Ways and Means

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
⏤ 1 Cor. 3:6

When my focus is on results, I will clamor for the biggest levers of power. But when I prioritize process, I can be free to leverage every small moment. Give the gift of myself to the person in my orbit. Whisper a prayer. God doesn't call me to change the world, but he does call me to love the world. It's a test of trust to embrace his ways and means while surrendering results to him.

Familiarity and Fluency

"My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." ⏤ John 17:15-16,18

In the world, or of the world. We are distinct from the world, but not removed from it. We're not just waiting around. We have been sent with a purpose (to love the world). The essential skill is to be familiar with the world but fluent in the Kingdom.

Sliders!

You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. — Gal. 5:4

There's a form of backsliding that looks like taking the Lord's name in vain, claiming to be his but behaving like the world we were rescued from. Churches make much of this. But there's a more insidious form of backsliding that causes so much trouble: sliding back onto the law to prove our 'goodness.' The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love (two verses later).