Built on the Rock

I’m pretty open. Have usually been that way. That means I live life out loud….not really hiding behind any covert agendas or platforms.

This week, however, I sensed a collision of my worlds.

I opened up a Facebook account.

(gasp!) You know what that does. It brings in people from all kinds of timelines in my life.

There is my school-days timeline….
My pre-being-married timeline…
My building a career timeline….
My God-lit-God-inspired timeline…

These are now all merging into one. People who knew different parts of me are suddenly able to peek into worlds they maybe never knew about. That means that many people who were with me when I wasn’t an “out-of-control-disciple” are now colliding with those who are on my journey with me. That means those on my current journey may learn things that they didn’t know.

It made me really think about how I’m presenting myself on Facebook. I am purposefully steering it away from any holy-roller-God-and-Jesus talk, yet purposefully allowing it to showcase some of the changes in me. That is inspiring some off-line and private conversations about those changes.

So, can Facebook be an effective shall-we-call-it Evangelism tool? Is this the kind of space where we allow the open and raw moments of our journey to be exposed? To allow God to use it without thinking that the words have to come from ourselves?

Just thoughts really…

Your chance to be a part of saving the universe

Check it Out

here’s a little tidbit I wrote up based on Psalm 35. It is for a little friend of mine who has some control issues. We believe Jesus is bigger.

(Psalm 35:1-4, 22-23. )
God, I want your help in being a better listener to my parents. When the devil wants to lie to me, will you punch him in the nose? Pick up whatever weapon you can find and throw it at him - he is nasty. He tells me lies that I don’t want to believe anymore. Make the devil look silly when he tries to lie to me. Put things like banana peels in front of him, so when he tries to get to me to lie in my ear, he will fall before he gets to me. Satan sets all kinds of traps, telling me that I don’t have to listen to my parents, but I know better, I know that in the Bible you tell me to obey my parents. I am a Christian and I want to do what the Bible says. If Satan comes around again telling me those things, will you set a trap for him? I know you can catch him because it says so in the Bible. Just make him look silly for even trying to get me. I know he can’t get me because you are my God. Thank you for helping me at being respectful and listening to my parents.

I liked this so much, I’m hanging it here:

Magna Carta of Trust by an Out-of-Control Disciple
from Leonard Sweets Soul Cafe (March 1996 Vol. 2, No. 1)

I am part of the Church of the Out-of-Control. I once was a control junkie, but now am an Out-of-Control Disciple. I’ve given up my control to God. I trust and obey the Spirit. I’ve jumped off the fence, I’ve stepped over the line, I’ve pulled out all the stops, I’m holding nothing back. There’s no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up, or shutting up. It’s life Against the Odds, Outside the Box, Over the Wall, the game of life played Without Goal Lines other than “Thy Will Be Done”

I’m done lapdogging for the topdogs, the wonderdogs, the overdogs, or even the underdogs. I’m done playing According to the Rules, whether its Roberts Rules of Order or Miss Manners Rules of Etiquette or Martha Stewarts Rules of Living or Louis Farrakhans Rules of Americas Least Wanted or Merril Lynchs Money-minding/Bottom-lining/Ladder-climbing Rules of Americas Most Wanted.

I am not here to please the dominant culture or to serve any all-show/no-go bureaucracies. I live to please my Lord and Savior. My spiritual taste-buds have graduated from fizz and froth to Fire and Ice. Sometimes I’m called to sharpen the cutting edge, and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge. Don’t give me that old-time religion. Don’t give me that new-time religion. Give me that all-time religion that’s as hard as rock and as soft as snow.

I’ve stopped trying to make life work, and started trying to make life sing. I’m finished with second-hand sensations, third-rate dreams, low-risk high-rise trades and goose-stepping, flag-waving crusades. I no longer live by and for anything but everything God-breathed, Christ-centered, and Spirit-driven.

I can’t be bought by any personalities or perks, positions or prizes. I won’t give up, though I will give in to openness of mind, humbleness of heart, and generosity of spirit. When short-handed and hard-pressed, I will never again hang in there. I will stand in there, I will run in there, I will pray in there, I will sacrifice in there, I will endure in there - in fact I will do everything in there but hang. My face is upward, my feet are forward, my eyes are focused, my way is cloudy, my knees are worn, my seat uncreased, my heart burdened, my spirit light, my road narrow, my mission wide.

I won’t be seduced by popularity, traduced by criticism, by hypocrisy, or trivialized by mediocrity. I am organized religions best friend, and worst nightmare. I won’t back down, slow down, shut down, or let down until I’m preached out, teached out, healed out or hauled out of Gods mission in the world entrusted to members of the Church of the Out-of-Control to unbind the confined, whether they’re the downtrodden or the upscale, the overlooked or the underrepresented.

My fundamental identity is as a disciple of Jesus but even more, as a disciple of Jesus who lives in Christ, who doesn’t walk through history simply “in his steps” but seeks to travel more deeply IN HIS SPIRIT.

Until he comes again or calls me home, you can find me filling not killing time so that one day he will pick me out in the lineup of the ages as one of his own. And then it will be worth it all to hear these words, the most precious words I can ever hear:

“Well done, thou good and faithful Out-of-Control Disciple.