Dont ask the question if you are not ready for the answer
It was the first night of NYMS (North West Youth Ministers Seminar...I know there's no W) and we went to eat with Aaron Redelsperger at the bagdadd (yes I know it's where Don Miller ate at one point in his life...woopty do).Aside from enjoying some good Pizza Aaron, Priscilla and I got into dialog about how to renew our passion for Christ. I asked Aaron what he likes to do to renew his passion and he said, "Time alone with God." I thought to myself well that's not rocket science, but it makes sense, especially since I havent spent a whole lot of dedicated alone time with God.
I also confessed that I thought alone time with God meant reading my Bible and having amazing journal entries. As a matter of fact if I didnt have those two things I felt guilty, like I had jipped God of something. As a result if I felt like my Bible reading wasnt going to be phenomenal or my journal entry many pages long I was failing at "Quiet time." So I just stopped doing that.
Since I was on a roll I decided to confess my immature spirituality to Aaron. Instead of reading the Bible and journaling, often times I would go get a Starbucks and walk on these nature trails at a park near our church building. Ok so VERY OFTEN. I know, it's lazy spirituality. Aarons response was not what I expected. He said, "Dude, that's quiet time with God." As I looked up from squinting eyes expecting a rebuke I found a glimmer of affirmation in Aarons response to my spiritual "immaturity"...Sweet! I like quiet time with God now. And I dont cringe as much when I GET TO open His word. Thanks Aaron!
But then I made the mistake of asking Johno the same question. Instead of giving me an answer of what he does to get passionate he asked me why I asked that question. I said, "I'm Struggling with being Passionate. In my mind I believe in God and Jesus and love them bot (the Holy Spirit too, just to clarify) but in my heart I dont beat with passion for them." What came next was unexpected. Johno said, "It's not that your not passionate Jeb, Your just LAZY!" Really not what I was expecting, but Johno brought new life to my spiritual stagnation.
Johno explained his comment from "the gifts" perspective. "We all have gifts" Johno said, "But we always want somebody elses gift. We are never happy with our own." How does this relate to being passionate for Christ? In this way...we become passionate when we start to use the gifts that God has given us. We preocupy our time (in my opinion in a wasteful manner) with trying to be or do someone elses gift. Could it be that sometimes we are too LAZY to develop our own gifts to serve the Lord & His church with passion because we are not happy with our own gifts. Could it be that passion comes from serving the Lord in ways that he has already created us to serve.
"So its not about not having the passion" Johno said, "It's about not using what God gave you to be passionate!"
I wont elaborate on this point, but what would you do if you were Satan and you knew that if "Joe" Started using his gifts that God gave him he might start doing some damage for the Kingdom of God? This is not a cop out, but maybe Satan makes our gifts look a little rusty and others look really shiny like that BMX bike you always wanted when you had to ride your sisters Strawberry Shortcake bike.
I'm enjoying developing my spiritual gift from God. And guess what, I'm finding a joy again. I'm finding purpose in ministering to others. Most importanly I feel a spark in my heart and it's not heart burn, but the spark that ignites passion. I feel it! I also like to have Coffee with God...Often!
3 comments:
Great thoughts. Maybe it's just me, but this is a long post isn't it? Was it difficult to write it? My guess is that it wasn't. You have a lot to bring to the table Jeb... Thank you for doing so.
peace.
Thanks Johno. I'm not sure that I like how well you know me. Thanks for the encouragement man. Time to stop being Lazy.
Good post. One of my real problems in grad school was that at ACU they seem to have a ministry bias and I believe that english teachers and mechanics are just as important and just as "called" as ministers. Sometimes I think that people want to be in organized ministry because it is a "higher calling," but I personally don't see it. If God calls you to be a ditch digger, you bring as much light to the ditch as you can and you'll be just as "important" as anyone else in the world.
If you are called to drink coffee and hike paths, bring as much light to (or from) drinking and hiking as you can. That doesn't mean it will be easy, and it doesn't mean that God is not pleased when you work really hard to do something that is "not your bag" because it needs to be done and you are the only one in a position to do it, but it does mean that each part of the body of Christ needs to be what it was made to be, 'cause it's really hard to walk on your hands all of the time.
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