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‎Limitless You put limits on me… By Your grace, help us see, this is Your design

– “Limitations” by Trip Lee (one of my favorite songs)

All my life I’ve struggled against my limitations, trying to accomplish more than I was able. This song has helped me to really internalize that these hated limitations — perhaps what I’ve fought more than anything else — have been placed on me by my Lord. It forces me to choose between the ambitions so close to my heart and Him. Will I continue vainly struggling to accomplish everything my heart runs after? Or will I raise my hands in surrender and humbly accept the limitations He has placed on me?

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

– 2 Cor. 12, NIV

“If I raise my hands will you grab me by the wrists
And will you try to pull me from the fray?
And even if my fingers join together into fists
Will you hold me firmly anyway?
‘Cause I would try to escape you but for every day I’m sure
That You’re on the huge side of big and the holy side of pure

“Ok, hear what I say
As I raise my hands and surrender today
Ok, here I will stay
Hands in the air, singing have Thine own way”

– “Hands in the Air” by The Waiting (another of my favorites)

Looking out my hotel window overlooking Boston this morning and listening to Trip Lee’s song Twisted:

Everything is under Him: planets, countries, cities, ‘hoods. Don’t get it twisted: God did it, done it, got it? Good.

The Boston metro area is home to 6 million people; the city: home to 600,000 — and all in less than 90 square miles (Seattle has the same number of people, but they’re spread over 142 miles).

The city is a mixed bag, but one thing is for certain: this mass of humanity is not united in worship to the One who sustains them. Even believers don’t give Him the respect and honor He’s entitled to. And yet:

Somebody keeps them breathing, keeps their blood flowing and keeps their hearts beating. God keeps them eating and it ain’t no secret — don’t get it twisted — God gave them what they needed.

Consider in how many ways they are dependent on Him and yet most are totally unaware. Some puff their chests in pride as though they sustained themselves; others raise the voices He has lent in defiance. Yet He continues to exercise such mercy toward them — every breath, every heartbeat. Where would we be without such a patient, merciful God?

I’ve always loved this promise from Isaiah 11:

They [the cobra/viper] will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

But it wasn’t until recently that it was linked to God’s directive for fathers (Ephesians 6) by a visiting friend from Germany:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

He was saying (if I remember correctly) that in the original language this has a flavor of helping them to see the glory of the Lord in everything around them. Whether that’s true or not, I don’t know, but it helped me make a link between my directive as a father and the coming pervasive knowledge of the Lord in Isaiah 11. Actually, I prefer the wording in Habakkuk 2:

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This clarification (“knowledge of the glory of the LORD”) reminds me that the goal is not a dry intellectual or academic knowledge, but a knowledge of His glory — the kind that inspires worship. Like when I help my kids see God’s glory in how a collapsing star goes supernova and forms a neutron star or, if it’s very heavy, forms a supermassive black hole — the kind found in the center of most galaxies. Or to see God’s glory in the gospel: the unthinkable condescension of the creator towards our rebel human race in killing His beloved Son for our crimes.

May our homes (and the Lord knows how far I have to go in this) be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as a faint preview of what we will soon witness: the submersion of the entire earth — every city, every inhabitant — in the full knowledge of His glory.

Two years ago (Sept, 2009), I stepped down as Director of Teens For Christ, reduced my work hours to less-than-full-time and devoted Fridays to writing my first novel. Three weeks later, I reported:

In a way, it seems like things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.

Today, two years later, I am doing roughly the same thing. I recently stepped down from leading the youth group at Grace Church Bellingham and switched to working four ten-hour-days so that I can devote Fridays to the novel.

Two years ago, I put a lot of hours into the novel… on and off. Throughout the first year, I did work on it on Fridays, but I also worked on leading a local writers’ group, pouring into a youth group, and creating signs and a website for Grace Church. A year ago, I made an agreement with my employer to work full-time at computer programming for 3 years, saving money so I could take 1 year off to focus on the novel.

This summer, Jessica & I realized that a third of those 3 years were over and I hadn’t made the progress I had hoped for on the novel. So I decided to make some significant changes, cutting back in church leadership and disciplining myself to write in the mornings. But writing a little bit each morning is hard and not as productive as consolidated chunks of time, so I changed my work schedule this week to four-tens so that I could once again focus on fiction on Fridays.

It is difficult when people ask me how the novel is progressing. In a nutshell, the answer is the same as two years ago: “things have been going painfully slow, yet there have been some very crucial changes.” I did create an initial 40-60 scene outline, but I ended up making “crucial changes” that left much of it obsolete.

However, there is (I think) hope. I committed to Jessica to have a “final” 40-60 scene outline finished by the end of the year, at which point I will transition and begin working on full treatments and the actual writing. By “final”, I mean no more “crucial changes” that require the whole thing to be scrapped. I fully expect additional changes as I get into the guts of the full treatments and the writing itself.

I don’t expect to have the entire novel complete in the next two years, but I do hope to have it complete enough to send to literary agents and, through an agent, to publishers. Once I have landed a contract, Lord willing, I will be able to step down from computer programming and focus exclusively on finishing the novel.

Stepping down

On August 1^st, 2009, I resigned as Executive Director. I will continue through August 31^st, training the new Executive Director, Adam Borries.

Why?! Isn’t this rather sudden?

I decided to resign in mid-May, but the factors motivating the change started last fall. In October, I came to the conclusion that it was healthier and more Biblically sound to disciple teens in a church body, instead of a non-profit organization. I planned to discontinue our youth group and instead support local youth groups by doing youth conferences and magazines.

However, as I began to develop a clearer vision of what I wanted to do, I realized that in the long term it wouldn’t be compatible with Teens For Christ NW. TFC has an broad doctrinal statement and a Board of Directors with a variety of theological viewpoints. In contrast, my vision was very theologically specific. While it’s possible to launch a ministry with a different doctrinal statement and philosophy of ministry under TFC’s banner, it’s wiser and safer to launch it independently.

So… what’s next for TFC?

Thankfully, we’ve got this awesome guy ready to take over. Two years ago I asked Adam Borries to direct our Bible Quizzing program. He’s done very well with it and is still passionate about promoting & growing it. He is also an alumni of the youth group and is passionate about reviving it and training new student leaders.

One big challenge for Adam will be balancing his ambitions for TFC with the priorities and needs of his new marriage. Please ask God to give him wisdom and self-control in this.

What’s next for you?

I am on the leadership team of a new downtown church-plant, Grace Church Bellingham and am super-excited to lead & shepherd in a church. I’m also continuing to develop a magazine and Christ-glorifying fiction.

Won’t you miss us?

Yes. Most emphatically, definitely, yes. You have been a huge part of my life for four years. You’ve been extremely gracious, even when I was angry, proud or frustrating. I know I’ll miss you, but if God doesn’t allow us to keep in touch, we’ll catch up with each other when the Son rises on a new Day.

– your brother, Peter Rust

Executive Director, Teens For Christ

Sept. 2005 – Aug. 2009

For more details, read the longer version: http://www.tfcnw.org/youth-group/PetersGoodbyeLetter.pdf