God has convicted me, no easing into that one. I don’t mean that crappy kind of guilt you get when you stub your toe then say a bad word that your mom or grandma hears. I mean God showed me something, then slapped me in the face and said, “That’s you, you big jerk.” I don’t think I have felt this convicted about anything since I knew that I was a sinner and needed to get saved.
Here’s what started all this. Dan and Brandy visited us at the beginning of the month, and Dan passed me the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. Great book. I laughed, made those little agreeing noises in the back of my throat, then came to on the floor. I am pretty sure God picked it up and hit me with it, maybe not.
Those of you who have read this book may remember the part where Miller tells of how he came to realize how selfish he was. Not the “Nick won’t share his cookies” kind, but the kind where you’re just not selfless. He tells of how he realized all his protesting and shaking his fist at the world for its sin and problems meant nothing. Why? Because he wasn’t changing himself. He says he realized that the world would never have peace or equality until the people in it stop being so selfish. Without a God-inspired change in each person, the whole can never be perfect. (SLAP!) Here I’ve been griping about the world and especially the church, when I am this messed up, self-centered sinner. A man who has no desire or drive to change how messed up he is. It’s not like I even get to change myself. These things are a part of us. They’re a part of our fallen sin nature, and we need God to reach in and straighten them all out.
I wish I could say that was all that hit me and the rest of the book showed me what a great “Christian” I was, but it didn’t. I also realized that I don’t love right. I hold my love for ransom and expect others to do what I want in order to get it. He called it using love as a “commodity.” I call it being a D-bag and am ashamed to say that I’ve done that out here with my team and my squadmates. Make me mad, and I’ll be rude or sarcastic to make you see what a jerk you are. I am a master of the passive aggressive tactics. Man, I’m screwed up in the head.
You may imagine how hard it has been for me since I began to see these things in myself. I wondered about what to do. I felt sick. Got sick. Felt like a faker and a liar. What would people think? Should I tell them? After that thought I imagined all my supporters waiting at the airport, hellbent on a lynching. I think that was my pride trying to scare me out of asking for help. Pray for me. I’ve wasted and taken part in ruining many relationships because of this, and I never saw it. I don’t want to be that person. I want to love like Jesus. I mean really love like he did. Never holding back. Never scared how it might hurt. I want to be selfless like Jesus, too. I want to be willing to put my own safety and comfort after others no matter how wrong or hard to like they are. Jesus loved and hung out with the people who were hated and looked down on by the society of his day. When’s the last time I ate with a homeless man or visited a murderer in prison? Wait let me check my journal……oh yeah! Never! I don’t want to be that guy anymore. The guy who’s just in this for the fun of it.
God take me, break me and make me look something more like you.
Nick
