Triathlon
“Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and to keep the LORD’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?” Deuteronomy 10:12-13
Fear/Walk/Serve – Gear up! Prepare! Get going! Three Hebrew words tell you basically all you need to know about attitude and action when it comes to answering life’s most important question. What does God ask? Fear-Walk-Serve. Let’s look at these three and how they fit together.
Yare is a verb that covers a lot of ground. While it can describe frightening emotional reactions, when it is used of YHWH it usually, but not always, implies awe and reverence. Moses tells us that the first action of righteousness is respect. If I don’t respect who God is, I will not do what He asks. This is a case of saying what I believe but doing what I value. I have to value God before I will follow His instructions with my heart. Since compliance is not what God desires, yare must be the foundation of all further action. This is the place to begin. Do I value God? Actually, do I value Him as God? That implies I give Him ultimate value in my life. How will I know if I give ultimate value to Him? Ah, easy. His requests come first – always.
Once I have my values in place, then I am able to walk in all His ways. Here the verb (yalak) is a metaphor. Its common physical usage (to come, go, walk) is used as an analogy for a way of life, not an occasional step. This is a direction. Everyone stumbles. Everyone gets distracted. The verb is about the long-haul, the way that I am going, the day-to-day progress. Eugene Peterson’s book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, summaries the idea of yalak. Over time we strive to be obedient to all of God’s ways. Of course, there is no logical or moral reason why we can’t be obedient to all of His ways right now, but the Bible isn’t sugar-coated. The text acknowledges probable mistakes. Walking is measured in terms of miles, not inches. But then every mile begins with the span of an inch.
Finally we come to the verb ‘avad (to serve). If yalak covers all the inches on the road of life, why do I need another verb to describe what God desires? Isn’t walking according to His ways enough? ‘avad is a common description for ordinary labor. Walk and work. That sums it up, doesn’t it? Walk and work with your face turned toward God. But ‘avad is not just about work. It’s also about service. It’s about God’s desire for Man to serve His creation. Service in the light of the ultimate values of life is an act of worship. Maybe that’s why we need this third verb. We need the right attitudes and values; we need to be traveling in the right direction; and we need to experience everyday common tasks as a form of worship. We are tri-athletes. Three things are needed to finish the race. All the rest is elaboration on preparation and technique.
Today’s Word: walk, yalak, fear, yare, serve, ‘avad, Deuteronomy 10:12-13
This is an effective counseling model. Questions about one’s values, direction, and service to others lead to discover not only what is broken, missing, or stuck; it will lead to a course correction. To borrow an idiom, this yoke is easy and light; especially when compared to the various alternatives we all have experimented with.
Earlier today I responded to a survey a student is conducting for a report they are assigned to write. One of the questions was, “How did you choose your occupation?” I share my answer to the survey because culture often defines a person’s significance based their occupation; and depending on society’s placement of that occupation on the value scale may determine how society values that person (i.e. garbage collector vs surgeon). Today’s Word shows an entirely different point-of-view. This was my answer:
“For many years I chose a series of vocations defined for me by my culture and my pursuit of passion, rather than by the Creator’s design, purpose, and intention for my life. Those years were not necessarily wasted years, but I have come to understand they were less productive and effective than they could have been. By productive I mean I was continuing God’s creative process; and by effective I mean I was beneficial to others. The vocation I have today is based on the capacity God designed for me, the resources He has granted to me, and the opportunity He has placed in front of me. My current occupational choice was not a proactive, but a retroactive choice. In others words, I did not arrive at my choice by attempting to forecast the future, but by reviewing my history. The process for me can be summarized in three simple steps: 1) I assessed God’s track record in my history in order to understand His trend in my life; 2) I considered how God designed me in order to understand what I am capable of producing and sustaining; 3) I act on opportunities that afford for me to be optimally productive and effective. In the end I have learned it is less about the specifics of what I do and more about the results of what I do that really matter. I believe function precedes form. In this context that means my effective, productive work and service decides my occupation, not the other way around.”
Thank you, Roderick for illustrating your interesting point with your own experience. You stated suscintly something, I imagine, many of us on this path have realized or are realizing.
Thank you Roderick. I don’t have to tell you that your articulation of the substance of the work of John Samuel is excellent. I hope that within the next few months the book that John and I wrote about this process of determining how we are best used for the Kingdom will finally be published. It has been completed for some time now and only awaits coming to print. I will announce it as soon as it is available so that others might discover what you have discovered.
Looking forward to this book’s release. I’ve been talking about it to others for a long time.