So this is my birthday wisdom, by the way. It has a theme of time, so I thought that was a good title.
Becoming Holy
I always knew that becoming holy was a life long venture. There's always some attitude, sin, ambition that needs to be removed or reworked for God. After I'd finally convince myself that now is the time to correct a certain aspect, it would usually go away or improve quite a bit. For example, I wanted to remove the default attitude and action of complaining. For two or so weeks, I'd be successful. I'd stay joyful and content, trying to find the good in everything, or at least not complaining about the bad. But then after a while I'd catch myself complaining. Perhaps while talking to someone at FOCUS or core, even more often at work (being in a world that loves to complain). This would usually get me down, to some degree it should, but I started thinking, "Is this never going to go away?"
After ready Every Man's Battle I started to learn that, although God wants us to remove sin and become closer to Him, that it's not going to be an overnight change. That it takes about six weeks to break a habit and to replace it with a new one. It's not instant, but it's not really all that long either.
Dating
Growing up in middle school and high school, if I was single and liked a girl, we'd be dating within the next month. It was probably due to being the coolest, most charming guy ever to grace Cedar Park. (That last sentence should be read oozing with sarcasm.) Once I got to college, that all disappeared. My pursuit to find a girlfriend quickly overran my pursuit to grow close to God. The fellowship dating talks (and various other things) reminded me that I'm just 22 (and 8752/8760ths). That I have a long time before I really should want to get married, and that for right now, fellowship dating is all that I need.
Two main differences between fellowship dating and the way that I used to date: physical contact, and conversational conjoining. (That's a great term right there.) Both of which would be best if saved for my spouse. I don't need to be married by 25. I need to grow closer to God and if I meet a girl along the way that's fine, if I don't, according to Paul, that's even better.
Serving
I wait for somebody to plan a service project, then if it fits my schedule, and I don't mind doing it all that much, I go. God doesn't really want us to be sitting down all the time. We are told to do what's best, not just what's good. But I end up valuing my comfort over somebody else's needs. Not only should I jump at opportunities to serve (and do so with a joyful heart), but I should be initiating my own service projects.
These service projects don't need to be five hour trips to a homeless shelter every time, although sometimes that is what's called for. Helping out somebody locally is an often overlooked aspect of serving. But the key is just to serve somewhere. Stop waiting and go!
Evangelizing
Self-comfort is Satan's greatest tool. We are told to go out and make disciples and to teach them to obey everything that Jesus commanded. The teaching them to obey part might take a while, even the making disciples part might take some time, but there is one part that I can do right now: go. When I'm at work, how often do I walk around to people's offices to start up a purposeful conversation? Maybe once or twice a week to the same person. There's even a guy (I don't know his beliefs or reasons) that does that, but I never return the favor. For all you school kids, how often do you go on campus to meet people and actually do it? I know that while in school I went on campus to meet people several times, but only thrice did I actually do it.
We often pray for opportunities to meet people and reach out to them, or if we're a little bit wiser we might pray that we see the opportunities that God has already given us. But I think we see a lot of those opportunities and we choose not to take advantage of them for the sake of our self-comfort. We question, "what will they think of me?", "will they think I'm just another religious person pushing my beliefs on to them?", or any number of other self-doubting excuses. What we have should be overflowing our cup, that we can't help but tell everybody about it.
7 comments:
ok I feel kinda dumb. Please clarify: "conversational conjoining"?
Also, I feel kinda the same way about dating with respect to transition from high school to college, however I think there is slightly more to it than just a change in attitude, but also in the expectations of dating. In high school or junior high, it didn't really matter who you dated, so there wasn't any real impetus keeping you from dating, whereas now, a lot of us see dating as possibly finding a life long mate, which has a lot more pressure associated with it. In a way, fellowship dating seems, at least to me, to be getting back to the mindset of jr high/high school without the associated immaturity and hormonal overload.
regarding "becoming holy": this is something I wonder about. On the one hand, I've always kinda espoused the rhetoric that God *is* making us perfect, but it's a process that only ends once we reach heavenly perfection (aka die a physical death)...which should theoretically mean that when we die, we're on the precipice of perfection. But what if I die tomorrow? It's a distinct possibility, but I am no where close to what I would consider "perfection." So that must mean I'm not trying hard enough...or something. I don't know, just kinda throwing out thoughts as they come to me.
Good stuff, and happy birthday again!
By "conversational conjoining" I mean building connections with someone through deep or emotional conversations. You might also term this as "best friend"ing someone.
i'll comment on serving. today i took out the recycling for some friends of mine. i had been wanting to something for them for a while. it was nice and good to force myself to think about how i can influence my own attitudes about service, and be kind to others.
i guess what i'm trying to say is that is that service should be thought out, we shouldn't wait for someone to initiate it for us. also, service should become a mindset not just an after thought.
Regarding the serving and evangelizing, I agree that we ought to be proactive in making these happen, rather than waiting for other people to tell us to do it. It seems kind of strange, but for some reason there's a tendency to do both of those when asked to (especially if asked in person), but when encountering the same opportunity on our own, there's not as much drive to do it. Perhaps this reveals an attitude that seeks to please men rather than to please God.
My thoughts about dating have changed dramatically in the past few years. It used to be I saw dating a big deal, and if you asked someone out, then you stuck with them until you either broke up or got married. Hearing about fellowship dating in FOCUS really changed my views on that, and I'm glad I'm in a community where people don't have to feel much pressure when asking someone out or getting asked out on a fellowship date.
Thanks for the wisdom. Thumbs up!
On serving: Perhaps we too often think of serving others as some one time act or that I have to out of my way to serve others. While going out of your way to serve someone is certainly called for sometimes (going to Buckner or NTFB) there are probably far more recurring opportunities we overlook. As Matt talked about, taking out someone's recycling (or trash) is a nice easy way to serve them. This is super easy to incorporate into normal life: I'm bringing my trash to the dumpster so I knock on my neighbor's door, tell them I'm going, and ask if they have anything they'd like me to take for them. Perfect, normal, way to start a relationship with your neighbor and help them. I usually have a hard time noticing opportunities like that, something to work on.
I have a question about service: does it have to be something out of our comfort zone?
I often find myself desiring to do something special for my roommates and others but I hardly ever feel compelled to go and serve somewhere like NTFB. What is my reason for serving? I think it should be more of a life-style than a "thing we do" or "go to". If I live out service then perhaps I'll find myself at Shoes for Orphan Soles or something of that nature or I may find myself cooking a breakfast for friends on Easter morning.
On evangelism, I'm honestly ashamed at how ineffective I've felt this semester and past year in general. I'm on the evangelism committee and have not, even once, gone out this past school year to do contact evangelism. I have made opportunities to share my faith with one non-believer consistently (more because we are friends and its what we like to talk about) but that's about it. I keep asking myself if this will change if I were at a place other than UTD-- say Western Washington University. The answer is I doubt it. I've just become too complacent and comfortable (ie, "neutered") in my place here at UTD.
I guess I wonder how do we get out of our comfort zones on a consistent basis? Yeah its great to do once but what about more than that? Do I seek out comfort and passivity or do I seek out being a disciple? I don't think the two fit well together.
But what now?? Don't I need to change something? I don't feel any push toward doing so, just a bit of guilt and a knowledge that I should change. I know a feeling isn't needed for change to occur but man I want one! =/
Becoming holy is definitely hard. There is no way that we can do it by ourselves. We do not have the power to become holy and our own willpower only goes so far. So I'd say that the power to become holy comes only from God. We absolutely need him if we are to have any chance. I know that when I get frustrated with things my focus isn't where it should be. I focus would be trying to think of things I could do to overcome or change whatever the problem is. Weeks where I'm constantly going to God for power are the the more successful ones. I think where your focus is is everything. Where are you going for the power to change yourself?
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