“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.” Martin Luther King
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” Colossians 3:23
When we beyond doubt run into the heartfelt love of Jesus Christ it should penetrate our soul to make us think and live in new ways. I remember attending a church a few years back. My heart and mind were focused on working with the youth. I had great dreams and my passions exceeded what I thought was possible. The youth were excited to start something with me but the leadership of the church stepped in and decided against what we wanted. Their response was; “this is not our focus at the moment.” Upset I went home and cried out to God in anger and bitterness. “What is wrong with people?!!” I said. “God, why won’t they allow you to work amid their church communities?” I was frustrated that the church wouldn’t step into the vision that the youth and I had. Time passed and nothing happened. The church split and many of the youth left. Then one day God answered me. He said; “it isn’t the churches job to get behind your vision. It is your job to work out the vision of the church and to serve that vision through your ministry!” My mistake was in thinking that the church existed for me and my vision, when in fact; I exist to fulfill the cause of Christ and serve it through the vision of his church. Somewhere along my journey I had developed the thinking that the church existed for me.
At one point of his ministry Jesus begins to talk about how a divided house cannot stand. I believe that a divided house is one that is going in different directions. If we are truly “one” we need to be united going in a particular direction. When your church has a united vision and is anchored on a greater cause, there is a great sense of solidity and security because everyone knows where they are heading. I often wonder what it would look like to journey through the heart of Christ. What would it be like if God literally showed us specifically what was on his heart? Jesus himself taught us to seek first the kingdom of God. This kingdom is not a mystical place in the heavens; it is everything in the realm of Christ. It is living in such a way that we bring the will of heaven to earth. It is journeying through the heart of Christ living in the midst of compassion. Because compassion is the imperative aptitude for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It's the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for us until there is peace and joy finally for others as well.
Many of us have a concept of God that needs clarification. God is not callous, for he took his heart and wore it into humanity within the person of Jesus. He did this far beyond the limits of humanity as we know it; so that he can be everything we are… and are not. God is not part loving, part graceful, part peaceful and part forgiving. Instead he is all loving on top of all graceful on top of all peaceful. He is not divided up so that we each get a piece. We all get all of him, all the time. Everything about him exceeds beyond limits, His love, His patience, His grace…, everything.
So we come to these conclusions in life, where we are lost and confused and our perception of God gets lost within our problems. We forget about His abundance of love, His immeasurable grace, we forget about who He is and what He has done. Deeper and deeper we get sucked into the hurricane of complex quandaries. But if we allow His Grace to bring us to the stillness of His presence, there we will find that He is more than sufficient for us; Thus birthing faith within us. You see faith is born when in our every moment we allow our flesh and spirit to collide. I love this Psalm, and meditating on it in the midst of storms always gives birth to faith once again. King David writes; “You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you; your right hand upholds me.” Psalm 63: 1-8
Each of us was born for something bigger than ourselves and God is using your present circumstances to make you more useful for the rest of the unfolding story. We are supposed to lead a life of excellence, backed up with character while being undergirded by faith. We must learn to lead a life not for selfish gain but for the name of God allowing him to teach us everything we need to know so that we may live to the fullest capacity for him. I wonder how many people today realize that they are being called by God in a unique way. And if you just allow your spiritual place to be the fuel, the engine, you will enter into a relationship with Jesus that will ignite you to move towards excellence. And if you allow Christ to intertwine himself through your living you will realize that you can change the direction of culture either locally or globally for all of us in the world because that’s the kind of aspirations that are embroidered within us. We all have incredible, invasive excellence woven throughout us because of Jesus. God cares about everything that we do and we should to because it reflects God.
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