Getting Stuck

My blogging friends and I were discussing elsewhere today the possibility of becoming disobedient by doing MORE than God asks us to do. It reminded me of what Mark Buchanan said in Your God Is Too Safe--

I had begun well. My conversion to Christ combined--at least in my overliterary imagination--the best of the legendary conversions. Like the apostle Paul, my arrogant defiance was knocked out of me by the accosting of the risen Christ, who blinded me with light and then removed the scales so I could truly see. Like Augustine, I was wooed Christward by what seemed to be a child's voice. Like John Wesley, my heart was suffused with the strange warmth of heaven's peace. Like C.S. Lewis, I was hauled, almost kicking and screaming, headlong into the kingdom by the sheer intellectual potency of Christianity.

I hit the ground running. Immediately, I volunteered for everything, anything, that I felt vaguely interested in and marginally qualified for. I led youth group; I helped with music; I taught Sunday School; I wrote the church newsletter; I became a camp counselor; I served as a mentor to several young men.

But something, somewhere, went awry. The zeal fizzled. The fire in my bones became only an ache in the joints. My running became plodding. My lightness became heaviness. My joyfulness became jadedness. I joined the ranks of the murmurers and faultfinders--those who didn't like the music or the sermon or the color of the azaleas behind the church--and I found their number legion.

...I seemed only to be able to live this new life by yielding to an outwardly imposed, sternly enforced regimen of starchy, dreary, wearying rules. I had to walk in a lockstep of legalism.

But I couldn't stand it.

It was too easy to slip back into the habits of mind and living. Going back was, in fact, natural.

Yet I stayed in the church. I continued to lead, teach, help, attend. I never renounced my faith. I had times of fresh resolve and redoubled effort. But it wasn't sustained.

And I was tired. I was tired of teaching an unruly group of kids who couldn't seem to care less. I was tired of the mere busyness of church. I was tired of trying and failing. I was tired of not trying. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of being compliant and yet tired of being defiant. I had chronic spiritual fatigue, and as I looked around, it seemed the condition was epidemic.

He's giving my testimony!! I got a BAD case of chronic spiritual fatigue in the first church I joined after becoming a Christian at age 22. I'm so grateful that God brought me out of it and taught me to walk in the Spirit! Sometimes I still think maybe I should be doing more. (In recovery groups, they say "Don't should on yourself!") But mostly, I trust God to lead me.

He has led me into a wonderful place lately--the Creative Arts department of FBC! What a blessing to be in a choir much like Brooklyn Tab! The truth is, I'm not much of a singer, but they put up with me anyway, and I absolutely love it! That's where the Spirit is blowing (in my life, at least), and I'm flinging myself into the hurricane! The International Worship Institute was heaven on earth to me! My worship pastor and his family are the delight of my life! Getting to know godly young women like Lisa and Spring and Laura blesses me beyond words!

So with no more words, and after using WAY too many exclamation points, I bid you goodnight!