21 Days to a New You!
"If you are a Christian, you may want to remind your face."
These words raced through my mind as I made my way up the concrete stairs toward the seminary that sits at top of the hill. Why is it that many Christians seem so unhappy and oppressed in Spirit and dead? I am not suggesting that people are to act like they have been dipped in Jeezusy gook, but I do often wonder where is the joy? As I passed one future Christian leader after another the blank, energy-drained faces and bodies occupying space mesmerized me. I finally put one future Christian leader into cardiac arrest by saying, "GOOD MORNING!" As I hummed the words made famous by Jim Morrison, "People are strange…hmmm, mmm, mmm"
I was confronted with the following:
"Pray for those you wish to criticize." Ouch. I don’t want to pray for those folks, I want to shout "COME ALIVE!" I realize that my judgement in many ways is extremely unfair. I would have not had the same reaction on the campus of a hospital.
This reminded me of something I read from Jean Vanier this morning. The folks in the hospital are more visible; for other folks their pain is often hidden; their fear, their egoism, their hardness of heart, their pride, self-satisfaction, their inability to listen, and I would add wounds and brokenness.
Who is the person that you cannot stand? Who rubs you the wrong way? A boss, neighbor, or church member? My friends in recovery would tell me to pray for this person for 21 days. Pray that God will give them everything that I want for my life. I have done this and it is transformative. It transforms me into a person of God.
People really are strange, epescially when I am a stranger. Praying makes them known.
3 Comments:
there's nothing that i like more than being geeked about life & the opportunity that being that way creates w/others...
they constantly ask what's wrong w/me or what i've been taking...
why be normal when you can be strange?
i too long to shake the walking dead into a state of awakedness...only problem is, is that i depend only on myself to do the shaking...
may God, through my own humble intercession, rattle these dry bones into activity that perpetuates vibrant life...everlasting...
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my first thought after reading your beginning was from thoreau: *the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.*
how do we respond to that desperation? prayer should be a natural response (because His strength is made perfect in weakness, even others')
i spoke about joy the other day and mercy. only got about 4 responses, if that. it is amazingly complicated because we make it so; i just want to radiate joy.
i am going to not only pick that one person who drives me batty (probably helen) and pray for her for 21 days, but also pray that God gives me joy, even in the midst of all of the chaos.
ty for a thought-provoking thread (again)...
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