The Perpetual Worshiper

Story of Jonathon…

I love bicycles. Especially Mongooses… ?

How do you make that plural?

“Hey Joe! I just got my first  pet!”

“Really?! What’d ya get Jed?!”

“A Mongoose!”

“Really?! I just got three!”

“Three Mongooses?! That’s awesome!”

“Yeah! – Wait, Mongooses?”

“Yeah, Mongooses.”

“Dude, it’s Mongeese.”

“Dude, that’s ridiculous, it’s TOTALLY Mongooses!”

“Shut up.”

“Hey friends! I heard you got some Mongi!”

The End.

Okay, just felt compelled to share that stupid story, I think I ought to have one for every post that relates to the topic of the post… this time, I want to talk about my love for bike riding.

So I love riding bikes. I don’t have one any more, but I plan to get one again and ride it everywhere I go.

When I rode back in the day, I was pretty good at it. I would ride down the street, take my foot off the pedals, and put them on the handle bars and relax; I’d put my feet on the seat and lift myself up and nearly stand on my seat while I was riding it. I was just really good at riding it. I didn’t do ramps necessarily and my mountain biking experience was short-lived, but I did some cool stuff on it

I got a NEW Mongoose bike for Christmas and I loved it BUT there were Clicks, Wobbles, and No Handle Bars. Later, I rode it so much that I got good. I had it for a very long time but not as bad as my old piece of junk.

Imagine one day, someone sees me riding my cruddy bike and says, “Hey, I’ve been watching you ride that bike of yours, and let me tell ya… you’re pretty amazing. You’re so intense when you ride and I just love how you stand on the bike and handle it so well, you seem so confident on it and great! But the truth is Bryan, you could be doing so much better than that bike, and well, what I’m trying to say is… I got you a Motorcycle. Brand Spankin’ new, BMW Prototype Motorcycle!”

“Are you serious?! That’s insane! A Motorcycle?”

“Yep, a brand new motorcycle. And now you can do all that you’ve wanted and be all you can be!”

“Thank you so much! Wow – but, well, motorcycles, they’re really fast.  I know how to handle my bike and I know how fast I can go, and, what if I can’t control it? Like I’m going on a  bridge and I try to stop but it just keeps going! And gas?! Do you know how much gas costs these days? It’s unreal! My bike, well… I don’t need anything, all I need is air. And a Mechanic? What if it breaks? It’s gonna cost a ton… if something happens to my bike I can just fix it in my garage with misc. junk. You know, I really appreciate it… but I think I’m just gonna stick with my bike. As much as I’d want it, I don’t think could handle a Motorcycle. I mean, I get my ride, I know all of its weird kinks and stuff… Thanks, but I don’t think it’s for me.”

I think that a lot of Believers, a lot of people, are living Mongeese Lives, when God intended them to be Prototypes… I’m not talking about wealth or stature, I’m talking about Psalms 139 when He says the He knitted us together in our mother’s womb, I feel like God is saying this;

“I saw you being designed… I put into you things that would help you be alive, so that you wouldn’t just exist in this world but that you would do incredible things for Me and My name and My cause. I saw you being born, I saw you being developed, I had a hands on deal with that. You were not created to be average, you were not created to be mundane, you were created to be a Prototype, not a bicycle, not a mongoose.”

And in the monotony of this world, many of us have settled for a bicycle life, and God is saying there’s so much more for us. He designed us to do so much more.

I want to share a bit about 1 Samuel 14, Old Testament for this particular post, and I’m just gonna give you a little bit of background real quick.

So Israel is like a whiny little kid. They want a king.

Ever been the Disney World? Yes? No?

You KNOW for a fact that it’s the “Happiest Place on Earth” when you hear a five year old crying every five minutes because they can’t get the toy they want…

“I want it! I want it! Come on! I want it! They got it! I want it!”

And you say to that little five year old, “Would you just PLEASE be quiet; fine just, here’s the toy.”

This is Israel, “We want a king! We want a king! We want a king!” Etc.

So God says to Samuel, God’s prophet, “Go ahead, get them a king; it’s not what I want them to have but give them a king.”

So this is Israel’s criteria for a king…

1. This guy’s gotta be hot.

2. This guy’s gotta be ripped.

3. This guy’s gotta know how to use a sword.

And that was their criteria for finding a king. So, they find Saul.

Saul stands up, he’s gorgeous. (1.check)

He’s ripped. (2.check)

He’s got a sword. (3.check)

So they’re like, “He’s our guy.”

The problem is, Saul is this Narcissistic, do-before-I-think, kinda guy; THEN blame it all on everyone else when it all goes bad. “DUH, Well it wasn’t my fault DUH it was his fault!” [His nickname was probably Adam or something (“It was that WOMAN… that YOU gave me!”).] DUH.

So Saul actually gets himself into a world of trouble. You see, before this passage (1st Samuel 14), the Phillistines have kinda gone all around the Israelites, basically surrounded them with their armies. And Saul’s army gets freaked out, so they’re all hiding in caves. “I’m outta here!” Pretty much. 2400 of his guys are “Peace Out, I’m gone.” And they go hide in caves. So Saul has 600 men now, and not only that, they don’t have any weapons… they’ve got shovels and hoes and things like that, they don’t have any weapons. So Saul gets reprimanded by Samuel, “By the way, because you’ve stepped on God’s toes, your kingdoms not going to last; it ends with you.” And Saul’s like, “Oh it so deflates my pride, bummer man,” and etc..

So we find in the beginning of this passage, here’s Saul and these guys sitting under a pomegranate tree and they’re just bummin’ out. “Oh man, this just stinks, ho hum,” and Saul is trying to figure out who to blame, and they’re just blech, etc, and in comes Jonathon.

Now Jonathon is Saul’s son. Jonathon is a sharp, sharp guy. He gets God, he gets what God wants to happen with Israel, and as an added bonus, he is an amazing, amazing fighter.

So where we find this passage, where it comes in, Jonathon is watching his father and watching these men sit under a pomegranate tree while they’re being surrounded by their enemy, and Jonathon’s says “No. Nuh-uh. This is not what we’re designed to do. Nuh-uh, it’s not going the way it should go.”

1 Samuel 14:6-14

Jonathan said to his young armor-bearer, “Come, let’s go over to the outpost of those uncircumcised fellows. Perhaps the LORD will act in our behalf. Nothing can hinder the LORD from saving, whether by many or by few.”

“Do all that you have in mind,” his armor-bearer said. “Go ahead; I am with you heart and soul.”

Jonathan said, “Come, then; we will cross over toward the men and let them see us.  If they say to us, ‘Wait there until we come to you,’ we will stay where we are and not go up to them.  But if they say, ‘Come up to us,’ we will climb up, because that will be our sign that the LORD has given them into our hands.”

So both of them showed themselves to the Philistine outpost. “Look!” said the Philistines. “The Hebrews are crawling out of the holes they were hiding in.” The men of the outpost shouted to Jonathan and his armor-bearer, “Come up to us and we’ll teach you a lesson.”

So Jonathan said to his armor-bearer, “Climb up after me; the LORD has given them into the hand of Israel.”  Jonathan climbed up, using his hands and feet, with his armor-bearer right behind him. The Philistines fell before Jonathan, and his armor-bearer followed and killed behind him.  In that first attack Jonathan and his armor-bearer killed some twenty men in an area of about half an acre.

How cool is that? This one guy, while the rest of the guys are chillin’ in the holes under a pomegranate tree, Jonathon says “No. No. No. Not gonna do it. In fact, I’m gonna do something crazy, I’m gonna go up to them and attack them myself and do this really radical, really crazy thing and attack them myself. In fact, it’s so ridiculous I’m going to make myself known to them,’ Hi! How are ya?! I’m insane!’ And do the craziest kinda battle you could ever do.”

Like everything about this doesn’t make sense, and yet it applies to us in such a huge way. About living this life the way God had intended for us to live, and using the gifts He has intended for us to use; so we can find the joy that we’ve been looking for, so we could find the fulfillment we’ve been searching for.

So I think Jonathon has shown us somethings and we’re gonna walk through those.

First, Jonathon moves. He doesn’t stand still, he doesn’t sit under the pomegranate tree with the rest of his crew and his father, who’s just sitting there, “What do we do? Ho hum, this stinks. Ah man.”

Jonathon says, “I’m getting out of here, I’ve got a calling on my life. I do not want these guys oppressing my people any more. I know what God wants me to do, and I gotta get outta here.”

So Jonathon’s first step is that he moves. And what I’ve found among people that I’ve got to talk to over the course of my life is that this first step is a difficult step, because we live in a world that craves monotony, that we live in a PDA type world. We have a schedule, and we have to keep the schedule, and because of the schedule and because of the monotony, we rarely move outside of that… and if we do it’s a really scary thing.

It’s kind of like this, when I was younger and when my parents asked me where I want to eat, I always would say McDonald’s or In’N’Out Burger; but In’N’Out Burger (which is my number one favorite fast-food place EVER) doesn’t have happy meals so I am not going to use them as an example. One of my favorite things in the universe was TY Beanie Babies. I used to have a ton, and there was a time when I was younger when they had miniature beanie-babies in the McDonald’s Happy Meal [now-a-days they have crappy crap-crap]. So when we’d go to McDonald’s, they would ask me what I’d want and I’d say “Happy Meal!”

It’s not like I’m obsessed with McDonald’s food, I like it, I’ll enjoy it, etc.; But I’m not like “I crave that heart-attack-on-a-bun,” or “I crave that Indigestion,” or whatever. What I would do is get in my cute little bag and the first thing I go for is the toy… the cute little toy inside. My Beanie Baby! Yay, woot. Whatever.

I was just like, “Toy, Toy, Toy, Toy, Toy.”

It got so bad my parents would say, “Look Bryan, if you don’t eat that food what will make you feel miserable, you don’t get the toy! You need to eat that miserable food that isn’t good for you and that will give you a stomach ache and yada yada yada or you don’t get the toy!”

So, I’ll take a bite, just to go right back to the toy.

That’s us, some of us…

“I don’t like what I’m doing with my life, I don’t like the job I’m at, I’m miserable, I’m joyless, I’m not being the friend I want to be, I’m not being the sibling I want to be, I’m not being parent I want to be; but I make a good pay-check,” or “I get him good presents,” or “she loves the stuff I get her.” Or whatever. “At least it pays the bills,” I don’t know…

But we start throwing our but’s all over the place, “But, But, But, Bu-But, Bu-Bu-But But But.” It’s no different.

“At least  I got a toy. I know this is making me feel miserable, this junk food crud, but at least I got a cool toy… At least I pay the bills.” And we run our whole lives by this, some of us… some of us are going down that road school, work, sleep. Nothing else. TV maybe. Idk. Facebook, nothing else.

And Jonathon proves in this moment, “NO!” Some of us just need to take a step. You may be a business executive or hoping to be one… but there’s part of you that you feel is being called to be a missionary… do a short-term mission trip or something… help the homeless for a day, do Buscuit Ministry, something outside of this mundane life that some of us are stuck in. See what happens. Don’t be like Saul, sitting under a Pomegranate tree.

The next step Jonathon takes, is a big one… and some of us don’t want to hear it… He risks.

I’m a big thespian… love acting, love singing, etc.. In fact, in late Fall, early December of 2008 I won 1st place out of the entire state of Alabama in Duo Musical Theater with my great and talented friend Zeke Bandy. It was for a theater class at school and first we went to a District competition, got passed on to State competition, and at State we took first place. We each got really nice trophies and it was an amazing experience… But me and Zeke wouldn’t have gotten anywhere if we hadn’t risked. It takes guts to sing and act and even dance on a stage in front of people. When me and Zeke did our first audition, we performed for the judges and a small classroom full of strangers. We were only familiar with one person, and it was a random chaperon. We could have said no, but we did it, and it got us to State. We practiced and practiced and I basically annoyed the heck out of him… “WE NEED BETTER DICTION!!!” Well, I needed it, but we both needed practice [especially me]. And when State came, it was held in like a miniature theater, only it was still pretty big, with more 60 people watching at the least. And it took risk, it took guts. And we did it and we won. Entire State of Alabama, 1st place. It was one of my greatest performances; I am thankful for Zeke for working as hard as he did, and for solely for the glory of God. He is an inspirational person, just ask every single person who has met him.

Some people are in an amazing relationship right now, some of us are married. Talk about risk right there guys… It takes so much to get up and go up to a beautiful girl and ask, “Will you go on a date with me?” Anyone who has ever risked to enter a relationship who has been married for a long time will look back and say, “Man, that was totally worth it, because I found my soul mate.”

But we don’t like to risk. We like to put ourselves in a box. We put boxes around our lives and say, “Oh God please use me, use me.” But we’re never willing to step out of the box and take the box off and say, “God, honestly, everything I have is yours. I give it to you completely.” Church’s were built on risk, in fact, hopefully it’s one of the vision statements of the church today, because some God’s greatest moments, His absolute greatest moments, happen on the other side of risk… and Jonathon got to see that. It wasn’t “Hey, the enemy is gonna come down to us…” that wasn’t God’s greatest moment. Jonathon says that “We have to go up to them. We have to do the hard thing, that’s when God’s gonna show up.”

That’s a scary deal, I know. If I’m his armor bearer, I’m thinkin’ this guy is nuts. “You want us to first go up and say ‘Hey! Here we are!’ And then you want us to go climb up the mountain while they’re jabbing us with their spears?! No thank you! I’m out.”

No. You see, Jonathon knows something, he knows something really spectacular. He’s heard the stories about Joshua. About how he risked and he walked around those walls 7 times and screaming at the and the walls came tumbling down.

Or Gideon. He starts out with 32,000 men to take down an army like sand on a sea shore the Bible says… He’s out numbered insanely… and then God chisels it, “Too many, Too many, Too many,” all the way down to 300 men “Now you’re ready.” No weapons, just torches and horns. And people are like what?! Insane? But Gideon risks for God, and when they blow the horns at night it is thunderous and loud, and people on gaurd on the walls hear it and see the lights and the entire city begins to fall in panic. That was a “God’s greatest” moment.

“You risk for me,” He says, “And I’ll show up in a huge way.” And He did.

I think if you’ve never risked for God, then you’ve never really seen God the way He needs to be seen… because God shows up on the other side of risk, or I should say He truly shows Himself to you on the other side of risk. He shows Himself on the other side of sacrifice in a totally huge way.

So if you’ve never really risked something for God, well, that’s the third thing.

You see, Jonathon got to see God show up in a huge, amazing way… to the point where he couldn’t say that it was about him, that it wasn’t him who did it. “It wasn’t about me, it was about God; and I was just a vessel, I just walked and did the steps and did what I felt like I was supposed to do,” and in fact, earlier on in that passage he says,  “Maybe God will show up.” And Jonathon got to see God show up in a really powerful way, so nowhere at that point could he ever have taken credit. If you’re at a point in your life when you’re saying that it’s all about you… you’re not risking. You’re not moving.

Because at the end of the day when you move, and you risk, there is nothing you can say but “That was God.” Almighty God showed Himself as a result of that risk.

I’ve learned something pretty profound in my life… God’s love language is obedience. Anytime that Israel obeyed God, God blessed them and they saw God in a huge way. Anytime Israel disobeyed, God withdrew His hand, and that’s how they got Saul.

In your life, if you want to feel God, if you’re saying “I want to feel God, I’m missing out on something, I’m missing out on His presence,” It’s not God. It’s quite possibly that you’ve never moved… and you’ve never risked… so it’s quite possibly you’ve never seen the God of the universe move in your life the way He’s so desiring to move.

I’m not necessarily talking about going out on the mission field, though some of us are called to do that, I’m talking about doing something that you love to do and that you’re good at. I told you about how me and Zeke did the musical thing. He is an amazing man of God and He has a heart for music… not only that, he’s amazing at it. You look at him when he’s doin’ music and you can just tell that was what he was born to do.

You look at people like Zeke, and you can tell that’s what God intended them to do, that is who God intended them to be.

Some of us haven’t been able to use our gifts in a way that we could say, “Wow that was awesome. That wasn’t me, that was me doing what God wanted me to do… That was me moving, that was me risking… and here I am seeing God show Himself in an unbelievable way.”

We wouldn’t be alive without risk; for when our dads moved and risked and asked our moms out on that first date, it made way to a relationship, to marriage, and eventually to having us. Some of us wouldn’t be in a relationship or be married without risk. Guys, we look at our girlfriend or our wife and think, “There is no way I could have done this without you God. No way she would love me if it weren’t for you.” Girls, the same. You risked saying yes, risked your time with whoever, and I hope God showed up in a huge way too. “I can’t believe such an amazing Christian guy could both look good, and like me too. God HAS to have had something to do with this, I owe nothing to myself for this.”

The last and final thing that Jonathon got to see as a result of obeying God, and moving, and risking, and seeing God show Himself in a huge way, He killed twenty men which inflicted fear on the Phillistines and caused the earth to shake and as a result to that Saul as he is sitting under the pomegranate tree goes, “Woah, hey, what’s goin’ on?” and the 600 men were like, “Yeah man let’s go do somethin’!” And as the 600 leave the other 2400 notice somethings happening and they get up and start attacking too and they destroy the Phillistines as the result of ONE PERSON’S MOVEMENT, as the result of ONE PERSON’S RISK. ONE. PERSON’S. OBEDIENCE.

In Matthew chapter 5, God calls us to be salt and light in this world, to be an absolute contrast… and because of the monotony we live in, and because of our PDA lives, we often don’t achieve that. In order to be a contrast, in order to be a stark difference in this work… it’s gonna take movement, it’s gonna take risk, and then we see God show Himself, and THEN people want to follow us… cause they say “I want to see that kind of joy in my life. I want to have that kind of fulfillment in my life.

You’ll see this joy in Zeke’s life, and you would have seen this fulfillment in Jonathon’s life, and it’s because they are doing something they love. They are moving. And they are risking. I’m not saying they are perfect, and I’m definitely not perfect… especially considering how far from my potential I am… but at some points I’ve been able to move and I’ve been able to risk, and even though I’ve messed up, despite my imperfect nature, I’ve seen God do amazing things, and it took awhile; but it got other people interested in what I had too.

I know so many people that are living life like this now, not just Zeke, but others too… and I honor you so much all of you.

A lot of people are in the middle, they want to but they’re not sure, they’ve taken steps but they are still trying and then there are those of us at our wit’s end… we are depressed, we are joyless, we are broken, and “I just need something more than just what I’m doing right now…”

I understand that this is hard. I do. And I think I can help.

All next week, Monday-Friday I should say, list everything you love in your day-to-day stuff, things that strengthen you or that make you stronger. Times when you use your strengths to make you happy or fulfilled. List things that you love, in your day-to-day schedule, etc..

But also, on the back of that sheet on which you listed your strengths or whatever, write/list on the side or back, seperate page, etc., things that weaken you, things that keep you from your best, things that totally drain you from joy and fulfillment.

Then after next week, evaluate yourself. Afterwards, if you want, feel free to share it with me or someone you trust, someone who can help you… like an accountability partner.

My E-Mail is on this <betz.bryan@gmail.com> if you would like to share it with me. I’m totally willing, but I do suggest doing so with a very, very close friend, and if anything a parent/mentor.

Consider this as I wrap this post up…

When I was young and free, and my imagination had no limits I dreamed of changing the world. As grew older and wiser I discovered the world was not to change… so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country; but it seemed too immovable. As I grew into my twilight years in one last desperate attempt to change my family, those closest to me. But alas, they would not have any of it… And now I realize as I lay on my deathbed, if only I had changed myself first… then by example I would change my family, and from their inspiration and encouragement I would have been able to better my country… and who knows? I might have even changed the world.

And thats where some of us are today… because it starts with you wanting to change, to move and say “It starts with me. If I can move, if I can risk, I can see God show Himself and other people will want to follow that.”

In your mind, say you’re not content with being monotonous. You’re not content with living a PDA style life anymore. You want to use your gifts for God so that you can really truly be alive and not just surviving.

May God bless you, not just for living but being alive in Him. God has come to give us life to live it to the full; may we embrace what God has given us and channel it by using those gifts in a way that glorifies Him. May you move and may you risk, so  that one day you’ll see God, and others will too and praise Him.

Thank you for reading.