For most of my life I have had it in my mind I wanted to be somebody. I mean I wanted to be a big, known somebody. To simply be Terry Rush wouldn't be enough. I needed to be at the top; or at least pretty near. When I became a Christian nothing changed. I wanted to do Christianity at the top.
Zig Ziglar's book See You At the Top was written to build Terry Rush's momentum. In addition, Leadership Conferences were magnets. What we needed in the church were dynamic and intensely influential leaders. That call had a great ring to it.
It got into my head that I was among the best speakers and surely my insight to living was rather, shall we say, superior? I not only read lots of books, I wrote a few. I was a wheeler/dealer, buyer/seller, acquirer/trader of spiritual goods...all in my own mind of course. Surely no one other than my mom was as impressed with me as me.
And that drive held on to me for my first 50 years. The last 16, however, have taken a drastic turn.
I blame it on Jesus.
Jesus shifted from a name that closed out my prayers to a strong friend who became truly real day in and day out. He didn't walk the roads of fame and glory. Rather he reflected Light from above onto the down and out. Jesus kept side-stepping notoriety by giving credit to Father.
It wasn't like Jesus kept this a secret for he unloaded these goods in his originating sermon; but he surely upset my apple cart when he presented the terms of authentic (upside down and backward) power. Power? Now we are talking. Except....
Power...real, authentic, leadership-conference-worthy power...came in confusing forms. He said it came in the poor in spirit; I thought it was the confident. He said traits like mourning and meek and merciful were top-o-the-line kingdom dynamics.
Wait a minute! What about leadership? Skills? Persuasiveness?
Jesus didn't deny any of them. He rerouted them. Leaders are to be the very best as followers. Talent is not the self-groomed but the Spirit-driven.
Rosa Parks may be properly celebrated (as she had a great cause) for refusing to go to the back of the bus, but God spent a significant amount of energy trying to get me to move back there, sit down, and be quiet. Jesus knows life. It turned out that I knew a bit of flesh tactics. And the best of these I had to offer were like wet notebook paper; useless.
The Jesus style, it turns out, isn't in line with the best-of-Terry style. He has a way of disarming the ego-ambitionilistic. While his way is so drastically different than what I had assumed effectiveness in the church would be, his way is THE way, THE truth, and THE life.
Dare to change the world; not by becoming the next latest and greatest. Dare to change the world by decreasing within that Jesus may increase. Such moves are still needed....in all of us.
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