Sometimes following Christ can really kick me in the butt.
Like when I don’t practice what I preach. Like when I complain and gossip and do things I shouldn’t (or don’t do things I should). Like being complimented for work I didn’t realize I was doing because my heart wasn’t in the right place.
The gospel has a beautiful way of ruining my life in the best way possible, even amidst my groaning and griping and general grouchiness. I have never felt so stripped of any general responsibility for a successful mission trip (the pretentious Christian in me fights including the very word “mission”, because it can carry connotations so estranged from the story of Christ that it repulses me. Is “pretentious Christian” an oxymoron?).
I remember when I was younger I was always told that God uses those least capable but most available. I don’t think I have ever quite understood that until this past week, and I don’t think I have ever felt so palpably the hand of God at work in my own life. When I sowed, I sowed resentfully. When I plowed, I plowed with a diminished sense of purpose. But God saw, in His goodness, a way to grow my feeble, failing seed. Around my aggravation and discontent, His instructions regarding the work of the Church caused hope to blossom in the lives of the people I worked with in Alabama
How else can I explain what I have learned than as the handiwork of God? When a black boy asks a white girl in my youth group what color she is while they play together, what else can my response be but gratitude for the Love we have all been shown?
It is not the sentimental, capitalistic, American, machine-gun toting Jesus who captivates me. It is the homeless Jesus, the stateless Jesus, the barrier-destroying, prostitute-and-tax-collector hugging, peace-loving Jesus.
It is only by reading and learning and living and imitating the gospel that the power and presence of God is made manifest in our personal lives. That God is a lover of relationships is evidence of His enchantment with human interaction as a means to communicate His presence. How wonderful a God we could discover if only we would learn to live uncomfortably in a casual, complacent world, and enter into the sufferings and joys of others.
I find myself fighting daily battles with my own selfishness and rejection of this idea. Paying lip service to this idea and really knowing what it is to live sacrificially are two completely different things. I love what Stanley Hauerwas says about his faith, though – that it is by writing that he learns to believe, and that only by articulating his thoughts is he capable of cultivating an understanding of the divine. I’d like to think the same thing of myself, or rather know that it’s okay for this to also be true of myself. Faith does not come naturally for me as it does for some, and the divorce of doctrine from direction only intensifies my confusion.
I feel like I should apologize for spouting so many personal things online, especially when I consider that many people who read this may be uncomfortable with organized faith or religious persuasions in general. But I have to trust that, given that this is a sort of on-line journal, it’s okay for me to make some of my private thoughts public. If I have offended anyone I am deeply apologetic – not for what I believe, but rather for whatever I have said that has made my faith out to be something that it is not.
I have to get some sleep – I begin working for Cliff tomorrow morning. Much love and peace, and a restful night’s sleep to all.
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