The Critical
Eighteen Inches Part 3
The Journey from Head Knowledge to Heart Revelation
Have you ever been envious or
jealous of someone, maybe even the unrighteous?
Of course we have, because we have what the Bible calls the “old
man.” The Apostle Paul calls these the
“deeds of the flesh”, “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are:
immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife,
jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying…..” (Gal
5:19-21 NASB). What is the antidote for
the deeds of the flesh? “But I say, walk
by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh”( v16). But
there is a problem, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another,…” (v
17).
There is a battle that rages
in all believers. One of the battlefronts
in this epic struggle is on a line between head knowledge and heart revelation
of believers in Christ. One skirmish in this battle that I fought took place in
the unlikely setting of a steel mill.
The Steel
Mill
I felt like I was working in the bowels of the
earth. Where was God now?
Here I was working in a steel mill
just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I
worked in an old open-hearth furnace, which produced raw steel. I labored in
the flues underneath a huge battery of furnaces. It was hot and dirty. It felt
as if the soles of my work boots were going to melt. Sometimes it felt like
hell to me.
How did I arrive at this
place? Several months earlier we had finished a Youth With A Mission (YWAM) discipleship training school in Hawaii. We
were sure that God had called us back to western Pennsylvania. I assumed that
God was going to open to us a ministry opportunity as we obeyed him and
returned to the area where my wife and I both grew up. Things did not go as
planned, however, and obedience did not bring the expected new ministry
adventure that I had envisioned. I went through a couple of jobs in which I was
either marginally successful or not successful at all. In a last-ditch effort
to survive financially, I returned to the steel mills where I worked during
summer breaks while attending college. This was not supposed to be happening.
Had we missed God? We were confused, but it still seemed that God wanted us
back in this area for some reason.
The weeks stretched into
months, and I drudged through the soot and heat and darkness of the underworld
of this steel mill on the banks of the Monongahela River. I pondered the fact
that I had given up a good teaching position and was now in what appeared to be
a dead-end job. I thought about friends and acquaintances of mine who were
involved in teaching or ministry ventures, and I was stuck here in this dungeon
with seemingly nothing of any eternal significance happening. Doubt and
unbelief began to wrap their filthy little hands around my heart.
I started to feel like I had
stepped out for God and he had pulled the rug out from under me. I shrank back
into a shell, just trying to survive. No one in my work crew knew I was a
believer; I just didn’t know if I wanted to stick my neck out for God again.
The truth was, I was on the brink of backsliding. I was moving away from the
God I had always wanted to serve. I realized that I was coming to a crossroads
in relation to my faith. Would I continue to serve the God I had met on my college
campus, or had I tried the God thing and it had not worked? Interestingly, God
used a little sticker to direct my steps at this intersection of faith and
unbelief.
Weeks earlier in a Christian
bookstore, a little sticker caught my eye. It simply said, One Way, Jesus.
I bought the sticker with the intent to put it on the hard safety helmet I wore
in the mill. I never placed the sticker on my helmet, but I never lost track of
its whereabouts, either. This sort of summed up my condition. I wanted to serve
God, but I could not get past the struggles I had faced since returning to
Pennsylvania. A battle raged in my mind between thoughts about the goodness of
God as described in the Bible and other mental impressions about the reality of
my dismal circumstances. Who would win this battle?
One day I took the sticker out
of my dresser drawer and put it in my pocket as I left for work. On one of my
breaks I went into the bathroom, took the sticker out of my pocket, and gazed
at it. The same thoughts pervaded my mind as had been there since I first set
foot in that place. One set of thoughts said, God is good, and he is worthy
to be served. And others screamed, If God is so good, why has all this
happened to you? The sticker seemed so small and insignificant, but I
realized it could have major ramifications for my life. Affixing this little
sign to my helmet would be saying from my heart several things: First, no
matter what had happened, God was good; his goodness was not based on my
circumstances; it was not about me. Second, God was worthy to be served in the
bad times as well as the good. And third, if God had called me to work in this
mill, I would serve him here to the best of my ability. I took the sticker and
carefully placed it on the side of my helmet, I opened the door and I took the
first step, spiritually speaking, out of the pit and eventually back into God’s
presence.
The Meaning behind the Message
What was God up to in this story? He
was trying to find out (or more correctly, he was trying to help me find
out) who he was in my life. Was God just a means to an end, or was he an end in
himself? Had all the sacrifices I had made—like giving up my job, finances, a
home—been for God, or were they just to get from God what I wanted? Did I love
what I wanted to do for God more than I loved God? Wasn’t this the central
question God was posing to Abraham when he directed him to
place Isaac on the altar? Sometimes you can only know the condition of your
heart by losing something you desperately want.
Are not these the types of
questions God is always placing before his people? Who is first in your life?
Whom do you love? Whom do you serve?
A second strand imbedded in
this story is that our happiness or fulfillment does not depend on our
circumstances but on God himself. As long as I was dwelling solely on my trials
and challenges, I could not live a victorious life. Paul Hawkins, my friend and
one of my mentors in my early days in YWAM, always exhorted us: “Never judge
God according to your circumstances, but always judge your circumstances
according to the character of God.” How true this is! Many times we live in
what I call the “shy side of why.” We continually ask the why question
and never seem to get an answer. Maybe in the mill I should have been asking
the what question. “Lord, it is what it is. What do I do with it?” As
the late Keith Green used to say, “If you find yourself in the valley, farm
it.”
Finally, I think God was
teaching me what it means to serve. Why was I discontented in the steel mill? Because
I thought I deserved a better job, a better opportunity. Other people I knew
had good jobs and ministries, but I was stuck in a filthy, dark place. The test
was whether I was willing to serve God and others even in this place. Or would
I hold on to my wounded pride and growing doubt and serve only myself?
Would I stay in this mill and
serve him first, and then actively seek to bless others? Or would I allow
jealousy and envy to rear their ugly heads and sit around and feel morose
because God was using others and not me? Was it still all about me, or was it
about him? The answer came as I walked
down that road from head knowledge to heart revelation.
