It's Time to Be Bold

IT’S TIME TO BE BOLD

MICHAEL W. SMITH

IT’S TIME TO BE BOLD

Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Michael W. Smith.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotation in printed reviews, without written permission from the publisher.

Published by W Publishing Group, a Ddivision of Thomas Nelson, Inc.,

P.Oo. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations used in this book are from New Century Version®. Copyright © 1987, 1988, 1991 by Word Publishing, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

TRANSIT Brand Manager: Kate Etue

Editorial Staff: Patty Crowley, Amy Black

Cover Design: Matt Lehman for Anderson Thomas Design

Page Design: Lori Lynch for Book & Graphic Design

Other Scripture references are from the following sources:

The Living Bible (TLB), copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL. Used by permission.

The New King James Version (NKJV®), copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publisher.

The King James Version of the Bible (KJV).

The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.

TRANSIT is powered by W Publishing Group. Visit us online at

www.TransitBooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Smith, Michael W. (Michael Whitaker)

      It’s time to be bold / by Michael W. Smith.

          p. cm.

      Originally published: © 1997.

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 0-8499-4435-X (pbk.)

      1. Christian life. 2. Smith, Michael W. (Michael Whitaker) I. Title: It is time to be bold. II. Title.

      BV4501.3.S653 2003 248.4—dc21

2003007738

Printed in the United States of America

03 04 05 06 07 — 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Knowing Love, Being Bold

Dan Haseltine, Jars of Clay

Acknowledgments

Introduction

It’s Time to Be Bold

1. I’ll Lead You Home

Getting Along with the Fam

2. You’ll Never Make It Alone

The Importance of Christian Friends

3. If All Else Fails, Follow Directions

Getting into the Word

4. A Father Who Listens

Learning to Pray

5. Hanging Out in Holy Places

The Place for Church in Your Life

6. Finding Your Place in This World

Moving Up to the Mission Level

7. Run to the Battle

Dealing with the Devil

8. When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Growing through Crises

9. Take This Gift; It Is All I Have to Give

Singing Straight to the Heart

10. He’s Waiting for You

What Jesus Means to Me

11. I Believe in Love

Why I Am Who I Am

Notes

KNOWING LOVE, BEING BOLD

by Dan Haseltine, Jars of Clay

Someone recently asked me if I thought the church had become cold to the practice of love. Mostly, I found the question to be a valid and good one. I have seen the church struggling to get free from the tangled web of fear, insecurity, judgment, tradition, and religion. I have been part of that web, and I know that it can ultimately be paralyzing. I think mostly we have forgotten what real love looks and feels like, and what it provokes us on to do and to be.

This year was a busy year. Jars of Clay spent most of it in different cities playing concerts. The beginning of a tour is usually the most exciting and the hardest time of the entire experience— mostly because there is such energy about it. What will this tour be like? Who will we meet? Where will God show up, and how will it change us? Along with the profound questions are also the deep, deep sorrows of saying goodbye.

As with many artists who travel, the worst part of my life is disconnecting myself from my family and friends while I’m on the road. There are seasons where I am so interwoven into the life I lead at home, away from the stage and surrounded by my wife and son, that I almost forget there is another side of who I am: a side that drinks deep the power of the stage, that sucks the very marrow from the performance and the passionate song. There is a sense of almost total fulfillment from the experience of community within a family.

But work is also a part of the fabric of life, and so I am committed to the thread-life of Jars of Clay. The very nature of performance and travel has a definite side effect. It happens gradually, almost undetected. Like slowly falling asleep in front of a late night TV show. It is a kind of trance. I never intend for it to happen, but after a little while, I settle into the routines and the petty satisfactions of road life. The immediate love of a family is swapped for something far less noble and yet, in a strange way, fulfilling. I settle into a mostly uncomfortable bed, unfamiliar cities, and shallow conversations. Love is replaced by flattery and unfortunately, the richness of being known in true community and loved for all the right reasons becomes only a faded image. In fact life on the road is often quite toxic. It can be ingested in powerful doses, and it can leave an artist wandering in a fog of lowered expectations and skewed perspective—travelling far, far away from meaningful relationship.

It is usually midway through a tour that I start feeling my confidence waning and my purpose fogging over. I start spending less and less time reflecting on the real and noble reasons for singing songs. I even start to forget why I should be concerned with loving and serving the people I meet night after night. It can become paralyzing.

It is usually God’s grace that brings me back to my senses. There was a moment on the last tour when my wife and son flew out to meet me. It was a reunion of profound importance. We were walking down an old historic street in some nameless city when the fog lifted. I felt again what it was like to experience the transformation that moves my settled heart away from flattery and back to honest love. As I looked back and forth between my wife and my son, I had a revelation that I was once again with the people who, by God’s design, made me feel most complete. I experienced the wave of memory that brought me back to a place where the things I had settled on, or even chased after in city after city clearly became vain pursuits. How could I have been so disillusioned? How could I have crawled so low as to gaze upon the crumbs below the table and give them the prominent title of main course, as the ultimate feast I had tasted and known, spread out just above my sight line?

How could my image of love become so feeble, so finite, so cheap? How did I let this kind of fickle love from strange audiences become the object of my desire?

I was distracted from the experience of real love and so I forgot what it felt like, I forgot how powerful it is. I forgot that real love is potent, and vital, and the only thing that will breathe life into an otherwise walking pile of bones. Because of this amorific amnesia, I lost both the confidence and the freedom that love alone cultivates.

I have often wondered if the Christian community has been lulled into a similar kind of existence. There has been a gradual shift in the focus of the body of Christ. From my perspective, the new church seems to have developed its own kind of identity crisis. As the world becomes more cynical and non-absolute, the church becomes more and more obsessed in its need to feel relevant to this culture, so much so that the church has been swayed in the very conversation about gospel relevance to the point that the compelling characteristics of the gospel have become centered more and more around appearance and image. As a result there seems to be a gradual disconnect between the church and those seeking for something more real than the other noises in their heads. The love of the Savior has been replaced by a variation on love that leaves those wanting it unsatisfied and unconfident. The ripple effects are catastrophic.

The most profound ripples show up in the foundation of our relationships. Because the church is concerned with outside appearances, the motivation to dig deep into the hearts of people within the body of Christ has been short-circuited. We have come to the conclusion that knowing someone genuinely and building true community is not what makes us relevant. So it is also true, we do not feel it necessary to be known.

In an essay by Walker Percy, he confronts us with the truth of the gospel that states, To know is to love. This is crucial to the Christian life for many reasons. The most profound is that within this statement is also the idea that to be known is to be loved.

The powers at large have given this span of years we are currently living in the title of the Information Age. And we have a deep, deep love affair with information; we have come to believe that knowing a lot about someone is the same as knowing someone. The problem arises when we gather so much information about an issue or a person that the reaction is more like suffocation than affection. We can learn a great deal of information about a person just by looking at the exteriors. But this is never enough in the economy of Christ. By the grace of God, I trust that we can wake up from this compromised approach to love. As I began to think about the idea of boldness, I began to understand that the choices we make to move into real relationships have a huge impact on the ability for the body of Christ to be bold.

Love creates boldness because love is the only foundation steady enough to jump off of in order to act out the faith-driven pursuits God has given us. Love can give us the confidence to step into the messy catacombs of human relationship to know someone, and then to love them. The gospel has always been about how God first loved us, and thus we can love others well. As we learn how to love, we also will learn how we are loved. We will never be bold if we never know love, and we will never know love if we never wake up to the gospel truth—that Jesus Christ has always been the one and the only lover of our souls.

If the body of Christ does not move beyond finding its worth on the exterior, to stand on the desire for people to come inside, know, and be known, then it will always treat those who do come to find hope and real love in the same shallow fashion. The watch­ing world will always be given over to the perception that the church only cares about the outside information and not what matters in the depths of the heart. How freeing is it to be known and yet be fully loved? How assuring is it to stand firmly on the promises of God’s love and not on our own abilities? To me, being bold means being intentional about knowing. Being bold means being intentional about loving. Isn’t it amazing that God knows us, and God loves us? So what are we waiting for? It’s time to be bold.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In music the lead singer gets all of the attention . . . in football it’s the quarterback. But it’s the support people that truly make it all work. I want to thank the team that made this book possible.

Bob Laurent—You are a good and faithful friend. Pulling this book together had to be more work than you anticipated. I hope that its effect on kids will prove to have been worth your time.

Sean Hedegard—You added a consistency and continuity to this book that only you could have provided. You know me well and I appreciate your friendship.

Mike Nolan—Sometimes I think you have read my diary. You have the amazing ability to help me clearly communicate what is on the inside. You are a gifted writer and make the process pain­less.

INTRODUCTION

It’s Time to Be Bold

When I called, You answered me; You made me bold and bravehearted.

—KING DAVID

You could feel the threat of violence, like sharks gathering for a feeding frenzy. It was a reckless kind of spiritual darkness that was almost tangible. Things were getting out of control, and my view from the center of the stage told me there wasn’t a single policeman around.

A heavy roll of duct tape flew up from the crowd and ricocheted off my chest. Still, I kept singing,

On the wire

Balancing your dreams

Hoping ends will meet their means.¹

This is crazy! my mind screamed. What am I doing here?

You feel alone

Uninspired.

Honestly, I felt like I had been thrown to the lions. These people don’t want to hear me tonight. Another large object whistled