Our ONE series continued Sunday as we examined what stands in the way of us truly experiencing the transcendence for which we were created. In a nutshell, the answer is sin. Sin is not a popular word in today's society. As soon as I began talking about it yesterday, I could sense people's tension. Sin is the ultimate shrink-wrap that shrinks the size of our life down to the size of our life. God and others then get squeezed out.
Here's another interesting perspective sent to me about our shrink-wrapped lives. Shrink-wrap also has the unfortunate ability to isolate people from each other in addition to keeping them isolated from God. In our best moments we are on this journey together. Not having grace to free us from this isolation is perhaps the biggest tragedy.
What do you see as the biggest tragedy associated with our shrink-wrapped kingdoms of one?
3 comments:
The biggest tragedy to me is that we're not in the boat. Let me explain...
In our Copper HJT this week we studied the story of a sleeping Jesus and the distraught disciples in a boat during a bad storm (Mark 4). We were prompted to answer questions about how we react to storms, and what figurative storms are in our lives.
It made me think of my childhood in Missouri. We had a basement in which we kept a big bed at the ready for use during the many middle-of-the-night storm warnings. I have no memory of any emotion or question or fear at all. My only memory is of my dad picking me up out of bed, carrying me to the basement, and going back to sleep in the basement bed. My father provided all the love, care and action - to the point that it didn't even occur to me to think about it. I didn't have to make a decision about whether or not to trust him for my provision in the storm...I just did.
So...the obvious ramification of the Copper study is - in my adult life "storms", do I as readily and simply trust God for my care as I did my dad?. And...if the disciples in the boat had done so, how would they have acted differently? Which leads to my point...
If I'm in a shrink-wrapped kingdom of one...I'm not weathering the storms in Jesus' boat - with him providing care, and me resting in his ability and willingness to do so.
Now that's a tragedy.
I attended a church where communion was served from a broken loaf of bread. Each person approached the altar, pulled a piece from the loaf and returned to their seat, awaiting corporate participation.
One of the Pastors commented that he loved to watch the process from the serving side of the altar; the look on peoples faces, the joy, the brokenness- humanity uncovered there before the elements. He said some would dive right in and grab a huge piece, like they wanted everything the Lord had for them in that moment; others were very timid, almost apologetically taking not much more than a crumb.
His comment produced a picture in my mind's eye of Jesus holding out a whole big wonderful loaf of His love, His adventure- His full, rich blessing; He offers the WHOLE thing to us, but for a myriad of reasons, we're ok with the crumb. Functional dysfunction. If it's fear, that's one thing, but what if we just don't know how to accept the grace and love associated with the whole loaf? Maybe the biggest tragedy associated with my shrink-wrapped kingdom of one is knowing that the loaf is there, but not really knowing how to reach out and grab the thing.
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