Mediocracy like the Chicken Pox

I'm about to move, and in some ways it shouldn't even be called a move cause I'm moving across the parking lot! Regardless, I've decided this is the perfect time in my life to through EVERYTHING! Thus I spent the afternoon sorting through mountains of school work that I've insisted on keeping for the past few years. Among the notes, exams, and papers was the hand written copy of notes from my Sr. Discernment.  (For those of you who don't know, the Sr. Discernment is that lovely time of life when a few hand chosen besties of yours, and a couple of professors sit down at a board table and discuss you, your life, your gifts, your strengths, your weakness etc.  Its both lengthy and exhausting, confusing while enlightening.) It was during this event in my life, which occurred on my Birthday--much to my great disgust, that one of my professors stated that I do not stand for mediocracy.

As I've reflected on this insight, yet again, I realize that its true.  Mediocracy really gets under my skin  and drives me bonkers.  I've been thinking about this subject in regards to our church today.  In my opinion mediocracy has flooded our ministries, our churches, our christian schools, our camps like a bad case of the chicken pox. (If you're feeling really angry with me...its okay, thats another thing that came up in my discernment....i can sometimes make some people very angry).

So having the endlessly questioning mind that I do, I've been reflecting on where mediocracy came from? And why has it flooded the western christian world? I'm not claiming to have it figured out...cause I don't.  But I do think that some of it stems from our (the current generation's) reaction to the "rigid legalism" of our not too distant relatives.  Yes I do believe we need to make room for grace, I deeply believe that, and am in desperate need of grace.  But sometimes I wonder if we (the current generation) use this as an all too easy excuse for our lack of self-control, our extreme laziness, and our massive fear of who we are, and who we are perceived to be.

Our actions show us what we love.  They show us our priorities, but most terrifyingly they show us our idols. Those things that we love more than we love God. On Sundays we promise that we will "surrender all", "cast down our idols", "trust implicitly", but by Sunday afternoon we are caked in so much fear, anxiety and desperation that we frantically snatch back from God what we just claimed to have given Him. How many of us would stand for a friendship like that. But the even scarier thing to me is, that if we can't even trust God, how on earth are we ever going to truly trust another human being....who messes up on a regular basis.  Relationships are all about love and trust.  Trust is the natural bi-product of love.  Therefore our lack of trust depicts to us our shocking supply of imperfect love, and our massive deficit of perfect love (God's love).

If we want to see mediocracy change in our churches, camps, schools, ministries.  The change first has to start in us. Just as with humans when we spend significant time with another we pick up their mannerisms, attributes and characteristics, so too it is with God.  If we want to learn how to trust, how to love, how to be loved, it all has to start with spending time with God. And I don't mean asking Him for things, I mean sitting down and telling Him what's on your heart, your mind, what is stressing you out, what is important to you. This is how love and trust work...sharing of yourself. And if you don't know who you are or what to share...ask Him. He will show you.

Sweet Father in Heaven,  May you draw us closer into you, bind our fear of coming to you that we may be healed.  Teach us how to love you, to trust you, to obey you.  Let it Be.

Paradoxes

I've decided to write this little blogette from my deck.  I have this nice comfy lazy-boy couch ,which I rescued from being sentenced to the eternal wrath of the dumpster.  This is where I do my best thinking.

At various times in my life I have been told that I am a paradox. Often I think what comes across paradoxical to others is completely complementary in my brain.  Its just how I function and how I do life. I'm okay with it not making complete sense at first glance.  At the end of this blog post I'm going to post a short music video that might appear, at first glance, to complete negate what I'm about to discuss, but for some reason in my mind they go completely hand in hand and I feel absolutely inclined to include it.  So here we go:

Lots of us struggle or have struggled with how to relate to God in prayer.  We know with our heads and our mouths that God is "not a vending machine", or a "bank machine".  We know that we need to do more than just read our Bible and pray, we know we need to have a "personal relationship" with God.  But we don't live it.  And sometimes I wonder if we don't live it because we find it hard to connect with God.

In our quest to connect with God we've become so blinded by our understanding that God is not human, that we stumble and fumble our way through awkward prayer times because God is not a man.  And yeah, that's true, God is not only human.  But I want to suggest today that we make prayer far more complicated than it needs to be because of the presupposition that God is not a man.

If there is one thing that has come clear to me in the last few years it is that God is desperately and relentlessly pursuing His babies because He wants to communicate with them.  He wants to communicate to them that He loves them, that He's safe, that He's got it.  He sent Jesus, and yes a big part of the reason was so that He could atone for our sin, (I'm not trying to down play that fact) but there's more.  You can't tell me God sent Jesus to the earth for only one reason, there's got to be more.  Maybe He became human so that He could relate with us, so that He could teach us how to relate to Him in human ways, ways that we could understand.

How many of us walk up to a stranger and ask them to be our best friend and to come live with us instantly? Or walk up to another stranger hand them all our problems and say, "If you fix this I'll hang out with you on sunday, but if you don't I'm not talking to you any more"?  We wouldn't do those things, we laugh and say its absurd.  Friendship takes time.  Well, maybe friendship with God takes time too.  Maybe you've been saying you live with God but you haven't even introduced yourself yet.  "Hi, I'm Jenny, my favorite colour is green and I've heard so many wonderful things about you and I can't wait to hang out!  What would you like me to call you?" I'm not saying things need to go down like this, what I am saying is that maybe its strange that we expect of ourselves, our friends, and God to go from strangers to besties in as long as it takes to say the sinners prayer.  Maybe we need to let it take sometime and not get frustrated with our awkward friendship with God recognizing its all part of the process. . Again, think of how awkward it is when you run into someone you hardly know, who you haven't seen for a few years or months, why would we expect it to not be awkward with God when we do the exact same thing with Him?

Whatever point you and God are at in your friendship, I want to encourage you to not limit your thinking of Him as being far away or non-human. He was crazy enough about you to become human, to teach you how to love Him, to be loved with Him, don't be afraid to explore a more human approach to your relationship with Him.  As we know with you human friendships, the more you spend time with someone you like you find all sorts of ways to hang out with them more and more, why can't this be true of our relationship with God as well?  Rather than trying to have a better relationship with Him, or a more focused prayer life, why not spend some time getting to know Him and letting Him get to know you?

Holy God, may you teach us how to connect with you, we want to know you and be known by you, not just know facts about you.  We love you,
Let it Be.

This music video is by a group called Gungor, I simply love ALL of their music. Enjoy.

So apparently I like to blog...

Recently there has been much discussion about prayer.  How to pray, frustrations with praying, lack of understanding or assurance in prayer. It got me thinking and praying and now, well now here we are.  This blog is devoted to the discussion of prayer.  Feel free to read or comment, but please keep in mind that I'm an undergrad student who is talking about her own experience, not someone trying to force 'one right way of praying' on you, the reader.  This is simply an exploration of a life or lifestyle of prayer.  For the purpose of this blog we will keep our conversation somewhat away from petition prayer (asking God for things) and intercessory prayer (asking God for things on behalf of people).  Yes, these are two huge categories of prayer, but lets be honest, this is the part of prayer that most of us practice.  This discussion is devoted to the other, less common forms of prayer, contemplation, listening, resting, breathing, to put it simply being with God. So to start us off I thought I would post some quotes that I've come to deeply appreciate:

"I am with you in all the love and terror and pity and pain and wonder that is your life.  I am with you. Are you willing to be with Me?" Richard Foster, Life with God.


"True whole prayer is nothing but love" St. Augustine.


"Prayer lives on fearless trust in God." James Houston, The transforming Power of Prayer


"You will trust God only as much as you love Him.  And you will love Him not because you have studied Him; you will love Him because you have touched Him--in response to His touch." Brennan Manning, The relentless tenderness of Jesus.


"Loving is the syntax of prayer.  To be effective pray-ers we need to be effective lovers." Richard Foster, Prayer.


May we stop striving today, striving to learn how to pray, to try to pray, and may we sit with God and let Him love us.  Lord Jesus, teach us to receive your love.  Let it Be