Things we should place more value on #1 : Discomfort

It's Saturday morning, the sun is shinning, but the shades are drawn and you're lying in bed.  You have absolutely nothing to do today.  Your completely alone, all the members of the household are away or quietly occupied, none of them require your assistance.  And it's that perfect temperature, so that you are perfectly comfortable under the covers.  And you are laying perfectly on the pillows so that your body is completely relaxed, so calm you're almost floating.

And still you will get out of bed.  Why?  Because hunger or biology will prod you.  No matter how perfect your current situation, you can't stay.  Discomfort will eventually drive you from this paradise, and this is a good thing.

From the day your mothers body flipped the switch and decided it was time for you to move out, you have been living in a world that has be designed for your discomfort.  In fact, finding comfort is a driving force in civilization.  It can be argued that the only reason you are here reading this is because in some guy in ancient Sumeria got tired of trying to remember how many jars of oil he traded for how many head of cattle, so he began imprinting balls of clay with symbols that was the first time people transferred language to objects to create a written language.

How much of your own life is built around avoiding discomfort?  You work all day, not just for sustenance, not for survival.  You work to live in a house you like, in a neighborhood you like, with a car that gets you to and fro with the most comfort you can afford.  You fill that house not just with comfortable furniture, but with things that will distract you from the discomfort that remains.  Radios, TV, cable, smart phones, computers, noise.  Because for some the most discomforting thing is the silence.

For others the comfort of silence is the goal.  So you have a "no soliciting" sign on your door, a huge fence around your yard (or you've move out far enough that it isn't a factor).  You have a phone with caller ID to avoid conversations you don't want to have, and live a life of avoiding confrontation, committed to keeping the peace, not for the sake of peace, but for the sake of avoiding discomfort.

But discomfort has a purpose.  You are a spiritual being muddling through a physical world, and the confines of this world will always make you uncomfortable, because ultimately you were designed and built for a more perfect place.  This is the sort of constant, mild discomfort you feel, even when everything else is right.  It's longing, and we all know what that feels like, even from a very young age.

But there is an even more acute discomfort, the one that comes from not being where you're supposed to be.  It's a nagging fear, a constant restlessness, a feeling of impending doom, a feeling that you have to move.  You need this feeling.  It's there because you aren't where you need to be, even if where you are is comfortable.  Even if you chose where you are because it's comfortable.  It's time to move, the cloud in moving, move with it.  Don't ignore the feeling, don't medicate it with entertainment, embrace it, understand it and find it's source.  Even if that means fasting, even if it means silence, even if it means confrontation.

Because this discomfort is your chance to "become".  It is the open door, it's your excuse to move, to change.  So don't complain, don't turn away, don't medicate.  Rise.

In defense of Joel Osteen

If your Facebook is like mine, you've had one of these two posts come across your feed the past few weeks...

Why Joel Osteen is bad

or this:

Why Joel Osteen is good

Being a huge history nerd this reminds me that no matter what persecutions Christians have faced, no matter what threats loomed on the horizon to destroy the faith, and no matter how we were fighting to win a  lost and dying world, we have always found time to try and destroy each other.  It's the not-so-great commission.

I attended a Baptist school growing up, in it there was one Catholic girl and four kids (myself included) that went to churches defined as Pentecostal (and to Calvinists defined as Armenian).  And yet somehow, even with that small number of non-Baptists, at least once a week the Bible class would be about the doctrine of Eternal Security or why everything the Catholics believed was wrong and they were probably all going to hell.  I don't immediately recall any classes on the unity of our faith.  I actually credit that class for helping me define my own beliefs, because I knew I didn't buy what they were selling, but I had to know for myself why it didn't ring true.  So I studied, and decided for myself.  In fact, at least a few dozen passages in my Bible from that time have "disputes once saved always saved" written in the margins.

Fast forward a few years, I'm in the Navy, I have precious few Christians around me, and a new person reports into our station and the first words I hear him say are "Praise the Lord!"  Thus began one of the friendships I look back on as one of my greatest friendships of my military service.  But at some point it did come up that he was Baptist, and I was Pentecostal.  We were witnessing together to some one who had asked us about our faith, and he said something that I knew I didn't agree with, and I decided right then and there that I didn't care.  For two reasons, one being the person we were talking two wanted to know if what we had was real, and what better way to drive some one from Christ than by two Christians bickering.  And two, the matter was only as important as I wanted to make it.  We were both strong in our faith, we both acknowledged Christ as the only way to salvation, why take a brother or sister to task over how we formed our relationship to Christ?

I'm not saying doctrine isn't important, but remember that doctrines are at their core, defined by man as we try to understand God through his word and our experience with him.  Doctrine doesn't' define man, man defines doctrine.  And if only doctrine was all that divides the Church.  How about what type of music we play, or which day we worship on, or even something as trivial as what we wear to church?

I like what Glenn Kaiser said, "It's all either love or sin".  When you break down our faith, that's what it all boils down to, love or sin.  Are we acting out of love, are we motivated by love, is showing love the force that drives us to win the lost, or have we missed the mark?  Have we sinned?

When you see those posts, use this as your measuring stick, does it pass the Philippians 4:8 test, and is it done in love?  Regardless of how you feel about the subject of someones comments, you owe it to them to act and respond out of love.