A number of experiences have shaken me this week. On multiple fronts the questions is posed: Is the walk with Jesus [hard/easy]? Delete the one which is not applicable to you. There is a characteristic of the internet where people anonymously tell of their deepest struggles. For example, I saw one which said they were fired from their job because they were considered suicidal after they had called the suicide hotline. Just think about the issues involved in that! Then I read someone's anonymous admission about their struggle with Christianity, and they said "I don't think the Christian way is for me" Pause. Consider that statement. There are two ways to think about it. One reaction is that this is like saying I don't like gravity, or that I think the rules of the road are not for me, or that I'm not really interested in paying my taxes this year. You can freely take that position, but whether you like it or not the choices means damaging consequences are waiting in your future. But still some people say the Christian way is not for them. They obviously see it differently to me. Why, how? This is a challenge for ME to understand.
When all is said and done the answer is simple. Do I trust my own ability to lead me to the best outcome? Or will I trust that Jesus has the best in store for me?
The question is not whether the way is hard or easy, the question is whether I will chose to be the one to define my wants, or will I surrender all to receive Joy and Freedom. The way is not hard. The real battle is the choice to surrender.
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Apologies for the gloomy start.
I went to the funeral. It was a funeral much like many others. Grief and sadness at loss. Reflection on one's own mortality. And many observations about opportunities now lost. Opportunity to spend more time with someone Opportunity to invest in another person Opportunity to repair long-ago hurts Opportunity to be receive Opportunity to grow Opportunity lost God's plan betrayed? More often than not the opportunity is lost through no fault but my own. I'm too busy. Its inconvenient. I'm tired. I want to do something else. Its not my priority right now. Someone else will do it. Its not my responsibility. My frustration rose through the rest of the day and mentally I spiralled into a moan mood. Why should I do it? Why doesn't someone else do it? Does this have to fall to me again? But in thinking about it, I realize the truth embodied in the quotes above. Opportunities are not negative, they're not simply another job to take on! Yes, opportunities do take effort, but effort brings returns either now or later. Every opportunity is a decision point to gain and grow, or to lose and stagnate. When I protect my personal comfort zone by declining an opportunity to extend myself, then I end up sitting in the middle of my cesspool of self interest. Opportunity is God's gift to grow more into what we were be created to be. When I decline an opportunity that God gives to me, I lose. Someone else also loses. And another of God's gifts is rejected. But God promises to bless my efforts spent on the opportunities he gives to me. My choice. A friend died this morning. I wonder where he is flying. I am shocked, saddened, and a little envious. When I die, my enduring anticipation is that I will be released from the confines of my own brokenness. I know I am not currently as God intended -- but by grace I slowly grow to become what he made me to be, and do what he calls me to do. When grief enters in, I am caught in the tension of desiring to retreat into myself versus needing to talk about it. Here I am talking about it. It strikes me that we are made to communicate ... its a part of normative health. Retreat into one’s self is destructive. Already we are slightly diseased in our souls, and when we build barriers and walls around our inner self we are simply creating a environment for the disease to deepen. Talking is like taking a knife to a festering boil, we lance it to let the disease out, and so allow healing to begin. [UPDATE: My uncle, as usual, has over-reacted (here) to this blog!] I'm leaving ... this life is too hard ... I'm cold ... where's my familiar surroundings ... I could die here ... is this my only purpose ... nobody's going to make me do anything ... I gotta look out for #1 ... what’s it matter if I don't, anyway? I'm sick and tired of apathy, of people running away from any challenge that entails personal cost. One day the excuse is its too cold, next because it's too warm, or too cloudy, or too sunny. What is it with this generation? It seems that unless there is a personal pleasure to be gained, nothing altruistic is worth the effort. We are the first generation on this planet to be so globally connected, so globally threatened. Never have so many had so much and yet about 1 billion (yes, billion!) are malnourished. And yet we won't get off our collective numb bum to do anything about it. The modus operandi of the day is, "what's in it for me?" And the saddest thing of all? I'm part of it. My bum is numb too. So where do I start to change my actions? Should I even change? The first issue is, does it matter? That of course begs the question of "Matter to who?" To myself, it matters only so far as I am concerned about it. If I'm not concerned, than so what if I choose not to help others. Does that matter to the dispossessed, the poor, those less powerful, does it really matter to them? Well of course it does, but if it doesn't matter to me then why should I bother? So I should only change if it matters to someone more powerful than I ... someone to account to, because then I'm vulnerable. Ultimately the only person I have to account to is ... me ... or perhaps God, if there is a God. But why should it matter to God? I mean, if he exists isn't he just the ultimate me ... only with more power, more resources ... surely it doesn't matter to him because he already has everything. That's about where the pagan sits. The gods are up there busy with their own affairs, and humans are mostly a nuisance. There's still a problem, because it just so happens that all the evidence of life leads me to believe there is a God, and I believe the inequity of the world matters to him. I believe he really does care for all those around me, and their welfare does matter to him, as does mine. I believe he is as concerned about my apathy as he is about the poor man in the street ... because in the long run my apathy and individualism may be more damaging than any material poverty. My riches are to be found in his compassion. Only when I see with his eyes, do I find the reason to move, and the blood circulation gradually returns to my bum. |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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