The Real Deal

I wrote this post several days ago but didn't post it. Too much honesty. Too much accountability. But after talking with several friends, I've found I'm not the only one having these thoughts. It seems to be a community-wide conviction. Maybe being confronted with death has helped to bring us back to our first Love, helped to remind us why we've chosen to live a life set apart. 

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"Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony.

Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds."

You have wearied the LORD with your words.

“How have we wearied him?” you ask.

By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them”...

For months, God has been working on my insides.

The end of school last year, my last two weeks in America this summer, coming back here, this weekend...it all seems to be pointing me in the same direction.

Am I really going to live the life Christ has called me to live, or am I going to continue to be a fraud? A fraud with the best intentions, but a fraud none-the-less.

As I prepared to lead worship this weekend, feeling more nervous than I have in a long time, I was constantly reminded that it is SO not about me. It's not about my abilities or talents or words or the band or the songs. It's about the heart, what's on the inside. It's about meaning the words I'm singing.

But it's more than that. And I crave that "more". The "more" of living a life holy and acceptable, a life constantly dying to self, being holy because He is holy. 

This is what I've been thinking about for months, knowing God is calling me to do it. I mean, He's commanded us all to this kind of life but specifically working  on banging, clanging, pounding on the inside of me...

The question is, am I really willing? Am I willing to make radical changes in my life? Or am I going to continue to actively ignore the Holy Spirit? As if talking about change is enough, acknowledging the need, even making small changes, but not really doing what I am being called to do.

I don't even know if I know what that kind of life looks like, how to really be in the world and not of it. And I'm not just talking about not watching Glee or not listening to Lil Wayne or not drinking beer. I'm talking about loving people so much it hurts. About following Him where ever He leads, even if it means staying right where I am for a decade. About making hard choices that go against the popular Christian social norms. About looking at every aspect of my life and making sure that it's glorifying to God, living a life that's radically different and yet so appealing that it draws others to Him. And doing it all with the sole purpose of loving God, totally and completely surrendered to Him. 

Blast! A rock and a hard place, that's what I'm in. I want to do right, but I want it to be easy. And I want to not have to do it all the time. Only when it's convenient for me or when I feel Super -convicted (different than just normal-convicted).

Ha! And there's the heart of the issue.

Me. I get in the way. I'm always in the way.

But what James 4:17 says has been ringing in my head for weeks. If I  know the good I ought to do and don't do it, it is sin.

And that, folks, is where I'm at. And you?