Possibly Broken

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." -- CS Lewis

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Not Two Worlds But One Cross


Tonight I got into conversation with a customer at the restaurant where I work.  When I told him I wanted to be a missionary, he asked me if I evangelized in my everyday life.  I said, “Not much, actually…” and he asked why.  If I’m being honest, I have a lot of messes to clean up in my life.  For a while during high school I was a hypocrite.  I didn’t live a reckless and aberrant life on the weekends, but I separated my life as a Christian and my life at school.  I never talked to my unsaved friends about church or the Lord because I was afraid they would think I was only befriending them with conversion in mind.  I didn’t know how to integrate my two worlds smoothly, so I kept them apart.  As a result, I practically became two different people.  Though I was sober through it all, I’m not proud of the gossip I partook in, the clothes I occasionally wore and the crude jokes I made.  Once you lay down that foundation it’s hard to prove to people that you’ve changed.  Now I feel as if witnessing to my friend would be ridiculous. 
“Hey, let me tell you about this Jesus who changed my life and –”   
“Um, changed your life how?  You don’t seem any different than the rest of us.”
God wasn’t going to let that happen, though.  He’s been calling me this whole time and I’m finally answering.  It took an older man at California Pizza Kitchen challenging me to make me realize how wrong I’ve been. 
Now, I’m going to focus on an audience of One.  I want to live to please Him and if anyone thinks I’m inconsistent, let them talk.  Let them call me a fake , a liar, a hypocrite.  Let them reject me and even get a little angry.  Even if I stand alone, I’m not going to stand with my feet balancing between two different worlds anymore.  I’m going to stand at the foot of the cross.
 “15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world,  the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”                                                         -1 John 2:15-17   
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