I love this life...

I owe much of this reflection below to a few sentences that Brennan Manning penned in his book "The Wisdom of Tenderness".

 

Christianity is not trying to make people more productive, but more humble. It is not trying to get any task done, it is trying to enlarge the transforming effects of love. It should not make us more managerial, but more peaceful. Christianity does not manipulate anyone to do anything, not even for the promise of their eternal salvation. Instead, it invites the heart into a journey of healing by offering a relationship with God. I am not one bit more efficient as I grow in Christ. Christianity doesn't make me more successful in my social status or in my financial status.

 

It just makes me more like Christ.

 

God is making me more tender. More open. More loving. More restful. More peaceful. More confident. More inwardly untouchable by the events,circumstances, and enemies around me. And more touchable by the people within those events,circumstances, and enemies.

 

I feel His heart growing...and the amazing part is, it is inside of me.

 

I'm over (for the most part) the ego-bloating that doing things admirably in the eyes of spiritual people used to give me. It fueled my energy for a long time, but it has been dying a slow death. I can honestly say (with no ego...most of the time) that I am closer to the end of that battle than I am to the beginning.

 

And that opens a whole new set of struggles and problems.

 

Bring 'em on.

 

I love this life. Jesus has (and is) freeing me from the embarrassment of myself. How could I have guessed when I first decided to follow Jesus over 25 years ago that it would lead to such incredible freedom? I had no clue.

 

And I'm cool with that. I like not knowing what's coming next from God. But I also like having confidence that the next 25 years will bring new freedoms that I do not even know to ask from Him or imagine.

 

My heart is free to pass the love of God around recklessly, making no distinction between the worthy and the unworthy, or judge their value or non-value. And the creative ideas on how to love them and offer them the life I have, the life of Christ, come effortlessly and right when they need to. I often stop in the middle of them and am in awe of their glory, and the high honor it is to be in the midst of them.

 

Today, listening to and following Christ found me...

...praying over a faith-filled woman nervous that the mass is cancer.

...teaching a young man with special needs how to ride an old bicycle of mine to work.

...experiencing a local bike shop owner giving of his time and expertise out of the goodness of his heart when I was willing to pay.

...celebrating the obvious presence of Jesus in my basement last night with the guy who ushered Him in by sharing his life honestly and openly.

...talking to an up-and-coming musician in Houston about how God might be adding to his current ministry to the world (that is lively and effective) by sending him a bunch of partners in a whole local church...or maybe not, God is just shaping and freeing him more.

...eating lunch with some of the most powerful and committed men I know.

...coaching and encouraging a new minister friend of a church in India to notice his church-centered thinking and replace it with Christ-centered thinking.

...in the living room of a transforming drug dealer hugging him in his despair as circumstances keep catching up with him.

...dreaming of a dangerous adventure that I will be going on this summer with my son.

...catching up and hearing praise for God from a recovering homosexual.

...dwelling on and planning to share with some friends from David's prayer in Psalm 27.

 

Wow. And it is only 7:00pm. I have hours left!!! 

 

I love this life. I love Christ who gives it.

 

He's not making me more productive, efficient, successful, task-oriented, managerial or profitable. He's just giving me more life. I love Him for it.