I Want to Want

Warning:  Downer alert!   But keep reading, it gets better!

Perhaps I should title this week’s blog entry as “Epic Fails”.  As I listened to the this week’s Gospel message, it felt like every other sentence was a giant Jesus bomb going off in my face.  “Your polis shapes your longings and desires.”  BOOM!  “The meaning of one’s life determined…how one treated people.”  BOOM!  “Spread abroad heaven’s passions.”  BOOM!  “When our longing for Jesus is alive in us, all of our longings come in line and we no longer give into the pull of Rome.” BOOM!  Each statement cracked me open and sent me into a bit of a tail spin of how I epically fail on a daily basis in these ways.  Ugh!!  

But……the silver lining is….I want.  I remember reading a quote of St. Teresa of Avila: "Oh God… I want to want to love you!"  Oh God, I want to do these things, I want to be of this mindset, I want my longing for you to be alive in me, I want to cherish the challenging people in my life for they are yours!  All of these wants lead to me to yelling out, “Jesus, help me! I need you!”  I have found in these last two weeks that my “Help!” cries are getting louder and more frequent. Much like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights spinning around on the track thinking he is on fire crying, “Help me, Jesus! Help me, Tom Cruise, Help me, Oprah!”  I too, have been crying out, “Help me, Jesus!”  I have also realized that the last two weeks of study have brought me to the same conclusion of knowing these inner workings are going to take a lifetime of work and transformation.   This is working out my salvation.    And, to be completely honest, although I do long for Christ’s return, I find myself not rapture ready.  Yes, it will be a relief to be released of the responsibilities of this world, but I guess I am glad that Christ’s patience (in returning) is my salvation. 

I couldn’t help but connect that the verses that DJ calls, “The National Anthem of Heaven” (Philippians 2: 5-7), is written right smack dab on the cover of our Staff Behavior section in the Ultra Packet.

“Who because he was in the form of God….taking the form of a servant and being found in human likeness, he humbled himself….even to death on a cross.”

Darrell comments, “The pattern of servanthood; for there is no other pattern that helps human beings really live.  There is no other pattern that makes the human species really work, but servanthood.  It’s what the life of heaven is all about -- self-emptying love… the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this eternal joy of self-emptying pattern of servant love.”

I am so thankful to Sonshine for its focus on training all of us up in the way of self-giving, sacrificial, servant love.   As our Ultra Packet says, “To crave abundance is to crave Jesus.  To crave Jesus is to serve like Jesus.”