Unity

"The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me."
-Don Miller

There are a lot of opinions floating around the blog-verse, about the right answer to numerous quandaries and controversies. Each of the topics have sparked a wide variety of responses, and they range from full of love to full of malice. Currently, Rachel Held Evans is the driving force behind a "Rally to Restore Unity", and it got me thinking about what that unity looks like in light of our "virtual water-cooler discussions".

Got an opinion or idea about heaven or hell or Osama or Obama? What makes a good politician or what should those values look like? How about earthquakes, evangelicals, unity or proper ways to react to others around us? Who is Christian enough, or too Christian or too liberal, conservative or too indecisive? These are all open to interpretation and criticism-and if someone will listen, someone else will tell you what they think.

But who is asking? Who is listening? What does it look like to someone outside of the Christian-a-verse in blogs and on twitter and book-face and everything else in-between? Have we effectively argued our way into a conversation that looks nothing like the conversations Jesus would have us partake in? What do our interactions look like for those who need to hear the words of Jesus the most?

I struggle with telling my side of "how it is" because, really-it is just my opinion, isn't it? And when I strike down a flagpole of what I believe, I choose a side, and that effectively labels everything else wrong or a non-truth because it isn't my view, it isn't my way.

I am tired of choosing sides, tired of needing to think the right way or say the right things about stuff that doesn't tie into who Jesus is and how I can be his hands and feet. How much minutia do we swim around in, only to miss the focus, the mission, the ways we can unite as one?

Donald Miller, in the quote above, says it well-when "I am" is the focus-I miss out on "I AM", I miss out on you, I miss out on us and the story and the opportunity for the unity we could have as God's people-as His segula-as His treasured possession. That is the unity I want-with the Creator and with you. Let's stop being individual pieces of trinket. Let's be His treasure.

"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His people, His treasured possession." Deut. 7:6

The middle

The more I read, the more I want to write. And sometimes, I read and think it was something I had felt or thought or should be feeling or thinking, and I feel good and/or pitiful with how I am living life. Reading has always inspired and challenged me in so many ways.

Recently, I started reading Donald Miller’s book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years and got to a section where he discusses the middle of our story we call life. It hit home and hit hard. He says:

“I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to change the world and the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and they discover it was harder than they thought. They can’t see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward.”

This blog is my way to share the middle with you. What I am doing here, and what I hope to accomplish. I am in the middle in so many ways-financially/economically, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally-the list goes on and on. I want to explore what it means to be here and be a part of the journey that gets me to the other shore, advances me and grows me in my journey. I continue to desire growth but relish rest-this is the constant fight isn’t it? I want to reach the end but not without loving the middle and every second it gives me. Come walk with me…