Disclaimer: The idea for this blog came to me while I was watching M*A*S*H a little while ago. If you have never watched the TV show, some of details that I explain to try to get my point across may not make sense to you.
OK, so on with the blog now . . .
I was watching Season 10 of M*A*S*H after I got home from work. In this particular episode, Father Mulcahy (the company priest) is talking to a soldier who has gone AWOL from his unit. When things go wrong and the soldier turns on Father Mulcahy with a rifle, Father Mulcahy utters these words while trying to talking to talk the soldier down: "A faith of convenience is no faith at all."
For some reason, hearing those words tonight started me thinking (and it's far from the first time I've heard them . . . I own all 11 seasons of M*A*S*H on DVD and have watched them many times). Anyways, I started to think a lot about that statement and what it means.
I think that we often do have a faith of convenience. We are willing to call ourselves followers of Christ so long as everything is going right. But, as soon as things get hard or someone says something disparaging about Christians we no longer claim the Name.
Why do we do this?
We know that it's not right . . . that we have not chosen a faith of convenience . . . but a faith that costs us much. Yet, it is so easy to fall into a mindset of only following it when it is convenient.
I don't want to just have a faith of convenience, because that really is no faith at all. I pray that this is not what you want for yourself either. We need to be willing to have a faith of inconvenience . . . a faith that is costly!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
making a difference with your life
With all that has happened in my life in this past month, I've done a lot of thinking about making a difference with your life. As I've seen the "fallout" from my friend's husband being killed tragically, it's been something that has come up as something I've been thinking about a lot.
The stories I've heard about how he lived and the glimpses of it that I saw, he lived to serve God and others and that was all that he wanted to do. His life was one that inspires me to live differently. I know my friend (his wife) was the kind of person who couldn't just drive past another driver in need and ignore it - her husband was the same way, as was evidenced by what he was doing when he was killed.
Then I was sitting in church last night and the pastor was talking about evangelism. At the end of the message he asked a question that was something like this: What will it take for you to get off your "spiritual butt" and start sharing the message with people? What is holding you back from doing so?
After he asked that question I started thinking. I've been one of those people who has sat back and left the sharing of anything to do with the Gospel to other people. I even often claim that I'm letting the way I live my life speak for it instead. But as I was challenged last night that's not the way it should be done. And I thought about my friend's husband and who he lived, I was motivated to move beyond that more passive thinking about how I share the Gospel.
I'm not an upfront kind of person, so I know that I'm not called to be preaching to others and all that. But, I need to be more willing to talk about it in the interactions I have with people.
I want my life to make a difference fro eternity. I think that's something that most people want. But I think it's also easy to become content with life the way it is and to stop doing anything that we've been called to do, because it's not comfortable or easy.
Really, my challenge that I've taken up and want to challenge others to get involved with is to not sit back and be content with the way things are. We can't just decide that we're doing to live our lives and do nothing else. If we want to make a difference, we have to get out there and do something about it . . . and maybe that something is as simple as just stopping to help someone in need when you're driving.
The stories I've heard about how he lived and the glimpses of it that I saw, he lived to serve God and others and that was all that he wanted to do. His life was one that inspires me to live differently. I know my friend (his wife) was the kind of person who couldn't just drive past another driver in need and ignore it - her husband was the same way, as was evidenced by what he was doing when he was killed.
Then I was sitting in church last night and the pastor was talking about evangelism. At the end of the message he asked a question that was something like this: What will it take for you to get off your "spiritual butt" and start sharing the message with people? What is holding you back from doing so?
After he asked that question I started thinking. I've been one of those people who has sat back and left the sharing of anything to do with the Gospel to other people. I even often claim that I'm letting the way I live my life speak for it instead. But as I was challenged last night that's not the way it should be done. And I thought about my friend's husband and who he lived, I was motivated to move beyond that more passive thinking about how I share the Gospel.
I'm not an upfront kind of person, so I know that I'm not called to be preaching to others and all that. But, I need to be more willing to talk about it in the interactions I have with people.
I want my life to make a difference fro eternity. I think that's something that most people want. But I think it's also easy to become content with life the way it is and to stop doing anything that we've been called to do, because it's not comfortable or easy.
Really, my challenge that I've taken up and want to challenge others to get involved with is to not sit back and be content with the way things are. We can't just decide that we're doing to live our lives and do nothing else. If we want to make a difference, we have to get out there and do something about it . . . and maybe that something is as simple as just stopping to help someone in need when you're driving.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
limitations to understanding
So, I just started taking this "course" through my church that's about leadership development and spiritual formation. I'm excited about it. It's looking at the biblical foundations of leadership and at how what has happened in your life to-date has shaped you to be the person you are today and how that influences your leadership. So, yeah, at least to me, a very interesting course.
Anyways, as I was getting started on the reading last night I was drawn in by something on like the second page. (I love it when things I read just jump right into the good stuff.) One of the points made really got me thinking.
"Many of those who think they are dissatisfied with Christianity are really dissatisfied with something else - their own grasp of Christianity. For most of us, we have scraped the surface and nothing more, yet we mistakenly believe our superficial encounter represents the gospel in its totality." (by Alister McGrath)
I've been thinking about it since I read that last night. And it's been making a lot of sense as I do that. I mean, really, who hasn't been dissatisfied with what they understand about Christianity? When things happen that just don't seem fair or right, it's very easy to begin to question. (I know, I've been there in the last few weeks.) But, yet, as I've thought about it I've come to see a lot of truth in the statement.
I think if we really began to understand - really understand - the depths of it all we would never cease to be amazed or have those doubting questions. But, we so easily get caught up in our own little world and think that we know it all and understand it all, when in reality we don't. When we begin to think we know it all and then have questions that our knowledge cannot answer or make sense of, it's very easy to become dissatisfied.
Yet, all of the understanding we could possibly have can never even begin to grasp all the truth about the gospel. It is so much more than we understand with our human limitations. We really have only scratched the surface of it! Therefore, we must be careful that we don't get caught up in assuming that we know all and that our understanding is everything there is to know.
Not only does realizing we have barely scratched the surface help when we're wrestling with the hard questions in trials, it can also help to keep us from growing bored with Christianity in the rest of our lives. When we acknowledge that we have only scratched the surface, we always have more to learn and understand. This leaves us with no reason to become bored with Christianity!
Anyways, as I was getting started on the reading last night I was drawn in by something on like the second page. (I love it when things I read just jump right into the good stuff.) One of the points made really got me thinking.
"Many of those who think they are dissatisfied with Christianity are really dissatisfied with something else - their own grasp of Christianity. For most of us, we have scraped the surface and nothing more, yet we mistakenly believe our superficial encounter represents the gospel in its totality." (by Alister McGrath)
I've been thinking about it since I read that last night. And it's been making a lot of sense as I do that. I mean, really, who hasn't been dissatisfied with what they understand about Christianity? When things happen that just don't seem fair or right, it's very easy to begin to question. (I know, I've been there in the last few weeks.) But, yet, as I've thought about it I've come to see a lot of truth in the statement.
I think if we really began to understand - really understand - the depths of it all we would never cease to be amazed or have those doubting questions. But, we so easily get caught up in our own little world and think that we know it all and understand it all, when in reality we don't. When we begin to think we know it all and then have questions that our knowledge cannot answer or make sense of, it's very easy to become dissatisfied.
Yet, all of the understanding we could possibly have can never even begin to grasp all the truth about the gospel. It is so much more than we understand with our human limitations. We really have only scratched the surface of it! Therefore, we must be careful that we don't get caught up in assuming that we know all and that our understanding is everything there is to know.
Not only does realizing we have barely scratched the surface help when we're wrestling with the hard questions in trials, it can also help to keep us from growing bored with Christianity in the rest of our lives. When we acknowledge that we have only scratched the surface, we always have more to learn and understand. This leaves us with no reason to become bored with Christianity!
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