The World, Heaven, and Me

Jesus has been rocking my world in a quiet way lately. I'm not sure how all the pieces will fit together just yet, but humor me in my journey to try to step back a bit and examine what we have so far...

So, Friday night Rob called out of the blue and asked me to share my story. It's been a long time since I've done a complete overview of my life. It had a pretty profound affect on me to remember all of the beauty and pain that's been contained in my life. To be reminded again of God's abiding work in and through me. I was in tears pretty quickly recalling all of it.

He asked me to share it on Sunday night, and I did. The Spirit brought a slightly different message, but it was no less humbling. In our time of music, prayer, and reflection afterwards, I continued my journey of thanksgiving for all that He has done with my obedience and disobedience. He was so very real and present for me that night that it was hard to move out of that place of reverence and get back to the real world just to walk down the street.

Tonight at CSU we continued our journey in Philippians, which is a book I suggested we study together. Last week was the first lesson and it was profound. Tonight contained great discussion that I enjoyed, but it became a therapy/reality check time for me personally.

We were discussing Phil 1:20-23, where Paul talks about his strong desire to be in heaven with Christ, but understands the necessity of living on Earth and doing the work assigned to him. The question was posed: if Christ came up to you and said, "Time to go!" would you just go, or would you hesitate? I was honest and said hesitate. So as a group we pressed into the issues underlying that. The results are thus: I have a list (written and unwritten) of things I want to do before I die that I regard more highly than Christ, I don't see time spent at His feet as more valuable than doing good works for Him, and I struggle with the idea that God doesn't need my help to accomplish His purposes (aka if I go to heaven, He will then be missing out on all the great stuff I can do for Him). What does all this point to??? Selfishness, conceit, and independence. These are all the things that get me in trouble--it's me underneath it all, raw and dirty.

Now that I've identified the problem and its root, what's next? I desire for Christ to be what I desire most, so how does my current state change? This is the hard question and one I'll probably be blogging about since I'm most likely not the only person who is struggling with this. Maybe God will share something that will rock someone else's world too.