Guilty Pleasures

It's been a while.  I've neglected this blog for a long time and I'm excited to start writing again.  So far, this summer has been phenomenal.  I'm interning at my home church just outside Memphis and I'm seeing God do great things in our students and in me (more to come soon).

Donald Miller has recently become one of my favorite authors, which may get me excommunicated from some circles.  I love his heartfelt stories and themes.  The way he meanders through a book, subtly teaching me truth is wonderful.  I get to the end of his book and feel this overwhelming sense to do something.  Only then do I realize how valuable his work was for me.

Most recently, this sensation came in the form of Searching for God Knows What.  My boy Miller exposes man's tendency to simplify the God of the universe and his relationship with his creatures down to a simple formula.  It goes a little like this
1. Do stuff God likes.  Read your Bible a lot.  Pray.  If you do it enough, God will like you.
2. Vote Republican.  It's what Jesus would do.
3. Repeat

Now I'm not opposed to reading, praying and voting Republican, but so many times these things can become cold and thoughtless.  We identify God with our agenda instead of identifying ourselves with his.  We trade relationship for religion in the form of a formula.  Donald Miller's book is a call back to authentic relationship with God.

The most helpful theme in his book for me is the lifeboat.  You're on a cruise ship and it gets attacked by an aquatic Godzilla.  You have just enough time to get to the lifeboat with a few other strangers.  After a day or so in the boat, you realize one person has to sacrifice themselves so everyone else can live.  Everyone on the boat begins to bargain for their lives, knowing they must be better than everyone else so they can be guaranteed to live.  Miller tells us we live our lives this way, desperately struggling for recognition so no one throws us out of the lifeboat.  We search hopelessly for the affirmation that can only be found in relationship with God.  We try and get to the top of the food chain in our lifeboat world so we will finally be fulfilled.  It doesn't work.

I realized through reading this book that I am addicted to success because I'm addicted to affirmation.  I've GOT to win, or I'm a failure.  I've got to succeed, or I'm nothing.  I live in the lifeboat, hoping I won't get thrown out.

Praise the Lord, he laughs at the concept of the lifeboat.  Jesus' whole life and ministry deny the reality of the lifeboat.  Serve others.  Be last.  Take up your cross.  He opens our eyes to the reality that we were made for relationship with God, not some petty comparison game in a lifeboat.  So, by God's grace, get out of the boat