I think I need something less stressful…like working with the persecuted church…
All good humor has the ring of truth to it. Maybe some folks would think hiding from the secret police, clandestine meetings, getting beaten to within an inch or your life…or worse, is stressful.
It makes my blood pump.
I enjoy my work and my job. Especially the people I am blessed to work with. But there is something missing. Maybe it is me. I just don’t feel like I am making that big of a difference.
When I was in Virginia, I wrung myself dry. I loved it. I am not into a 3 point sermon and then out. Even though I spoke at several different venues, many folks followed it around so by the time I did the chapel service and did my 20 minute thing, it was all part and parcel – a message in several parts over the week culminating in a positive call to “lay down your life to find it in the end.”
The Works family didn’t just drop into the parking lot from the suburbs on December 9th. I guess in American terms we are radical – driving 2 hours to church in Granby (we used to drive 3 hours in Montana), living in 900 sq. ft for 12 years.
But we grew up in the faith hearing stories of folks that would walk for DAYS one way to attend meetings. We heard about our brothers and sisters who were imprisoned and otherwise beaten for their faith. We looked at our relatively prosperous life and we wanted to be like them, even if no one ever heard of us.
And as the years went by, nothing ever changed. Except for my pain at being nowhere apparently.
Carly Simon sings a song, “I Haven’t Got Time For the Pain”. Check this out:
All those crazy nights when I cried myself to sleep
Now melodrama never makes me weep anymore
‘Cause I haven’t got time for the pain
I haven’t got room for the pain
I haven’t the need for the pain
Not since I’ve known you
You showed me how, how to leave myself behind
How to turn down the noise in my mind
Now I haven’t got time for the pain
I haven’t got room for the pain
I haven’t the need for the pain
Not since I’ve known you
Suffering was the only thing that made me feel I was alive
Though that’s just how much it cost to survive in this world
‘Til you showed me how, how to fill my heart with love
How to open up and drink in all that white light
Pouring down from the heaven
I haven’t got time for the pain
I haven’t got room for the pain
I haven’t the need for the pain
Not since I’ve known you
So, in comparison, getting shot up is nowhere near what other folks go through. Don’t get me wrong. It hurts. it will hurt the rest of my life. And I refuse to shy away from that because in YOUR moment when life totally sucks, my saying that God will be there and everyone will live happily ever after is not what is going to get your through. You need to know that it may not turn out “OK”. There is no guarantee. Oh life is pretty good today. Making great money and living the dream in suburbia. But Stephie and Rachel are still dead. Learning to live with that pain for another 30-40 years. Are you up for that? Not sure I am…but for the grace of God.
And honest to God, if He showed up today and said “Sell it all. Let’s go to China, or Thailand, or India, or Africa, or Europe” I would do it in a heartbeat. Are you kidding me? Another adventure! Let’s go, Samwise! Dragons to slay, glory for God to be won!
But maybe we’ve done all we are going to do. Maybe being on Focus and having it go around the world is the fulfillment. Maybe the book is enough. Maybe we have done all the public speaking we are going to do. That would be a real bummer. But really, maybe this is all there is.
Because at the end of the day, HE is in charge. And if it is enough for Him, it is enough for me. I knew that when I got into this deal 24 years ago. My life was over and His life in me began.
So just maybe the rest of my life is in Cubicleville. It doesn’t matter, does it? God does not need the Works family to make the world go round. I don’t have to like it. I haven’t liked it for the most part. But, what the heck? That is not what I am looking for.
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Now, that really makes my blood pump!
