If by sheer chance you’re still checking this blog for a post, you know it’s been awhile – a looooooong while – since I’ve shared anything.
This absence of writing can mean several things, some of which are:
* I’m really busy. I mean, who isn’t? Right? The things that are consuming my time aren’t “bad” things, yet they all compete for the same 24 hours in each day.
* I have spent much time wrestling with God about life and what I am learning about mine in relationship to Him. I think earlier in my walk with Jesus, I thought there would be this place, this level, where we nail down Jesus and figure this gig out. After 15 years of following, I can safely say that I’ve found no such plane, and I doubt that one exists this side of heaven. Ahhh, the naiveté of youth.
* There are in my life certain things that I allow to take my time that have basically zero redemptive value. Namely, XBOX. There. I said it. Some say that’s the first step to recognizing you have a problem. I suspect my wife would agree. :)
I’ve recently finished Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. Wow! So very much of his words rang true, yet I still find myself paralyzed. It’s almost as if I was reading/hearing a foreign language that I maybe knew as a baby. It all sounded right and beautiful, but even though I can almost touch the definitions Claiborne gives to his words, I struggle mightily to give meaning to them in my life.
I’m very much living in a state of sadness these days. While admittedly, some of this is generated by a general sense of ineffectiveness in several areas of my life (you fill in the blank!), the greatest disappointment in my life is how little impact I am making in the Kingdom. I mean, let’s be honest – how am I making anyone’s life – other than my own or my family’s (and that is debatable) – any different or better? Really?
I have to honestly say that following Jesus hasn’t:
* Made me spend my money any differently. By this, I am thinking beyond the traditional tithe. How about Fair Trade? How about natural resource management? How about buying clothes that were made in sweat shops? Do I care at all about these things, or am I just more concerned in making my buck stretch farther? I deeply suspect that the American Dream has taken deep root in my life and economic value system, and that would be a mighty monster to slay.
* Pushed me to identify with any of the marginalized of my community. There is a difference between sending money to Feed the Children and taking food to share with a family in Mitchell that have faces and names and empty bellies. Why do I so often choose to bask in the warm feeling of “helping” that tossing money at a problem sometimes yields, instead of becoming involved in someone’s life? How can my closet be full while other’s are empty, and all I can say is that “I don’t have anything to wear!” How can I feel good about my kids getting good grades when other kids in town don’t have parents who are willing or able to help them with homework, and they are sinking into the bottom levels of the system?
On and on and on. Given the pace of my life, when do I be about my Father’s business? When I look at what occupies my days, my first thought is “conforming” and sadly not “transforming.” The things I’m “doing” aren’t bad things! God calls us to work. I can be a good role model to the junior high kids on the track team. My church needs people to step up and share the Message of Jesus in meaningful, relevant ways. So how do I go from “doing” to “being?” And at what point does “being” transform into Kingdom action?
As Jimmy Buffett says so well, I continue to be one “looking for answers to questions that bother me so.” I can’t help thinking that this tired, sad soul of mine isn’t what Jesus had in mind when He came bringing “more and better life than I ever dreamed of.” As these days wear on, about the only prayer that I can voice is this:
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Amen.
