Boldness Revisited

I was out in Indiana a couple of weeks ago. Didn't want to be there. Oh, I like Indiana just fine. All the family is there. But I was in town to do the funeral for Bill, my brother-in-law. Tough stuff. But I find it's easy when I'm doing my "minister" thing to spot the moments for boldness, for speaking out. For example, we couldn't stay with family members because other family was packed in there, so we stayed with John and Jeannie, long-time friends of Bill's. I'm sitting at midnight at the computer working on the funeral message when John walks in and tries to look over my shoulder at what I'm writing. After just standing there for a while, he just says, "Well, I know I'm going to hell." You don't have to be brilliant to know "Hey, here's a opportunity for boldness."

At life group yesterday, we were kicking around Psalm 139 and Ephesians 1 and talking about boldness. Here's another reason to be in life group--my understanding got broadened as we kicked this around. It struck us that boldness might not look the same for everyone. Depending upon how God has fearfully and wonderfully made us, it might look like a funeral message, but it also might look like cooking a meal for a neighbor. It might look like letting someone in front of you in traffic, especially if you've got a fish on your rear fender. It might look like asking if you could pray for someone at work whose family member has taken ill. It might look like offering to babysit a neighbor's kids so they can go out and talk. It might look like paying for another couple's meal that you don't know sitting across the room at a restaurant, or maybe a huge tip to bless the wait staff. Maybe it looks like raking a neighbor's leaves or cutting their grass. Maybe it's saddling up to the outcast at work that no one else likes and being a friend.

Maybe it's not always talking, but maybe it's doing life in a way that will make people ask you what the deal is with you, make them ask why you're different, why you're being nice to them. And when they do, you can talk then.

Ephesians tells us that we've been saved, we've been wiped clean, we've been given the Holy Spirit for a reason, for a purpose, to accomplish an end. And that end is amazingly not so we can just do our thing and "be happy." It's all for the purpose that we would be "to the praise of His glory."

It changes things a bit when you walk out the door in the morning if you consider that your purpose today, no matter what the day holds, is to testify to the glory, the beauty, the majesty, the might, the awesomeness of the One who made you. That testimony can be as varied as the stars, as God has put you together uniquely.

Want to go to sleep tonight fulfilled? Live, exist, operate to bring praise to His glory.

Oh, and have a nice day.


Dwaine Darrah, McLean Campus Pastor