Unstoppable Tom

There’s a joke around the offices at VantagePoint Church.  I choose to take it as a compliment, though I’m not completely sure it’s meant as one :). On occasion, due mostly to my stubborn thickheadedness and perfectionistic tendencies, I’ll solve a problem or accomplish something big and the staff will (in a slightly mocking tone) join in singing, “Unstoppable Tom, let your glory go on and on”, a not so subtle reference to one of our favorite songs at VantagePoint, Unstoppable God.

Now, let me be really clear here, I don’t believe I’m unstoppable. Nor do I believe I’m more powerful than God.  But I do have to admit that there are times in my daily life that I act like I think I’m more powerful than God.

For instance, as the Executive Pastor of VantagePoint Church, one of my duties is heading up the building project for our first campus.  If you’ve never headed up a major construction project, I have a little advice for you…. If anyone ever asks you to head up a major construction project, run as fast as you can and hide!  It is quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever attempted professionally or personally in my life.  It’s full of surprises (mostly not good ones), challenges, compromises, disappointments, stresses, fears, and conflict.  And that’s on a good day:).

But here’s the irony.  I’m the Executive Pastor of a church.  I work for God.  The focus of my professional life is His Church.  If anyone should know the importance of relying on God’s strength instead of my own, it should be me.  If anyone should be the model of faith, prayer and trusting in God’s perfect timing, it should be me.  And yet, far too often, though my lips and heart say, “I know you’re in control, God,” my actions show a different reality.

I worry.  I complain.  I doubt.  I worry (did I already say that?).  And maybe, after I’ve worked as hard as I can and tried to solve every problem in my own power… after I’ve tried the “Unstoppable Tom” thing… then maybe, as a last resort, I’ll go to God in prayer and see if He can do a better job than me.

Jeremiah 32:17 says  “Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.”  Let that sink in for a second.  He’s the same God who made the heavens and the earth and I’m worried if he can handle a little construction project on 10 acres in Eastvale, CA.

How about you?  Do you spend too much time trying that “Unstoppable insert your name here“ thing and not enough time trying that “God, nothing is too hard for you” thing?  In what area of your life do you need to place more of your faith and trust in Him?  What are you worrying about rather than praying about today?

I’m asking God to change me.  I want to trust Him more and turn to Him first.  And then, when He does come through…on the day we finally meet for the first time in our new building, on our new campus, I promise you this:

We will sing Unstoppable God together and He will get all the glory, which is exactly the way it should be.