Todays Reading: Galatians 4:8 - 5:1 Read the Scripture here: https://biblegateway/passage/?search=Galatians+4%3A8-5%3A1&version=CEB There is not another of Paul’s letter that is as confrontational as this one. The people had gone backward, they regressed in their belief in what Jesus meant to their lives. There is nothing more challenging for a pastor or person than to watch years of hard work turn up empty in a relationship with community or individual. Paul’s hope is that something they wouldn’t expect from him might just work and cause this community to wake up. His words here are tantamount to the use of a pair of electric paddles hoping that he can jump start the Galatians heart back to the rhythm of loving Jesus as the source of their life. Regression is a real issue in the spiritual life. Many of us get stalled for a very long time and walk away from walking with Jesus in practice. Most times, it’s not consciously chosen — we don’t just wake up one day and say, “Jesus doesn’t mean as much to me as he did yesterday, I will go in a new direction.” We do however get worn down by life, grow complacent outside of a group or person that either encourages or challenges us. We do lose sight of walking with Jesus when we feel like we are the only one making a real effort in a family or when the multitude of people pulling at us for time and attention wins over the call of Christ to run away and spend wonderful, lonely time together in relationship. Some never see the way the relationship can be, and not knowing what is possible is as great a deterrent to spiritual progress as all the rest. I don’t suppose that I have seen it all, but I feel I have seen a lot by this point in my life. We live in a time and place where I have thought for a long time reflects an extraordinarily difficult mission field. We have wealth by virtue of the country we live in that reflects for many of us a challenge we are not even aware of. The pursuit to have enough, to be independent, often swallows up the challenge of the life with Jesus to grow more dependent by the day. The two are not automatically at odds, yet it takes a carefully thought out plan to walk with Jesus and grow more dependent on His mercies as we pursue financial security. I will only say this, in many, many parts of the world because the pursuit of financial independence itself is an impossible reality, the invitation to depend on Jesus is more easily ascertained. Young parents have never been pulled by more things. Well meaning endeavors, but pursuits that really pull at our ability to keep Jesus the center of our walk. I have experienced this first hand through our kids and am sure the struggle isn’t over yet. Both Ian and Gracie have had the challenge of being yanked in radical, all-in pursuits of sports. Ian played travel baseball for two years when he was younger. Tournaments almost every weekend, costs that were significant mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. Beth spent parts of two years worshipping early or missing the faith community some to take him. He was often away where I wouldn’t get to be with him. I cried on the day that he was cut from a team (Note: He did not and still loves the game!), and have been grateful every day since as we didn’t realize the toll it was taking on our family let alone our walking with Jesus. It is a game and yet the pull that travel sports has on a walk with Jesus cannot be understated in our culture. I am reminded of the old reflection that all the Enemy has to do is have us distracted to win… Gracie in the same way loved and loves gymnastics. She continually does flips, spins and summersaults in our living room. She is extraordinarily coordinated and was approached about doing travel gymnastics (right at the time we have been thrown a life preserver getting Ian out of the runaway river..) and it was so hard to say, “This is effecting our family’s walk with Jesus, it costs too much spiritually, we shouldn’t do it!” That and the fact that if cost more than 200 dollars a month to simply be on a travel team, required practice from 3:30-7:30, 4-5 afternoons a week and once again weekends away from church. My comments here are not meant to be condemnatory in nature, I have heard the call of the siren that sings to all of us, “If you really love your child enough you will do this.” It is really hard to say, “The time I send with Jesus is more important and more fulfilling than that, I will trust in the gain of allowing Jesus to show me another way…” Challenges in faith communities make for difficulty in hearing the joy of walking with Jesus. I wish every faith community was perfect. Not even one is close! They are all filled with sinners sometimes incapable of self-assessing and seeing their own challenges, egoism and limitations. When faith communities have problems, people rise up and say, “See, I knew life with Jesus wasn’t that special.” If we only understood that a faith community is the proving ground for our faith, we would be better off. It’s the place where we learn to practice loving the one we don’t like (because in Christ we live with this call to live WITH them), sacrificing for the sake of others inside and even those outside whom we haven’t met yet, working toward making bad things good. That exhausting work of perseverance collectively takes all that we have and then some! The faith community is the proving ground for our walking with Jesus, but we tend to see the need for the proving ground to be perfect… it will never be close. It continues to get infiltrated by sick, sinful people seeking healing. Those kinds of folk always challenge a community’s health because they are so needy, so selfish, so caught up and stuck on themselves. Yep, that’s us… Because there is a new community around every corner that pledges their health instead of being a proving ground, some actually think that the movement to a new ‘proving ground’ is what they need instead of actual experience in overcoming challenges of living in the midst of struggles involving egoism, apathy, prejudice, hatred, faithlessness, resources, etc. etc. It’s hard to singularly pursue life with Jesus, it just is. It’s easy to walk away. How blessed are the ones who see every challenge to the relationship with Christ and pursue Jesus at the heart of their life anyways. A message we can never ever hear enough. If you know someone who needs to hear this message today of hope, that we can come back to making Jesus central in our lives, why not reach out to them today. Blessings in Christ who loves us every step of our journey home, John
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 11:08:54 +0000