Post AC

Some SPUR OF THE MOMENT THOUGHTS I had the other day. Someone mentioned something about polite CHristians and it got me thinking.

"Hmm...Should Christianity be polite? Is that true? Jesus was offensive. Not maliciously, and he wasn't mean, but he challenged the social standard which always leads to people taking offense. Did he worry about being offensive? Did he worry about what people thought? When someone's ideals are being challenged they get defensive, angry, offended (even Christians...especially Christians) - by the very nature of living a Christ-like life you are challenging the world's ideals. If we are living a Christ-like life should we then be interpreted as offensive?

Why don't we say the important things? Because they're offensive? Two important things no Christian says anymore because it's too "offensive": 1) You're going to hell. 2) What you're doing is wrong. Two true statements, but we don't say them.

Didn't Christ say for us not to worry about being hated by the world since it also hate him? Doesn't that mean we, like Christ, should be living in a fashion that makes the world at least take notice, maybe even hate us?

What does that look like today?

It does NOT look like hate. There is abig difference between challenging the worlds ideals and spewing hate. I think so many Christians have stopped living offensively for fear of being confused with the Christians living hatefully.

Litmus test for if you're living like Christ: do the unsaved people in your life a) know you're saved; b) know you think how they live is wrong; AND c) know you believe that without Christ they will spend eternity in hell? What does it mean if we answered no? That we're accepting? Non judgemental? Or just too scared to live a life that offends.

How do we reconcile an offensive life with a life of love? How do we incorporate both the way that Christ did?

What have we done to the church by watering ourselves down so much? How can we mature spiritually if we don't strive for that Christ-likeness that does so often offend....

Personally I feel the answer is relational. Christ was a relational leader. "Offensive" words said in the context of a loving relationship are usually received with love. "Offensive" words said out of that context just come off as hateful.

Where do I stand?

Where do we find balance?"

I have more I would like to say about this, just not the time.

And an update on Ascension Convention is forthcoming.

Funkadelic

I’ve been in a funk for a few days now. More like a week or two. Or three. There are some Pretty Big Things Going On (anyone who may read this please keep Aaron and I in your prayers as we have some big decisions to make) which are stressing me out, my job has been arguably torture, Aaron and I have both been Ridiculously Busy the past two weeks and haven’t spent as much time together as either of us would like (we have a date tonight - yay!), I’ve come to a Not Fun Place Spiritually, and if you combine all that with some recent lack of sleep and a doozy of a bad day yesterday it rolls to a nice boiling frustration that makes me want to crawl under my bed and cry and casts an even more negative light on the last few weeks (ever notice that? How when you’ve had a really bad day you look back and suddenly realize that you’ve actually been having a bad string of days? Weeks? Months? Why do bad things make you remember bad things?).

My Not Fun Place Spiritually/My Torturous Job- Admittedly one of my biggest struggles is my attitude. I won’t get into specifics, but it doesn’t take a lot to trigger me into a bad attitude and I don’t like it. It’s at the top of my list to change. This is harder than it sounds. Sometimes spiritual growth can be circular...like I desire to have discipline, but because I do not yet have it achieving things that require discipline are really hard and I fail at them a lot which points to my bigger failure of not having discipline and then I sit and stew and feel like a failure and it can get discouraging. In the long run my bad place spiritually is actually a good, desirable place spiritually, it is a place of understanding my short comings and how I can’t change things on my own and need God to do it for me, but it doesn’t mean that it’s fun. In the moment it usually sucks a lot. For me in particular it has meant realizing over the last few weeks that I’ve been pouring my heart out and praying and searching and trying to change my attitude as far as my job is concerned - be happier and more joyful so as to be a good representation of the Father’s love. I have failed. Constantly. And while failing I’ve wondered “Why!?! Why do I still struggle with my bad attitude? Why can’t I just feel joyful!?”

My job makes me crazy sometimes. I’m the lowest on the totem pole which means (as is so often the case) that I do more than my share of the work, receive way less than my share of the credit, get blamed when things beyond my job description are wrong and ignored when I fix these things despite having limited understanding of them; my desk is the dump, if there is no one to take care of it, it’s my thankless task to BE SURE IT GETS DONE! This can leave one feeling extremely underappreciated and really low, which in turn leads to complaining, which leads to bitterness, which is pretty much the basis of any effective sabotage on any good mood I may start the day with. Last night at youth group we talked about the things we take for granted and understanding that EVERYTHING comes from God. It sparked a memory of a theory that I have (a common one I’m sure) that when we’re truly thankful for something we are more joyful. Think about it. Have you ever been angry while receiving a really awesome gift? No. You’re ecstatically happy. Thankfulness leads to joy. How could I have expected my attitude to just magically change when I spend every day complaining and frustrated about my job? I treat my job like a burden and not a blessing, no wonder I have a bad attitude about it. And the worst part is that in the economic climate we live in at this particular moment, a steady, secure job IS a blessing. Having realized all this I felt like an idiot. In a way it’s an answer to prayer, a way to help me improve my attitude, I just wish I would have realized it six months ago. I learned (suddenly, apparently) that a joyful attitude is contingent on how grateful for your blessings you are (man typing that it sounds so simplistic how could I have NOT gotten it?), and I am learning that I need to just let the little things go, be a faithful cup bearer, and do what I’m asked to do without expectation of thanks. I realize it’s been 24 hours, but you wouldn’t believe the difference I can feel. It’s pretty awesome. God is good.

As far as the other stuff - Pretty Big Things Going On, Doozy of a Bad Day, Being Ridiculously Busy - that’s the sort of stuff I have no control over. Like I said Aaron and I are going on a date tonight, just to Caribou to play some games, but still. Yay. And the Pretty Big Things Going On are things I can’t yet talk about in a public forum (though I’m not sure how public this forum is....) but suffice it to say my poor husband is stressed to the max. There are big changes coming our way any way ya slice it, and it’s up to us which changes we’d like, and that’s a big decision, complicated by the fact that both changes are being met with opposition....ish...like I said, it’s complicated. And my Doozy of a Bad Day....well....they’re bound to happen, right? I am evaluating whether or not some of the parts to my Doozy of a Bad Day will play into our Big Things Going On and the decision therein...but till further notice it was just a bad day. I plan to get some extra sleep this weekend.

Anyway. That’s all.

Life has gotten stressful. Intensely. I think that I might be depressed a little. I just have been longing for the warmth of sunshine and I’m constantly tired which means all my free time is spend sleeping which means I’m not doing anything which always discourages me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m psychotically happy, there are just things...my job is sort of killing me. But the truth is that I haven’t been a very good employee here. I have not been a faithful cup bearer. I was talking with a friend of mine and telling her this about my job and how I’d like to quit but that I’m not sure I should because I haven’t been faithful in this job and that I feel like there are ways this job is growing me and that I’m not sure God will provide anything else yet because of these things. She actually gave me a look like I might be reading too much into things and being too spiritual and told me that she doesn’t think it always works like that. I didn’t say much at the time, I just sort of mentioned Nehemiah and his journey, but the truth is that in that moment I felt annoyed. I believe that God asks us to show Him we can be faithful in the little things before we are trusted with the big things. I told my friend that night that I’d never really looked at this job as the Lord’s provision or Him preparing me for anything, I got myself this job as a way to keep myself afloat till the next step and have been considering it a burden ever since. Why would God offer me a new and better and higher paying job when I have been nothing but ungrateful for the job I have? I’ m not by any means suggesting God is punishing me....it’s like with kids. When I was a nanny I would sometimes like to bring little treats or something special with me. But when the kids were ungrateful for what I gave them it didn’t just make me feel less like bringing them stuff, it made me feel hurt that what I was already offering wasn’t good enough, that they weren’t thankful I’d brought them something. And even if I had a better plan to bring something even better the next week I would hold off because I wanted them to learn a lesson. I think that’s sort of how I meant my situation with my job and God was. Anyway. That’s not what I even meant to talk about here.

I’m memorizing two verses right now, both from Hebrews. But the one that’s sticking with me today is Hebrews 6:1 which says:

Therefore let us go on toward perfection leaving behind the basic teaching about Christ and not laying again the foundation...

This verse is in the context of milk and solid food and the idea that as we mature and grow in Christ we should be taking on more challenging concepts and learning more and digging deeper. I’m reading in Hebrews right now and to be honest I read this verse a while ago and spent the day on it and the verses surrounding it and it struck me then too and I prayed and meditated on it, but it has just sort of hung around rattling in my brain. I think that at the time (I have since switched notebooks so I can’t go back and look) I thought about how sometimes we’re so caught up in the cross that we lose out on knowing Christ personally. We fall at the foot of the cross and never move again, never grow, never mature. I think I went to this place because I have known so many people who love the Lord, genuinely and truly, but they never move past salvation. Now, yes, we should all try to keep the sense of wonder we felt when we first encountered salvation, but you don’t stay in that “recently saved” place. You grow! There is so much to know and encounter about the Lord! Being born is awesome, but if we stay babies forever we miss out on all the reasons being born is so awesome!

Anyway, that was where I went when I first read it, but the last few days I’ve been hearing it more exasperatedly. I’m trying to change things about myself, sins that plague me, things that come naturally to my human nature that distance me from God. Pretty basic things. I’m spending time in the word and genuinely seeking God’s hand to recreate my innermost being and change me. And yet I fail. Without a second thought. I am still stuck at the foundations. I am still stuck at basic teaching of repentance. I am still stuck in this sinful place of not changing or growing. No one’s perfect, but this says we’re supposed to move toward perfection! Strive for it! Work to achieve as close as we can get. We’re all going to fail and fall, but there should be some margin of growth. I feel like this Bible verse is aimed at me this morning, reminding me that I’ve been arrogant and cocky, considering myself much further than I really am, letting myself off the hook on things because I’m “doing so well” when the truth is that I am still stuck at the foundation.

I want to live pleasing to the Lord. I want to grow beyond the foundations of Christianity and know God and mature in that knowledge and not be stuck on milk forever. So even though I’m chapters ahead of this verse in my quiet time, I’m going back to it today and meditating on it and reminding myself that I have a ways to go and that I should never be complacent or satisfied with where I am. And neither should you.

P.S. I’m done with snow. Ugh.