Bless This Mess

Saturday 5/31/2014 5:42 AM

I like things to be just a certain way.  I like my routines and habits.  Get up in the morning and run.  Drink my coffee and sit down for devotional time.  Eat breakfast consisting of a small glass of tomato juice and a bowl of Cheerios, no sugar.  Take a shower and get dressed for work.  Go to work.  Eat lunch consisting of a peanut butter sandwich, Ruffles potato chips and a piece of fruit.  Teach my afternoon classes.  Go home.  Relax by reading or taking a short power nap.  Eat dinner.  Watch Jeopardy! and read some more.  Go to bed.  Repeat.  If I go to a restaurant I always order the same thing.  Why get something different?  You may not like it.

I find my routines to be predictable and comforting.  I do not like change.  The following excerpt from Liberation of Life, by Harvey and Lois Seifert, challenged me today.  “To make way for a new birth of authentic being, we are not only willing, but even eager to give up present habits and imperfections and prejudices.  No matter how far we have moved in the Christian life, we can still know that every opinion we hold and every act we perform is something less than the best.  We never have the Holy Spirit in our pockets, completely domesticated and supporting everything we are doing.  Any such sanctifying of present imperfections is an obstacle to further growth.  Instead of clutching fiercely to my foibles and fallacies, I had better cultivate the ability to change my mind, my political opinions and my lifestyle when it becomes clear that this is the will of God.”

I want the Holy Spirit in my pocket.  I like to choose what I will do and then ask God to support me in it.  I don’t want to change my mind, my political opinions and especially my lifestyle, so it is easier to ask the Spirit of God to support what I am doing than to listen to see what God would have me do and change my thinking or my actions.

I think I am like most other Christians in this regard.  It seems we are constantly asking God to bless us rather than seeking ways to have others bless God because of our actions.  We like to defend our dogmas and our faith from outside attack rather that asking if some of our long-held opinions and doctrines are cultural traditions that need to be altered by the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.  If our posturing and our actions are causing others to deny God rather than praise him are they really Spirit-directed or not?  If our lives and our interactions with others cause others to curse God perhaps we are not living and interacting correctly.

The Bible says that if our actions are not driven by and accompanied by love we will be heard by others as nothing more than a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal.  Unfortunately, in many cases, I think that is true.  I believe we need to spend less time asking God to bless our messes and more time asking the Spirit of God to increase our capacity to love.