Lion Chasers - Uncertainty
I finished up Mark Batterson’s In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day while I was in South Africa.
He has a great chapter on Guaranteed Uncertainty in which he says,
“Lion Chasers are more afraid of lifelong regrets than temporary uncertainty. They don’t want to get to the end of their lives and have a million what-if regrets. So they chase lions. In the short-term, it increases uncertainty. But in the long run, it reduces regret.”
I have always felt that way. If I’m thinking about it, I usually do it or at least try to do it. I don’t want to get to the end and have a lot of thoughts about what I could have done left in my head.
“And regardless of your vocational calling or relational status, you have to do something counterintuitive if you want to reach your God-given potential and fulfill your God-given destiny.”
Sometimes you just have to jump overboard. It’s the Sigmoid Curve. You have to jump the curve before it makes the turn, declines and then plateaus indefinitely. Then you just exist. And the longer you merely exist, the harder it will be to jump overboard. It’s one of those paradoxical, catch-22-type things… I think.
November 15th, 2006 at 10:35 am
I don’t know if I agree with the second quote about doing something “counterintuitive”. Does everything in life have to go against what is currently being done in order for it to be destined by God?
The whole idea that we have to “do something counterintuitive” so that we reach our full potential completely rejects the concept of dependency upon Christ for our very existance. There is nothing we can do, in and of ourselves, that causes us to reach some mystical aforementioned potential. I believe that potential is only realized after and is a direct outcome of a life completely devoted to Christ. He is the one that orchestrates our circumstances, intuitive or counterintuitive. The only way for us to realize our potential won’t be to strive after that, we must strive only after Christ. He’ll do what He wants with a willing servant, whether it is counterintuitive or maybe doing exactly what we are doing.
That whole concept seems to be less Christ-centered, rather more predominently man-centered. That’s a slippery slope.
Anyhow, that’s my thought for what it’s worth.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
So… do you just sit around and do nothing… living a completely devoted life to Christ?
Sorry. That might have been a little rough right out of the gate.
I think your thoughts are idealistic… but how does it apply practically - day to day? Do you sit and wait and see what the world throws at you? Or do you pursue the things that you believe God has put in you?
I think the whole fact that you’re doing something counterintuitive proves your dependancy on Christ, because you normally wouldn’t do it. You know? That’s a clue that God is in it… and that you really are living a fully surrendered life.
I believe that if you live a life that is fully dependant on Christ then He will call you do DO THINGS. And it’s very likely those things will be counterintuitive. I kind of like that word.
Let me know what you think.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
I think we are essentially saying the same thing, using different words or approach.
Dependency upon Christ, following where He leads, and being who He has made us to be, will result in us more than likely living a life counterintuitive to what we or anyone else might expect.
However, I don’t think we are to pursue the counterintuitive. I think that is something when we look back on life we’ll say, “I would have never seen myself doing that, it had to be Christ working in and through me, and not of my own means or maybe even my own desires.”
That is what I mean by total dependency. It is not a position of “do-nothing-ness”, rather a place of surrender that allows anything to happen. If that means I sit at my desk 300+ days out of the year doing my job and it seems completely mundane and ordinary, does it mean it is any less ordained by God?
On the flip side, if I spend 10 days out of the year in Africa teaching abstinence and discipling new believers in the Bush, is that any more ordained by God?
Are not both, if not in disobedience, demonstrations of a life that as we look back we could say, “I know I was where God wanted me to be, in both the ordinary and commonplace [job] and the counterintuitive and extreme [Africa].”
Maybe at life’s end what we think is the “counterintuitive” could very likely be the commonplace and ordinary.
November 15th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Ahhh…. good thoughts. Maybe the goal then is to get to a place of such dependancy where the counterintuitive is now ordinary. It becomes an everyday thing to just step out into something new under God’s leading.
Counterintuitive is the new norm.
I’m just trying to use that word as much as possible.
November 15th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I guess one thing to keep in mind is what one person sees as ordinary or normal, another person could see as counterintuitive or extreme. The perspective to maintain must then be that of God’s perspective, and with God, He is neither boundless nor surprised by what He does. From our perspective, anything God does is indeed counterintuitive and at the very least far greater than our minds can comprehend. If we live completely for/in Him, I can’t imagine that we’d even care what our surroundings would consist of.
Boy do I have a long ways to go till that place is reached.
November 16th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Final thought. I was reading “My Utmost…” this morning and it was uncanny how similar Oswald Chambers’ thoughts were to this very issue. Check it out!
November 25th, 2006 at 7:36 am
I just had lunch with some friends of ours yesterday. They live in DC and Mark Batterson is their pastor. He’s currently doing a series on his book and supposedly they have some trailers on his website that promo the book.
Their goal as a church is to put a church at all the Metro stops in DC so that people of any status can get there. They’ve got a huge portion of their congregation that’s homeless and they’ve turned their lives around. They have jobs, apartments, etc.
Currently, they have churches in coffee houses, theaters, open warehouses, etc. And they rent them all. His site is theaterchurch.com