ROY KING – JANUARY 2022

This is perhaps the most transparent and vulnerable material I have ever shared.  May God use it to encourage you.

INTRODUCTION

I am 67 years old.  In my 20s and 30s I consumed articles, books and speakers concerning HOW TO KNOW GOD’S WILL FOR YOUR LIFE.  I dreamed of discovering a map, God’s treasure map for my life.  I thought the map would answer all questions and make decisions of what to do very simple.

Going into my 40s I gave up the search for the one right answer and moved more into seeing being at a crossroads with options, a special moment to discern the God pleasing choice for each major turn in my life.  So the next 20 years became a series of memorable moments of solving a puzzle which came about whenever there were directional opportunities. Some answers were yes some no and some waited for a later stage of life.

In my 60s I have become more focused on being with God in worship with clarity on choosing how to contribute flowing from keeping a God focus.  Let me explain.  In my 60s I encountered some changes in where we served and how we contributed that I did not initiate.  They came to me as a health crisis at 58 which has redefined my physical limits and opened new doors.  Others came from a reduction in force circumstance where my position was terminated.  I needed to not only choose positive next steps but also to put the trigger events in a proper perspective and learn from what God had allowed to touch my life.

Worship, private — often included times with my wife and a few close friends and my journal to capture insights. Worship has become adoring God in a tension of holding two truths.  First, He is INFINITE and Second, He is INTIMATE.  INFINITE  worship includes music, being near the ocean, and focusing on Scripture where God’s control and capacity to redeem anything and everything He allows to touch me.  In INFINITE worship I am seeking to see what He is saying and the work He is doing in and through me in those circumstances where you know you are not in control.  INFINITE worship causes thoughts to flash through my mind like when you are driving and begin to slide on ice.  You just hold on to see what will happen next!  I don’t ask God why me.  I just assume my big God can be trusted with the outcomes.

INFINITE WORSHIP also changed my idea of what moments needed God’s clear and special leading.  In those younger years it was what I saw as telescopic sized big life changing decisions on marriage, moves, and work.  But the infinite ONE  is also involved with the microscopic decisions — the daily provision and how to respond to a hurting person in my path or closer to the number of hairs on my head.  God can also direct specifically and guide to a special choice in some of those moments.  I am NOT saying every day God “tells me” what to eat or wear.  But in a given decision on that level GOD can and sometimes does direct a small step. 

Here is an example.  In August of this past year I chose a place to sit by the pool for me and Pandora.  We swam and read and rested but I became very aware of an older couple who sat close by.  I could tell by overhearing their conversation that they were new to our development.  As we got up to leave they were both seated as we walked by.  I initiated a conversation and suddenly there was an open door to connect more deeply and now they are involved with us and other Christians and we can assist them some with the care for the husband declining in dementia.  The lady said sometime later that our meeting at the pool was an answer to her prayers when she had made the major move from up North, and it was a “God moment”.  So perhaps what my INFINITE God sees as a weighty choice is sometimes different from my telescopic and microscopic definitions of life choices.

When I worship God in INTIMACY it is often focused on the indwelling presence of Christ in me in the person of the Holy Spirit.  I have an illustration of how my view of His personal presence in my life has changed.  When you travel there are two basic approaches to getting assistance.  You can engage a Travel Agent or a Tour Guide.  The Agent helps you plan and offers ideas and looks for deals to save you money and fit your goals.  A packet is delivered from the Agent and he waves as off you go.  The Tour Guide makes the trip with you.  He is present for every circumstance you encounter in the trip.  He has the plan and often adjusts it on the fly as the situations on the ground shift.  You choose to let the Guide lead.  But he is the constant experienced and able Guide.  The Holy Spirit is our Tour Guide not our Travel Agent.

As I begin a new year I often stop and look back through journals to help me remember how the infinite and intimate One has shaped my DOING and my BEING.  I do not offer these as an example but just a testimony of how He whispers as we walk together as friends.  The following excerpts were selected from my journals.  This is perhaps the most transparent and vulnerable material I have ever shared.  May God use it to encourage you.

2016 undated but after June 30 leaving from serving Jesus by teaching in a seminary for 20 years.  Acts 1:8 will be the compass for me and Pandora. “The Holy Spirit will give us power to witness locally, regionally and globally.”

09/04/2017 “Lord, write over my life,  MINE.”  Oswald Chambers

03/11/19 Pandora to me as we walked on the beach.  “We WILL finish well!  As we stay on track by not being consumed with self, being generous, and remembering this is not our home.”

06/13/19 “Let God be as original with others as He is with you.”  Oswald Chambers

11/19/19 – From Christ in me to my heart.  “Roy, please deliver the mail Jesus sends to others.  It will be words of encouragement, perspective and clarity for their life.”

11/26/19 – Roy you are not too busy but you are limited.  Focus on the inputs into your life and let me (Jesus) handle the outcomes.  God is blessing me every day with what I need for the day.  So I am free to live in contentment, joy, and relaxed confidence.

12/18/19 – God, your priority is my heart.  What is my love life?  PRESENCE – Be where you are.  Be HIS every moment.  ATTENTIVE – Be available and packed for any assignment.  Travel through life lightly.

02/14/20 – From Jesus.  “Roy, prayer is the most important gift I have given you to love others and unleash My power in their lives.”

09/01/2020 – “I sense a call to pray with intensity, solitude, and writing.”  — One week later I tested positive for Coronavirus and Pandora and I have had health struggles slowing us down since then.

09/7/20 “Roy, be a light and not a judge.  Be a model and not a critic.”

Undated // late September – Renewing my Calling – WHAT?  Be with Jesus in silence and solitude.  Love others starting with prayer.  Write out of my heart and what God gives me to share.  HOW? Daily receiving from Him and then giving out in His name.  Avoid complacency and being easily satisfied by buying toys and playing too much.  Be Available to go, do, say or give whatever God offers opportunities to do.  (Acts 22:10) Be Attentive and Accessible by making space for God’s interruptions and opening up His invitations.

01/03/21 “We gain more ground if we focus on habits rather than goals and do so one day at a time.” Mark Batterson

01/27/21 Ephesians 2:10 — From my point of view as I age, life seems to be closing in on me. I feel smothered.  Limits increase and I am in danger of defining myself by what I can no longer do.  BUT, this is not God’s perspective.  He has prepared and prepackaged good fruitful works for me to walk in.  Where I see loss and shrunken capacity God sees space and clarified focused opportunities.

03/17/21 God has two addresses: Infinite and Intimate.

03/17/21 Where do I live?  I live on a battleground with the flesh, the devil and the world.  Don’t be surprised by the fight.  Wake up each day expecting spiritual conflict.

Undated but in 2021 — My timeline is too short.  The impact of my life is longer than my life span.  I plant a garden but will never get to see it in full bloom.  Kingdom life is colored with the eternal.

Undated but Nov 2021 — Ephesians 1:11-12 God is sovereign over all He allows to touch my life.

11/04/21 – A new journal!!!! A new day!!! Today is the ten year anniversary since my life was changed because of a severe allergic reaction to a medication.  God has redeemed my life and given me another decade!!!

GOALS AND HABITS FOR 2022

1. Physically — increase exercise from 2 to 4 days a week  (still recovering from what Covid took out)
2. Scripture — nourish my soul
3. Sing — Use Robertson’s collection of his favorite hymns
4. Cultivate intimacy with  Pandora
5. Listen better and talk less.
6. Added 11/28/21 – When I wake up each day live with assurance, confidence and anticipation.  Unwrap God’s fresh grace each day.

12/19/21 A very personal and powerful whisper of the Spirit to my heart.  I have tried to capture it clearly.

God’s assignments for me

• Give thanks and rejoice in every opportunity He gives me.
• Don’t apologize for what I am no longer doing.
• Don’t demean or devalue what I am doing now.
• Be fully committed to do what I do with love and quality.
• Don’t defend what I reduce or stop doing or what I start doing.
• Stop wrestling with the lie “I am not doing enough.”
• Live in relaxed readiness trusting the Spirit to be perfectly able to communicate God’s assignments with enough clarity and detail for me to act.

01/01/22 — My heart may fail, and my spirit grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever.  Psalm 73:26 NLT 

I love coaching leaders. I surely learn more than I contribute through walking with clients in their questions and challenges.

Recently I have been working in a fast growing organization seeking to restruucture for the rapid additions of new employees. It has caused me to revisit a book on building organizations by empowering people to web throughout the organziation.

If you are starting from scratch building your organization by a web design may be the way to go. Perhaps my article attached and the book I mention will get you started.

But what about an existing organization built as a pyramid over its first 20 years. Is there a way to use dual vision of a pyramid laying on a web to enjoy the benefits of both designs?

Read my article and let me know your thoughts.

God’s People and Reconciliation

Unity and Reconciliation of the Church Part 2

OVERVIEW & PURPOSE

This lesson will outline some of the biblical commands we are to obey as we love one another.  You will focus on your personal responsibility to follow clear biblical commands instead of your family or cultural practices.

All good theology is relational not simply propositional.

All of my problems in life, at their root, are relational.

Main ideas

1. The First Step

When there is a break in the experience of Christ like love between people reconciliation rests on someone taking the first step.  To begin reconciliation involves going face to face, offering words that describe the sin or offense and giving or receiving forgiveness.

God took the first step in reconciling with us.  Romans 5:10-11; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Ephesians 2:13-21.  The death of Christ was not only a sin sacrifice it also broke down barriers of racial distance and formed God’s people as “one”.

We are to take the first step.

Matthew 18:15-20 – If you recognize you have been sinned against before the other person you are to GO.

Matthew 5:23-26 – If you are in worship and realize you sinned against someone you are to leave worship and GO.

To grow spiritually will always involve repentance or movement toward God’s truth, grace, and love.  The steps of repentance always involve:

• Exposure — bringing light on my current attitudes, words or behaviors.
• Disruption — Accepting that the current life choices are never going to produce the love, joy, peace and freedom God intends for his reconciled children.
• Enticement — Moving toward and accepting God’s grace and truth and finding his Spirit in us gives us the capacity to forgive and rebuild relationships.

Jesus lived in a shame based culture which frequently avoided direct confrontation and devised indirect channels to communicate.  But even in this culture Jesus says God’s plan is for us to GO to one another.

We  don’t avoid the person and talk to others about the break.  As my mentor Roberston McQuilkin told from his experience as a missionary in Japan, “THE ABSENT ARE SAFE WITH US.”

2. What if the separation is not over a sinful wounding but is a strong disagreement?  Again, Robertson had a question to guide him as President of Columbia International University, “Do I want to win or do I want to see healing and repairing of the gap?”

1 Corinthians 6:5-8 The example Paul gives is a financial disagreement but I believe the principles apply to many disagreements.  There are two options.

First, The disagreeing people agree to submit to and accept the judgement of a wise person in the church.  They each present their perspective and then live by the ruling of the wise fellow believer.

Second, If there is no acceptable person of wisdom present then Paul’s approach is, “Unity and loving one another is such a basic foundational rule of BEING God’s people then volunteer to take the loss.  Just let it go.  Give it up.  And move on to restore the love.  Surrender personal rights for the sake of the community.  A challenging idea for us hyper individualists.

ACTIVITY

There will be some more parts to this series and I will also add videos.

You can begin by doing your study of the passages I have highlighted and then begin to look carefully at past and present breaks in unity. 

If you missed part one here is the link to the handout.  

PART ONE

Here is a handout that accompanies the video below. Welcome your comments.

HANDOUT

Here is a 14 minute video where I explain the Biblical priority of BEING the church.

VIDEO

If I can serve you in coaching, consulting or training let me know

Roy King (age 65)
Married to Pandora since 1976.
Two adult married children and three grandchildren
American Church – Pastor of Mission, Senior Pastor
Seminary – 27 years as Professor of Leadership at CIU and Staff in Development, Financial Aid and Alumni
Non-Profit Organizations – Cru, Billy Graham Center, MTI board member, Streams of Living Water
Contribution: Leadership Coaching, Organizational Consulting, Adult Training for 30+ years / 10 countries
Primary Function: Launch a new work, Rework a declining or plateaued work, Self-Leadership Coach