From
Romans 12:1-4
H,
The call
to serve God has to be the most humbling thing of all. I am struck by how it
gives no space for the growth of the destructive part of individual pursuits. I
am often struck by how polarizing the truth is. If you were to only speak in honesty
heading to truth and outside the need to please every individual in the room in
some way you would not get that spurious food of the speaker: applause. You might
get a polite nod or a knowing wink. It will not go the way you want. It is not
supposed to.
The thing
is we are not all supposed to be speakers. Or preachers, to be less accurate
and much more coy. This is the body of Christ not Enron. This is not the
company of saints out to be one thing and one thing only. This is not a caste
system with Billy Grahams at the top. This is not about the most popular or
eloquent or effective or competent or ambitious or intellectual or consistent. This
is a ship of fools who we will make it only because the captain is the top of
all things. There is space for stragglers and pitters and agars and win stops
and, yes, fools. No one qualifies so
everyone is qualified.
It is
not that there are no standards. It is that these are the highest standards
that exist. No one can make it up that ladder. We all have to be re-made. The image,
put together, is Christ but we are all parts of that classic painting of who
God really is. We are all here as individuals linked together by grace. None is
better than the other and the degree in distance to the light is largely
irrelevant because all will be there in full by eternity.
This
is not a place to feed that ego that must die for the truest things about it to
truly come alive. As individuals we all find our role in progression. We give
up our lives to God. In part and then in whole. We have our minds renewed. In
part and then in whole. We learn by not pushing our own great need to succeed. In
part and then in whole. We learn we are part of a body but we have our own
particular colour to add to the painting for the ages. In part, and then
finally, gloriously, in whole.
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