I'm carrying a burden in my mind. There's something that bothers me every day. I volunteer in Bushcare every week and climb at Hangdog rock climbing gym. I've been living in Australia with my wife (now pregnant) and daughter (now 10 months) since January this year. They're not the burden. I'm enjoying all of these people, volunteer company and families both. But there's a word present in all of this that I've gotta get out.
The burden . . . I want to make absolutely sure that honest people in Wollongong have the opportunity to reject Jesus for who he really is . . . or at least my understanding of him. I've got this sense that some of my new friends have been presented with a limited and unfair experience and view of what it is to believe in God and be committed to Jesus.
As I do my best to search my motivations honestly, I also find another drive within me. Well, it's a drive within me at my best when I'm mindful of Jesus. I want so badly to see people's lives change for the better. I want to see more local food produced and shared. I want to see an end to racial, religious, and sexist prejudice. I want to see an end to abuse in the name of God or country or any other reason.
So, in a way, I've got no place here. I'm a believer. I give the scriptures of the bible a confidence in my life that I don't give to any other literature whether it be scientific, historic, or spiritual. My faith isn't an add-on, an unnecessary room in my house. It's the whole house, land and everything, as unreliably generous and inviting as my house and land might be. The message I believe . . . touches everything in my life. I want it to affect how/why I brush my teeth, love my family, make friends with strangers, live in Oz, and volunteer in Bushcare. I just can't quit practicing my faith or keep the message I believe quiet . . . and that's what makes me feel a bit out-of-style. My faith is public, not private.
On the other hand, Wollongong is just the place for me. I'm cynical and skeptical of religion. Like what Freud said, "Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanour." I appreciate the line from a U2 song, "While I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road like some little old lady." Yeah! That's right! But don't get me wrong; I'm confident in God. It's just my certainty is that I don't fully know my self, let alone The Other. I pray for God to purge my dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanors.
The reasons I feel like this culture is a good fit for me abound. Just one example of why I don't always feel comfortable within popular Christianity is that I don't get the sentiment that God cares about heaven but not about earth. I've heard from evangelicals, "The physical doesn't matter, only the spiritual matters." This doesn't make sense to me. In these areas, I've had to search my faith and practice and scriptures to find something better, something closer to the truth and beauty God surely intends.
So I've been on a journey of faith. You might say I'm one of those never content types. I will just keep asking questions until I get suitable answers. And then, I'll probably learn some more questions. So far, I don't know if God is in my vision for sure, don't know if I have the truth. But I believe the Truth's got a hold of me! God is making me better, faster, smarter, stronger--for the sake of others--than I was before.
So I wanted to share the journey with some others. I don't want to download my vision or impose my journey of faith on anyone. I just want to foster a place where other seeking types will be allowed to journey together. We can drink tea and fair trade coffee while watching a 30-minute DVD called "H20 A Journey of Faith" and then have an hour-long group discussion about our response, in both faith and doubt.
I neglected to sign on to your blog sooner, but here I am, Jason.
ReplyDeleteYour Journey of faith thoughts have reminded me of something old. I used to wonder, and more likely disagreed, when I would hear, "The road to happiness/success is the road itself".
Alas, my faith in the Lord and walk in the Spirit have produced this understanding. Yes. It is true the road to happiness/success is the road itself. Similarly, a journey of faith to a greater fulfillment is the journey itself.
What I came to understand is unless we take on and learn and rejoice in every joy and suffering along the way we will be ill-prepared for when we do arrive at our journey's destiny. Furthermore, as we do so we will have enriched and made others to rejoice on their own road. They may well have been whining and complaining in their moment of suffering in their journey, but we will have affected them in the moment for what may well result in them reaching their destination.
I ever, but am not always successful, want to be mindful of how Jesus modeled this for me. He was never too busy (as we like to thing we are) to stop even while on his way to go minister to a need and minister to someone who just cut in the path of his journey.
Walk on, my brother.