"Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the LORD." -Jeremiah
As I write this morning, I'm recovering from a serious Starbuck's overdose. "Hyper" could be one word that describes me. "Manic" another. Unfortunately recovery means sliding down the other side of the mountain that was my caffeine high. Yup, even as I type I'm starting to feel the fatigue and misery seeping in behind my eyeballs.
But what has me writing today, I think (I have a host of subconsious sinful propensities), is that I've been learning a lot about my life recently. I chose the passage above because I thought it was funny and really reveals the way I am. If only I could be a stork, turtledove, swallow or crane.
I'm not. I'm more like the horse charging into battle. The implication is that I'm charging into the wrong battle. If I'm not running towards "sin," I'm running towards performance. Rarely am I running towards a person. People are teaching me that. Real flesh and blood people.
I've become part of a group of believers who meet regularly to talk, and here's the difficult part (although talking is hard for us guys), talk honestly. And honestly, I'm finding out I know little about a personal relationship with God. Very little.
Now I don't want to overstate this. It's not that I've never experienced intimacy with God, I have a lot. But in regards to my typical daily experience of him, am I relating to him in a way that recognizes who he really is: my creator AND my friend?
I often sort of think of him as a dissappointed friend. Sadly wagging his head as I stumble through life. But people are showing me different. Real flesh and blood people.
Why am cryptically repeating "real flesh and blood people." Well, I'm realizing that in my interactions with these guys, I'm getting to know my Father and Lord all over again. It's not anything profound, but that's just like God isn't it. We're simply sharing about our lives and reminding eachother of God's love, grace, and holiness. We're simply taking time to be Jesus to one another as he chooses to use us. I guess it is sort of a profound thing. Profoundly simple.
I'm a heady Christian, not a hearty Christian. God is using my friends to show me this. I like God in my head. I'm comfortable with him up there. My heart is all fleshy and sensitive. And my heart often tells me I should be about the things my head is calculating. Sometimes I wish I could shut up my heart (he's sort of annoying).
But my friends are helping me befriend my heart, which is teaching me, through difficult lessons, that my life is defined by my closeness to my Father, not by my effectiveness or productivity. I'm becoming less the horse and more the turtledove you might say. Or I hope.
I thought I'd also share with you another verse that popped out in my reading. I thought it came from the same chapter in Jeremiah, but it didn't as two pages stuck together and I missed a whole chapter. (Reveals a little about how closely I read doesn't it.)
But here's the passage: ". . . let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, and that I am the LORD who practises steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth."
Did you hear that? Not "boast in his good Christian walk." Not boast in his "openness with sin." Not "boast in his neat writing abilities." Let him boast in me.
Like I've said, people are showing me God again and it's getting hard not to boast in him. It's also getting hard not to relax, as Larry Crabb says over and over again in his book The Pressure's Off, "the pressure's off." God simply wants me to draw close to him. He'll take care of the rest. Why and how? Because he's God, and, that's right, he's God.
Flesh and blood people are teaching me this as they are drawing close to me. We're not alone in this walk, and we never were.
As I write this morning, I'm recovering from a serious Starbuck's overdose. "Hyper" could be one word that describes me. "Manic" another. Unfortunately recovery means sliding down the other side of the mountain that was my caffeine high. Yup, even as I type I'm starting to feel the fatigue and misery seeping in behind my eyeballs.
But what has me writing today, I think (I have a host of subconsious sinful propensities), is that I've been learning a lot about my life recently. I chose the passage above because I thought it was funny and really reveals the way I am. If only I could be a stork, turtledove, swallow or crane.
I'm not. I'm more like the horse charging into battle. The implication is that I'm charging into the wrong battle. If I'm not running towards "sin," I'm running towards performance. Rarely am I running towards a person. People are teaching me that. Real flesh and blood people.
I've become part of a group of believers who meet regularly to talk, and here's the difficult part (although talking is hard for us guys), talk honestly. And honestly, I'm finding out I know little about a personal relationship with God. Very little.
Now I don't want to overstate this. It's not that I've never experienced intimacy with God, I have a lot. But in regards to my typical daily experience of him, am I relating to him in a way that recognizes who he really is: my creator AND my friend?
I often sort of think of him as a dissappointed friend. Sadly wagging his head as I stumble through life. But people are showing me different. Real flesh and blood people.
Why am cryptically repeating "real flesh and blood people." Well, I'm realizing that in my interactions with these guys, I'm getting to know my Father and Lord all over again. It's not anything profound, but that's just like God isn't it. We're simply sharing about our lives and reminding eachother of God's love, grace, and holiness. We're simply taking time to be Jesus to one another as he chooses to use us. I guess it is sort of a profound thing. Profoundly simple.
I'm a heady Christian, not a hearty Christian. God is using my friends to show me this. I like God in my head. I'm comfortable with him up there. My heart is all fleshy and sensitive. And my heart often tells me I should be about the things my head is calculating. Sometimes I wish I could shut up my heart (he's sort of annoying).
But my friends are helping me befriend my heart, which is teaching me, through difficult lessons, that my life is defined by my closeness to my Father, not by my effectiveness or productivity. I'm becoming less the horse and more the turtledove you might say. Or I hope.
I thought I'd also share with you another verse that popped out in my reading. I thought it came from the same chapter in Jeremiah, but it didn't as two pages stuck together and I missed a whole chapter. (Reveals a little about how closely I read doesn't it.)
But here's the passage: ". . . let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, and that I am the LORD who practises steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth."
Did you hear that? Not "boast in his good Christian walk." Not boast in his "openness with sin." Not "boast in his neat writing abilities." Let him boast in me.
Like I've said, people are showing me God again and it's getting hard not to boast in him. It's also getting hard not to relax, as Larry Crabb says over and over again in his book The Pressure's Off, "the pressure's off." God simply wants me to draw close to him. He'll take care of the rest. Why and how? Because he's God, and, that's right, he's God.
Flesh and blood people are teaching me this as they are drawing close to me. We're not alone in this walk, and we never were.
1 comment:
sd;fjag[pae thanks :-)
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