pass. Understand what I was doing. I was accepting being a cog in the machine and living as a cog, a very replaceable cog. Cogs are replaceable. The thing is the Lord put me in that position for that time, and whether I viewed the job as important or not, God had placed me in that position for a reason and I failed to bring Him glory. As such I was replaceable.

So what does it take to be irreplaceable? In one sense, absolutely nothing. You are a one of a kind unique creation, there will never be another you, and therefore you are irreplaceable. In another sense, to be irreplaceable is to fulfill your role with great gusto, doing what you can to the glory of God. There may be someone else who can do your job, but no one else will do it like you. This means we need to see what we do as a mission from God, and do it as if we were doing it for God, because in a very real sense we are. If you do that, and people still see you as replaceable, they’re wrong and one day as your assignment changes, they will realize it and look back on you fondly, (or maybe not. Some people are like that, but that is on them not you.) 

We need to bring our best to what we do, and that word “we” is important. Earlier in this post I personalized Ephesians 2:10. I did that to emphasize the uniqueness of who you were created to be, but the fact of the matter is the verse in its original form is plural. You see it’s not just that we are unique creations, but God’s design is that we would be unique together. That rather than expecting everyone to be a generalist, the downside of Henry Ford’s concept, we become the specialists we were created to be. All people are a collection of strengths and weaknesses, and this, I believe, is by design. When we bring our strengths to the table with others, and we fulfill the roles for which we were created, we are better together than we can be individually. This is the concept of the body of Christ, but it could apply to everything we do as well. We were created for teams, interdependent on one another and totally dependent on God, and were we to interact in this way, along with others, we would be, among many other things, happy and fulfilled. 

Be irreplaceable, because, in a very real sense, you already are.  

The other night I was watching an old(ish) TV show. A child made a confession, his mother was concerned for the condition of his soul, and so what did she do. She invited her pastor to come to dinner for the purposes of ambushing her child in a sort of “holy” intervention. First of all as a pastor, I implore you, please don’t do that. No one wants to be ambushed, and the vast majority of us do not want to be ambushers. That tactic rarely works and it put everyone in a very awkward position that is not conducive to change. 

The plot thickens. The confession was not sincere. It was manipulation, a ruse on the part of the child to get out of the consequences for his very real actions. This was revealed in a discussion with the pastor, where the kid revealed his diabolical scheme, under the idea of some sort of pastor/parishioner confidentiality. But that was not the big issue. The big issue was the discussion. They started off talking about the mother’s concerns that her child’s sin would land him in hell. I was waiting for the pastor to talk about repentance and grace, but that was not forthcoming. Instead he talked about repressing urges and essentially a whole lot of things the young person could do in his own strength to resist and what God would want him to do and not do. To which the young person replied he doesn’t believe in God.  That of course is the much larger issue. Our sins separate us from God, but through faith in Christ we can repent, be forgiven and be saved. The thing that truly sends us to hell is rejecting the Savior God gave out of perfect love to repair the separation between God and the people He loves. That was never addressed. 

I found myself getting really frustrated by the bad theology of the scene. Now admittedly this was not surprising. The show makes no pretense at all of really having anything to do with Christianity, but then a thought hit me. I remember thinking, “Well one thing’s for sure, the person who wrote that knows nothing about Christianity.” But then another thought came—a convicting thought. Why aren’t more Christians using their gifts in the area of entertainment? What if instead of lamenting the bad theology in the media—it’s easy to spot and it’s everywhere—what if we who claim the name of Christ, started creating, and not just for other Christians, but for the mass market? 

I can almost hear the push back from here. They won’t accept it. They’ll reject it. They’ll cancel us. I’m not sure that’s the case. First of all, money talks. If there are enough supporters of anything, if there is money to be made, someone will produce it. Secondly, who do we serve? Is He greater that he who is in the world? To borrow from a famous parable, are we putting our talent to work or are we burying it out of fear. Some of us have got to go out, get a shovel dig up the talent our Master has given and get to work.

Well those of you who know me, know that when it comes to my working life, there are two things that really excite me, ministry and the arts. When God brought me to the intersection of these two fields, I found a big part of His purpose for my life. Well today I watched some very talented people who also live at that intersection. You see, I am blessed to live less than an hour from the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, PA, and today a bus load of us from my church went to see their production of Moses. These trips are always a blessing. 

I love the Scriptures. I love reading them, studying them and trying to find creative ways of helping people to connect to the truth of God’s Word. Sight and Sound does that masterfully. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time working with school and community theaters, designing and painting sets, I find these productions mind-boggling. The level of creativity used in staging one of these shows confounds my imagination. 

Now I will admit there are times where I find myself coveting just a little. I wonder what I could do with a large team and a huge budget, but I try to pull myself out of those thoughts quickly, and the story of Moses shows why. When God called to Moses in the burning bush, the first thing Moses does is start to do is to make excuses, finding all the reasons he can why he is not up to the task. Moses looks to his insufficiencies to try to turn away from God’s call. 

At one point in Moses list of excuses, this one about, “What if the people don’t believe me?” God asks Moses a very simple question. “What’s in your hand” Now Moses had been a shepherd for over 40 years and he was out tending to the sheep when God called him. What was in his hand was a simple shepherd’s staff. Now from there, God does something amazing and supernatural, and if you want to learn more about that read Exodus chapters three and four. I want to stop at the staff, because I think it speaks to our problem. Moses was looking at all the things he felt he didn’t have as excuses to avoid God’s call, and God in effect says, stop worrying about what you don’t have and focus on what you do have. I think what God is saying is, “Take what you have, place it in my hands and watch what I can do it.” Sight and Sound is fantastic, but you don’t need their budget to serve the Lord. You need to take what you have, the things God has given you and you need to use them faithfully. 

In actuality, that is how Sight and Sound began. A young artist started using his art abilities to share the Gospel. It started with a traveling program utilizing slide projectors, and they did that faithfully and slowly God expanded their abilities and their vision to what the ministry has become today. Don’t compare yourself with others. Don’t look at what you don’t have. Take what God has given you and step out in faithfulness. Do it now!

What’s In Your Hand?