Desk of Dennis Piller
2/15/2022
Making Mud Pies, when God Invited us on Vacation
Our Courageous men's groups started a new series and one of the questions was. Have you ever felt like you’re surrounded by people, but you are the only one suffering? Men often pride themselves hanging in this private silo of privateness, isolation, aloneness, emptiness as if they are carrying the world around on their soldiers. And the truth is many of us are. Responsibilities do get heavy and overwhelming and never-ending and the pathways only grow that much darker when we are walking alone.
Most men walk alone and wonder why it's so much easier to fall when you are alone walking around in the dark. No light. No one to say “No Way”, No one to say, “Think Again”. God never and I mean never intended you to walk alone. How does one win big battles alone?
Are there any supermen here, how about Batman or Iron man? NO ONE!
Some would say, embrace the mess. Life is Messy Business. God loves us and offers us what many call Messy Grace. Yes, we do struggle with sin, fiances, failure but another word would be sanctification. Haven’t you heard that God prunes his trees and his children? John 15:2 "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
So what is Sanctifying Grace? Adversity, prosperity, sickness, disappointment, bereavement, failure, and success are all tools in the hands of God's Spirit (James 1:2,3; 1 Peter 1:7; Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Hebrews 12:6,9–11). God uses all of these to teach us, prune us, change us…Sanctify us into this person He has called. These are all part of Gods redeeming grace, forever leading us to be more like Christ. Holy. “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). We are in need of God’s sanctifying grace to be made holy. Let’s look at the definition:
transitive verb. 1: to set apart to a sacred purpose or to religious use: consecrate. 2: to free from sin: purify. 3: to impart or impute sacredness, inviolability, or respect to. b: to give moral or social sanction to.
When a man walks alone, who will hear him when he falls? Who will he confide in, talk to, cry with, or even whine to? Sanctification is messy but it is so much more than that. God didn’t just call us to this muck and mire life but rather to live a life,…even in the midst of the storm…that exudes joy, faith, love, peace, and forgiveness. Life isn’t just hopping from crisis to crisis, doomed to failure, and discouragement. His is a pathway to strength and Joy in the Lord.
If life is just this psychological bent that we sin, God forgives and gives us the grace to come home, then we have missed the message totally.
If that is man's attitude and belief then it has normalized sin, minimized struggles, and diluted the transformative power of the cross. C. S. Lewis, in The Weight of Glory, famously wrote:
We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
Let’s not settle for mud pies when God has given us a holiday at the sea. And, take someone with you.
Share the joy of the walk with a brother or sister.
casting crowns Only Jesus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eQd3K2Fxp4&list=PL3oW2tjiIxvTstLS9GlgaT_mqONT0WVDw&index=18
