Something is happening to me, something that is coming, coming a little bit at a time. It happens when I wake up for work and begin that morning drive, it happens when I get home and check my mail, when I pay my bills, when I hang out with friends, and when I think and pray to God about my future. It is something that seems so subtle, but there is satisfaction there, in doing something, in having some purpose, some meaning, and in knowing that whatever God has for me will come in its time, that he is still preparing me, always preparing me for the next step, my next step, my next leap of faith. Sometimes I am challenged by his word, other time by seeing others actions, and other times by conversations with good friends, friends who know me, who see me in a way that others do not see me - they do not see me as just a minister, as just a worker, as just a son or brother - they see me as a friend, because there is some mutual interest there, they see me because I see them as well, and that is what a friend is, someone who is there, someone who shares in your struggles, who makes time for you though lives get busy. Friends are those whom we choose and who have chosen us, no bond by blood but by interest and the real ones dig deep into our souls and we into theirs, sometimes bringing out the best and other times making us confront those parts of us we wish to keep hidden, those parts we wish to ignore, those parts of self that confuse us, the ones we hide from and try our best to hide from others.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the future and how peoples perceptions of who I should be actually matter very little. People want you to always have a happy face and hide your true feelings and doubts because people want things tidy, they want things nice, most people prefer to hide their true selves and their problems. I am not that person and fight every chance I get when put into those situations where I feel I have to act in a “political” way. I try to be humble and not to be swayed to be something I am not even when the popular opinion may go the other way.
Ministers wear suits and stand up in front of congregations pray in grandiose ways and sway people with their great rhetoric and charismatic behavior, many even loose themselves in the midst of their job and congregations, forgetting who they are, getting burnt out trying to please everyone and be there to comfort everyone... but we are vessels and each is different, and each is broken if it is bashed too hard, if you try to put too much heat under it, or drop it on the ground so many times.
Ministers and people are supposed to entertain those around them, telling wonderful stories and having so much energy that others are attracted to them, others want to be around them, and if they are a Christian then that connection can be used to suck people into their views, persuade them to do what they are doing. They are loud and everyone hears them... but not everyone is that way… I am not that way. Where is the voice of those who cannot shout, where is the voice of those who are drowned out by those shouting who never give anyone else a chance to speak, who are so consumed by hearing their own voice they never consider what others desire, what others say, what others are struggling with.
Why is noise so much better than silence? Why are those who are charismatic and entertaining held up in such high regard to those who sit in silence? Maybe we need to learn to sit in silence, to hear the sounds of what is going on around us, to feel the gentle breeze, and maybe, perhaps somehow in there, we will hear the voice of God as well - not among the fire, great rushing waters, or earthquakes - but in the calmness. When life is quieted and God calls us forward once again out of the noise, out of the chaos; calls us to sit and listen, kneel and pray, or stand up and praise.
When did we loose our focus on simplicity and replace it with more is best.. more more more, doing more, being more, stretching more, stretching so far we feel our self about to break. So busy we try to do everything and find we have no time at all, the quantity remains but the quality of life has left us somehow, left us behind on the road of life, we see and smell the dust as it goes down the road, further and further away. Then, it is gone in the distance and we sit there, sit there wandering what we have done with our life. How did we get so far away? How did we become so distant? How did we become so confused? When did we become two or more people and how can we become one again? Sometimes feeling left by Christ and other times knowing the realization that it is us who left him when we forgot who we are, who he is, and how we let the darkness creep in and the light fall away. How do we bring that light back? How to we change inside so it shines outside?
... Something is happening to me. It happens when I wake up for work and begin that morning drive, it happens when I get home and check my mail, when I pay my bills, when I hang out with friends, and when I think and pray to God about my future. It is something that seems so subtle, but there is satisfaction there, in doing something, in having some purpose, some meaning, and in knowing that whatever God has for me will come in its time, that he is still preparing me, always preparing me for the next step, my next step, my next leap of faith...
~ Daniel
Article:
http://www.sodahead.com/question/393843/if-you-have-faithwhen-did-you-receive-it/
Pic:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrJd_T2PW1DbMZY0gXPj0ykVmmcyRaCaJ6EAFeIOpgQLAlppJm6FJ93237NXfsPRZ3jN2RBWeqcNbfZ0L9xLZ7A9QCyXNG9pXaIButQRasIYzl_k790ypaT_wv8oYeoegr-t6DJbjK6cy/s320/old-town-stairs-big.jpg
