In my posting yesterday, I made the assertion that ours is a world turned upside down. Of course that couldn't be true of most of us because we are well adjusted, focused and our priorities are always in order. The General has the unique ability to press my buttons when she wants to go somewhere and do something that I don't find all that appealing. She counters my reluctance with, "What happened to the guy who thinks of himself as the king of adventure?"
At some level it gets back to the disconnect between theory and practice. We articulate one set of beliefs and without giving it a second thought find ourselves living contrary to what we know to be true.
In his book entitled, "Living the Resurrection" Eugene Peterson writes: "We set magnificent goals. But in the in-between, we don't have much to write home about. When things get bad enough, we just make a new beginning."
In his book, "Weird Because Normal Isn't Working," Craig Groeschel reflects on his childhood and college years. He writes: "For me and my peers normal was in. Nobody we knew wanted to be weird. Normal was cool and weird was un-cool. Normal people were winners on their way up; weird people were loses headed downward.
He asserts that "When your full-time job is fitting in, you rarely stop to contemplate the more serious issues of life. That is, until one of the more serious of life smacks you upside the head."
During his sophomore year in college, Laura, a good friend from college fell asleep while driving home one weekend and was killed instantly. The school hosted a celebration to honor Laura's life. He writes: "I sat silently at the end of the third-row pew in the tiny campus chapel most of us had worked so hard to avoid until then, aware that life was now different but not exactly sure how. Suddenly my English Lit class and tennis match the next day no longer seemed important.
He adds: "This was only the beginning. Without warning, my normal mindset started to bother me. Like a dull toothache that begins to throb, my discomfort with the way things were seemed to steadily increase.
"With a kind of magnetic power, Laura's death now pulled me toward bigger questions:
- Is this all there is to life?
- Why am I here?
- What if that had been me dozing off behind the steering wheel?
- If my life ended now, would it matter?"
He said of himself and his frat brothers whom he described as party people, "These questions led me to start a Bible study. It was more like trying to read the Bible with a bunch of people who didn't know squat about the Bible"
Reportedly, they ran into a brick wall: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction. Few are on the road to life and only a few people find it."
Croeschel writes: "These red-letter yelling words of Jesus struck me with full force. Many are on the road to destruction. Few are on the road to life. Where was I? Was I driving with the flow of traffic racing blindly down the wrong highway or was I headed in the right direction with a few others?
With those questions in mind, his priorities became different and his dependency on God became life altering for him.
So the question for myself this morning is this: "What am I trusting God to do in my life? If I can do it without God's help, I'm on the wrong road."
All the Best!
Don
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