Today is Day Two. Having spent most of yesterday reading through Psalms, walking along the beach in Newport, praying, reading Tom Garasha's book, Vital Signs in which he speaks of those things in our lives that fill and drain us, as well as those leaks we develop, I was once again feeling quite inadequate to the task to which God has currently called me. The task is large. The District is large. The leaders in our EFCA churches are wonderful and, at the same time, quite capable of being thoroughly exasperating. I find myself agreeing with Gore Vidal, "There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise." And then I remember that they probably have felt the same way about me in the course of our interactions.
Who wants to spend three days being reminded how much further I have to go? Impatience, lack of humility, anger, quick to judge. I've known Jesus for over 30 years. When will I be finished? Then a few minutes ago I read a quote from Eugene Peterson from his book, Reversed Thunder. "No person we meet from the moment we open our eyes in the morning till we shut them in sleep at night is finished." Isn't that part of the good news? We are new creations in Jesus Christ who are capable of being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. This side of eternity, none of us, including me, is ever finished. But as Paul wrote the church at Philippi, "Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
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