I came so close... I think...

It was after this event that the idea for what to write about next began to form...

I was driving home from work one day, as I so often do, and I passed a motorcycle with man near it, pacing up and down the highway clearly looking for something. The first thing you have to understand about me is that I LOVE driving home. Some might say that I HATE driving home. It is extremely difficult for me to want to do anything after work. I shut down as soon as I open my car door after work. I am done. I don't want to do anything but drive home. I don't want to drive to the store first, I don't want to go to a friends house, I don't want to stop to get food. I am pretty sure that if I won the lottery and I had to go pick up the check, I would struggle the entire way thinking, "Bah, it's not worth it, I'm just going to go straight home." I don't know how else to describe it. Once I get started, I just want to be done moving around for the day. I want to be home. So with that in mind, I see this motorcyclist...

Looking back at it now, he was probably lucky. I don't stop nearly as often as I THINK about stopping. Just the other day, I passed a girl changing a flat on the side of the road... in the rain... Yeah, I drove right on past her... By the time I turned around, someone else had stopped... but that's another story with similar results so back to the motorcyclist... As I was saying, every time I don't stop, my guilt starts to pile up. Well, I had had enough of that by now. I was going to stop at the next person I saw and it happened to be him. Even as I stopped, I was hoping he was just stretching his legs, that I would only be delayed a second while he said, "Oh no, I'm just walking off a cramp. No big deal." and I could be back in my car, driving home, conscience appeased. This wasn't quite the case. He was an interesting looking fellow. Purple zebra pants and a helmet with a mohawk on a 50+ year old will do that. He was jovial enough though. He had lost a link from his chain and couldn't find it. He had already called someone and they were on their way so he was passing the time by trying to find the link. He mentioned how he had been out there for a while and how no one else had stopped. He kept thanking me for stopping. My conscience was feeling pretty good about itself. We chatted for a little while while I helped him look for the missing link. He kept thanking me for stopping and graciously dismissing me from any further obligation. I was really hoping to be the hero and find the link so I staid a little longer. After a bit however, home started to creap back into my head and I decided I should probably get going. We had looked and it didn't seem like the link wanted to be found today. His friend was surely almost there and, of course, I could already live in the knowledge that I was THE ONLY person that had stopped. Not too shabby. I told him that I was going to get going and he thanked me some more and assured me that he would be alright when I left. I was happy for that because I really hoped that he wouldn't say something that would make me think that I should stay any longer. He didn't. He was very gracious. I hopped in my car, waved as I passed and started thinking about home... It wasn't long before Jesus made His way into my thoughts as He often does. I started walking through the events and started to see just how much selfishness ran deeply through my interactions with the motorcyclist. I made myself available as a servant but at no time was I truly serving freely. The one thing that hit me the hardest was when I placed Jesus in my car, driving home that day. Jesus would have done many of the same things that I had done. From the outside, our actions would have looked very similar I imagined. One thing that I couldn't escape though, is that Jesus would still be there. He would have staid with His new friend until the motorcycle had been fixed or the man was safely in/on a vehicle headed to his own home. Only then would Jesus have Himself left to go home. I thought that I was dying to myself when really I had only sorely wounded myself. Maybe I sprained my ankle, I certainly didn't die. The distinction stood out undeniably and it was clear which one put themselves first and which one put someone else first. I wanted to go home and I was only willing to delay that for an instant, not indefinitely. I won out and went home before the work was done. Being a Christian is hard...

I realize that this might seem a little extreme, but that is the point. Jesus WAS extreme. He lived a life filled with compassion, with love, with self sacrifice. From before He entered this world as a baby, He had decided to live and die for someone else. That is hard for me to do. It is so hard for me that I actually call interactions like the one above as victories because it wasn't long ago that I would have passed by the man on the side of the road without even a thought. While my momentary stop doesn't show that I have arrived, it does show progress. It shows that someone is working on my heart and slowly it is changing, I believe for the better. The more Jesus comes in, the less me shows. I still have a long way to go. A LONG way to go...

Being a Christian is hard...

This is a phrase that comes to my mind so often as I walk through this life. Being a Christian IS hard. Jesus was a hard act to follow, yet as a Christian I am called to model my life after His. That's hard. Jesus lived a life of sacrifice, total and complete. He literally died for what He loved, what He stood for, what He knew, for those that were by definition, infintely beneath Himself. Dying is hard. Sacrifice is hard. I am a selfish, manipulating, spiteful jerk. And it is tough as Hell to kill me, but that's what I have to do...

I haven't written in a while. Sadly (or, if you've read my other ramblings, perhaps happily) I have not felt like I have had something worth writing about in a while. Until now. (Or, until a while ago, but life get's in the way.) I have been meaning to start this for a while, after a specific event, but perhaps for more reasons then just that. Cyberspace is an interesting place. It is a place where I can speak with something of a purpose, while addressing both everyone and no one all at once. Maybe I am hoping that someone, somewhere will validate my struggles through reading them, or maybe even share in similar ones themselves. I think somewhere deep down, despite myself and what I KNOW, maybe I am looking for assurance of redemption through knowing that I am not the only one who struggles with following Jesus.

As I embark on my most current leg of my journey, I know without a doubt that this next year is going to be difficult as, more then ever before, I am going to be putting my belief in Jesus to the test and I am going to be asked to kill my self over and over in ever increasing voracity. My perceptions have already begun to change and expand as I see more of both myself, the world around me and Jesus. I have a lot of work to do and I pray that I will have the resolve to do it. That I will follow Jesus when I am asked to do it into places I have never gone before, both out of circumstance and, let's face it, choice. This will be an invitation to look into what those that seek Jesus have signed up for, as well as a record of what I hope will be my progression toward Jesus.

Death is hard enough to bring about, even harder when the muzzle is pointed at your self...