Saturday, November 24, 2007

WHAT KEEPS US GOING?

How do we do life....life in the church, in the workplace, on the streets? How do we keep going? Shouldn't we have worn thin by now? Shouldn't we have tossed in the towel with hundreds (even thousands) of others who could no longer stand to endure another day of church?

How do you keep going? Sunday by Sunday I feel less and less. Tomorrow I have a sermon to deliver and I fiercely struggle to step up to the pulpit. I love God and all of Memorial. I am the luckiest man I ever heard about or met! Yet, the sheer load of standing between God and humanity and saying something worth the time of both makes me wince.

How do you keep going? Does it ever occur to you that you have nothing to bring to the table? I'm not feeling God is out of words or ideas. My intake of nothingness is ever increasing and it takes much, much more faith to keep going. For a few years I thought I was the bright star for whatever church I happened to be serving. Later, I began to realize I was much dimmer than imagined. Later still, I am ever-growing to realize my worth is only found in whatever He would choose to let me do.

Such feels contradictory: nothing yet enough, little but big enough, lacking but strong enough. To experience His grace in our bodies is to be positioned over and over and over as the lame man when he heard Jesus tell him to get up and walk. We do. We leap. We dance. We whoop and holler. But we can't explain why except that He passed by and saw us.

What keeps us going? Never our own creativity or masterful organization. It is His gigantic healing touch which makes weak hearts brave and knocking knees strong enough to bow in prayer. Tomorrow we will all do well....only if He shows up. Oh God, please don't leave us alone; don't leave us to ourselves. Only with You are we ever all right.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

When Jesus touches us, He gives us the energy to serve. I.e. Peter's mother-in-law. You know the story.

Stoogelover said...

I finally discovered the key in my life was not to confuse "church" stuff with what God was actually doing. We can burn out quickly on programs that have little, if anything, to do with what God is doing all around us.

Anonymous said...

Terry: You sound like me. I have found my God-life and my church-life at such odds in recent times. It is hard to keep going. God is the only reason. His grace and love for me keep me going. You don't stand between God and humanity, Jesus already did and does! You are an instrument, a farmer so to speak. Keep mulching, weeding, and fertilizing so God can reap his harvest! Love you, Lynn