we were talking about what honesty might look like for the church in small group recently (it actually came up a couple of times while reading the great divorce by c.s. lewis). how when someone asks me what i do, i should really say how i often get frustrated with life, angry with others and how sometimes i yell at my husband, despite how much i love him. because, honestly, these things are much more likely to happen than me eating strawberries on a hot summer day (unfortunately).
so here is my attempt at being real. and it's pretty embarrassing.
this morning i was having my quiet time and i read luke 6:20-26. you know, the part where Jesus is like "blessed are the poor and the hungry, and woe to the rich and to the satisfied". i mean, those are some really convicting words. or at least they should be. but for me, this morning, for whatever reason, they weren't. rather i read them and was like "piece of cake, i got this down...man, i feel sorry for all these rich american christians who AREN'T going to live in a slum..." can we say incredibly smug and self-righteous? go ahead, say it. because it's true.
well, Jesus saw me coming from a mile (and some 2000 years) away because i continued to read through the chapter and not even 15 verses later, in luke 6:37-42 Jesus says the famous, "why look at the speck of sawdust in your brothers eye when you have a ridiculously large plank in your own eye" (italics, mine). and at this point i felt incredibly convicted that we are rich, too. we are satisfied. i have never been hungry, except by choice. and all of these things.
i've been having a hard time staying awake for my quiet times lately, so i decided to go running to think this through. as i was dying in the heat and trying to beat my running time from yesterday (i don't know why i do that to myself...) i realized that i have thought/felt/been every emotion about my calling to the urban poor than what i should be. grateful. i've felt frustrated, angry, jealous, self-righteous, unworthy, unable, you name it. but i have barely, if ever, sat down and actually thanked God that He has called me to live among the urban poor abroad. and that's what i should be doing all along. this is not a choice i have made, this is something i am called to, a blessing i have been given. i am so lucky, because i get to spend at least the next three years among the urban poor of asia, living with them, learning from them and serving amongst them. i am so privileged! and not because i earned it, or because i'm able, or because God wants to deny me the comforts of living the "american dream" but rather because He called me and He is allowing me the great privilege of being used by Him.
so that's what i need to strive for. being grateful and being honest. i'm not quite sure what this will look like...
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on another note, i may be a horrible person, but this makes me laugh.
additionally, at small group, discussing how to best care for yourself and the difference between being self-caring and selfish, this comment was made:
N: i wonder what people like mother theresa and martin luther king, jr. did to relax and be self-loving. i mean, they weren't always doing great things...
M: shane claiborne is in town this week, you should ask him what mother theresa did, since he met her.
N: i bet she was like "shane, you, me, 5 hour law and order marathon."
and, one last, unrelated, thought: has general mcchrystal ever seen almost famous? because maybe he should have before speaking with rolling stone. he might have avoided this whole mess.
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now, if you excuse me, i must go remove this plank.
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