SOUNDS LIKE A MOVEMENT overview

Can Your Toilet Brush Slay Giants?

The Bible is full of reluctant heroes, an endless procession of people saying “who me? How about someone else?”

…And then there’s David.

David exhibits this bizarre combination of being chosen to lead and choosing to be a leader. On the one hand, David was the least likely candidate chosen to be king (the youngest of seven other brothers whose daily highlight consisted of watching sheep think.) On the other hand, this is the same youth who rose up to face Goliath when an entire army of trained soldiers stood motionless, who lived the life of a warrior poet that wrote and led and conquered and influenced with confidence, skill, and determination.

I wonder how much of my life is God leading me or me choosing to lead.  American culture tells me alluring tales of the self-made man and all that comes with his hard work, ambition, and determination. Church culture has upheld a different picture, the portrait of the hesitant everyman, the kind of person God prefers to use, the kind that asks “Who me? You must be thinking of someone more qualified.”

But what about the Davids of planet earth? The restless warriors convicted they hold something profound from God stitched into their marrow, who see giants, and believe they can slay them?

For so long I was convinced that God wouldn’t use me to my full potential unless I somehow became ok with taking a job void of nobility likes scrubbing toilets or “watching sheep think.” I thought, “I need to love God so much that even if he took everything I find worth and significance in away from me, I wouldn’t care.” This became an impossible task to wrap my mind around. I began thinking God was pretty unfair for putting all this passion and potential in me just to tell me that if He decided to take it all away, I’d have to be happy about it and love Him anyway. Weary and bitter, I wondered if I could ever live up to His expectations.

Then someone asked me a question: Do you believe God would still love you if all you did was scrub toilets?

Would you have value?
Would you have worth?
Would you have significance?

I realized I had been putting the weight on me to strive, to change, to suppress my strengths and aspirations. Never once did I turn the equation around and ask whether God could still favor me even if I couldn’t bring myself to favor his will for my life.  In fact, I was convinced He couldn’t.

I figured God couldn’t love me if I became a toilet scrubber because I don’t love people who scrub toilets.  After all, what do they contribute to society? What do they have to offer humanity besides a clean bathroom experience?

The beautiful part about the love of God though is that it not only changes us, but also changes the way we see the people around us.  It makes us better leaders, better caretakers, gives us purer eyes and wider hearts. By wrestling with these questions I’m learning that to lead people effectively, my love for others must spill out of God’s unrestricted love for me.

I wonder, where was God while David was watching sheep think? Staring down at him from heaven, waiting for him to fake the fact that he knew he was destined for things God put inside of him… or was God pursuing him, training him, embracing his strength and character, preparing him for giants he would soon face?

Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!

Christmas for the Culture of NOW...

We belong to the culture of NOW…

The instant gratification culture.

We have everything we need without ever having to wait for it.

Some might say we’re a culture who doesn’t know how to wait.

But thousands and thousands of years ago, a culture waited for one day they knew would change EVERYTHING.

They longed

They hoped

They anticipated

Emmanuel: God with us…

It was something generations waited their entire lives for, many wondering if they’d ever get a chance to see it with their own eyes.

Heaven colliding with earth

Magnificence embracing disorder

Divinity invading humanity

This season, we, the culture of NOW, have a chance to practice and gather others into something that’s become completely foreign to us… a practice that beckons explanation and swims against the current of the commercial holiday season.

This season we begin to wait, to long, to anticipate something bigger than ourselves…

Emmanuel.

God        with        us.

How to Pick Your Religion:

thanks to @human3rror for finding this.