It's Nobody's Fault but mine...

Dreary drips from the overhang on a gloomy grey March morning. The mood in my head matches the mood in the sky and the trees drip their acknowledgement. I love the chill and I even like the grey except when it starts to leak into my mood. Of course, that's nobody's fault but my own.

Widespread Panic sings a song called 'Nobody's Fault.' It's a great song, I've heard it done lots of different ways, but my favorite is when they do it on this old resonator guitar, so it sounds like a record out of the 1930's, real slow and mellow-like..."If I don't pray, and my soul gets lost... it's nobody's fault but mine."

Taking responsibility for what happens in life is one of those things that doesn't come naturally or easy. Abuse would be one exception, but most of the stuff that comes into my life is stuff that I need to take responsibility for and own all by myself. I was thinking about this yesterday in my quiet time. I was reading about priorities, and I realized that most of the reason I feel like I drift is because I've not been intentional about what I do. Sounds simple right?

Not so much.

I get mad at God when my spirit feels dry and my character isn't what it should be. It's not God's fault, it's my fault. The reality isn't that I've desperately tried God and found Him lacking, the truth is that I've never fully tried God.

I want God to be a neat accessory to my life, like a shiny watch or a sweet looking belt. But that's not the deal. He gives me the right to take Him or leave Him, but I don't get to choose the terms. It's like getting a pet snake, and then getting mad and disillusioned with the snake when he doesn't jump on my lap and watch TV with me like a puppy dog. The snake is only being a snake, and if I wanted a puppy, then I should have gotten a puppy. It's my responsibility.

So the dryness, the fatigue, the sadness in my Spirit about God not being the God that I wanted Him to be... that's not God's fault, that's mine. That's a hard lesson to learn. The reality is that there are promises that He makes... a life of abundance, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentelness, self control and all of those things. But He doesn't promise them to me no matter what. He promises them to me if I follow Him. The challenge for me is to give up my hard-core desire for instant gratification and follow Him. Again, it's my responsibility.

C.S. Lewis says that the problem isn't that we've tried God and found Him wanting, it's that we've trifled with lesser pleasures and never given Him a chance (paraphrase). Every decision is a decision to draw near or to pull away from Him. If I pull away, it's not His fault for not keeping up His end of the bargain. Such is life.

Carpe Diem.

Start

First blog ever... unless you count myspace (myspace.com/staringatthewalls) and livejournal (phisherofmen) which I obviously don't, because I just called this my first blog ever. You see how it goes then?

On the subject of starting, last night I had the great privilege of playing a part in starting a college gathering... My lovely wife and I in a room with 4 college students who want to see God do something in a way that they've never seen before. What a rush, just to be in that kind of environment.

The crazy part for me was the starting part. I've never started something from scratch like that. I've been sort of... an interceptor... if you will. I usually come in after the foundation has been laid, but before there's an unwieldy mega-structure to contend with. So this was new ground for me and I have to admit that I found myself in an interesting place where my natural tendencies (call it... personality) crashed into some things that I've called beliefs... even convictions.

My personality is to be a mover. I don't have any problem swooping in, and helping people get where they want to be, or helping them figure out where they want to be. My tendency is to have a plan and execute it. Call it leadership, call it pushy, call it whatever. It is what it is.

My belief and conviction is that the Church is the living Body of Christ on Earth. My conviction is that when it comes to Church and the people who compose it, there's another leader who is the Way.

Leonard Sweet wrote a book on leadership in the post-modern matrix (honestly, I'm not a big fan of Sweet's writing. His ideas are great, I just don't do well with his style. It seems a bit forced. But, here I am using his ideas... what a tangled web we weave). Sweet wants to shift the leadership metaphor from "visioning" to "listening." To be a leader in the church of a post-modern generation means to fully grasp and apply the reality that the Church is not "MY" anything, but it is instead the manifestation of Christ to the world. The paradigm isn't seeing what no one else sees, but hearing the voice that says, "I am over here. Follow me."

The "leadership" paradigm shift hit me hard last night. I walked in with some ideas about what it might look like, but I had no context for even being in something like I feel God calling me to, much less helping lay the foundation for it. So I walked into the room with 5 other people who I believe hear from God, we opened the book of Acts and we listened to God speak.

We all walked out amazed, then we went to Taco Cabana (where we didn't encounter pineapple salsa, Matt Singleton will be proud to know). I was maybe the most amazed, because what I saw caused my personality and my conviction to move closer to harmony.

The reality that I faced, if I'm heading up, leading, and creating something it will never be greater than I. Regardless of where you feel I fall on the greatness scale (somewhere between "poopy" and "kidney stones"), it is definitely somewhere short of eternal and transcendant. So anything I create by the force of my personality or character will necessarily fall short. However, if leading means listening and following the One who is Eternally Transcendant... then something truly magical may yet emerge.

So as I woofed my tortillas and queso, I was content, because I still didn't have to run the universe, and I felt like I had the chance to ride shotgun for awhile with the Guy who was. Not bad for an evening with friends.