Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

Life

Ambition, Faith, and Timing

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Last week I covered the paradox of ambition and faith. Today, I want to add a third variable to the mix: timing.

What relationship does ambition and faith have with timing?

Although spiritual leaders can have ambition and God-placed faith, there’s still one major area they can mess up in—timing.

It’s easy for spiritual leaders to mess up in this one area–timing.

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Abraham had a significant calling on his life, and it was to be the father of a great nation, one that was intended to be a blessing to the entire world and one from which the Savior of the world would come. To even believe that this could be true, for him took a great measure of faith, and only a truly ambitious person would’ve even accepted this grand assignment.

The only problem was that Abraham was impatient.

I don’t blame the guy, though. After all, he was childless and seventy-five years old at the time God commissioned him (Gen 12:2–4). In the ensuing years Abraham moved, experienced a famine, lost his wife, then received her back, moved again, got into a fight with his nephew Lot, experienced war, experienced the destruction of a city, and moved again (did I already say that?), among many other things.

In and through these experiences, God reminded him multiple times about this calling that he had placed on his life.

God will often use your current circumstances to remind you about your calling.

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Eleven years later Abraham and his wife Sarah (their names were Abram and Sarai at that time) got fed up about continually hearing this calling and not seeing it come to pass, so they ambitiously took their faith into their own hands.

“Sarai said to Abram, ‘Since the LORD has prevented me from bearing children, go to my slave; perhaps through her I can build a family.’ And Abram agreed to what Sarai said” (Gen 16:2).

Spiritual leaders understand that there are two different ways to understand time in the Scriptures.

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The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

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ambition mountain

A 7-Eleven Vision for Church Planting

“What’s your vision for the orphanage and for Thailand?” I asked the pastor of the orphanage.

“You know, whenever I think about you Koreans and South Korea, I get mixed feelings.”

I was starting to think that I shouldn’t have asked this question in the first place.

The pastor continued, “On the one hand, I’m astounded as to the spiritual transformation God can accomplish in a single country over a short period of time. But on the other hand, I’m upset because 100 years ago, Korea and Thailand were basically the same country—rural, economically challenged, and spiritually lost.”

After giving a sigh of relief, I paused, wondering whether I should interject, but then the pastor continued.

“Have you noticed that there are 7-Elevens pretty much on every street corner in Thailand?” asked the pastor.

I nodded.

“I have this dream that God would do such a transformational work in Thailand that, instead of 7-Elevens on every street corner, we had churches. And I want that work to start here in the orphanage with these children,” explained the pastor.

As I walked away from that conversation, I thought to myself, now that’s ambitious.

The Paradox of Ambition and Faith

What does an entrepreneur dreaming up a new solution for the next greatest app have in common with that pastor in Thailand dreaming about planting churches on every street corner?

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Learning To Wait…Again

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My wife, Christina, was recently asked to speak to the group of moms at MOPS. I was so inspired by her talk, that I asked if I could post her transcript here as an article. I pray that this is as inspiring to you as it was to me.

The other day, Victoria asked me if the photos back when I was her age were in color or in black and white. Slightly offended, I answered “Oh hunny, I am not that old. Of course they were in color.”

Daniel, my husband, continued the conversation by telling our children that “Back in the day we didn’t have digital pictures. We had to take a picture with a camera that would only allow 25 pictures, then take them to be developed.”

They all had blank stares on their faces. They literally could not imagine a time when you couldn’t instantly see your selfie.

The majority of us grew up in an interesting time. We can remember not having internet, to all of a sudden having our parents yell at us to get off the dial up because they needed to make a phone call.

We remember having to wait for so.many.things.

Waiting for a snail mail letter to come, waiting to use the only phone at home, waiting to use the pay phone. Waiting was a part of our daily lives. It was just a matter of fact. We may not have enjoyed waiting, but what other choice did we have?

But nowadays, with new technology, there is an insatiable thirst for everything in an instant. In an essence, we have forgotten how to wait.

In an essence, we have forgotten how to wait.

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Just ask Google. Google aims to load a page in half a second, since their research shows that most people will abandon a site or try to reload if it takes longer than two seconds to appear. Can you believe that? Google knows that our expectation is for the answer to be in our faces in less than two blinks of an eye.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love things in an instant.

The convenience of our society trying to make things easier, faster, brighter, filtered, and shinier is addicting. But, have you ever stopped to ask yourself: What is this doing to my soul? My spiritual journey? My relationship with Christ?

I am reminded of the time that I completely missed baby Jesus.

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The Power of Podcasts

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podcast

What podcasts do you listen to?

When I downloaded my first podcast in 2008, I remember having to load it onto my mp3 player so that I could listen to it while walking my dog. It didn’t download automatically nor did it sync efficiently. It was quite a bit of work, but since I’m a learner, I was stoked at the possibility of learning while walking, commuting, and going from one place to another. Trust me, I’ve tried reading a book while walking and it never ends well.

But now it’s 2017. And since then, the percentage of U.S. adults who’ve listened to a podcast in the past month went from 9% in 2008 to 21% in 2016, according to a survey conducted by Edison Research.

Podcasts have passed the tipping point, which is why it’s now commonplace to talk about your favorite podcasts, in the same way we do with our favorite books or TV shows (Seth Godin believes we’ve actually hit a podcast surplus in his fascinating article here).

In fact, when we conducted our research on the State of Church Planting (you can download it here), we even measured the impact of podcasting on a church plant.

Take a look at this image. It shows the average number of commitments to Christ made in church plants who used podcasts as a form of communication versus those who didn’t. Amazing, isn’t it?

NewChurches.com - The State of Church Planting
NewChurches.com – The State of Church Planting

In fact, we also discovered that among new churches that utilized a podcast as a means of communication, 40% started another new church within their first 5 years of existence!

Not only are podcasts a great way to pass time while mowing your lawn, grocery shopping, commuting to work, or exercising, but they are a great way to develop yourself–both personally and spiritually.

Podcasts are a great way to develop yourself–both personally and spiritually

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This is why I host the New Churches Q&A Podcast (we’ve recorded 100+ episodes), and love being on others.

Here’s a list of the other podcasts that I’ve been interviewed on over the past year:

I’d encourage you to check these podcasts and episodes out! If you want to see a list of appearances for 2017 click here, and for 2018 click here.

How To Predict the Future?

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Flickr - Jeff Seeger

Remember those Magic 8-Balls? I never owned one, but I had a few friends who did.

We never thought much of it, nor really gave it much credence. After all, how could an inanimate object predict the future anyway? If we only knew that there were 20 standard answers inside of the ball…

Nevertheless for fun, we would, one at a time, ask the Magic 8-Ball questions about our future.

As a pre-teen, our questions were usually about becoming professional hockey players or whether or not certain girls liked us. Once again, we never really gave it much credence—unless it gave us the answer we wanted it to.

“Signs point to yes,” “Outlook good,” and “Without a doubt,” were among my favorite answers. I think I remember throwing the ball against the wall when, “Concentrate and ask again,” “My sources say no,” or “Better not tell you now,” would come up too frequently.

Toys like these were so popular because they fed into our craving to have some semblance of direction for the future.

It was our longing to uncover the future, our desire to know our next steps, and our curiosity as to what’s around the corner that toys like this took advantage of. In a sense, this toy helped us predict the future—well, not really, but it at least gave us the illusion of doing so.

What if the way to predict the future was to simply look into the past? What if the best predictor of the future was the past?

This past weekend, I preached through Matthew 2 at my church (you can listen to the message here by clicking on the sermon from Dec 11, 2016). We’re in an Advent Series entitled, Jesus: The Story. So as I prepared this message, I decided to preach it from three different angles or lenses. Just like a movie director has several cameras he or she can look through, I noticed that this chapter could be viewed three different ways: from Herod’s camera, the Wise Men’s lens, and Joseph’s point of view.

What if the way to predict the future is to simply look into the past?

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Herod’s Camera

Now, I knew Herod was pretty messed up, since “he gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under” (Matt 2:16), but I didn’t realize the extent to his “messedupness.”

So I began looking into the history books to uncover Herod’s story. This was my driving question:

What if the cause for Herod’s manic behavior had to do with his past?

Herod, at the young age of 25, started his political career as the governor of Galilee in 47 BC, and everybody loved him at first. The Jews and the Romans admired his leadership, so he quickly became powerful and popular among the people.

He was so loved that other politicians, filled with jealousy, went behind his back and ousted him from governorship. Well, they were only partially successful, since he ended up becoming the governor of Coele-Syria instead—only serving to further his experience.

Over the next few years, Herod’s life was complicated, to say the least, as he had to deal with revolts, black mail, treason, and more. Eventually, he went to Rome and was promised Kingship, as long as he “took matters into his own hands,” and gained back control of the region.

So what did he do?

Pay close attention to this next part of the story because, as Henry Cloud so powerfully noted in his book, Necessary Endings, “the best predictor of the future is the past,” unless there has been some big change—and for Herod, there wasn’t.

The best predictor of the future is the past…unless there has been some big change.

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Herod was the same man as a governor as he was when he became king, when Jesus was born, and when his kingship was threatened. So when Herod was promised Kingship of Judea as long as he took “matters into his own hands” and gained back control of the region, he went in like a bull in a china shop.

When he returned to Palestine from Rome, he recaptured Galilee, and then he captured Jerusalem. He then married the niece of the king, so that he would have a claim to the throne. Once that was settled, he went ahead and beheaded the king, and took his position as king of the Jews.

This guy doesn’t joke around.

And once he grew in power and became king, he basically “took care” of anyone who opposed him.

It’s like in the movie Godfather when Sonny said,

I want you to take care of that **** right away. Paulie sold out the old man, that stronz. I don’t want to see him no more. I want you to make that first thing on your list, understand?

I mean this guy, Herod, executed 45 of the wealthiest aristocrats because they sided with the man he beheaded, the previous king. And then he went ahead and confiscated all their property, adding it to his own kingdom.

He even went up against Cleopatra. And in spite of an earthquake killing 30,000 people in Herod’s land, he still ended up beating her forces.

Then over the next few decades, after accusing his first wife of committing adultery and sentencing her to death, he married over 10 women and had many sons. The only problem is, now he had all of these sons who began fighting over the throne to the point where one son, trying to poison Herod, accidentally poisoned one of his other brother’s who drank the poison by mistake.

Herod’s entire political career consisted of one person after another trying to gain control over his throne—including his family.

Since the best predictor of the future is the past, there’s no wonder why Herod acted the same way when his throne was threatened again—but this time, by a baby who was “born King of the Jews.”

Do you see this in your life?

While the best predictor of the future is the past, that’s not justification to stay the same, remain in sin, in weakness, and in bondage. That statement is only true, unless you experience big change. Unless you learn something new, consciously act differently, and develop new patterns of behavior, through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the past will be the best predictor for the future.

The source of lasting change, true change, and deep inner change is the Holy Spirit. Don’t forget this. But also, don’t neglect that you also need new patterns of behavior to accompany it.

The source of lasting change, true change, and deep inner change is the Holy Spirit.

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If this resonates with you, let me encourage you to pick up any one of these resources. They will help you take your next step into change, freedom, and a future that’s different than the past: