About Me to Be About You, Two

So here's how it works. We get something to do: get married, have kids, do some sort of ministry or leadership or service, do a job, do your schoolwork. We start out with a sense that we're given this work and it's important and we're focused on the task at hand.

And then we hit speed bumps. The marriage struggles. The kids' first word is "no!" and she means it. Your service isn't appreciated it the way you think it should be. Your small group Bible study is full of socially awkward people--or no one shows up at all.

And suddenly we realize that the mission or work matters, but if we listen we realize that we've made this whole thing about us in ways that aren't healthy (see yesterday's post). And so there's internal work to do.

So the cool thing is this: God does the internal work while at the same time allowing us to be doing things that matter. The mission and work of marriage or child-raising or leading doesn't stop so that you can get everything fixed inside of you.

So there's these two parallel things happening at the same time: there's the internal work of God freeing us from being propped up by others and there's the mission or task we've been given to do.

Both of these things matter. Depending on your temperament, you're probably more in tune with one side of the equation or the other.

Most of us live our lives on the surface. We think that the most important thing is the marriage or small group that's not going well or the kids or the work. And we're inclined to look for surface answers and quick-fixes to issues that have no quick fixes.

We need to slow down, reflect, begin to ask questions. Frustrations are the rumble strips intended wake us up to ask deeper questions: not simply 'how can I make this feel better quick' but 'what is God wanting to teach me here?'

Some of us are by nature more introspective, contemplative. We are all about what's happening in our internal world.

Those folks need to see the value not only of what God's doing on the inside, but also the importance of the mission and the work, and doing it well. It's not just about character formation. It's also about real work prepared for us in advance, that we are called to be faithful to do with all our might, as unto the Lord.

I think holding onto this tension and living in the dual realities of God's work in me as well as God's work through me is one of the hardest parts of my discipleship. I'm always falling off on one side or the other. Fortunately, God's patient with me.

And every so often, he gives me four months off to re-teach it to me all over again.