Are You Showing Up?
Welcome to another post on the Still in the Storm Substack.
First, have you listened to the inaugural episode of the “Still in the Storm” podcast? If not, stop now and click the link below before proceeding.
https://mikedonio.substack.com/p/introducing-the-still-in-the-storm
I'm just kidding. You are free to listen at your leisure, but I would love your feedback.
I hope to have a new episode out next Tuesday and every other Tuesday after that but please don’t hold me to it.
Let’s move on to the topic at hand, “showing up”.
What does that mean to you?
I will explain what I think it is and why it’s important but, first I want to share a story.
Isn’t it strange how the Lord works?
I used to get frustrated when I couldn’t understand things or if they didn’t go as expected. Something like making a wrong turn would have thrown me off.
Then I realized that everything that happens each day passes through God’s sovereign hands before it gets to us.
There is nothing He doesn’t know about or have His hands on.
Therefore, anything that happens, even if disappointing, is being worked by Him for good. If you don’t believe me, see Romans 8:28.
Once you understand this you start looking at things that occur in your life differently. Perhaps you even ask, “How is God working in my life today?"
As I was going about the hustle and bustle of my weekend which largely comprised of taking my son to a baseball tournament, something happened that I believe came from the Lord.
When baseball gives you a life lesson
You might say that the tournament wasn’t going all that well.
The reality was that my son’s team got crushed in the first two games on Saturday.
He’s playing for a club team, something even foreign to me, despite my having grown up playing baseball.
I had no idea what to expect but, I made the mistake of assuming that meant the teams would be made up of select and thus talented players.
This isn’t the case with my son’s team and I was getting frustrated.
What I didn’t appreciate was that it didn’t so much matter where they started as long as they all wanted to get to the same place.
Even if they came in with many holes in their game they could develop into good players if they “showed up”.
The art of showing up
Hopefully, I don’t have to tell you that if you want to get better at something you must work at it.
Talent doesn’t grow on a tree and doesn’t flow by osmosis.
It has to be built and can even be wasted.
I can have the greatest amount of God-given talent in the world but if I do nothing to nurture it then others with less will pass me up.
Even if I have little natural talent, I can still work hard and develop into a strong athlete.
It’s all about “showing up”.
Do I want to do this thing? Do I want to get better at it? If it’s a team or group sport, do we want to get better together?
Showing up is not just coming to a practice or game and going through the motions.
It’s being present and focused on getting better and dedicating the time necessary to make that a reality.
For most of us, that means making it a priority in our lives and carving out precious time to continually practice, to hone our skills.
If we don’t commit in this manner then it will be apparent to anyone with a trained eye.
I missed this with my son’s team. I just saw that they weren’t making any plays.
It wasn’t until I was chatting with the coach that he pointed out that most of the kids just didn’t seem to want to be there.
He said that there is nothing you can do if they don’t want to get better.
They simply weren’t “showing up”. Not at the game, not at practice, and certainly not any time in between.
It reminded me that we can’t control others, only ourselves but it also showed me the importance of showing up.
Since I figured God must have brought this into my life that day for a reason, I decided I should think about it a bit.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I started to realize the spiritual implications.
Are you living a life worthy of your calling?
The Apostle Paul admonishes us to live a life that reflects our calling, to “show up” for Christ every single day of our lives after we are reborn.
If there is one thing we can guarantee it is the Lord is showing up for us every day. The question is how we will choose to respond.
To be clear, showing up isn’t about going to a physical place but, rather being intentional with the limited resources we’ve been given by God.
I don’t know about you but, I certainly don’t have an endless supply of energy, attention, time, or money. So, it’s important to guard these precious resources.
When we are reborn in Christ, though, we must show up. It is a natural response to beholding His beauty and glory.
The measure of our stature in Christ will reflect whether or not we give priority to Him and His will. More on that later.
To be clear, this isn’t about us doing it by some rule or obligation. It has to be from the heart, driven by the indwelling presence of Christ within us.
The Christian life is a surrendered and exchanged life
This is a hard fact for many people, especially a lot of Christians.
If we are saved, we’ve been called by the Lord, and all share a common calling to start with.
That calling is one of a bondservant in Christ as He bought us with His life.
We are to surrender our lives to Him but, what does this mean?
Many Christians nowadays think we can separate our spiritual life from the rest of our daily lives. This is known as the “spiritual-secular” or the “sacred-secular” divide.
We’ve seemingly created a barrier between these two parts of our lives but, this is not reflected in scripture.
If we look at Jesus or the Apostles, their whole life is the Christian life.
Everything in the created world including our life is truly the Lord’s. The quote below really captures this well.
“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
- Abraham Kuyper
Still, we have certain obligations depending on the current season in your life and the call is not to just abandon them.
We are to care for ourselves, our families, and our communities, to serve them, and to glorify the Lord.
Our calling is to live for and by the indwelling life of Christ in all that we do every day. Paul even goes as far as saying that we should sacrifice our lives to the Lord and that is true worship.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. - Romans 12:1 NIV
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering. - Romans 12:1 MSG
He is referring to our everyday lives and they are comprised of
This is where the exchanged life comes in. As Christians we aren’t living for ourselves anymore, to build ourselves up for our gain.
We are no longer living by our life, our will but His.
I realized that this idea of “showing up” was pointing to me that we need to constantly remember that if we are born anew then this new life is Christ’s life.
Let’s get practical
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you of the nature of the Christian life and the importance of “showing up” but let’s now look at what this means.
When we are saved and born again that is not the end of the road but only the beginning.
Yes, salvation is an ongoing process of transformation into His image.
Many people, even me previously, think that this is a quick if not immediate process. I’ve come to realize that is not true.
It’s a slow, arduous process. Think marathon versus a sprint. We are talking glacial.
Despite this, we must show up each day to co-work with the Lord if we want to make progress.
At the heart of it is the conforming of all that we are into Christ. This includes our mind, will, emotions, body, and more.
Transformation requires prioritizing our time around the Lord and building good habits.
We must also learn to guard our minds from bad thoughts and to control our emotions lest we allow ourselves to be manipulated by the world.
And, it all comes down to… You guessed it… Showing up!
Let me know what you think in the discussion below.
Talk soon,
Mike
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Excellent post. The only thing I would add is the pursuit and discovery what Yeshua designed us to be, before the sperm hit the egg in our mother's womb. We are going to spend eternity doing what we are designed to do. I believe it really helps to ask the Holy Spirit to show each of us what we were designed to do. What type of person are we?
Speaking from experience, having spent the past five years realizing that and living it out is a joy which has wonderfully surprised me. To relax into what He designed is a blessed satisfaction. This year I hit eighty years old (I was born on D-Day) I discovered that I finally had a relationship with Jesus which enabled me to truly see myself for who I am. Not by might, nor by power, but by His Holy Spirit.
"Many Christians nowadays think we can separate our spiritual life from the rest of our daily lives. This is known as the “spiritual-secular” or the “sacred-secular” divide." Yes, and that divide doesn't work, they just end up being 1000% worldly, the 99.9%. That's why "Christian" doesn't mean anything these days, nor church attendance, group Bible study... quoting scripture (which the devil himself can do), preaching on the mega-stage, saying Christ is king on social media, you name it.
It's what we FOCUS on each day... which SHOULD lead to what we TALK about, and where our INTERESTS lie, etc. THAT is real Christianity. And 99% of christians don't even acknowledge how they're distracted in the first place, so those Bible verses seem to be going in one ear, and out the other.
"In the end times, none will be holy, no one one" I don't know when that end will be, but it cannot be too far, seeing as Christians I know are losing their spirituality by the day right before my eyes. Including family members, and people who witnessed to me in the first place.