Monday, November 24, 2008

The endless routine


I can Identify with Paul in Romans 7 when he says "the things I want to do I don't, and the things that I don't want to do I end up doing." It is so easy to slip into auto pilot and allow life to happen to us rather than than to make the most of every opportunity. I love the Christmas Story Movie. Especially the part where Flick licks the flagpole in freezing weather. I remember being dared to do that as a child, never actually did it but got close. Sometimes I feel like I do things like that in life- only to find myself doing the same thing all over again on a routine basis.
What I find myself not doing is living everyday like Jesus is who he said he is, and that every promise he made he is good for. I tend to slip into the routine of doing things my way and all of a sudden a week or more is gone, my relationship with God is diminished to the prayers before meals and bed and my communication with him is doing that 10-15 minutes I am "supposed" to do as a a Christian to not feel guilty. Did I want this to happen? Absolutely Not! Does it happen? More often than I would like to admit.

If you read through chapter 7 and get to chapter 8, you find that we are actually closer than we think to getting out of this routine. Paul is actually saying there is nothing "you" can do about it! What he does say is the first huge step toward getting someplace in this spiritual journey is to come to the conclusion that we are helpless and as humans will always make mistakes. Chapter 8 begins to show us that it is the Spirit of God within us that has the only ability to get us out of these routines and spiritual funks we end up in.

The challenge is not to take the traditional approach to this, this being: feeling really guilty and falling into a broken heap on the floor lamenting on how big of a sinner we are and figuring out some sort of penance to alleviate the guilt. The way of letting the spirit lead is to look at ourselves and say "of course I messed up" "I was in charge, I was leading and I will always lead myself down a destructive path." So instead of wallowing in guilt- I simply get up off the ground and with confidence rejoin the journey and begin to look for areas to let the spirit of God lead me. And know I will mess up again, but if the spirit is leading me- I like my chances!

Its not about working harder and being more spiritual, its about recognizing my weakness and surrendering myself to a Holy God, who loves me with an everlasting love and wants nothing but the best for me.

So Hi, my Name is Joel, and I'm a mistake-aholic... and I'm OK with that.

Looking forward to what God has in store!

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