Come apart or, well, come apart
October 12th, 2009 by Dan
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the Christian faith is under deep spiritual assault in our day. I am not talking about the headlines that chronicle political and cultural changes. I am talking about personal conversations with pastors, friends, missionaries, and others who are seeing havoc being wreaked in their ministries right now. Why? Nothing new; marital divisions, family breakups, impurity, greed. All the usual suspects.
All of this need fuels my desire to be a fix-er. My desire is to ride in and try to be the cavalry. Except for one thing; the cavalry rides unarmed. We – and I feel this personally – go into battle weak, weary, tempted and inadequate for any kind of real spiritual battle. If we do not go in the strength of the Cross, boasting of our weakness -we will surely ride in vain and become statistics ourselves. At least I will.
And so, at this time of great spiritual assault, I think I need to go and meet with Jesus, and get some rest, and realign myself with Who actually is doing the riding, and the delivering, around here.
The great enemy of true Christian spiritual formation today is, in my mind, how busy we are. And how busy we think we need to be. Busy-ness is a synonym for idolatry in me. Being busy makes me feel important; irreplaceable – in short, God-like.
The busier I get, the less effective I think I become. Certainly, the less like Jesus I think I become.
I need a Sabbath rest from myself. I need a Sabbath rest from my workaholism. I need a Sabbath rest from my driving need to be useful, important, significant.
And I might just get one; sort of. The staff of our church are all going to a conference together. We are driving together, hanging together, learning together. Building some community, some team, some fun and some reality into the surreal overdrive that is ministry today.
Jesus said to us come apart and rest awhile. I think I need to come apart, lest I come apart.
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