"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water."
- Ben Franklin, as found on my Camelbak bottle.
Playing soccer on Sunday, my throat was parched... and afterwards I went over with a couple guys to get Gatorade. I downed it in four gulps, and I wanted more.
I am about to file suit with regards to Gatorade's claim as a "thirst quencher." It stimulates it more than it quenches.
The Gospel should be the same way. The so-called "good news" as it is, we look up to it as a tool for satisfaction - and feel as if once we've fully understood it (as we so wrongfully think of ourselves much of the time), we have nothing else to search for. But the Gospel is always much more than we make of it. It's as if we've drunk a bottle of Gatorade and peer into the bottle hoping to lick away the last droplets, when all the while there's a stockroom full of G right under our noses. Like Gatorade, the good news should always make you thirstier - it gives you a taste of coolness, but there is always more to yearn for.
There is always opportunity to share the Gospel. Know your identity as a Christ-follower, then love God and your neighbor, and you know that great things will happen. I take it all for granted - love, life, salvation... when there are people who have had none of these in their lifetime - and if only they had their first taste for it, they would have a burning desire for more and more. I have heard the message; I have had a taste. But I am satisfied. I don't want to be anymore.
I spent the past day in Ludington with my LIFE group, just lounging around on the beach with nothing on my mind. I woke up yesterday with the intent to enjoy the day and do nothing.
I woke up today with the intent to use the bathroom. The toilet was clogged. I flushed. The water was oh-so-close to spilling over the top. I can't find a plunger.
It feels like my thoughts and purpose have been so blinded lately, that I haven't been able to look at things in the big picture but rather a minute-by-minute, day-by-day kind of perspective. It hasn't been helping any with a lot of things, and I know that I need to be more reflective. If only... I could find the plunger to my heart and mind.
I spent the last 48 hours in bed, in front of the toilet, or on top of it. Agony is a befitting term for the last couple of days.
As I took off work and missions training, I've been getting better and now I'm okay enough to sit on my couch with the laptop in front of me and surf the web and think. I feel as if I'm getting a glimpse of the summer break that will only hit me when I go to Korea for around 3 weeks to stay with my parents. I have absolutely no structure today - no obligations, as I have an excuse to not make it to anything, and really no will to go and do anything.
Because of this lack of structure, I feel insecure. I find myself inadequate when there is nothing left for me to do, when there is no task I can fulfill to try to please God. As I've been sitting here, my thoughts have shifted towards how I'm not helping anyone at the moment and my life is really devoid of any thoughtfulness... and it all comes down to the fact that I feel like I don't love God anymore because I'm not doing anything involving our "FOR THE GOSPEL!" cries.
What's more, I find that as I've been sick... I'm beginning to see how you're not supposed to love people. It is the sick, not the healthy that need a doctor. Even then, the sick don't need the doctor to tell them that they're sick. As people have asked me how I've been doing, I respond normally enough to the "feeling better?" comments. "I'm fine."
I don't mind - I know people care, and I know furthermore that I'll be fine in a day or two. The problem I'm finding is that if I treat people who are at dis-ease spiritually with a "feeling better?" attitude rather than feeling their pain and loving them, then they will never experience my love, let alone Christ's love. Do people who care leave their brethren to fail and fall? Do people who love like Christ did go on with their own lives while their brothers and sisters suffer?
I've been treating people as a task - I share the Gospel with someone not out of genuine care but out of obligation - out of the hopefulness that I might please God with bringing one more to Him. That's the wrong motive. The motive will come, but how long will it take?
They say everything happens for a reason.
I don't think we believe it most of the time. Phrases like "You got lucky!" and "What a coincidence!" wouldn't be said if we thought everything happened for a reason.
I'm finding in myself that I don't find reason for every little conversation I have and every chance encounter I have, but every single one is significant. In one particular supposedly insignificant conversation, I found that when I talk to people, I realize that I do everything I can not to face shame, to the extent of lying and hiding myself.
I won't go into detail, but things need to change. I shouldn't be lying to people, shouldn't be fearing judgment. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. I am rich in spirit... Some spring cleaning is in order, especially before I start doing missions. I need to restore myself to the way I should have been, an honest human being seeking after God's own heart. It's an impossible task to conquer, but taking it step-by-step, I'll get closer than I ever would on my own.
I enjoy being in small spaces. I'm claustrophilic (if that's even a word). As a child, I've locked myself in a closet, stuffed myself in a cubbyhole, wrapped myself in a cocoon of blankets... and the list goes on. I've found that I am most secure when I can feel walls on all my sides, knowing that there is no open breeze coming to sneak up behind me.
My personality reflects this. I love keeping myself enclosed, to being vulnerable to a few choice people, to keep a small, close-knit group of friends. I'm slowly realizing why this is wrong. We talk about being "transcultural" at church, yet I've simply grazed the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being exactly that; it's not about how friendly you are to random people you meet who you will never meet again, but it's about getting close with exactly those people who you wish you would never see again.
I hear stories of people being witnesses to non-believers and bringing them to faith. Sometimes I ask, "Why not me? Why can't I do that?"
I find that there's two parts to being a witness.
I. You have to do the things that exemplify Christ-like-ness.
II. You have to spend time with people who are non-believers.
The latter is undoubtedly easier - yet I work less on it than I do the former. How am I to be a witness if I'm still swaddled like an infant? I need to break out of my shell, to find a new home in the world.
I wasn't planning on writing today, but in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the yard sale, I left my backpack at church.. and consequently I am left with no Bible (which I was planning on reading tonight), no planner (which has my life in it), and no motivation. Needless to say, I'm discovering what a chore reading the Word has become. Today's sermon was about how we should begin to apply it to our lives, and I clearly haven't been reading it beyond its surface, beyond the intellectual level.
I'm drained. More mentally and physically than anything else - even though I feel wide awake, I don't feel like moving. Moreover, I'm finding that I probably should pray or something, but I'm just too lazy to get up off this couch, as uncomfortable as it may be with its sagging cushions.
Missions starts in a week. I'm beginning to get a taste of the spiritual warfare that comes with it. I don't know if I'm as willing as I was a week ago to pour my heart out for the sake of God. I'm troubled when it comes to reaching out to people, since I find that I am so preoccupied with worrying - about myself, about others and their hearts - that I never have a clear faith of what works God can do.
"We sometimes use the term 'savior complex' to describe an unhealthy syndrome of obsession over curing others' problems. The true Savior, however, seemed remarkably free of such a complex. He had no compulsion to convert the entire world in his lifetime or to cure people who were not ready to be cured."
- "The Jesus I Never Knew," Philip Yancey
Jesus wasn't a forceful, worried "savior." He was the Savior. He was willing to put everything in God's hands, even other peoples' souls and his own. Why can't I be that way?
"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker,
to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground.
Does the clay say to the potter,
'What are you making?'
Does your work say,
'He has no hands?'"
- Isaiah 45:9
I ask a lot of questions - most of them directed in exasperation at the one I know that made me. Here's time to take a step back and examine what I've done for Him to gain the right to ask such questions. I shouldn't feel entitled to certain gifts, to certain blessings, yet I do.
