Plumbline teachings are, predictably, 180 degrees out from the contemporary culture. We believe that happiness is utterly expendable. God's goal for our life is fulfillment, not happiness. Further, we believe that your road to fulfillment is riddled with problems and that this is a good thing. You will find happiness once you have found fulfillment.
Consider the story of Adam and Eve when seen both through the grid of happiness and the grid of fulfillment. In the Garden, they certainly had the potential to be happy. The environment was certainly devoid of problems before the fall, there was an abundance of good things to be had, and they had the finest perk of all time, which was the daily, physical presence of God.
God however, knew full well that they would not be able to experience fulfillment in the context of abundant comfort. Therefore, from the beginning, before the fall, God gave them a problem to solve. It was a huge problem: extend the Garden to the non-Garden part of the world.
Solving this problem would require a vast learning curve. They would have to study animal husbandry, soil science, horticulture, landscape design, water management, civil engineering and multitudes of other disciplines. The problem God gave them was too big to fulfill by themselves, so they were going to have to expand the population base which meant mastering all branches of sociology, management, political science and communication, not to mention the initial fine art of parenting.
Why would God impose such a major work load on them when He certainly did not need their help to make a larger Garden? He did it for their benefit. He did it because they had within them the potential to learn all those skills and to use them.
Our ability to learn specific skills is foundational to the whole discussion of fulfillment and subsequently of possessing our birthright.
The Devil's Strategy
Consider the vast human anguish that comes from unused talent. Let's take a small illustration first. I have a friend who has an extensive background in business who then went into ministry. He raised his children with care and compassion, equipping them to do all the things a normal member of our society would do. Because Rick did not come from a performing arts background, he did not include that component in his children's extracurricular education.
When his son went to college, he stumbled into the world of theater. He discovered to his surprise that he had the ability to become an extraordinary actor. His capacity to connect with the audience is utterly remarkable. It is the result of inborn talent, not just a good education at a fine college. His parents had no idea during all his younger years that he had the potential to become a world class actor. It took a sovereign move of God to expose him to the arts and draw that reality into the open.
Imagine what his life would have been like if he had never discovered that truth about himself. Suppose God had not intervened. Suppose the young man had gone on to get a degree in science instead of the arts, and he had excelled in that. Suppose he married, raised a family, made a lot of money and contributed to the Kingdom in some significant way. He would have had a good shot at happiness if he did all those things. However, none of those good things would have compensated for the part of his God-given design that was calling out to express itself in drama.
No matter what success he felt in other areas of life, he would not feel fulfilled until he was using ALL the potential God gave him.
Today Americans suffer a high degree of frustration. Some of it is from being trapped in a situation that is painful and for which there does not seem to be a way out. Much more of the frustration and ennui comes from not developing the abilities God has place within us. Our boredom factor consists of the difference between the abilities we have developed and the ones God placed in us but we have not yet developed. Those undeveloped or even unknown gifts cry out for expression.
I am keenly attuned to the gap between ability and achievement. As someone who specializes in helping people discover the riches of who they are, I regularly grieve over the tragedy of people who have been deceived by the devil into thinking they are much smaller than they really are. I see more of their ability than they do and I try to help them embrace the pain necessary to develop those skills so that they can live and die with a keen sense of fulfillment, instead of frustration or boredom.
Far more tragic are those people who know full well that they have resources that are not developed. Life has not been kind to them. They have either been trapped in a small minded culture that frowns upon eagles who try to fly, or they have been consumed with the struggle to survive, and there is no discretionary time available to develop the abilities they know they have.
Since we discovered and taught on the Canaanite Curse, I have frequently asked audiences how many people know for certain that God has placed specific abilities within them that they have not had the opportunity to develop because of the pace of their life. Routinely 80% of the hands go up. Think of that level of pain. If this is representative of the Body of Christ at large, the devil is systematically tormenting 80% of God's people with the knowledge that they are functioning on a much smaller playing field than God designed them to play on. What cruelty he is capable of.
God's Strategy
If the devil's plan is to side track us so we do not develop our God given abilities and therefore suffer acutely from frustration or boredom, what is God's plan? Very simply it is to give us the specific set of problems that will draw out the best of who we are.
God gave Adam and Eve a staggeringly large problem to solve because they were the finest people the world has ever seen. Their talent pool has not been matched in any subsequent generation. God designed them to live without death, so they had an open ended time frame to master all the necessary disciplines and they had a vast canvas on which to paint a masterpiece using the palette of nature.
The problem God gave them matched the potential God placed in them. In solving that problem, they would utilize the specific resources in them and in their environment. This is God's way.
On the Plumbline list of core values, we express this quite starkly.
We were created to solve problems.
The world teaches us to flee problems or to hand them off to someone else or to deny that the problems exist or to drown them in escapism if all else fails. Plumbline's belief system is that the problems God brings us can be our greatest asset because they are the keys to identifying and developing our abilities.
With my friend the actor, God drew him into acting to reveal the existence of that genetic ability that his parents never dreamed he had. God does that at times. Other times God gives us abilities that are obvious from the cradle. But most of the time, we have magnificent, deeply hidden abilities that are only discovered in the context of problems.
Someone once said that all problems that come to us are father-filtered. I used to think of that as merely God's protective mechanism that kept us from getting hurt by anything too big for us. But now I see it in a whole different light. I see God looking at the devil's wish list and overtly authorizing the devil to bring selected problems into our lives so that they will cause us to discover and develop abilities that God gave us in the womb.
When God subcontracts a project to the devil, it is always with the understanding that we may have a wrong response to the pain of the problem. This is what the devil is banking on. On the other hand, if we have a right response to the problem, the very thing the devil designed to damage us becomes instead a stepping stone for our advancement and God gets a good chuckle out of making a public spectacle of the devil once again.
Fulfillment and Birthright
God designs us as highly talented individuals then he inserts us into the stream of human history. He uses a multitude of means to reveal to us who He made us to be and to spur us on to develop those abilities. As we respond rightly to the problems of life we learn, develop those abilities and experience fulfillment. But there is much more to life than just the warm fuzzies of "winning" or accomplishing. Life has more meaning than merely avoiding the feeling of futility as we age and die.
I believe that as we use the skills God placed in us to solve the problems God gave us to solve, we will possess our birthright as individuals.
Think of it in terms of Israel and the Promised Land. They experienced a strange paradox that applies to us as well. God told them repeatedly that he was going to give them the land of Canaan. He also told them repeatedly that they were to go in and take possession of it themselves, through war and hardship. It was a gift, yet they had to take it by force.
Each side of the paradox has application to us as we possess our birthright. When God gives us something, it gives us legal right to solve that problem. Israel was forbidden from taking land in Egypt, Moab, Ammon or Edom. Those people were adversarial in their stance toward Israel as were the Amorites and Canaanites. On paper those nations may have looked like a legitimate problem to solve, but God had not given them legal right to invade those countries.
Each of us has specific parameters in our life. We are permitted by God, licensed by God and authorized by God to remove certain obstacles and not others. Paul was quite attuned to that. In 2 Corinthians 10:13-15 he talked about the boundaries God had placed around him. Paul wanted to go farther a field than God had allowed him up to that time, but he recognized his limits.
Even though he had a finely honed skill set that could theoretically be applied universally, Paul did not have permission from God to decide where he was going to preach nor when. God specifically chased him out of Jerusalem one time, prohibiting him from preaching there even though Paul pleaded with God for Him to change His mind (Acts 22:17-21). Another time, he went on a trip and tried to take every road to the east only to have God block him and force him to go west instead (Acts 16:6-10).
God precisely proscribed Paul's ministry. He was not authorized to work in the whole world. Paul's heart for ministry was endless. His motivation was pure. His energy level was great. Nonetheless God limited him. There were certain problems he was assigned to solve and he had to focus on those problems since there were not enough hours in the day.
Similarly when God "gives" us something, it simply means we have a legal right to go after it. Legal right however needs to be supplemented by power. When God commands us to solve a particular problem (or take land in the case of the Israelites) He is also promising to provide the necessary support. Our abilities are rarely enough to do anything God has called us to do therefore He invests deeply in helping us when we are solving the problems He has originally designed us to solve. He withholds His power long enough for us to develop our abilities, but then when we have achieved the desired growth, God provides His power to complete the task. He could have done that at the inception of the problem, but it would have robbed us of the growth experience.
The Win/Win Proposition
Having developed our God given abilities and tackled the problems God "gave" us to tackle, and been victorious through His power at work within us, we will find not only personal fulfillment but we will, in that place, receive the greatest riches God has for us. Canaan was not just a place where Israel could exist. It was a superb place, a place of wealth, influence, comfort and prestige. They moved from trying to obtain something, to being in a position of stewardship where they give spiritual and natural treasures to the needy nations around them.
When we are doing what we were designed to do, we are making the greatest possible contribution to advancing the Kingdom of Heaven. God has been portrayed at times as someone who advances His Kingdom at the expense of the church and then He rewards in eternity those who sacrificially serve Him here on earth. While we are called to take up our cross and follow Him, in most cases the sacrifice is merely a season in the larger process. In broad strokes we can say that in doing the greatest good for the Kingdom, we are doing the greatest good for ourselves as well. In possessing our birthright, we are receiving the blessings God has for us while being positioned to be a blessing in the section of the vineyard that is our responsibility. It is the win/win plan God intended from the beginning.
Identifying Your Birthright
Many people wonder what their birthright is; yet most of us cannot accept that information even though we think we want to know. Romans 12:2 talks about our arriving at a place where we can test and approve what God's will is. Most of us simply cannot "approve" of God's will for our lives because of our damaged self-image.
Think about where you are today. Most of the people who would read this kind of article are in a much larger place today than where they were ten years ago. If God had told you ten years ago what He was planning for you today, would you have been able to wholeheartedly approve of what God revealed? Most of us, myself included, would have to say "no."
In the same vein, if God were to tell many of us what He has in store for us ten years hence, many of us would have a hard time embracing that revelation.
God knows all that, so He grows us toward the objective He has in mind (our possessing our birthright) without explaining to us how everything He is doing fits into the master plan. His most basic tool to move us toward our birthright is to systematically send us precisely designed problems. We will have to grow to be able to embrace each of the problems He sends us. That growth consists of discovering and developing the abilities God placed in us that we have not used heretofore.
If we will embrace the problems He sends even when we don't understand them, our growth will move us incrementally toward using all the gifts He has placed within us, which will eventually result in our possessing the treasure that God has for us to steward. That is how we can move toward possessing our birthright even when we do not have a clue what it is. Somewhere down the road is a treasure that God wants us to use to benefit the Kingdom. In order to properly administer that treasure we have to unleash our potential. We do that by embracing father-filtered problems.
My Plan
Our culture drives the theme of seeking the easy path so insistently that at times even I get sucked into that mindset and God has to draw me back to the right road. I am currently learning this lesson of embracing pain yet again, in yet another venue.
I had been planning for some time to take time off from ministry in January and February of 2003. My plan was to pamper my spirit, soul and body so as to achieve the greatest good. I found a friend who has a cabin in the mountains. The cabin is comfortable on all counts and he agreed to let me stay there for several weeks. It is by a rushing stream surrounded by magnificent trees in the snow zone. In addition to a host of earthly comforts, there is an anointing for rest on that cabin. I have no idea how many years it has been since I have been able to down shift emotionally to second gear. I am an intense person doing intense work. Even when I am asleep my mind is working and my spirit is carrying the burden of all the people I care about. I envisioned spending weeks in this cabin achieving a deep rest for spirit, soul and body, weaning myself from the multitask mindset so I could give the Lord my undivided attention.
My plan was to have a completely vertical focus for this retreat. I was going to shut off my e-mail, cell phone and fax machine so I could be alone with the Lord and give Him my undivided attention. My staff was positioned to care for all the administrative stuff during those two months, so I would not have to be interrupted with mundane things. I really wanted to sit at His feet and drink in the richness of the truths that would flow from Him if I had no distractions. I was making a statement to my Father of how important it was to me to receive the best He had for me.
I mentally worked through all the things I could do to enhance my spirit's responsiveness to God during that time. I have the Bible on CD. I was going to take it and listen to it around the clock during the first week while I was unwinding from the intensity of the last three years. That would serve to somewhat flush my mind of all the pressures of life and it would set the stage for a spirit keenly attune to God.
I wanted to focus on the gospel of John during this time apart, especially the fifth chapter which is the central passage in Scripture on legitimacy. I planned to read the whole gospel out loud to myself each day in a different version. I was going to memorize the entire fifth chapter during my retreat and meditate on it in detail.
I was planning to do a 40 day fast to further enhance my spiritual acuity. I also planned to spend hours a day in prayer, developing my prayer life. Some of the biographies I was going to read were about spiritual giants who touched heaven and earth through their prayers.
I was going to take my laptop and a few extra technical resource books. In addition to just waiting on the Lord with no agenda, God has already revealed many veins of ore in Scripture that I planned to mine as the Spirit directed.
In addition to that, I have my wonderful team of intercessors. My mind went wild with pleasure as I thought of all the sophisticated ways I could deploy them to cover this time away so as to exponentially multiply the blessings from this time.
It sounded to me like a magnificent plan for honoring God and for taking a great leap forward toward possessing my birthright.
God did not agree.
God's Plan
Some things changed along the way. Instead of the cabin alone in the forest, I will be in a city setting. Instead of a piece of land blessed with a deep spirit of rest, I will be on some land that has some significant unresolved spiritual issues. Instead of being isolated from the business pressures, I will have to be somewhat in touch with my staff over those two months. Instead of being totally focused on issues between me and God, God has directed me to engage with some people in a very specific (i.e. hard) way during this time.
What is challenging is that, although He changed all of the setting, He has not diminished any of the spiritual disciplines. I am to immerse myself in John, pray lots and lots, listen to the Bible, read, study, etc. I am to be just as vertically focused as I planned to be, but I have to get back to that vertical focus quickly after each horizontal intrusion. That is going to be some kind of a problem for me to solve.
When I asked God why He had disrupted my plans so drastically, He replied that I was just too soft for my own good. Anyone can connect with God in ideal circumstances. How many of you would like to have the two months off work with the scenario I described above to just wait on the Lord? God agreed that it was past time for me to grow in intimacy with Him, but He wanted me to learn to do it in less than ideal circumstances.
Then came the clincher: God asked me point blank whether I would be of any use at all to Him, the way I am now, if He assigned me to a prison in China or whether the pain of the circumstance would render me completely useless to the Kingdom.
He said that if I could not connect with God for major spiritual growth in the midst of a few distractions in the U.S., I was nowhere near tough enough to do the work He has called me to do in some tough place in the future.
Point well taken.
I realized how true that was when He drove home the point by rolling endless videos of my life showing me that I have consistently procrastinated on spiritual disciplines waiting for a better time. I have heroically worked to make my life more orderly so as to make room for many disciplines. This is good and fine, but it leaves undeveloped some other God-given abilities. I have consistently put off prayer time, meditation on the Word or some other needed spiritual discipline for half an hour, or a day, or a week, because I could visualize a ?good? window of opportunity a little bit later. In so doing, I have cost myself some opportunities to develop that portion of me that does its best work under pressure. This is what God is after.
So I died to my dream of a splendid retreat, and committed myself to solve the problem of finding God in the midst of the cacophony of civilization.
As soon as I did that, God met me in that exact place. The final weeks of this year have been as intense as the last two minutes of an American football game. I have been working hard to bring closure to the year in light of next year's time away (regularly scrimping on spiritual disciplines because I planned to make up for it in just a few weeks).
Yet while I have been fiercely task oriented, God has abruptly begun to partner with me, giving me wonderful revelation in the midst of work, now when I was sitting at my computer with the Bible study books open. God has increased my prayer life ten-fold over anything I have experienced before even though I have not had the large blocks of time I envisioned as a necessary tool to get from where I am to where I want to be.
As soon as I embraced the problem God assigned me, He released a new color of grace to make it possible for me to solve that problem.
It is a novel experience to so consistently connect with God and grow and intercede in less than ideal circumstances. This is doable only because God made me this way. It is essential for me because apparently sometime in the future I will be in a very stressful negative situation and I will have to grow mightily in the midst of the situation, not before or after it. God does not call everyone to walk this same path, but He knows how He designed me and He knows what my birthright is, so He is crafting my life's assortment of problems to get me where I need to be, on time.
Although I do not know what the future holds, I know God has filtered everything that is coming my way and this problem is mine to solve. Judging from the firstfruits, God is going to help me solve it in a grand way.
It is ironic, but I am now more excited about my difficult retreat than I was about my dream retreat. I am absolutely confident that God will meet me in the city. I will receive all of the blessings I was pursuing (since my objective was right, just not the process) and along the way I will discover some abilities within me that I had not known were there. And in addition to the immediate benefits of insight and growth, I have a settled confidence that in March I will be that much closer to possessing my birthright than I was before because my life is not random. It is exquisitely ordered by the Most High God.
(But I still hope to get a shot at the cabin in the mountains some time in the future when I am not so soft!
Arthur Burk
Whittier, CA
