God Is Not the Bearer of Bad News

I feel like a lot of the conversations I've had with God have ended with huge, ground-breaking, life altering challenges. Sounds like a dream right? I'm sure, more often than not, followers of Christ are begging for God to take them on adventures, to lead a not-so-boring Christian life. We cry out for spontaneity and fresh starts. Well I thought I did too. Or at least I used to, until God really answered me. He challenged me to answer a call that would be the biggest, hardest, scariest, most spontaneous decision I've had to make in my short 21 years of existence.

In 2010, I had my plans to go to college. I had already taken a year off from school, right after graduating high school, to go study Spanish, Bible, and Foreign Missions in Costa Rica. When I graduated from the Gap Year program, I already had the following semester lined up with my college plans. I was headed for West Palm Beach, Florida to attend Palm Beach Atlantic University. The short story for all of this is: during that summer, I had a really big conversation with God. He clearly told me that His plan for my life at this particular time was actually NOT to go to college. But to move to Gastonia, NC and become a part of a church plant.

This was a little hard for me to swallow. At the time, I was truly all for it. I feel like I didn't even bat an eye. Within about 2 weeks of me telling my parents that God had revealed His plan for my life to me, I already had an apartment waiting on me in NC. So I didn't waste much time and I was pretty stoked about the whole thing. It wasn't until the first couple of weeks that I kind of approached God with this kind of, "what the heck have you gotten me into..." type of attitude.

In my life group we've been discussing Ivan Pavlov's theory on conditioned reflexes and how that relates to our lives. I have a few silly conditioned reflexes/reactions of my own. Certain events or things that have happened in my life have caused me to react in a certain way EVERY SINGLE TIME those events occur. For instance: There have been several times that, for whatever ridiculous reason, I've driven around town late at night with my headlights off. I don't know what the heck my problem was, or what my mental block was about turning my lights on, but it happened more than once. But there was one night when a car almost hit me because they couldn't see me. Ever since then, if you're riding in my car with me at night, you will see me check that my headlights are on at least every 30-60 seconds. That one event has changed the way that I drive at night for the rest of my life. It conditioned me to act/react a certain way. The same with scents or sounds. The smell of Listerine still takes me back to being a little 10 year old girl, crawling around on my Paw Paw's lap. He always smelled like Listerine. If I smell it and close my eyes, suddenly I'm back in his cute house, tucked away on a Christmas Tree farm in the smallest town you'll ever come across. And then there's always a sting, because he's no longer with us, I'll never get to go back to that time. My mind and my heart have been conditioned by that scent.

In my life group last night we discovered that Peter must have had an experience like this. Before Jesus is taken away and ultimately crucified, He is talking to Peter and He says, "Peter, the truth is that you're going to deny me 3 times before the rooster crows this morning." Jesus says this to Peter right after Peter tells Him "Jesus, I'll go to prison with you! I'll even go to death with you!" So of course, Peter probably thinks Jesus is crazy for saying He's going to deny him, not just once, not even just twice, but three times within the next 24 hours. Nonetheless, we come to find that Peter is asked once if He knows Jesus or is associated with Him in any way. Peter says no. Strike 1. About an hour later someone else says, "this guy MUST be with Jesus" and Peter insists that He's not. Strike 2. Then a third person comes along and insists that Peter is associated with Jesus, but Peter says, "Man, I don't know what you are talking about." Strike 3. Scripture tells us that immediately a rooster crowed and in that moment Peter realized what he had done. He had denied Jesus 3 times. (Luke 22)

If that one time of almost being hit by a car conditioned me to check my headlights ever 30 seconds, and if a few memories of my Paw Paw smelling like Listerine have conditioned me to think of him every single time I get a whiff of that scent, then we can only imagine what that one rooster crow conditioned Peter to think and feel from that moment on. In a time and a culture when livestock was so prominent, you can only imagine that he would have to wake up every single morning to a rooster crowing, to which his conditioned heart would be reminded of his BIGGEST failure.

I feel like that's where I've been since the summer of 2010. That one conversation with God, where he challenged me to move away from my friends and my family, to take a road less traveled, to move to a city where I knew about 5 people, and to play a part in starting a church from nothing, was the biggest and the scariest and the hardest calling I've ever received. It conditioned my heart to think that every time I have a conversation with God, it's going to bring something big and scary. What if He asks me to move again? What if he actually tells me that I'm not supposed to get married, that He doesn't have a husband waiting for me somewhere? What if He doesn't need me at Revolution Church anymore? What if I've finally dug my roots in here, but it's time to go somewhere else? These are the questions that have kept me from approaching God. In my conditioned mind, in my conditioned heart, God is always the bearer of bad news.

But here's what I've come to learn. That a part of spiritual growth is recognizing how you've been conditioned and then letting God come recondition you. We see this when we get back to the story of Peter, in one of the most moving passages I've ever read.

After Jesus has been crucified and resurrected, He spends about 40 more days on Earth before ascending into Heaven. During those 40 days, He just kind of pops up to various people that He knew and loved so they would have an account of His resurrection. This is where we find Peter. In John 21 we see that Peter has just gone back to fishing. With his daily rooster crow, his conditioned heart is reminded that he denied Jesus three times and he probably feels so unworthy to continue any type of spreading the Gospel.

But Jesus comes to Peter and some of the other disciples at some point during that 40 days after His resurrection and basically says, "Hey guys, come have breakfast with me." During that breakfast Jesus looks at Peter and says, "Peter, do you love me?" Peter says, "Yes Lord, you know I love you." That's one. Jesus asks Peter again, "Peter, do you love me?" And Peter again says, "Yes Lord, you know I love you." That's two. Then a third time Jesus asks, "Peter, do you love me?" Peter, I'd like to believe was shouting with everything he had, "Lord, you know everything! You know that I love you!" That's three.

So think of this. It is specified that they are eating breakfast, which would suggest that it's morning. Think of morning in a time and a culture when livestock is prominent, you can only image that at the time Jesus is asking Peter if he loves Him three times, that somewhere in the background noise of it all, there is a rooster crowing. Peter probably thought he could never forgive himself for denying Jesus. He probably thought that his heart would always be conditioned to sting at the sound of a rooster crowing. But Jesus came to recondition his heart. Any moment after that, Peter would never have to hear a rooster crow and be reminded of his greatest failure. Jesus reconditioned Peter's heart so that from then on, whenever morning came, he could start his day knowing that he LOVED Jesus and that Jesus loved him.

Mark Batterson made an excellent point when he quoted 1 Peter 5:8 which says, "Satan prowls like a roaring lion," and he goes on to say, "I also think Satan crows like a rooster." He would love nothing more than to keep your heart in the condition that it's in. Satan would have loved nothing more than for Peter to wake up the rest of his life and hear a crowing rooster and be reminded of his biggest downfall. Satan would love nothing more than for me to continue to distance myself from God, just because I've been conditioned to believe that God is the bearer of bad news.

As a leader in ministry, as an Administrative Assistant to a church, as a personal assistant to a pastor, as a life group leader, as a mentor, as a disciple, as a follower of Jesus in general: it is so embarrassing to admit that I've been so scared to approach God. But really, the truth is, I just need a reconditioned heart. I think a lot of us do. And isn't it good to know that Jesus is in the business of reconditioning hearts?

Pray for me.
I'll be praying for you.