The Strands in Your Web
We’ve all been there.
Look back over your life and remember the last time you fully experienced passion - something that caught your heart by surprise, gave you purpose – a sense of mission and higher calling. Put that feeling of conviction and excitement in your mind? Okay – good, read on…
Now, if you can, think back to the moment when that passion was first doubted. When did you go from pure certitude to…maybe an unmet expectation, or conflicting evidence of how you understood how things should work? When, after receiving that divine sense of calling, did you run up against someone of importance in your life who disagreed with you or even sought to stop you in your tracks? Maybe it was a parent subtly but condescendingly pushing you away from your intended college major and into something they wanted for you. Maybe it was a boss dismissing your dreams for the future of your business as misguided.
How did you respond to that first bite of doubt? That sting of original uneasiness with your own beliefs?
By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. 26He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. 27†By faith he left Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
What happens to a person who has seen “him who is invisible?” For Moses, it was after 40 years of shame and isolation, away from his Israelite family, exiled from Egypt — an exiled prince! — he had every right to be in the royal family, but he has a passion - he had a reason to buck the trend…
…and it cost him all the status quo due him in life, but that made all the difference.
He was not focused on the anger of the king, on the doubt of his Egyptian subordinates, or his Israelite brothers, sisters, cousins… He was fixed on the passion, the original passion that found him in the wilderness – he had such a sense of his own calling, of his own intimacy with that calling, that nothing and no one would stir his fear or doubt.
We all go through life with a web of convictions – some stronger than others. As we learn more about the world and how it works, certain strands in the web are broken, new ones are formed (i.e. as a child, we learn that we cannot fly when we jump off the stairs in a cape). This process continues all throughout life, and its an important part of building a cohesive sense of TRUTH in the world.
But what strands CAN’T be broken? Are they all susceptible to pressures from the outside – from the wind and debris that inevitably blows through our fragile webs? I feel that I want to be stronger than that – on certain things – I am learning what those things are – and resolving myself to those certain strands help me allow less important strands to be let go of – opening my heart and mind further to the truth of things.
Its all about becoming passionate about the right strands in your web – choose wisely, and you’ll have passion your whole life long.
H a s h b r o w n 11:29 pm on November 15, 2011 Permalink
This is a great point/topic. I remember a church movement to which I once belonged having bowling get-togethers every other week, where older members and younger members were on mixed teams, hanging out and building relationships. Although people were often drawn to folks in their same age group, there was a degree of elder-to-minor nurturing happening. Some struggles for many church families, sadly–and a topic worth addressing–are having a balance of (1) interacting with regular people (i.e., non-Christians) and interacting with our brethren in the Lord and (2) interacting with our peers who are like us and interacting with wiser/more mature believers.
Some of us lean heavily towards spending time with our brethren in the
Lord–and, often times, folks around the same age. Some of us
lean more heavily towards spending time with regular folks or those new
to the Church and doing the nurturing. Many churches of whom I’ve been a part have, at the very least, always taken nurturing brand new “converts” seriously–inviting friends and/or volunteers to stay in regular contact with and support them, inviting newly-born-again folks to join small groups, discipleship trainings, Bible studies, various ministry groups, etc. Don’t know if a new model/paradigm is needed for older believers and younger believers to see how spending time together can look (e.g., explicitly teaching someone else’s minors/children, beyond just being a role model, can be a sketchy topic for many)…or if folks just need to follow the Spirit leading them to help raise the next generation.
Mark W 2:50 pm on November 16, 2011 Permalink
Well said! The two fulcrums you describe are plainly visible in the lives of most Christians. I’m wondering if you see those two tensions (Christian/Non-Christian) and (peer/non-peer) as balances between “good and bad” – what I mean is, are there seasons we need to be with people just like us, and seasons we need to venture out into diversity?
I tend to think that just like the High School lunch room – it is “easier” to sit at the table of folks just like me (nerds, jocks, goths, etc) – this carries over into adulthood too – Chicago’s neighborhoods look a lot like the High School lunch room – just as segregated. This is both beautiful and tragic. When folks hang out with people like them, real cultures are created. But there is rarely transformation and stretching unless heterogeneity is encouraged.
Follow up with me on this – you’ve got my gears turnin’…
Web Hosting Provider 6:53 am on January 17, 2012 Permalink
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