a convenient blog
I’m at Fido again working on a few things for my church, so I thought I would take a break from all that jazz and write a little on this blog. My life has been so busy lately, but my desire all week long has been to get back to writing here. I don’t know how you all feel about blogs or even doing one of your own, but they have been extremely helpful to me. Not only has it forced me to stay in the Scriptures, but through my own thinking and writing I have been able to think and understand more realistically how my experience aligns with all I am reading. A good counseling/psychology word for all that is, cathartic. In other words, all this writing is cathartic for me.
With that said, and as busy as I have been lately, last night I went to the movies and dinner with a friend. The movie (Cloverfield) wasn’t that good, but the conversation at dinner was nothing less than awesome. One of the things we talked about was friendships and how the two of us have been hurt in the past by girlfriends, dude friends, and even churches. My response to it all was that we all live in a narcissistic (extremely selfish) culture, and we only seem to do for others if it will benefit us in the long run. Narcissistic literally is the word that “describes the character trait of self love, based on self-image or ego.” There is another interesting little word: ego.
I’m not going to get into trying to define that word ego, but it seems that as a culture, we all have grown to have such huge “egos” (the word I’m not defining, but look it up) that we react, care, and love when it is convenient. When it isn’t convenient, we don’t do anything. I realize and know that friends are prone to hurt us, but what should be the safest place for us to find refuge, the church, we also are prone to getting hurt. The sad reality for me as a pastor/preacher is that so many churches that I have attended and have preached in seem to be stuck into helping others when it is convenient for them. It really makes me sad to think that is true because I don’t really think that many of the church members and maybe even pastors realize they have slipped into convenient discipleship.
In Mark 2 we find ourselves back in Capernaum in a house where Jesus was preaching. I am not big on the church having to look like the traditional churches of the world, so we can say that Jesus was at a church preaching. In verse 4 we see that several friends of a paralyzed man got over themselves and what was convenient to cut a hole in the roof of this church so the paralyzed man could come to Jesus. I am struck by how it wasn’t just one guy that tried to help out, it was four.
As I think about verse 4 I can’t help but try and picture in my mind this whole scenario. The more I think about it, I think the reason these men were willing to cut the hole in the roof and face the house owner’s anger and resentment was because these men had faith that when they brought their friend to Jesus, he would be healed. Maybe that is the problem with so many of us: our trust/faith in Christ. I truly believe that how we react to life comes down to our trust in Christ.
Ashamedly, I have to say it is hard for me to get over my own ego and pride to help people out on a consistent basis. I do know, however, that whenever I make the effort to do something, that maybe is against what I want to do for the day, I usually feel better about myself. It is odd I know, but there is always some sort of joy that comes in helping someone, and better yet there is an even greater joy when I step out of my convenient life to point others to Christ. I have kind of made a vow to myself to not live in complacency this year. I don’t know if I can keep that, but one way of working through complacency is by doing something different. Maybe for some of us that already call ourselves Christians, the thing that could be different in our life is that we start truly trusting God.
I wonder what would happen if we all started trusting God enough that we could feel safe to step out of our comfort zones to help others. What would the world look like? I can’t help but think that the World would be a better place. It’s a scary thing I know to step out of all that’s familiar, for complacency is such an easy spot to sit in. Whatever is stopping you, know that Christ is strong where we are weak; where there is fear, he already conquered that fear. I have said before that I can’t promise to be this amazing person or do all these amazing things, but this upcoming week, I am going to try at least once to step out of my comfort zone to make a relationship or to make right a relationship in hopes that through it all I can point them to Christ. I hope you will do the same.