I'VE DONE SO MUCH OF MY WORK ALL BACKWARDS

I want to share with all readers just what it is that's making me tick as I write articles day after day.

I'm not depressed.  I'm surely not mad at the church.

I'm learning.

I'm learning that much of my work turns out to be human both in direction and energy.  At this ripe age I am still learning about God.  And....I hope this trend does not change.

I am not embarrassed that much of my work appears embarrassing.  It's been good for me to learn the hard way.  A great surprise to my desire to control matters--all matters--has been that if I was to stay in this work; of necessity I would have to learn to not get my way.  Not easy.

On the slant of Paul's comments regarding not doing what he wished and doing what he didn't wish, I find myself being criticized for things I didn't do and not getting the criticism for the things I did do.  We live a strange life when it comes to the kingdom path.

Stronger than ever before, I feel the call into the greater truth in the church.  I don't sense superiority for I possess none.  But I sense His leadership for us.  This will mean things will--yet again--be found to be different. 

Would not the very meaning of maturity surely possess the concept of anticipated change?

We live in a church world of yappers and harpers.  Does Jesus' ministry ring a bell here?  My past is marked with return volleys of yap and harp.  Jesus, on the other hand, dished back at times what came his way, but mostly looked at the need for compassion, risked assault from the religious, and showed us how to move through a needy society.

He works all backwards to my work forward.  While I'm not discouraged, I am very challenged.  More than ever I can tell I've spent much of my ministry shifting with the whim-winds of the church.  Shift--in many places I should--but on the basis of the call of the Spirit and not from the perpetual desire to escape the ridicule of any who are in the same religious rut as me.