Of Separation Anxiety

Herrum. It has been done. You know, sometimes I wonder. What does it really mean to serve our Heavenly Father? To be separate for Him? Because, I naturally love helping people. Lately I've been trying to start up community outreach type things for my church to be involved in. I also want to go to Mexico to help orphans as I can. I have my little list of important things that fits nicely under God's work. But what about his other commands? Like how we should act on the day to day? What if we wants to reach out to the annoying kid at church no one talks to instead of orphans? Am I as committed to my daily devotions as I am to community outreach? Am I committed not to laugh at my co-workers sick jokes? Am I committed to not go to that movie, that party, that concert? What about spreading the Gospel? I often say and feel like I'd be happy to just serve, just to build houses, to just do "mercy ministries". But shouldn't I be just as eager, if not more, to proclaim the actual Gospel to the ends of the earth? YES! I should. But alas, I have my little list of important things that I want to pursue, I put them in my little ordering scheme and pursue them in selfish ways.
But not all is lost. In Sunday School, we have been studying music in the Christian's life as of late and it was many things I did not want to hear. And I knew them, and they pricked my conscience. I felt like I had suppressed that little part of my life, allowing myself just a little bit of world for my own pleasure. Bollocks, mate! I wasn't willing to give them up, they weren't very high on my priority list. We have to willing to give up everything for God, how can he use us if one foots in the world all the time? Were they even on my priority list? Probably not, which is why I hate how I organize God's commands, pick and choose, sift through them a little, and come up with a few big or small things for my agenda. Oh, to be able to pursue all holiness in perfect balance! But it cannot be so, so I've tried to mortify the sins as I see them, and try to work on being able to see them for starters (Lord, I could use- like, all of your Spirit here).
Anyway, I'm preaching to myself and needed to vent a little, since I just went through my entire library and deleted all songs that brought even a hint of a thought of worldly things to me. It was like cutting out a piece of myself, but I know the hole will be replaced with what was supposed to be there in the first place.

Of My Audience

Today's morning sermon at my church was an "evangelistic message". Meaning it was more tailored and directed at people who have not made a profession of faith. Funny thing was, I felt greatly convicted the whole time. There was one part in particular where he talked about how we never lift the Bible from our nightstand, how we do not pray to God, how we do not seek out his companionship, protection, and guidance; turning every one to his own way. I began to realize that as a conductor seeks the approval and praise of his audience, so we as humans turn to our peers for approval and praise. They are our audience.
We naturally need the acceptance by others, part of our companionship nature. And it feels even better to be praised by someone, to hear they think we're cool, clever, or clean cut. In the end of the day, we like hearing, "your better than me in this area." To the adolescent especially, our approval and praise is our identity. We cannot help but cling to it, seek it, and feed it as much as we can.

Then I got to thinking about my life and all the audiences I'll have, at work, at school, at church, friends, family, mission trips, that guy you met that time that you'll never, ever see again but you both made an impression on each other because of how funny the situation was, I realized, they don't matter. How much wiser is it to seek the approval and praise of my Creator than my fellow straying created? How much more effective would it be? To my soul? To my neighbor's soul? If I make Him my singular audience, I can guarantee you I will not get the approval and praise of the world for it. Yet as I live, a few of them will be my audience and see some of my life's script in action. And while they are sitting there, watching, having their own thoughts, I want to be proclaiming to them the climax at every turn.
I wonder what is the best way to capture an audience. Perhaps to convince them that they are not our audience at all, but one greater whose approval and praise we regard high above any of theirs. And if they caught the climax, if we captured them, if they have the same basic needs as you and I, wouldn't they want the same praise we strive after? That ultimate and matchless approval and praise which none other can begin to contest with?

So if someday you see me, eyes closed, talking to myself one day about the some deep love and double cure of which no man can comprehend; if someday you here that I've declined a job offer at a respectable company whose CEO's ride Porsche's and have gone to some foreign land with no money and no possessions working on a building that will shelter ten kids while they do their multiplication tables; if someday you find me unresponsive, lost in a book about how a father raises his daughter or how a man rehabilitates an emaciated community; don't worry your pretty little head.
Because I will be working, will be seeking, will be writing, will be playing.
For my audience of one.

Of A Struggle

Only the dead pirates know what it’s like
Poet’s write, but they romanticized us
It was moments for which we fought and died
To last the struggle of the sea and sky
Four years of naught but fluxed loss and gain
Ad rem maps we made proved out of date.
So much had changed so much the same
Self-righted dreamers pursuing hard the day
We sang in triumph and equally in defeat.
Sang the easy lie ‘the sinners life is sweet’
But the life and lie reek of stale vanity
The image so less clear than it was originally.
Today’s sunrise gifts a recurring trial
Clouds taunt a captain’s heart and mind
If allowed one caveat in collateral
It’d be, “It’s alright.” With sea green eyes.