Relationships

Be O.K.

It’s amazing how quickly I become spoiled. When that which I think is exceptional becomes part of my every day occurrence, I get to expect it. This is true in relationships, in employees, and in my church. I am very blessed to go to a church that not only challenges me and excites me on a regular basis, but where I have a community of people who support me and love me even when there’s not a lot to love. There was a time in my life where these things were ideals rather than practices. Now that they are just a part of my week, its easy to take them for granted.

The shocking reminder of how blessed I am occurs any time I visit another group of people gathering to worship God. Sometimes the reminder comes from joining a similar group and recognizing how blessed they feel to be a part of the community, and it reminds me that I’m so blessed to get to experience the same thing. Other times the reminder comes from visiting a group that’s noteworthy for their contrast. In these circumstances, I’m astonished by how a group of seeming strangers get together for the practice of church without ever experiencing community.

While experiencing the latter recently, I was struck by the dearth of substance to the message from the pulpit. Its not that the message was bad, it wasn’t. But if I had to summarize what the message was saying it was basically “be o.k”. Compare this to the 5-week series on eternal life that I just heard, and its hard not realize the disparity. Sure – being ok is a good ideal – and letting go of things that prevent us from experiencing God’s majesty is also good. But just being o.k. is settling for the most basic premise of the Christian life. Additionally being o.k. is great – if by that you mean letting go of sin and that which prompts sinful behavior. However, in this life, there’s always going to be pain, trials, and circumstances that challenge us. Being confidence in God’s faithfulness goes a long way in navigating these circumstances with an eternal perspective, but its never going to make the injustices of this world seem right.

There is a lot of things that are comforting about being a Christian. However, being a Christian is never settling for comfort and becoming complacent. Just being o.k. is doing a disservice to the Gospel, to ourselves, to the Cross and to our Savior. It mocks His sacrifice and causes us to miss the joy and strength that comes from digging deeper and investing more.

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Being Content

Sufficiency


You can have this whole world, but give me Jesus – lyrics from a song, author unfound

Being self-sufficient is a much sought after trait these days. Relationships fail, jobs end, parents divorce, and money runs out. Having our own accomplishments, our own trophies that we can point to give us a sense of pride and a confidence that whatever the world may throw at us we can handle it. We like to know that when all else fails, we can count on ourselves.

As encouraging as this awareness might be, its also wholly false. If we’re honest with ourselves, we know that we are the most frequent culprit of disappointed expectations. We’re never as good, or as nice, or as smart as we want to be. We all have our “D’oh!” Homer Simpson moments. Hopefully these moments are more about finding our remote control in the refrigerator than causing a rift in a relationship, but we all probably have plenty of both to fill a book. Being self-sufficient may seem like a nice ideal, but its an illusion.

Our accomplishments, our work, our achieved goals can no more be counted on during tough times to sustain us, than they could ensure that we would have continued success. When this is all stripped away, when our pride no longer can puff us up to such a degree that we walk on water all our own, what is left to depend on?

For the Christian, then answer is Jesus. And as often as we turn to Him when things are tough, the challenge is to have the same kind of reliance when things are good. While we are accomplishing those goals, reaching those dreams, and loving our relationships, do we daily sacrifice all of it to Him and acknowledge that even if everything is stripped away, we have all we need, because we have Him?

Jonah had to go to the bottom of the whale to learn this truth and even then the lesson didn’t stick. May we learn it while we are still atop dry land.

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