mediocrity

Aah. In light of my previous post on ambition, and several posts before that on not being a half-and-half person, a forwarded email from Kyle 'The Man' Johnston was particularly timely.

Few people aspire to mediocrity. But they often drift into it because the temptation to cut corners and take the easy route is often not recognized. It’s not recognized because it’s often veiled in the advice to “be reasonable.”

But if you are going to be effective — that is, if you are going to truly serve people well (which is what effectiveness is about), then you can’t settle for being reasonable. You have to go the extra mile.

Read more here

significant others and ambition

the groom (an overachiever of note) told of how he nearly broke things off with my friend because he felt she wasn't ambitious enough. intense! but understandable given the incredible business and personal achievements the groom had racked up in his short life. but then the groom told of how his wife-to-be-then responded, she said "No, you're wrong. I am ambitious. My ambition is to love my neighbour as myself".
BOOM. game over.

- from the lovely Lauren's blog

Confession: if there's anyone who I am more like in the story, it's the groom. Not that I'm that much of an overachiever, but because I'm starting to struggle increasingly more with pride, status anxiety etc...

For a long time, I've thought about who I might possibly end up with one day (if marriage is on the cards), and I've come to realize now that the characteristics I'd listed were along the line of the world's definition of success. Some of my preferences are definitely wisdom choices, but some of them were just.. unimportant, really.

Reading La's friends' story was such a helpful antidote because of the way that the girl so gently and firmly reminds the guy of what priorities are in life.

Here's to ambition, hoorah hoorah. I'm rewriting my list so that it has one thing on it: Main ambition in life must be to be more like Jesus Christ every day.

hate: a thought

So many people think that the commands to Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbour means that the Bible thinks that hate is bad.

Not so.

There are many things we are called to hate. Sin, injustice, prejudice, murder, evil, wickedness, dishonesty, corruption...

Remember this.

an orphan heart versus heart of a son

I had lunch with a friend the other day, and we were talking about our struggles as Children of God. She shared that because of her fractured relationship with her parents, one of her biggest challenges was accepting God was a loving Father, Someone who cared for her deeply, Someone she could rely on in times of trouble and need.

Unfortunately, this is a truth for many of the believers in the world - even more so as families are increasingly falling apart, and the family unit as pictured in the Bible (a happy, loving, godly family unit) is become harder to find.

At this point, I want to point you to my friend Lauren's blog, and a post she recently put up about the Heart of an Orphan versus the Heart of Sonship.

What I love about it is that it compares and contrasts what it's like being a Fatherless child, and a child with a Father. It's not a prescriptive list, but just something useful to think through. e.g., in the category of "Image of God", it has 'See God as Master' for an Orphan, and 'See God as a loving Father' as Son. In the category of 'Self-image', the Orphan has 'Self-rejection from comparing yourself to others' to the Son 'Positive and affirmed because you know you have such value to God.

I think I'm going to print it out and put it up somewhere :) That way, when I fall into the habit of thinking like an Orphan, I can say to myself, No, think like a Daughter!

24 April 2011: The night I decided not to be a Christian anymore - Part 2

I'd never seriously contemplated giving up - I'm no quitter. Especially if someone tells me I can't do something. But something was saying in me, Walk away, you are not good enough, you can't ever please God, you're going to carry on hurting Him, and carry on failing. You're an adultress, an idolater. Against that, another voice was whispering, quieter, stiller, weaker, Just hold on, don't believe the lies, God's grace is sufficient for you. Don't listen to the lies. Hold on.

The song ended, and I left the hall with everyone else. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, and ask them to pray with me, but at the same time, I suddenly realized that this was a battle I had to fight for myself. I felt like Jacob, wrestling with the Lord in the middle of the night. No-one else could be Jacob in my place.

It was a long night in many ways, but a good one. As I sat by the window, looking out at the lights sparkling in the city, I realized two very big things:

1). One of the biggest problems illuminated by this situation was that I make everything about myself. I felt unable to trust my own faithfulness, unable to trust in my own my own power in keeping focused on God. Meanwhile, it's only through God's power that I have come to know Him, and only through His power I will remain in Him. He is the one who provides the power with which I live daily for His glory. No matter how much I mess up, it's not up to me to call the shots - the only one who can ever tell me to quit is God. And He never will.

2). I had cheapened grace. My eyes had turned inwards, towards my sinfulness, away from Jesus and His sacrifice in making me white like bleach before Him. Yes, there are very few human partners who are able to deal with unfaithfulness, but our God is a loving and compassionate God, slow to anger. He is bigger than anything I can thow at Him, and His love for me through Jesus surpasses any of my iniquities, future, past and present.

The decision to walk away from God, as short as it had lasted in 5 minutes, was the best thing that could've happened to me. It's not something that would've worked so well for everyone as a shock into thinking and assessing their lifestyles, but it really opened my eyes to my tiredness of living a half-and-half life. I have realized that as much as I felt that I wanted to live a life without God, I cannot. He is all I have, and all I am. I also was rudely awakened into how at my utmost core, my foundational understandings were shaky, and how I had lost the plot a little.

So, where to now? What have I taken from my experience of seeing a future without God?

If anything, I have a renewed conviction that I must carry on as a Christian, but with a much realistic assessment of my struggles and the temptations I face. I am not completely re-energized - in fact, my sinful desires still have a firm grasp on me, and I am far more drained emotionally after this camp than encouraged. But I feel like I have finally looked at myself in the mirror - it's ugly, but at least now I know what I am dealing with. There are many things I need to work through. And no, I will not be sinfree and faithful the whole time, but God will do immeasurably more than I ask, and He is bigger than I've ever dreamt Him to be. And that is more than sufficient for me.

So, I carry on. Trusting, one step at a time, one minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time. Back to reading His Word and praying. Back to trying. I'm tired of having a non-relationship relationship with the God of the Universe. It's time for the real thing.

24 April 2011: The night I decided not to be a Christian anymore - Part 1

As you can see from a few of my preceding posts, Equip was a really profound time. So how was it that I found myself on the last night, seriously contemplating giving up my walk with Jesus Christ? This is the story. [please read post 1 and 2.]

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As Andrew's talks on Exodus continued, I started re-realizing the awesomeness, the intenseness, the power, the majesty of the Lord God Almighty. I had forgotten this in the last few months (if I'm honest, it's probably more like last year, or last two years). I'd fallen into the trap of making my God tiny, small enough to do my bidding when I wanted to, small enough to do my plans. But as Andrew worked clearly and faithfully through God's relationship with Exodus, my eyes were re-opened. I came to see that there was so much I'd been failing in, and little by little, I became more and more shaken at how I'd drifted away in pursuing a relationship with God.

Two particular points of his talks stand out:

The first, when we reached the Ten Commandments.
Andrew recontextualized these commandments within the framework of a typical human relationship. It's a given that when you enter into relationship with someone, you both spend time figuring out what you both do and do not like (if you don't tell each other directly from the start). For God, it's simple: You don't cheat on me with others, and you don't mess around with my name. Further, with commandments like 'do not murder', God's also saying, Don't mess around with those I have created. With these ten black and white commandments placed in such an everyday, familiar relational context, no longer did they seem unreasonable, illogical, or perplexing, but rather, obvious, a natural consequence, a perfectly reasonable expectation stemming from the objectives of a relationship.

The second, when we reached the part about the golden calf.
Andrew used the example of human relationships again to articulate how ridiculous it is when WE tell God what He is like, instead of letting Him tell us what He is like. Imagine a friend tells you that he only likes milk stout, not beer, not wine, not coffee. Just milk stout. How would he feel if you kept on buying him everything else except for milk stout? And you kept on telling him it was because he liked it? He'd be mad, right? Then why on earth did the Israelites think that God would be happy with their way of worshipping him (the golden calf), when He'd told them how, when, what, how He preferred??? Moreover, as I sat there listening to Andrew, I suddenly realized I'd made a golden calf out of God. I'd told Him to be satisfied with whatever scraps I had left of my heart and time.

As someone who regards her friendships and relationships highly, these two illustrations made a huge impact on me. And so, as I stood up with the others, ready to sing in response to Andrew's talk on the golden calf, I didn't start singing when everyone else did. Instead, I took a long hard internal look at my progress over the last few years. And, I realized that I wasn't going to make it. If I'm honest, I'm already living less convictedly, less passionately, than I was when I first became a Christian. I thought I could see the future, and my future revealed that I am going to be one of those people who twenty years from now will no longer be a Christian - someone who quietly, ever so quietly, just managed to drift off and slip away. Being a Christian was hard, was becoming harder the older I became, and perhaps, was too hard.

Moreover, it wasn't only myself I was worried about for once. Suddenly, considering things from God's side, I came to understand the ugliness of my disobedient sinfulness, of my half-hearted service and love, as well as my adultery in running after things of this world, and my increasing hesitation about letting others know that I am a Christian. What a pathetic life I've been offering to a most amazing King. I felt sickened to the core, as I imagined how it must feel if I loved someone so much to send my son to die for them, only to have them spit in my face. Shame. Guilt. Sorrow. My fault. All, my fault. And I 'm tired of hurting God with my idolatry.

In a spate of seeming logic, two thoughts came together: 1. I hate adultery. I have seen the effects it has on individuals and families, and I made a promise to myself I would never be unfaithful. 2. I am an all-or-nothing person. Therefore, the solution appeared so simple: if I can't guarantee myself that I won't hurt God with my adultery (and I will, for I am sinful and weak every single day), then I must leave God now before I hurt Him anymore. So this is it - it was time for the goodbye. Rather than wasting my time and His, I decided it was time to walk away.

It sounds like foolishness, like madness, like a rash of insanity. But as I stood there, I convinced myself that this was the only honourable thing to do. And as the song ended and the session ended, I walked out of the hall, almost in tears. This was it - my last night ever as a Christian.

Struggling with pride

When I was younger, I used to be far more wotevva about what people thought of me. Now I've come to realize that I struggle with status. As I may have mentioned before, I really like people, which is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that life is far more interesting because people are so fascinating and I enjoy making friends. The curse is that I get far too worried about what people think of me.

Why I bring this up is because I'm going over to England at the end of the year because of a prestigious scholarship. Ever since people have started hearing the news, they look at me slightly differently, and treat me slightly differently.. as though I'm a big deal.

Not helpful, no no. And I've started noticing that in my thoughts and deeds, I'm starting to drink the Kool-aid of their praise.

I told Sophie I'm concerned I'm becoming arrogant and proud. That I'm starting to believe that I am all that.

Sophie, again, was very helpful in this regard: "Do you know the antidote to arrogance and pride? Keep humble by engaging in small acts of menial service for others. Are you washing the dishes? Are you packing out chairs?"

And if I have to be honest, I've stopped helping so much with that. My attitude at church has become one of 'oh I'm too busy doing this, or talking to this person, or sitting on this chair, keeping it warm' or 'someone else should have the opportunity to serve'. These are all valid points in themselves in certain contexts, but in my situation, I use them over and over again to get out of everyday drudge work. If I'm honest, sometimes my attitude has become: 'I've served enough already; it's time for other people to serve me'.

Ooh. When did church become about me, me, me. When did my response to Jesus' sacrifice become 'what more can I get for myself out of this?'

Back to washing dishes then :)