17 Revolution of Balance

17

Revolution of Balance

Have you ever wondered what the real burden of OM leaders is for those who are only in OM for a year or two? There are moments when it is thought that all we want is sweat, tears, a pile of tracts distributed, and many sermons preached. A brief eavesdropping on a 3 Day Coordinators’ Conference would enlighten you; for every year the Lord has broken us as leaders of the Movement and shown us our many failures. Actually, our main desire for each one of your lives is spiritual balance.

Often we hear people in OM refer to certain matters as “this is the way it is done in OM.” Certain people are described as being “typically OM.” Yet what is typically OM? I want us to look together at some truths that are often neglected. In this way I hope we will see what OM really believes and what OM really wants, that we may begin to work at putting some of these areas straight in our own lives.

Discipleship in a Secular World

Spiritual balance is something that must be real for each of us.

If one only understands the principles superficially, then one will quickly find that the principles will not stand the test of the secular world. It is my deep conviction that discipleship is not just for full-time workers. Discipleship is for every believer. Discipleship is not just for people who are living in a community like we do on an OM team, or even on the Logos. It is for people everywhere. Discipleship is not a set of rigid rules. The principles of discipleship are more flexible and adaptable than many of us would dare to admit. One set of Bible truths taken to extreme without the balancing truths of another set can lead people into frustration. Frustration will never lead to spiritual reality. I really want us to have a balance in our spiritual truth.

Groups Outside OM

Have strong convictions, but be flexible and adaptable as a person. These truths are for all balanced Christians, not just for OMers. There are many people outside the OM fellowship who know more about these principles than many of us inside OM. There is a great danger that being in OM makes a person believe he’s got these things when he doesn’t. Sometimes people who have never heard the teaching of OM are living it, and respond enthusiastically when they do hear some of it.

The disciple, though he has strong convictions, is flexible and adaptable. His cardinal rule is LOVE. When he goes into a situation with which he disagrees violently and wants to war and stamp his feet and cry out and preach, love restrains him. Love should cause him to think before he speaks. Most of us realize our tongues run faster than our brains, and this gets us into much difficulty. The true disciple, though he has strong convictions, is adaptable and flexible.

Sometimes messages you hear build up strong convictions on minor issues as well. If you join another group, you may find they have different convictions. Unless you are flexible, adaptable and loving, you will not be able to fit into another fellowship easily. When a person feels he can only stay in one group, he is shown to be unbalanced.

Several times I thought, I would like to join the Salvation Army. They are about as different in certain areas, as any group can be from basic OM beliefs. Yet, reading about them gave me a great desire to work with them, in spite of the areas in which we would not agree.

There is nothing wrong with a strong conviction if you realize you are a learner. Without that flexibility and adaptability, your convictions will dig your own grave. This is particularly true in the tough secular world.

High Aims

Have high goals, yet accept yourself completely. Many messages have been given on the subject of self-acceptance, although they may have been called different things. Yet it is very easy for us not to remember or even to grasp the message, though we have heard it a number of times. The devil is a specialist in deceitfulness. The tendency is for us to judge others, to see the faults in others rather than in ourselves. When we hear powerful messages, we tend to see the weaknesses in other people and to think we ourselves are doing fairly well, when this is not so.

OM has higher goals in some features than some other Christian groups. These goals can make us into neurotics. Some Christians become neurotics because they aim at impossible standards. Christians tend to aim and accept fantastic goals that either kill them or distress and discourage them that they backslide.

With our high goals and high aims we must have complete self-acceptance. We must have that deep inner peace, because we are accepted in the beloved even when we are groveling in the mud because of our own mistakes. It is a difficult balance to find and there is a great danger of neurosis.

We must have high goals. Mr. Fred Jarvis says, “The great sin of Christians is not failure, but aiming too low.” We should aim as high as we can. Even on the ship, one of the problems is that we aim too low. We must aim high with complete self-acceptance; then, when a mistake is made we do not heap self-pity on ourselves and drown in the mire of discouragement and despair, but rather maintain a true spiritual balance.

The Discipline of Rest

The third spiritual balance is to have strong discipline while being relaxed and rested. It is important to be strong in both areas. There must be times when you throw yourself into difficult situations, releasing the greatest amount of energy and discipline, and there must be times when you throw yourself into being carefree and relaxed, floating on top of the world. Without both of these seeming extremes, you are not going to make it.

Some will ask, “Are we not supposed to be soldiers all the time?” Yes, but even a soldier does not keep his finger on the trigger all the time. A real soldier is a person who knows how to relax. When he relaxes, he builds up his physical strength and power, so he can go on to battle and accomplish more in a week than he would have done in a month. Billy Graham recently stated that if he could live the last 10 years of his life over again, he thinks he would give himself completely to the battle and then retreat—giving himself to the Word, prayer and rest. Some think OM teaches we should never take a holiday, we should never relax for a moment, but this is not true. We must take it easy at times. A violinist tightens up his strings before playing a concerto, but when it is over, he releases them or they would snap. In other words, we should learn to come apart or we will literally COME APART.

For our health, as well as our spiritual life, it is important to learn to relax. Different people do this in different ways. Some people need complete separation from work to relax. Some need a week’s holiday, and others can just take off a few hours, or even change their job and be relaxed. Other people’s attitude towards their work enables them to work in a relaxed way and never become as uptight as some others. Because we know so little of relaxation you will hear me preach more on the rest of faith than on discipline, though I believe in both equally.

Concentration without Frustration

Fourth, we need concern without neurosis. Recent studies suggest that evangelical Christians with a strong Protestant outlook tend towards neurosis. It is healthy to have a concern that things are done right and people are living right without becoming neurotic. Let us have peace within ourselves when things are going wrong. Having a sort of itch, a psychological compulsion which does not come from above, but from one’s ego, is neurosis. We should not be afraid of a little bit of neurosis, and in fact most of us have some. The modern psychologists suggest we throw away our Protestant ethic with ideas such as, “You can’t have sex before marriage” because this makes us neurotics. But, as another psychiatrist recently stated, “The Victorian Ethic has produced a generation of neurotics and the Twentieth Century Liberty Ethic is producing a generation of psychotics.” A psychotic is ten times worse than a neurotic. We should be neither.

It is important to keep our rooms clean and tidy. If someone sees rubbish lying around, it is good to get rid of it. However, the neurotic is bothered if there is one speck of dust. He will not be able to live very easily anywhere because he is so bothered about getting rid of all the tiny particles of dust. Eventually he will burn up inside and continually move around, unable to settle at anything because of his neurosis. (This is often true in marriage also.)

Many perfectionists have neurosis. In the book, None of These Diseases, we see this brought out clearly. Perfectionists crack, or else, cause a lot of other people to crack.

Perfection through Failures

Fifth, our goal is perfection while learning to handle shortcomings and failures. To be perfect, should be the goal of every true Christian: to live a life in the Spirit, to not offend anyone, to have maximum love, to do all things right and to glorify God in every action. This is spiritual perfection and this should be our goal.

Each of us must come to a place where we are able to accept failure, especially our own failures, mistakes and shortcomings. Often the Christians have such high standards for themselves that when they miss the mark, they don’t know what to do. They become so totally frustrated that they wallow in self-pity and take a long time to get back to the beginning again. They will repent, believe that God has forgiven them, but actually live in a form of purgatory as they believe that, if they chasten themselves emotionally and mentally for a certain number of days, they will be able to get back onto the same spiritual plain.

Other Christians live a whole day in frustration because they were unable to get their quiet time first thing in the morning. They really believe that the devil is going to pounce on them extra hard. The Bible does not even mention quiet time. The devil is going to attack us anyway, whether we miss our quiet time or not. Let us aim for perfection, but not become a neurotic over it.

Children or Men?

The sixth balance involves conquering spiritual immaturity. There is a lot of spiritual immaturity in the Christian world and in the church. We also find a lot of spiritual immaturity in Operation Mobilisation: “This brother does it, so can I;” “he is going there, I want to go there;” or, “he has got this, so I want that.” Some would call this childishness, but really it’s immaturity. The truly mature Christian can say, “Others may, I cannot.” “Others may, I won’t.” For a number of years I believed, God did not want me to have a wrist watch, but I never preached against wrist watches. Now I have a wrist watch, and it is most helpful; though for a long time I was able to be without one when many had suggested I get one.

It is amazing how easily we get the “I want bug,” just because we see someone else has it, and not because we need it. Generally, if we really need a thing we can obtain it. But how often we are so immature, when we see somebody else with something, then we suddenly realize we want it also. This even goes to the absurd, whereby one person has a special snack served and we get jealous. Or we discover someone whom we thought was a very dedicated disciple has an iPod which we don’t have, and we decide we also should have one. This is “keeping up with the Joneses.” God’s way is revolutionary as demonstrated in the life of Paul. For him others could have it, but he could not; others needed it, but he did not. Don’t base your spiritual life on even the most dedicated Christian you know. Base it rather on the Word of God and what the Lord Jesus reveals to you.

Realistic or Legalistic?

Finally, learn to distinguish the difference between biblical and personal conviction. It is possible to get a Bible verse for almost anything. You can defend almost anything from the Bible, but only if you are willing to take isolated Bible verses out of context.

Certain things we do in Operation Mobilisation are not biblical principles. These are principles we have accepted as those which have the least amount of problems. There will always be problems, and we must learn to discern between strong, definite and unmovable principles and principles we need to operate in a particular setting.

For example, there is nothing biblical about the time schedule for eating. It is just a matter of practicality.

The spiritually mature person can discern between what is biblical and what is unique in particular situations. There are some things that are unique to OM which cannot be forced in another situation. No doubt there may be some men, who after they have left OM shake their wives at 6:30a.m. saying, “But darling, you’ve got to get up for your exercises or you are not a true disciple.” When she rolls over and says, “Please I want to sleep,” the poor fellow won’t know what to do. We need SPIRITUAL BALANCE.