I was challenged this morning by the thought of breaking away from the norm. (Watching the epic movie Gandhi...epic because it was three hours long and it has taken me a week to finish it.) Also reading more about Christ I get frustrated with how quickly I can slip into the norm of easy going life. I have just turned 30 and I finished reading an article about people who have accomplished great things before they were 30 and thought...boy I have a lot of work to do. Not just for the sake of making me feel better - and certainly not to become famous - but knowing that I have such an incredible responsibility not to waste my life.
I remember when I gave up my dreams of being a police officer/ general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs / actor / pilot and anything else that would make me rich to become a minister I had a very frank conversation with God. I told him that if I was going to serve him as a minister I would die a long painful death if I had to be the quiet nice man around town who just smiled and was happy making rules for seniors citizens.
Funny enough after me wrestling through this prayer I decided to read about Jesus - no holds barred - forget what I knew and just read about him. As I did I found that I think Jesus had made up his mind about the same thing...except for one thing - he lived it constantly.
And here in lies the dilemma. We all make different decisions about who or what we are going to be. We all promise ourselves that we are actually going to use every breath that we get to make it count. Many of us have at one point or another sat down and said enough is enough I am going to change...but then 2 months later we wake up -drive to the nearest Tim's- go to work - come home - have supper - take the kids to something - come home - lay on the couch & watch tv - go to bed...all to repeat this the next day over and over again.
What would happen if we all broke away from this and lived like it mattered. What if we lived like our favorite hero from a book or movie (hopefully it is a good hero - and yeah Batman is just too unrealistic) But what would happen if we broke away from the cycle of watching or hearing about people living their dreams to actually living out our dreams? (If your dream is to own a fast car and mansion in the Caribbean think deeper - one of the shallow features of our culture is that our dreams are centered around attaining wealth rather than using the lives to we have effectively - but that is for another day.)
I still dream about Believers in Christ knowing in their hearts that their thrill or purpose will be found in being sold out to Christ in such a way that we are moved. Sadly I will admit most of my life I have been sold out to Christ in such a way that might evoke a tear or deep thought...but rarely are we truly moved.
I remember when I gave up my dreams of being a police officer/ general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs / actor / pilot and anything else that would make me rich to become a minister I had a very frank conversation with God. I told him that if I was going to serve him as a minister I would die a long painful death if I had to be the quiet nice man around town who just smiled and was happy making rules for seniors citizens.
Funny enough after me wrestling through this prayer I decided to read about Jesus - no holds barred - forget what I knew and just read about him. As I did I found that I think Jesus had made up his mind about the same thing...except for one thing - he lived it constantly.
And here in lies the dilemma. We all make different decisions about who or what we are going to be. We all promise ourselves that we are actually going to use every breath that we get to make it count. Many of us have at one point or another sat down and said enough is enough I am going to change...but then 2 months later we wake up -drive to the nearest Tim's- go to work - come home - have supper - take the kids to something - come home - lay on the couch & watch tv - go to bed...all to repeat this the next day over and over again.
What would happen if we all broke away from this and lived like it mattered. What if we lived like our favorite hero from a book or movie (hopefully it is a good hero - and yeah Batman is just too unrealistic) But what would happen if we broke away from the cycle of watching or hearing about people living their dreams to actually living out our dreams? (If your dream is to own a fast car and mansion in the Caribbean think deeper - one of the shallow features of our culture is that our dreams are centered around attaining wealth rather than using the lives to we have effectively - but that is for another day.)
I still dream about Believers in Christ knowing in their hearts that their thrill or purpose will be found in being sold out to Christ in such a way that we are moved. Sadly I will admit most of my life I have been sold out to Christ in such a way that might evoke a tear or deep thought...but rarely are we truly moved.
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