For those who wondered, I'm mostly playing in new blogging sandboxes:

http://gracepointleaders.blogspot.com/ - for serious dialogue about church and Christian issues

http://www.HouseofMaritalBliss.com/ - a personal website for Jacqui and I

This site has a questionable prognosis.  Likely a WIP electronic whiteboard for me to process things of a more individual, reflective nature.  We'll see. 

Last night was a great night of community within my LifeGroup, the Gathering.  When the time came to break off as husbands for our "guys only" discussion, some powerful questions were posed.  In the process of some routine confession around challenges, needs, life issues and the like, one fellow said something like, "I've been struggling with prayer, reading and any spiritual life steps." 

Nothing out of the ordinary.  It's common language we hear every week.  But, this time it bothered me.  A torrent in my chest churned and I finally blurted out, "Really?  Is that true?  Do you really 'struggle' with pursuing God and spiritual health...or are you just giving up, complaining about defeat while lying on the ground getting kicked?  When you say 'struggle,' that suggests you are fighting unsuccessfully - that you're exerting considerable effort to win, but encountering opposing force that keeps you from reaching the goal.  What you describe, however, doesn't sound like a struggle.  We should be careful with the chiche of 'I'm struggling,' as I think it's a lie to ourselves and to God when what we mean is, I've not been even trying lately and am suffering the blows that come from lying on the ground helplessly."

It wasn't said condescendingly or harshly - just passionately.  It was said as much confessionally as it was exhortationally.  We claim a struggle all to often and fight far to little for the power of God that is at hand.  We claim the form but deny the power because we do not truly fight or chase after it like a treasure in a field.

To many peers in the corporate world or previously academic setting I have seemed confident and surefooted.  Some likely found me nearly arrogantly so.  I would march towards goals said "impossible" and from across the finish line turn with a glance and move on to the next.  Or, such was the externally perceived sequence of events.

On the "inside" each trek was a series of anxiety pangs and trusting steps - an ebb and flow of "if this is where I should go, okay God - let's do it!" and "oh my goodness, from what magic carpet bag of experience will I pull the necessary tools to accomplish this task?"  At the threshold of each journey is a pregnant pause of self evaluation.  An evaluation that nearly always comes back with findings of singular inadequacy...inadequacy of self, that is.

It's where God like me.  He likes me on the cusp of what I have been prepared for versus what I know I cannot sustain - and then He likes to nudge me just further than I might prefer.  Like Gideon, God likes to send smaller than prudent forces for greater than imagined tasks to demonstrate a presence beyond persons and odds. 

I think of when learning to ride a bike, and the thrill when it first starts to work and you're really rolling down the road only to panic and realize you're without the safety of your parents' hands and subsequently crash because you took your eyes off of the road before you and focused on the probability factors around you.  Disciples of the Great Rabbi who had just demonstrated months of supernatural power, losing their wits when a storm rises on the Sea of Galilee.  The slaves delivered from the worlds only superpower of the time through a series of ten unstoppable plagues, consumed with panic at the impediment of a small sea while pursued by the army of said superpower. 

I am reminded of just how much God is in control, and how much He desires for us to truly confess this reality daily.  Sometimes the point of the moment is precisely to be inadequate to the task...so long as God is leading.  He is not concerned with adequacy, but rather my dependency.  Not my valor, but my obedience.  Not my confidence, but my faith.  Not my performance, but His Kingdom advanced, His will done, His love proclaimed and His sheep fed. 

What a relief!

So, 2008 begins.  Remember when Y2K seemed "far out," wondering how to refer to the year when it starts with a zero (would it be "O and 1" just "1" ?), and now we're pushing up to the 2nd decade of the 3rd millennium since Christ.  It's almost 6 years since marriage began, 4 years since college, 8+ since high school, 20 yr mark since baptism into the grand Fellowship. 

I've always had a subtle aversion to New Years as a holiday.  Too much hullabaloo around "resolutions" and fantasy plans for the "next year."  Somehow the psychological significance of turning a calendar page opens up the mind to new aspirations, lofty goals, and hefty commitments.  It just seemed silly.  First, a majority of goals set are BHAGS (big hairy and audacious goals) with little tactical planning for achievement, leading only to increasing depths of despair, depression, cynicism or apathy upon failure.  Secondly, what's so magical about January 1?  What's so different about waking up Tuesday the 1st day of 2008, versus Tuesday the 23rd of March?  Does Father Time stand at the cusp of a year with a cosmic stopwatch anxiously waiting to say "start" to permit us progress?

Back to New Year Resolutions.  I have always felt if a goal is really significant, it should start today.  If it is insignificant enough to wait for a few more days, weeks or months until the next "stopwatch signal" is observed, then it can't be that big of a deal to begin with.  If, however, it is truly paramount, virtuous, noteworthy or sincerely desired, then how could we wait for an arbitrary start time to begin pursuit? 

It's at this point my own idiosyncracies converge with the rest of the world - we prefer sprints over marathons, and hence the stopwatch mentality.  We cram for exams, starve and hyper-exert for physical targets before some display (event, party, graduation, vacation), swipe or borrow, wrap presents the night before and start praying and meditating in hyperdrive the day or so before a major life hurdle.  It's "how long can I hold my breath" type of approaches.   At the gym, I'd rather run a seven minute mile and be dead at 1.5mi., then pull back and do a 5 mile run at a sustainable pace.

We like stopwatches.  Stopwatches start on schedule and also stop.  They start, and shortly terminate and allow you to evaluate results.  Confined, neat, tidy, predictable, controllable, and convenient they can be.

Yet, I think marathons, triathalons, decathlons and broader engagements are really the M.O. we are called to.  We all know it.  Healthy living is a daily decision, poorly substituted by periodic sprinting.  Financial soundness comes from regular habits of balanced living.  Relationships are established, preserved and advanced through sustained commitments to interactions, despite the rush of periodic overdoses.  Spiritual strength is a long term dividend yielded only from the process of daily surrender, daily pursuit, daily healing, daily worship and daily victory.  No stopwatches, just a "choose you this day" call for us to decide and act. 

We're invited to "run this race as to win" and "come follow."  I hope 2008 is a year of spectacular progress by daily, seemingly insignificant, increments in a marathon manner rather than sprints.  I hope my alarm clock lets each day have the same "stopwatch" significance of the date January 1 - so that my losses are reduced to 24 hours instead of 365 days, and my gains are hundredfold in turn. 

Time is not a filler.  Today is not a bye period until tomorrow.  Jesus is never noted to have passed out from exhaustion due to overexertion catching up; but was also never asleep at the wheel.  There's a pace which is balanced, regulates breathing and exertion effectively, and ensures constant progress.  I hope that pace is found by many this year.

Happy New Year!

MS

Quote from Metamorpha:

When I am left on my own and my journey is decided on my terms and with my direction, I always end up with a different god than the Bible's, a serene and simpler Jesus, and a view of Christianity that looks more like me than it does like God.  Even worse, I often fail ot notice...There comes a point when we are all called to be leaders simply because we have the ability to stop and decide to open ourselves honestly to God.  The first steps in being honest with God should probably be saying, "I believe, help my unbelief," and starting or joining a community that says, "This is who we are, but by the grace of God it is not who we will remain."

How true.  The danger of a transactional religion (get Jesus, get Heaven) without transformational discipleship to Jesus, process of living death, communion of saints and primal orthodoxy of an ancient truth!