Wow, what a weekend with Dr. Shamblin that was last week. He was soft-spoken and laid- back yet you could definitely sense his strong conviction in the truths he shared that had been drawn from years and years in the ministry. He had his own unique ability to establish trust and authority as a speaker in a relatively short time with us in order to confront us with true insight and wisdom about our life struggles even within our Christian faith.
I especially liked his perspectives in two areas of our lives we often times struggle to make sense of: One, the significance of being in a spiritual “wilderness”; and two, does God’s timing for exercising our spiritual gifting first involve being in the wilderness? I particularly liked his comments about how we should anticipate and understand the ministry challenges of being “sent into a mess” or else we will risk becoming discouraged or confused, or we will rationalize or spiritualize it as an attack to be resisted. There are plenty of instances in the Bible of persecution and suffering for those who followed Christ. We have a tendency to prefer to believe God’s discipleship today does not include those same sacrifices, humility and denial of self.
I’ve never before ever heard anyone say that one’s journey into a barren wasteland is God’s way of discipling and maturing us. We seldom ever associate difficult challenging times of crisis as being God’s intended purpose but as Dr. Shamblin cautioned us, “do not cut short your wilderness time with God by rebuking the devil and blaming man for being in the desert.”
Our human nature causes us to blame others for our lot in life rather than stop and embrace the experience and consider how it may be God at work. As Dr. Shamblin noted, it’s only once we are broken to ourselves that true birthing springs forth from barrenness.
Dr. Shamblin was noticeably emotional when he was discussing spiritual giftings. He had mentioned how earlier in his ministry he was in such great demand (his speaking engagements were at one point booked 3 years in advance and he travelled 9 months out of the year). But he now seemed to be preaching from regret over how one can tread on one’s spiritual giftings without realizing how empty and short-sighted that can be when no real foundation has been laid to truly develop and shape those giftings for God’s further purpose. Dr. Shamblin commented he had seen it many times where people were impatient in the exercising of their gifts and resisted the thought of being placed in the wilderness by God in order to be shaped and molded by Him.
It occurred to me that there are times when our frustrations over our current life condition are a result of our resistance to God’s (tough love) discipleship and we only perpetuate that cycle by rebuking it as a spiritual battle. Hmmmm, makes me wanna go rethink a lot of stuff about myself. Amen to that.
From Pastor Mark’s Heart
November 10, 2013