One of my favorite songs in life is “Whatever you’re doing”
by the band Sanctus Real. And that’s
probably because the lyrics speak so much to what I feel has been happening in
my life over the past several years. I grew up in the church. I heard all the stories, learned all the
correct lingo, and by the time I was in my twenties I had built this grandiose
box….a house if you will….that contained God and all I thought He was and
should be. My God was safe. He stayed within my well formed lines and I
knew what to expect from Him. And yet,
over the years….in the midst of building this house… I would hear this voice in
the back of my head telling me “Check your foundation”. I mean as any good builder knows, the
foundation is key to anything you build…so you’d think I would of listened to
that still small voice as it grew louder and louder and louder! Yet…I’m stubborn….and prideful….and hate to
be wrong….so of course I didn’t listen.
I just continued building….until one day it all came crashing down!
You see, when my
brother-in-law passed away a few years ago, EVERYTHING I thought I knew about
God came crashing down. God was supposed
to bless those who did good and lived right!
They were not the type of people who were supposed to suffer and be hurt! It’s the ones who couldn’t get their act
together, who constantly got it wrong, that He was supposed to punish! How could God not know this about Himself
(can you sense my sacrcasm)! Funny thing
was I never quite got that for all my efforts and all my “doings”…I was one of
the one’s completely off the mark and getting it wrong!
For so much of my
Christian walk I was held tightly to this belief that I had to say all the
right things, do the right things, never make a mistake, never disagree, and
never struggle with my theology. It was as if I thought the second I became a
Christian I was to know it all and be perfect (Hum…now that I think of it, this
kind of reminds me a bit of the story of the garden of Eden when the serpent
tells Eve to eat of the tree and thus become like god!) And yet somehow in the midst of this belief,
I knew I would never stack up, that I was/am NOT perfect, and that I get it wrong
more times than I get it right. Yet I
continued to press on in this act…..trying to fake my way into the kingdom,
while walking through life with blinders on to the truth all around me.
Flash forward three
years and I find myself in a completely different place….a somewhat awkward,
uncomfortable, out of control, Godly place of freedom, and power, and never
ending growth! Now don’t get me wrong….getting
to this place has NOT been easy! It’s be
a process, a long…hard…gut-wrenching process that I’m not done with and I’m
sure (and I hope) I will never be done with.
It’s as if God has placed me on a giant operating table….gutted me like
a fish…and is slowly but surely filling me back up with HIM! Half the time I
don’t know what is going on inside of me!
I feel this pull… this draw inside of me… to something more. I understand that life is about so much more
than me…that there is so much more to it than this! I ache for the kingdom to come….I long for the
prince of peace….I desire my life to be all about Him and not of me. And yet I struggle to find a way to live that
out….to be the hands and feet of God here and now, to constantly lay myself
down and take up my cross, to accept that everything I have and am is GOD not
me (good or bad)!
It’s easier to fall
back into a life of tradition….to follow some religious code of ethics that
says do this and don’t do that! It’s
safer to stay with the crowd….to not get to crazy and fanatical with this Jesus
thing….to build God a house, with well formed boundaries for Him to stay
within! But I can’t do that anymore, I
can’t Go back…I must keep stumbling forward, because I know “Whatever (He’s)
doing inside of me, It feels like chaos but I believe (He’s) up to something
bigger than me, Larger than life something heavenly”!
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