Challenges

  I promised myself that I'd spend this past week examining my life, letting the Gospel challenge me, that I might prepare myself to go forward into 2012 as a more faithful Christian.

  It's been a tough week.

  Rachel tells me that I'm my own toughest critic, but the reality (as I see it) is that I read the Gospels and then look around my own life for what the two have in common--and I think I have a lot to learn and a lot of room to grow.  I agree with the video above--I am sometimes guilty of rounding off the demanding corners of the Bible's demands of discipleship because they don't fit with the structures of my comfortable life.  I long to follow Jesus with my heart and soul, but I am loathe to give up some of my luxuries.

  I don't at all believe that I'm going to figure out Christ's call for my life in the first week of 2012.  I don't think I'm going to have it figured out by the last week of 2012, or 2021 for that matter.  But I believe I am being called into a deeper realm of discipleship, one that demands more of my heart and soul, and my energy and money, be turned over for Christ's use.  I don't want to reach the end of life and be left wishing I had spent more time at the beginning figuring out what radical discipleship looks like in my life--I'd like to begin to figure it out now, so that by the the time I reach the end, whenever that may be, I know that I ran my race well, that while I failed, I did so attempting to worship God in all my efforts.  Maybe that means selling all and giving it to the poor, maybe it doesn't--I think the call is different for each of us--but it means giving all I have to Christ and letting him set the agenda.

  That is my prayer for 2012--that I make time to listen quietly to the Spirit's calling, and that I have the courage and humility to obey.