Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Big Chicken

Last night, we went to the Mall to have dinner because that's where Em wanted to go for her birthday. As we walked into the Mall from the parking lot, a car full of high schoolers went driving by with three of them standing up outside the sunroof screaming and laughing.

K: "They are so cool."
Me: "No they aren't."
D: "That is so totally dangerous"
D: "You could get your head cut off"
Me: "The car could stop abruptly and you could fall out, roll off the hood and get run over."
After a few seconds, D and I both look at each other and D says, "We aren't exactly raising barbarians are we?"

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a big chicken. "Big" being the operative word. What I know and what I do are different. I'm hesitant right now at pursuing another possibility for a missions experience this summer, because I think I'm too scared to go.
Try making a slight adjustment from "how could God use me?" to "what kind of God could use me?" If your answer is "a great God" then it's no longer about you and me but about Him. Rememer whether we think too much of ourselves or too little, we are thinking of ourselves. The prescription for this is serving others without thought to ourselves. Perseverance in this kind of service concludes in a leadership that is characterized by an "absence of self". That is one working definition of courage: not the absence of fear, but the absence of self. When the self is absent then there is no more thought about overconfidence or insecurity. We act on our faith in Him. link

No comments:

Post a Comment