God on a dirt road walking toward me...

i think there are two ways the sword of Christianity grows dull and ineffective, failing to inspire even the most stalwart of warriors...



the first way is the most obvious: overkill and undercare. (okay, so i made that word up...) i know most of us are aware of the dangers of becoming religious theologans instead of faithful pursuers of the heart of Christ. it's easy to become caught up in the traditional legalism that binds one to good works, weekly church attendance, and wordy prayers at youth group. God becomes more distant the more we take His word to use as a ruler to measure the 'success' of our walk as Christians. the more we achieve overkill in our religious diligence, the more we absorb a careless attitude bred from thoughtless repetition...

for those of us brought up in the Church, we may not know anything else. we are born into scheduled worship practices, calculating the percent of our tithes, and memorizing several scriptures a week for some kind of material reward (anything from lollipops to stickers on a card). most of us are not familiar with the agony caused by a life of sin, of the dark hopelessness that disolves into utter surrender and tearful belief when the Good News says all can be forgiven. we can't see how good we have it when we've never had anything less.

true, when we first begin the race, at age 4 or 5 in a sunday school class of our peers, our shoes are tightly laced and we're in perfect stride, running with all reserves of energy tapped as if to finally break the record we've been waiting for so long to defy. we all start out with the unavoidable fire that burns in our hearts and lights our eyes, that causes this relentless pursuit of this beautiful, mysterious God whom we have always known, but have just now accepted as a friend, a lover, a father. that's what the Good News does to a believing soul.

but somewhere between the church bulletins and bake sales, we forget the freshness of our discovery, the newness of hope that we have a life to live forever with the only One who was willing to die for our sins, the unbelievable second chance to live again and love just as we were first loved.

religious ferver
begets
fervent repetition
begets
repetitious tradition
begets
traditional boredom
begets
bored-in-church-my-butt-hurts-and-why-is-the-paster-still-talking-the-big-game-is-on...



the second way sounds intrinsically contradictory, but it's not. it's really just about diving in too deep and forgetting how to splash in the shallow end. it's about delving into matters such as speaking in tongues, prophecying, and finding a spouse and letting go of the simplicity of forgiveness: love everyone as Christ first loved us. it's getting in over our heads by swimming into the deep water of spiritual maturity while others who barely know how to float are left behind at the shoreline, unsure of how to begin without a friend to guide them...


i love Donald Miller for breaking out of both dead ends (or perhaps he never reached one to begin with, i do not know). i love that his honest, unsheltered writing gives me the chance to start over, to begin my journey anew. as he writes and i read, i can feel the crust around my heart begins to crack and flake off, revealing layers of an urgent desire to return to the simple and the new. given the eyes of a 10 year discovering willful sin and temptation and the guide of the Holy Spirit as a conscience, i feel like i can begin again, like i can finally go back to how it all started:


God, on a dirt road walking toward me,
and i, running as fast as i can to meet him...