More of the same…
Spent my evening researching application issues with IIS 6.0 Application Pools in Barnes and Noble Technical book section. I really love how work has invaded my personal space. Stress and panic attacks… I am on a crash course for meltdown. This completely sucks beyond description. This struck a cord last night reading in John…
John 6:27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
Sometime I just can’t help but to feel trapped. I surround myselves with all the junk that ‘perishes’. I have to finance it, take care of it, protect it, insure it, replace it, fix it… I would rather spend my time working for things that ‘endure to eternal life’. That sounds like a better paycheck to me… I am so sick figuring out server problems, utilization, administration. I am sick of the technical calls and emails. I am often reminded of a Fight Club quote…
Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
I look around the office… sad faces. People joking about working in ‘Paradise’. I fell a sick desperation in their laugh. Happy… no even close. Fulfilled…ah, no. Bitter, mean, and angry because they are a slave to a system. Perhaps this is the ‘rudiments’ or ‘elemental spirits’ Paul talks about in Colossians…
Col 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
I am just having trouble seeing how any of this brings glory to Jesus. I fell as though I should be the one offering hope and evidence of a better way. Instead I fell as though I am drowning like everyone else. Some example I am.
Please don’t take offense… I am feeling strangely not like myself…
One Comment
If ever there were anything that bled me each day, it’s the necessary … the required, and expected. Echoing the Solomon cantata: “All is vain!” is presently evidenced in the numerous ‘Complaint Choirs’ coming of age in many countries. Gorgeous choral work, but every word a gripe and whine, in concert.
What anchors me, and keeps me standing midstream in the torrents of our Sin Sewer, is looking up. He places me where my weakness floats quickly to the surface. He reveals whether I’m willing to immediately rush to Him or wallow around until I am so covered in daily shit, I am forced to cry out. It’d be much simpler if at the outset my natural inclination and love is both arms thrust upward for help.
Isn’t that what a child does … with their smallest scrape? What happened to me? Where I am now, is His way of grinding out of me my self determination to do everything without Him. Wait over there on the sidelines until I am worn out, flat on my back and pulverized … and THEN sub for me. I can handle it, and someday I might ask You to help me … with the big jobs.
He is NOT going to put me in His service as ‘the one offering hope and evidence of a better way’ until my submission is fact. Until I say this day, this morning, this moment, this new bucket of sludge I carry … is His method of removing vice and growing virtue in my soul. Of making me a child running into His arms.