Are We Fighting the Wrong Battle?
I’m reading Soul Talk: The Language God Longs for Us to Speak
We’re fighting the wrong battle. We’re excited about the things that bore God, things that stir us up then tire us out. Another initiative. Another Campaign. Another way to do it. We’re putting our energy and resources into projects and programs that market well but don’t do what God most wants done.
Which is worse? A church program to build community that doesn’t get off the ground or one person sitting every Sunday in the back o the church who remains unknown. …A family torn apart by the father’s drinking, his wife’s frustration, and their third grader’s learning disabilities or a self-hating dad, a terrified mom and a lonely little boy, three human beings whose beauty and value no one ever discovers? A national campaign that fails to gain steam or the Pro-Life moment or a single woman on the way home from an abortion clinic in the back seat of a taxi, a woman who no one ever touches?
We may notice the unknown pew sitter, worry over each member of the torn up family, and feel for the guilt and pain of a woman who has ended her baby’s life. But we do what’s easier. We design programs, we brainstorm things to build attendance, and in our outrage over divorce and abortion numbers we fight for family values.
These are all good things but we don’t talk to the pew sitter; we don’t invite the dad to play golf, the woman to lunch or the little boy to play with our children; we don’t let the aborting woman know we care about her soul. Time is one problem. But feeling uncomfortable in how we speak to struggling people is a bigger one. As a result, souls are never entered; people remain unknown, undiscovered and untouched while programs flourish, ministries grow and moral campaigns get press.
Programs, bigness and moral indignation have become substitutes or SoulTalk. Many of us are disorganized, small, and indifferent to any kind of evil that does not affect our life directly. We stay to ourselves, committed to personal comfort, struggling along to make it happen. …while all across the world, people in record numbers, are living the tragedy of an unobserved life…
We know each other’s names. We know what we do. We work together and discuss exciting things. We pray together. We enjoy each other and laugh together. But we remain personally unknown. No one knows the deep battle going on deep in our soul.
MORE QUOTES
“Pleasing God brings pleasure into our soul. It’s what we want to do. Pleasing others creates pressure. It’s what we think we have to do. And it’s tiring; it wears us out.”
“Most people go through their entire life never speaking words to another human being that come out of what is deepest within them, and most people never hear words that reach all the way into that deep place we call the soul.”
“Every conversation either stimulates or dampens our desire for God.”
“How can conversations between followers of Jesus become a stage on which the supernatural power of God is unmistakably displayed?”
“We live in a day when the life that God has given to every Jesus follower is counterfeited, contrived, neglected, hidden, unreleased, and generally not believed in.”
“…most of us are never known by a safe friend, never explored by a curious friend, and never discovered by a hopeful friend. And that is a tragedy, as harmful to the soul as AIDS is to the body. Hearts are not changed. Or hearts that have been changed by the Spirit at conversion to Christ are not released.”
If Jesus were speaking He would say,
“Put programs and your moral outrage where they belong–in second place. When they occupy first place in your heart, I find them detestable. I hate them. Can’t you see the real battle going in in the human soul? Wake up! It’s a heart problem. My people want something more than they want me. And it’s ruining them. Their efforts to make life work are wearing them out and carrying them further and further from me. And I am their only hope, their only source of rest and joy. Learn to speak with power into people’s lives. Arouse their desire for me until their thirst for me consumes them. When they get away with me they will rediscover their lives! The battle is for the heart. The battle is for the soul.”
Emphasis mine.
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