I resigned as an Elder at my church a year ago. Since then, I’ve been living with the sensation that I’m just floating through my days, and ultimately, my life. While I realize this isn’t a necessarily healthy statement, I feel that I was a better man when I served as Elder. My close friend Guy and I have talked a lot about the idea that we need a cause, something to give ourselves too. We need a battle to fight in; a hill to charge. The scary truth is that I think we realize that the danger is very real of just totally disconnecting from a purposeful Kingdom life.
Brennan Manning wrote the following devotional, which seems to articulate what I am feeling. I pray that I, Guy, you – all of us, together – will allow the living, vibrant, magnificent image of Christ that is within us to be expressed. May we truly live our lives and not watch them drift by. Here’s to living with Hope!
Self Destruction
There are three ways of committing suicide – taking my own life, letting myself die, and letting myself live without hope. This last form of self-destruction is so subtle that it often goes unrecognized and therefore unchallenged. Ordinarily it takes the form of boredom, monotony, drudgery, feeling overcome by the ordinariness of life.
We begin by admitting in the inner sanctum of our hearts that the Christian calling is too demanding, that life in Christ Jesus is too sublime. We settle into a well-worn groove and lose the stuff of gospel greatness. We become like everyone else, fail ourselves and the community by failing to respond to the living, vibrant, magnificent image of Christ that is within us waiting only to be expressed.
O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
And with him is full redemption.
~ Psalm 130:7
1 comment:
Life is full of paradoxes and that creates the need for balance. (E.G. Paul said to patiently endure and actively pursue in the same breath)
The great paradox of life is to be totally content in the presence and fellowship with God (first and foremost) and then find your niche` for being a world changer also. We neglect the first and act as if that can come later, after all, we have a pretty decent fight on our hands.
In the beginning there was no one to save/heal/deliver or anything else. There was one on one fellowship with God. If we can be totally taken up with the Living God all alone in an empty room then we are well on our way towards being infinitely more effective to a dying world.
In essence ... worship, fellowship, and communion must have preeminence.
Hope that made some sense.
David
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