Last week I wrote about being a sideliner. My question for you now is: what would you do if you knew you could not fail and money was not an issue? What are your dreams and passions? What are your God given talents and gifts that have been hidden deep down inside you over the years? If you cannot think of anything, I challenge you to list 100 things you love to do. Maybe a few things will come to mind.
Now, what is holding you back?
I suppose when I ask this all of myself...it all boils down to fear. I’m afraid. I’m afraid my dreams are selfish and wrong. I’m afraid God will not support me or encourage me if I pursue them. I’m afraid I will fail. I put God in a box and limit His power and goodness. I am realizing though that if I live life in a mundane world full of false security (a.k.a. the “comfort zone”), I never put myself in a context to let God work miracles.
If we take on a God sized dream, our need for God is heightened and our natural tendency toward self-sufficiency is diminished.
Could you do it? Could you put yourself in a position where you would be utterly and completely dependent on God?
I wonder what was going through the mind of David when he volunteered to fight Goliath. (Check out 1 Samuel 17.) David was just a little shepherd boy, but yet he was the only one willing to step up and fight the giant Goliath. He had to be afraid deep down inside. Yet, I think he knew what he was cable of with God on his side. Everyone around him, including his brothers and the King, probably thought he was crazy and was signing up to commit suicide. However, I think David knew he had been practicing and training with a sling shot day in and day out all his life. God had prepared him and had given him the gifts, talents, and tools to do the job. So finally the King agrees to let David fight but then tries to tell David to use the King’s armor and sword. Basically, he was telling David he needed to do it his way...the worlds way. David tried on the armor and he had to have been thinking, “This is not me. I’m not a soldier. I’m a shepherd boy. I’m going to do it the way I know how and the way God wants me to do it. It may look differently than the way the world would say to do it, but watch this because my God is about ready to rock your world.”
What is your Goliath?
I wonder what was going through the mind of David when he volunteered to fight Goliath. (Check out 1 Samuel 17.) David was just a little shepherd boy, but yet he was the only one willing to step up and fight the giant Goliath. He had to be afraid deep down inside. Yet, I think he knew what he was cable of with God on his side. Everyone around him, including his brothers and the King, probably thought he was crazy and was signing up to commit suicide. However, I think David knew he had been practicing and training with a sling shot day in and day out all his life. God had prepared him and had given him the gifts, talents, and tools to do the job. So finally the King agrees to let David fight but then tries to tell David to use the King’s armor and sword. Basically, he was telling David he needed to do it his way...the worlds way. David tried on the armor and he had to have been thinking, “This is not me. I’m not a soldier. I’m a shepherd boy. I’m going to do it the way I know how and the way God wants me to do it. It may look differently than the way the world would say to do it, but watch this because my God is about ready to rock your world.”
What is your Goliath?
Do you have faith in God like David had?
One final thought: in order to have faith it seems one must first have doubt because if doubt did not exist faith would not be needed.
What do you doubt about God?
Allow faith to take the place of doubt.
PS: I mean no specific disrespect to the particular author of this post, as this is clearly a permeating thematic element here among many of these posts.
That said, I have to say, I find it difficult to see a "fasionable link to reality" in your accusations. Of course, in a blog primarily focused on life as a Christian (read: EVERY part of life, even the bad), there's going to be a significant amount of speaking in the ideal and abstract. Christ did a fair amount of this himself. The difference being, obviously, he was able to walk out everything he said. We, as people, struggle to. But, I don't think I need to say that it's a pretty faulty thought process to assume that just because a person writes as such, that his or her life has virtually no reflection of Christ.
But, I'm not here to get into a shootout with you. Like I said before, I'm glad you're taking some time to give us some feedback. With that, I have to ask, what are some ways you think we could improve?
How can we, as the Immersion bloggers, bring our points down to earth more often? What can we do to avoid giving the impression that we're just consumers in our comfortable chairs with a latte in one hand, and bible in the other?
formula:
1. Somebody says something about some ‘sin’ and how bad it is
2. They then admit to ‘not being above that sin’ themselves, obligatorily
3. Then they continue to talk in academic terms about it, giving the impression that they are above it and it’s a purely logical pursuit*.
*yes I agree that this perception is somewhat uncontrollable and natural in a biblical teaching setting... But not completely.
This is one of the reasons why I haven’t been able to force myself to go to church for over ..... Let me think now .... 6 years or so. I’m not vilifying the church, though I’m sure it sounds very much like that. It’s just so scripted that everybody can see that it’s not real life. It’s a picture on a wall that one might look at, revel at it’s idealistic simplicity and beauty, and then they must turn away from it and go back to their ‘real’ lives that have to be dealt with in the here and now. I’m also trying to point out why I can’t help but view such people as ‘out of the world and not of it’. I won’t bother fighting the natural inference that people will make at that statement of assuming that I agree with those that wanted to ‘sin so that grace might increase’ either, but I do NOT agree with that. That would take too many paragraphs to argue as you well know, and as a pathetic keyboard cowboy on this ruptured septic tank that is known as the internet, well, I’d rather think that I have better things to do on a Friday night (even though I don’t) than build a flimsy fact-sparse exposition about that.
History time: I lost my only brother to seminary. One day he decided to up and become a super christian - you know, one of those ones that pretends to not be afflicted like the rest of us. He went through 5 years of being simply inaccessible in conversation and relationship, due to the crushing legalisms that he was learning to wield in judgement of everybody else, all of a sudden.
I have clinically diagnosed mental defects as well as some serious physical ones - equally clinical and diagnosed. I’m in my mid 20’s and I will never have access to some of the good things in life that normal people take for granted. I’ve never been even mentally in that caste past the age of 19, when such things occured. I don’t seek a pity party here, I just want to give you my frame of reference, as you politely asked.
Don’t misunderstand, the only reason I’m still walking around is because many many years ago Jesus found me, and loved me first. But when I live with Jesus, he finds me in the garbage and refuse I have to sift through every day. Especially the little things. Not in the pulpit-molded messages we’ve all heard and learned since we were children. You mentioned yourself that this is “focused on life as a Christian” yet I’ve seen more modified preaching on here than anything else. One of these posts said that “we are the church”, which is 100% true. Then why are you blogging like you are simply finding another medium to expel academic answers to life’s most emotive and painful scenes? And yes, I’m aware that I’m being a jerk by saying all these ramblings, but since you asked, I’m simply trying to answer. I read one post on here about some lady and her little white dog “Strutting around” or something. I mean, it wasn’t some poignant and salient neatly-packaged scriptural point, so I’m sure my brother would shake his mighty M.Div. having super-mind at its obvious lack of any scriptural teaching value, but guess what - that was actually a person writing that post. I could tell. A person, that I already know is a person who at least knows about God, and is trying to learn more. These things are obvious because I’m on a church’s blog site. But it was a person. Maybe like me. Maybe not conjured from some ancient salt-water sea cave’s papyrus contents. And look at this comment posted here. Not mine, but yours, Luke. This is the first time you’ve sounded like an actual person to me on this site.
Now be careful when you read this next line, because if you are a heavily churchy type of person (as I once was) your head is going to spin like a dradle in a sandstorm if you aren’t cautious and open-minded....
“I don’t want to read some scripturally & doctrinally sound blathering from this little neo-pulpit”
I want to know that there are other people out there like me. Defective and struggling. Tell me a story. Tell me about how life is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and tell me how God found you in the midst of it, and tell me which parts he didn't save you from. And don’t make the fatal mistake of just telling me the stories that have happy “God based” endings already. Take a risk and tell me the ones that don’t have that yet. Because we all believe that if God and Jesus are who they say they are, then that has already happened in his dominion - you know, the dominion that isn’t bound by the only 4 dimensions that we’ve ever known (particularly the irritating “time” one). If you study the singularity and the required number of dimensions for the ‘causal agent’ then that type of thinking won’t be foreign to you anyway....
I realize these scandalous posts are potentially unwelcome, and as you were gracious enough to respond to me, as somebody who clearly has lived in the Kingdom of God long enough to know how to respond to someone like me, I’ll afford you a likewise courtesy of not wasting any more of your group’s time posting here again. Good luck with your blog, Luke et. all.
Hope to hear from you soon man!
Luke
lpbro@hotmail.com
I wrote the blog to which you posted your comment but have not had internet access much the past week so I am just now reading these comments. Sorry. I hope you get this note from me. I, like Luke, am happy you responded. Sometimes I feel everyone takes what I write on here without challenging it. Either that or they don't care. Check out my post this week about my junk drawer. I never write to "preach" at people but only write what I am struggling with during the week and am learning about and challenging myself about. I am not a perfect "churchy" person by any stretch of the imagination and I know first hand what it is like to know people who seem to have all the right "Christian" answers but they do not seem to live in the real world. I am here to tell you that I do live in the real world and I hurt and I struggle. I have made huge mistakes and I have a ton of junk. I'd be happy to tell you it on here or through email.
philipkreis@gmail.com
Maybe you can help me though. I want people to know this is a real person writing. Not a pastor. Not someone with all the answers. Just me. A normal guy with a normal job who is trying to make sense of life but is realizing that it has only been through God that I have been able to climb out of the dark holes I found myself in.
Any ideas on how I can sound more real?
Thanks friend...