Thoughts From a Sleepless Thursday Morning

I was woken up this morning at 7:45 by a text message I received. Normally I put my phone on silent when I go to sleep but I was expecting a call this morning, but I was thinking more in the 11-12 range. Instead, 7:45. So I laid in bed for a while, couldn't go back to sleep, got up, played some Battlefield: Bad Company 2, then got bored with it so I figured I'd do some writing. Haven't done it in a few weeks and there are some things on my mind.

First off, I have a job. At least I'm on a test run for a job. I'm going to be working with the sports ministry at Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Madison, which is really exciting for several different reasons. I'm getting a chance to work with some close friends, I'm getting a chance to work in ministry, I'm getting a chance to work around sports, and…money. It's not about the money and it's not much money, but it's a start. So I'm excited for that.

Next, I've got a cool opportunity to start playing music with some pretty cool guys. I'm playing a little banjo, a little guitar, and doing a little singing. We're apparently working on writing some stuff and I have some ideas bouncing around in my mind, but true to form I'm dealing with some extreme frustration in getting those ideas from my brain to paper in a form that is singable or poetic or whatever. But either way I'm having a great time with it.

I've realized something about myself that is a bit disheartening and it ties in with something that I have been dealing with through my classes in seminary. Last night I was doing some praying and was thinking about Psalm 139:23-24, which reads:

"Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!"

So every now and then when you pray things God answers you. Crazy how that works. Through a few situations last night God put it on my heart that I try to find ways to be miserable. It's like when things are going well I try to find something to be jealous about or focus on something I don't have rather than the gifts I have been given. That's not exactly a great thing to realize about yourself, but coming to that realization is a pretty significant thing. And I started to think to myself…"what am I doing to take control of these thoughts and situations to make them better?" Which is where it ties in to some of the things I've been dealing with through class. For several years I've had my own ideas about sanctification - and by that I mean the process of becoming holy. More Christlike. That kind of thing. Whether it came from bad teaching or my own faulty interpretation I came to realize that this process is not something that just happens. It's not something that we just sit around and wait for the Spirit to move and then we're just magically more like Christ. I mean, there is a certain aspect of sanctification that is up to the Spirit, but I'm starting to realize it's a cooperative process and I mean in more ways than just making yourself available. We are to crucify our flesh, and I realized that instead of taking an active fight against the sin in my life, I've been buying in to the "Let Go and Let God" mentality, and I just don't think that is entirely Biblical. Again, there is some truth to it, but I think with the way that it's taught in a lot of circles right now is just leading to this lazy, passive Christianity that isn't really Christianity at all. That's another topic for another day, but the point of this is just the realization that our faith is not a noun. It's not just this thing that we have that we just kind of sit around and hope it grows. It's more of a verb than anything - it's something we do, something we have to tend to every day. I'm coming to this realization and it's rocking my world more or less. I think part of what I'm talking about can be explained like this. Imagine a couple - a guy and a girl. They want to be Christians, they want to be holy, but they are in love (or whatever) and do what people in love do. Now, they may pray on their own (or even together) that they would be pure with God and pure with each other, they may be "presenting" it to God, but the fact is if they are constantly finding themselves in situations where it's just the two of them alone in a dark room at night, eventually they're going to slip up. That's just how people are wired. James tells us in 1:22-25:

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

I can't just sit around and hear the great things the Bible says and then just blow them off. God's Word demands a response - I have to act on it. For example, the couple in the aforementioned illustration has to understand 1 Corinthians 6:18. They have to hear it. But not only that, they have to DO it. And it's like that with every passage in the Bible - it demands a response. People don't encounter Jesus and then sit around and wait for the Spirit to move.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts on a restless morning. Maybe I'll get a chance this afternoon to catch up on some sleep but I'm not holding my breath.

William C. Rowlen (that's how I sign things sometimes…ha)