I'm reading Blue Like Jazz right now which is a book I've been wanting to read for quite awhile. I'm also reading through Colossians as that's what Gregg is preaching on. I'd rather read Blue Like Jazz. I hate that I look at reading through Colossians as a have to, not a want to. Blue Like Jazz and the book I just finished, Martha to Max, have both pointed out how performance based life usually is. I so often do things because I should do it or because I need to do it, with all the shoulds and needs coming from somewhere deep in my brain that wants to keep from disappointing or doing the wrong thing. And half the time I don't think I even know who or what I'm worried about disappointing. I am a "driven" person and I think that's part of that personality trait. Anyway, Blue Like Jazz and Martha to the Max have both cut to the point of what is needed in life and that needed thing is often not even closely related to the thoughts that swirl around in my mind. (And gasp! Reading Colossians so I can proudly say I'm in step with our minister or so I can check it off my to do list for God is not what is needed!)
The truth is we live in a fallen world where people when left to their own devices are selfish, where people choose to do things that serve their own needs be it overt and obvious like being closefisted with our money or simply subconscious desires like not wanting to disappoint. And at the same time, our hearts are intertwined with God's. Somehow, because we are His creation, He chooses to love us and wants us to be close to Him. And that's the needed thing: to recognize our brokenness and be close to God.
As Christians we complicate it. To be honest, more than other groups at times, Christians can be really good at missing the needed thing and focusing on everything else. Our humanness gets obsessed with the details both in our own individual relationships with God and in the relationships we see that others have with God. In our own relationships, we over analyze and try to figure God out. Why does bad stuff happen? Can you really prove God exists? What will happen if Jesus comes back right now? And when we look at others, we think and say things like "I'm not sure they really mean it when they say they want to be a Christian." or "I'm sure they must have done something very sinful to be in that situation. (To be homeless, to have AIDS, to have 3 kids and be unmarried, etc.)
Honestly, I don't think God really cares all that much about any of that stuff. He wants us to choose what is needed: to be living in an intimate way with Him. I'm not saying God doesn't care about the second coming or that it's bad to work through why life is sometimes really rotten. And I'm not saying that people shouldn't have changed lives once they encounter God. But so much of that peripheral stuff is just that: it's stuff that is on the outlying edges of life. It is not what is needed and not where our focus should lie. So I think God has been at work in me reminding me about what is needed. Less real time commentary and deep thinking on God's involvement in the things of this world and more abiding, being at rest in His presence. Less worrying about what so and so is doing and how they are living, less wanting to change that person and their actions, and more praying for them (and myself) to continually know God's presence in their hearts.
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