A relaxed Jesus? No way!?

One of the scenes that struck me most from scripture is Jesus NOT chasing after a guy the Bible editors have called "the rich young ruler".  

Another is Jesus NOT hanging around and healing everyone or feeding everyone, but instead saying "let's go elsewhere" so I can keep sharing this message, 'cause that's why I'm here.  

Those, among others, were some of the first jarring images of Jesus that challenged the picture I'd picked up in "Sunday School".  Jesus had a reason for being here and a pace he worked at that isn't ours.

That's different and surprising because I've felt the need to keep your foot on the gas pedal of church and church stuff for so long - "because that's the way God wants us to think".

To be clear, I let up off of that idea a good long while back, but am surprised to find little places in my soul where it still exists.

I can still see the faces and hear the voices - "Are you all in?  What's it gonna take to get us there?  Let's throw ourselves into this and watch God work. Give till it hurts. Let's invite people to come and see. Etc."

I know those were (possibly) well meaning voices, but I don't think they understood the damage they caused and the people they shoved away from God over time by speaking as if their priorities were God's.

But Jesus doesn't play that game.  When a couple of his people got offended that they were made fun of, they told Jesus he ought to call down fire on the offenders and destroy them.  He declined, to say the least.

We are really good at putting words in Jesus' mouth and projecting our agendas or desires on to him and assuming he agrees with our direction, methodology, and desired outcomes.  That is a load of idolatry.

A big thing I am re-learning again is to relax and remember to be in no more hurry than God is about anything.  And he is pretty patient - way more than many would want you to think.

One of the pictures I picked up early in life was that if you didn't help "convert" at least one person to God/the cofC, then you'd go to Hell (the hot, unpleasant place where all your friends would be).

So many of us spent an inordinate amount of time learning the steps to salvation, the acts of worship, the important beliefs about a LOT of things, and all the accompanying scriptures - book, chapter, and verse.

There was always the sense of desperation and the importance of "this moment" in helping people come to know Jesus so that YOU wouldn't also lose your salvation.

Let me tell you, that is some messed up stuff.  That is sick and wrong.  That is not the picture of God in scripture.  It is a cherry-picked image assembled to push people on a schedule that isn't of God.

If you know me, you know that I don't display that kind of word or action in my life externally.  BUT internally, I am still relearning and readjusting - shutting down those hidden fires set by the devil himself under the auspices of (potentially) well meaning people trying to gin us all up for Jesus.

Another image I learned later in life is the lion tamer in the circus.  The guy who holds the chair up in the face of the big cats - chair in one hand, whip in the other.  

I learned this is done because the big cats, through a lot of conditioning, see four chair legs coming at them and don't know which to attack so they growl and swipe indiscriminately while the tamer forces their behavior for the entertainment of others.

That's a picture of what churches have done to people in the past...well, at least in my experience.  Keep you conditioned to focus on the confusing items they present to you that rotate in intense importance along with cues to move this way or that.  

And people sit still for that and allow themselves to be trained and conditioned that way.  That is slavery.

Remember that if you were to walk into the jungle/onto the plains in Africa with a whip and a chair, the big cats wouldn't stop and play that game with you.  They would attack you as a whole unit, chair and all, and come right for your throat - zero mercy, zero discussion.

This kind of circus conditioning happens over time and in subtle ways we might not imagine.  And I'm done with it.

Jesus calls us to a different kind of life - one that is full, one that is not heavy, one that brings comfort to your soul, one that is for freedom.

So now, I can say "no" to so many things and be at peace with it, knowing that God isn't desperate for my cash, my time, and my compliance to someone's vision for a church or a mission.

If I chose to do some of those things, I can - freely and because I want to and think that's how I'd like to do things, but it's not a requirement from God and those who say otherwise are liars.

Live free.  

Grace and peace in abundance to you and yours.

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PS: It's interesting that one of the only times that God is pictured as being in a hurry in scripture is when he is the father running toward "the prodigal son" to welcome him home. 

Running was something a Jewish man of stature didn't do because it was "unbecoming" and in this story, God humiliated himself for the son who had humiliated him and runs to him to welcome him back home.

Jesus told the story to show us how quickly, urgent, and to what extent God goes to let those who are popularly thought of as "gone too far" - that they are not and that he runs to welcome them.