Parallel factors are destroying the church in our context. We have pressing needs and we don't know how they will be met. Where will I get my significance? What can I do to make myself feel that I count? Who cares about me and understands me? Where can I find intimacy? We are a well-fed prison camp. We have everything we need materially - housing, food, computers, cars, entertainment, travel - but inside we are isolated and empty.
Worship then becomes the way we try to deal with our emptiness and our isolation. The point about our worship is to make us feel better; the point about God is to make us feel good. So we abandon scripture reading, because that's boring . We abandon the gospel story, because that happened a long time ago and doesn't look very relevant. We can go through a whole worship service without hearing any reference to the fact that God created the world, delivered Israel, sent Jesus to live and die for us, and raised him from the dead. The Israelites forgot the gospel and gave up on God's written word because they were so concerned with their personal needs. The same thing has happened to us.
There is a tragic paradox here. We need to be brought outside ourselves by seeing our lives in the context of a bigger picture, a bigger story - the gospel story. But we are so overwhelmed by our emptiness, isolation, and insignificance that we don't pay attention to the bigger story. All we want to do is think about ourselves in need, so we turn God into someone whose focus is on meeting our needs. We make God a quick fix. But quick fixes don't work.
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares."
Henri Nouwen
...I want to be more like this type of friend in 2009.
...then I have a question for you all. especially for Christians who were, directly or not, saying that it was "our job" as a believer to vote for McCain:
my buddy Ty has a prayer on his blog that's worth reading. it's also inspired me to post a prayer here on what i'm now calling, the desolate blog of depression...i think it has a good ring to it.
anyways, singing old hymns in the church is a rich tradition that has stood the test of time. but, you don't see a lot of prayers (non-scripture) being used at all. that's what makes this one pretty unique. it's the prayer of St. Francis, a 13th century saint of Assisi. i want this to be my prayer every day...peep it:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Anyone ever said the statement, "it just wasn't in the cards"? I know I have. Or, how about "this is just the hand I've been dealt"? Again, check yes for me on that one.
Of course, the "cards" being mentioned are circumstances or environments in our lives. We try to work with the ones dealt to us, or the ones that we dealt ourselves. We come to accept these cards as being a situation or circumstance that we are meant to be in.
"What am I grateful for?" This is a question I try to ask myself when I feel like I've been dealt a bad hand. Most often I come up with a few things, and ultimately end with a prayer that can, on some days, be as sarcastic as it can be serious, and that's "God, thank you for at least waking me up today," or "thank you for where you have me."
That makes me think a little bit today, which is always a good thing. :) What about that statement, "thank you for where you have me"? Is that it? Just being grateful for the cards that were dealt? What are we to do with them? Are we just happy and thankful where we are, or are we to look deeper and see what God has in the deck?
journeying....sometimes aimlessly it seems....but journeying nonetheless
i am husband to April, father of Russ (our wiener dog) and often a screw-up. i work at a christian treatment center in AZ for young men and women struggling with eating disorders. i oversee the chapel services there, and get the privilege to lead worship everyday there. i try to closely follow Jesus. usually, i end up straggling behind at a substantial distance, which of course makes me, well, normal...
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