Gospel community looks like preference.
Every morning, a squad member prefers me at 6am to go run. And every morning I spend the first quarter mile thanking and apologizing and panting, "I really owe you one!"
Ive got a rotation, as to not wear out my favor with any one squad member…
It is these morning runs, and the left-right-left-breathe pattern that calms my mind. Despite the chaos of what the day before held, peace finds me on the local university track. Regardless of how many cars, busses, taxis, bicycles, or all of the above I have to dodge to cross the road, I'm safe on the track.
From this morning's miles and musings::
Community is hard. But preference is harder. Mix the two, after twenty three years of neither, and the outcome looks as though the university let me lose in their chem lab to balance chemical equations. Disaster.
Because, despite the inspirational pep talk given at launch…
"Prefer others, and others prefer you. Fight for others and others will fight for you."
Preference must be learned, slowly and by example. Because, if we're not careful, this little buzz word causes hurts, it opens old wounds, and it points fingers.
What preference isn't. Preference is not strategy, there is no big pay off in the end for preferring standing over sitting on a bus. Preference is not keeping tally of debt, preference isn't loud in exclaiming, "this is me preferring you". Preference, stripped away… Simply looks a lot like love.
And love looks a whole lot like Jesus.
Preference, from the pages of my journal, means asking "is Jesus really enough for me?" Is the cross, my salvation, the gift of being preferred by the most high, enough?
Every. Day.
Is the Cross reason enough for me to put pride, convenience, favorites, personal goals, and desires aside for the preference of another's?
No really…lived out?
Is the Cross enough when I'm hungry, or tired, haven't been able to communicate with my family, or feel as though I've not been preferred as often as another? In those moments, do I chose love or do I chose myself?
The tear stains on my journal say I've got a lot to learn.
So very much to grow in, but even more to be thankful for.
