“Your Daddy digs ditches and your Mamma wears army boots”.

In the 70’s this was a saying we used to put someone in their place who thought they were all that. You might be a red-neck if you have a bumper sticker that says “My Son Is a Ditch Digger”. You may be shocked to find out that digging a ditch is one of the most spiritual things you can do!

In 2 Kings 3, we find the story of Gods people marching to battle against their enemy. There were in the desert and ran out of water, leaving them weak and vulnerable. They called on God and He sent them the prophet Elisha, and they begged him to give them a word from God. After a time of worship-and with great expectancy-the leaders waited for this man of God to give them the words that would deliver them.

“Dig ditches. In fact, fill the whole valley with ditches.” That’s all you got? “Dig a ditch.” What kind of foolish message is that? We are warriors ready for battle and you want us to drop our swords and start digging? Our enemies will mock us and chanting, “Your daddy digs ditches….”

I love the ways of God, they are always humbling to our pride and offensive to our wisdom. It would make sense to dig ditches if there was some secret underground stream, or if there were dark clouds in the distance, but that was not the case. They had to dig in humble obedience to the word from God. As they filled the valley with ditches, it must have felt much like digging their own graves. The wilderness is the place of dying to our abilities and strengths to discover His grace. Doing the faithful work that seems unimportant is our part of the miracle. We cannot create rain-that is God’s job-but we can be ready for it. In fact the Lord told them that they, “would never see any rain, yet the valley would be filled with water”.

This word reminds me of how John Wimber the founder of the Vineyard would describe how revival works. He used the analogy of the people of God in worship-without knowing where the water came from, they looked down and discovered they were standing ankle deep in water. They Lifted their heads to heaven, returning to worship, only to discover now that they were standing knee deep in the water. Again, they went back to worship, keeping their eyes on Jesus, not the level of the water. Suddenly they were being swept away by the water because it was so deep. John taught us to never seek the power of the Spirit, but to seek the presence of Jesus-because the power was in the presence. He cautioned us from focusing on the rising water and to just keep worshipping (digging ditches). The work of the Spirit is a mystery and cannot be manufactured, explained, or controlled. But we can be prepared with empty ditches that He can fill!

I received this word from the Lord to dig ditches a number of years ago when our church was experiencing a severe drought. We were going through a time of painful pruning, with many people leaving the church. We had lost nearly twenty percent of our congregation, moved back to one weekend service, and I was ready to quit. During this time my Mother moved in with us and was dying. It was a dark night for my soul. In the midst of this, the Lord challenged me to grab a shovel and start digging ditches. I knew He was not telling me to try to dig out of this, but to start doing things that brought expectation of the coming rain.

My ditches were things like digging deeper into time alone with the Father and journaling. I spent more time studying His word just to feed my soul. I invested more time in my young leaders. I worked on moving the church to be more outwardly focused. Much of what I did was uneventful and ordinary-just one shovel at a time. I did not want to dig alone, so I called our team to join me filling our valley with ditches.

We planned on new ditches in our church by launching our community groups with far more groups than we could ever fill. We restarted a second service, not knowing where the people would come from to fill it. We added another day in our Hope Center to feed people. We promoted some very young leaders to replace many of the old ones who had left the church. None of the things we did produced the rain, but we dug all these ditches in obedience and faith, expecting God to faithfully do His part. An Ugly Ditch is a statement that says we are desperately dependent, but confidently expectant. Something supernatural happens to a church that gets it about digging ditches.

To not dig is to die, as you cannot live long without hope. To not dig is to be unfaithful and lazy spiritually. To not dig is to be unprepared for His outpouring of blessings; they will just run off the hard ground. Waiting on God in the desert place is a very difficult journey, but if you grab a shovel and start digging some Ugly Ditches without looking for the rain clouds, it will build both character and your faith.

If you look at the hands of any leader who has survived the desert, you will discover some tough spiritually calloused hands from many hours with a shovel. Most Christians today have soft hands and calloused hearts. We need to learn the spiritual discipline of ditch digging. Remember as the Lord told the people about the ditches being filled “This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord”. (2 Kings 3:18)

It is never our responsibility to do what is God’s part-that is prideful unbelief. It is also passive, lazy, and unfaithful to expect God to do our part. This is how grace works: we dig the ditches and He fills them with good things. So grab a shovel and start digging some Ugly Ditches. Don’t be surprised when you look down and the water is rising, just keep digging. I will receive it as an honor to be hear the Lord say “well done my good and faithful ditch digger”.

I had the family all loaded in the car, ready to rush to church, and only one thing was missing: my wife.   It was then the thought hit me, “maybe she needs some encouragement”, and so, feeling very wise,  I decided to lay on the horn!  I will spare you the details, but let me just say it did not have the effect I had desired. I have never been good at any kind of waiting, and it’s been no different in learning to wait on the Lord.  I wish waiting on the Lord was a spiritual gift I could receive through a prayer. Instead, the art of waiting on the Lord seems to be a discipline learned in the heart only through many painful lessons.

I have studied lots of theology books, and I love to read about the attributes of God, but I’ve come to discover that they often leave out some of the most important ones.  One that no one talks about is the “slowness of God”. God behind the wheel is no Nascar driver; He is more like a winter visitor from Ohio. Every time I begin to feel a little holy, God sends one of these drivers to pull out in front of me and go 20 miles an hour for ten miles on a two lane road where passing is not allowed. Waiting on the Lord would be easy if God could find the gas pedal and hurry up; why is He so slow?

Most of my prayer life is wasted on trying to get God on my timetable.  He is like my wife; the more you blow the horn, the slower He goes. I know you can quote me the sweet Christian saying, “God is never late”, but that depends on whose time table you are talking about, ours or His. God moves with eternity in mind: “a day with him is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day”. That’s not the clock that is ticking in my brain. We are admonished to “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:14)

Waiting on the Lord requires dying to you being in charge. It is not only doing the will of God but doing it in His time. Many times I have discerned what the Father wants me to do and I launch out to do it, only to quickly discover I am without His peace. I have moved ahead of Him. A good thing becomes a bad thing when we do it on our time not His. We become like Abraham, who got tired of waiting on God and attempted to help him make a son in his own strength, resulting in Ishmael. He begged God to bless this son as the fulfillment of His promise, but God said no.  We must do the will of God His way and in His time. Premature actions lead to pain.

The “slowness of God” is rooted in His love and wisdom. It is so arrogant to think we know better than God in what He should do, and it is just as prideful to think we know when God should do something. God’s timing is perfect even if it is late to us.  Learning to wait on the Lord is not some form of stoic gritting your teeth and fighting the urge to blow the horn. The art of waiting is an act of surrender; it’s worship. It’s celebrating our trust in Him and the expectation that we will see His goodness in His time.  How we wait is often more important than if we wait.  We must wait with our eyes on Him, resting with peace.  As we wait, He is working in us to make us ready for what is coming. He promises that, “They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength”. (Isa.40:31)

There are desperate times when it is appropriate to pray, as the Psalmist does, for God’s help to come quickly, “Hurry O God, to save me; O Lord, come quickly to help me.” (Ps.70:1) There is nothing that can travel faster than the speed of God’s mercy reaching down to rescue us.  We can say that He is both extremely slow, yet at other times He moves as suddenly as lightning; and it is always up to Him to set the speed.  If you read the Gospels you will see over and over how Jesus let the Father set the pace.  He traveled with a since of Kingdom time, not by the demands of others.  Jesus often said no to doing good things because it was not the right time.  He was never in a hurry. Jesus invites us to “take his yoke upon us and learn from him” (Mat.12:29), and when we do this we discover the speed of grace.  It is the speed of letting him set the pace, which in my life is often much slower than I would like to go.This gives new meaning to the African proverb, “if you want to go fast, go alone and if you want to go far, go together”. I am learning to delight in His pace, realizing how much farther I will be able to go walking with Him in joy and peace.

Learning to wait on the Lord is a messy struggle, but Ugly Waiting is far better than missing God.  “Be still and know that I am God”.  (Ps. 46:10)

Santa isn’t real?! What a sad day it was when this was revealed to me, but part of growing up and maturing is “putting away childish things”, many of which are myths that give us false illusions. I have been walking with Jesus for 37 years and, over and over, I find myself confronted with another myth that must die. The most recent is the revelation that the more mature I become in my faith, the less certain I am about my faith. I have always believed the myth that maturity in Christ brings a clear certainty about what I believe, but now I am learning the ugly secret that this is not true… I think! Now, you may say it is just a lack of faith, or giving in to doubts, but I think it is what King David learned after many years of following after God’s heart when he says, “In the course of my life he broke my strength” (Ps.102:23)

This shaking of my confidence and certainty is very humbling, as I am surrounded by the strong young leaders that I am mentoring who look to me for direction. What happened to me? I used to have all the answers, a verse for everything, a decisive decision maker, and now I find myself getting advice from my 6 year old granddaughter. Recently I was driving Keyara back to her house after a sleepover at grandma and grandpas. I was telling her about a hawk I saw on my walk that morning that had killed a little squirrel and how sad it was. She said “the Hawk has to eat and feed his babies”, I said yes, but it was still sad. Sensing I still needed some encouragement, from the back seat she said, “Grampy, sometimes you gots to do what you gots to do”. Yes, that is it! The wisdom was what I needed to hear to help me make a leadership decision I had been wrestling with. O yes, a little child can lead us, if He has broken your strength.

I think the Apostle Peter arrived at this point of ugly maturity after denying Jesus 3 times and being restored to Jesus after the resurrection. Jesus gave him a prophetic picture of his future death, and I believe of the rest of his life, “I tell you the truth, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old (mature) you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go”. I know Jesus was speaking of the death that Peter would glorify God with, but I also think this is the life of dependency and weakness that maturity brings. In the course of Peter’s life, Jesus broke his strength.

The strength of my beliefs may be weak at times, but it only strengthens my trust in Jesus. I am often uncertain of the direction I need to lead the church in, but that only increases my dependency on the Shepherd. I may struggle with inner confidence of being up for the task, but I know He is my rock. Of course I would rather “dress myself”; it’s embarrassing to have to admit to my young leaders that I have no idea what to do next and that they need to help lead me.

Why does God do this to us? Consider these words from Thomas Merton: “a man who is not stripped and poor and naked within his own soul will always unconsciously do the work he has to do for his own sake rather than for the glory of God.” He weakens our strength only to protect us from the wickedness of self confidence in order to bring us to complete dependency on Christ, giving all the glory to God.

We must learn to celebrate our weakness and uncertainty, knowing they are invitations to know Him better; but the better I know Him, the less certain I am of knowing Him. Beware of God experts, of bible teachers who have it all figured out, and especially of end time specialists who know the identity of Gog and Magog. Watch out for leaders who don’t walk with a limp of uncertainty.

The path to maturity is a painful experience. It involves letting go of certainty, and being willing to live in the mystery of not knowing, but knowing Him. We stop depending on our doctrinal certainty, and rest in knowing that He is the truth. We retire from being the expert who tells everyone how to do it, and we point people to the true Shepherd who holds our hand and guides us. We are insecure and fearful, yet we find in Jesus the strength to be able to what He has called us to do. With Him holding my hand I find the courage “to do what I gots to do”, and that is Ugly Maturity.

Sitting alone in the quiet beauty of the North Georgia woods, journal in hand, hungry to hear the Father’s words, suddenly my mind flashed back to the past week to a conversation I had after church. I was standing around with some of my young leaders, when we were once again interrupted, by the shrill high pitched words “how about those high gas prices!” It was him again: a severely autistic young man named Daniel. After making his comment to us, (which is the only thing he ever says, and in a voice that is an octave above Tiny Tim), I made fun of him after he walked away, drawing laughter from these disciples. With a sound of sadness in His whisper, my peaceful time of reflection was disrupted with the piercing words, “as you have treated the least of these so you have treated me” (Mat.25:40). My heart sank as I realized what a terrible example of a leader (not to mention as a Christian) I had been. With a guilty broken heart I repented to the Father, asking for His mercy and help to love with His love.

The words that came next as I journaled were even more shocking, “Jamie, you need Daniel more than he needs you”. What? What can a severely handicapped man do for me? How can one who is so weak and dependent, do something for me? I knew I was about to be enrolled in a new training course of the kingdom. (I do not remember registering for this course!)

The Sunday after returning home, I had just sat down in my normal spot in the front row when Daniel plopped down in the seat next to me. As we were worshipping, I couldn’t help watching him. He stands looking down, holding his wrist with his other hand, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, never singing a word. The Lord whispered to me that Daniel was dancing before Him in worship and He delighted in it. Tears welled up as I began to “see” Daniel with the Fathers eyes. Daniel is not like some who try to draw attention to themselves, flailing their hands in the air, which is often far more about ‘notice me’ than it is about worship. Daniel has no awareness of others; he was just dancing before the one who delights in him.

I was just starting my message when Daniel got out of his seat and began walking toward the pulpit. It was only a matter of seconds but my mind raced with thoughts of what would happen next. Standing right in front of me, with the entire congregation watching in suspense, without saying a word, he handed me his Bible. At that moment I knew what he was up to – several weeks earlier when my wife Kim was preaching, he had handed me his Bible to help him find where we were reading. So what do you do as the “anointed man of God” when you are interrupted in the middle of your message by “the least of these”? I stopped, smiled, took the Bible and opened it to Nehemiah chapter 9.

After that service, I had many people approach me with tears thanking me for how I handled Daniel. None of them referenced my great message, only my simple act of kindness to one who is unable to say thank you. None of them knew that just a few weeks earlier their great loving pastor had made fun of this man. If I had not had that time of repentance with the Lord, I am sure that I would not have handled it the same way. The next week it happened again, and this time I asked one of the young leaders to help him find his place in the Bible. To Daniel, he is not trying to make a scene; I am convinced he is unaware of all the people watching him. It is just his way of saying “I trust you” and reminding me that I am no big deal.

The Apostle Paul, when writing about the Church as a body and how God has designed it, says, “the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor”. (1 Cor.12:22-23) God has designed His church to need weak members, who seem to have nothing to offer for the success of the ministry. But the very success of our ministry is learning to love the least of these. God will deposit these treasures in a church that is a safe place for the nobodies, the broken, the poor and the Ugly. I am honored to have a church that loves the Daniels and gets it that we need them far more than they need us.

Here are a few of my early lessons from the “book of Daniel”.

1. I am a very shallow person and have a long way to go in learning to love as He loves.

2. Those who reveal our weakness and inadequacies are gifts from the Father to humble us and teach us to depend on His grace. Who is your Daniel?

3. Pretty, successful, and strong churches are not safe places for the least of these; it will require Ugly Churches that do not hide their weakness and failures that welcome the broken. Could you pray a dangerous prayer asking Jesus to send His Daniels to your church?

4. Worship is far more than noise and movement, it may be silent, still, and even awkward on the outside but on the inside a joyful celebration maybe going on.

5. People watch us as leaders and Christians much more than they listen to us.

6. The Body of Christ is strong not because it is made up of strong members, but because the Head of the Church is the Lord of the universe. Until we realize how weak we really are, we will keep depending on human strengths, missing the power of grace.

7. I may have opened the Bible for Daniel, but God used him to open my eyes to the Bible.

8. Ugly Dancing is beautiful to Jesus. Stop trying to be a performer in worship, it is not about “Dancing with the Stars”, it is about Dancing with the Daniels.