IN THE STARTING BLOCKS

Deuteronomy 32:28-52; Luke 12:35-59; Psalm 78:56-64; Proverbs 12:24

“Be dressed for service and keep your lamps burning, as though you were waiting for your master to return from the wedding feast. Then you will be ready to open the door and let him in the moment he arrives and knocks. The servants who are ready and waiting for his return will be rewarded….

But what if the servant thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant in pieces and banish him with the unfaithful.”

Yet though God did all this for them, they continued to test his patience. They rebelled against the Most High and refused to follow His decrees.
They turned back and were as faithless as their parents. They were as useless as a crooked bow.”

“Work hard and become a leader; be lazy and become a slave.”

Epiphanies are odd creatures. They rarely come in complete stories and sometimes not even in complete sentences. Mary didn’t get more than the barest “gist” of Christmas – and certainly, no sense of her Son’s complete ministry – when Gabriel visited. That was for the best, no doubt. Imagine the results of a complete download: “Nine months pregnant, on a donkey?!? To the posh lodgings of a bed of hay in an outdoor stable? Tell God thanks, Gabriel, but that blessing sounds like it’s got somebody else’s name on it!” Or, at least, that would have been my reaction (were I female; as is, it would have been something else altogether). God does not tell us everything He knows for some very good reasons.

That doesn’t make His silence any less frustrating. The past two days have included some dramatic revelations for me personally. Whether the previous two entries convey it or not, writing them has led me down a fascinating road. Seeing the glass full to overflowing from the start rather than half empty at best is a paradigm shift in perspective. It will take discipline and practice before it becomes the habit I know God wants it to be. Nevertheless, already, I sense the lesson may impact me right down to the level of personality, if I allow it.

There’s the rub. I’ve got to get into the starting blocks and begin to run, and it’s a very long course with lots of hills, twists and turns. I don’t know where or when it will end. I have to ask myself how hard I am really willing to work at this, and from where I will get the needed endurance to stick with it. I have to commit to give myself over to Christ throughout and no matter what. This isn’t doubting myself or Christ; this is the realism of true discipleship. And it’s never easy to face!

Then, since I was asked, I’ll confess: I’m working off an incomplete epiphany here. I’m not sure I have any real idea of what it looks like to radically rely on Christ. I thought I did, but I was thinking passive belief and trust could pass for active, affirmative, at-risk reliance, and I was dead wrong. So, I only know radical reliance as my new invitation from Christ. Well…, I also know it is more than I have done to date, and it is likely to play out differently than I expect and maybe even different from what I would like. I won’t be in charge.  I won’t determine the course, or even the pace. My decision, my authority – if I do this right – begins and ends at the starting blocks.

Run, or don’t.

Follow, or don’t.

Run to win, or don’t bother.

There’s some movie somewhere in which a character says to his young ward something like, “You say, ‘Do, or do not.’ There is no ‘Do not.’ Just do. Never do not. Do!” (Strange I remember that, and not the movie….) Jesus offers us pretty much the same choice. If we are in a relationship with Him, there can be no “Do not.”

Let the race begin!