utility and futility...

Vox was great last night. It was the very first time we used live music for anything. During communion, Jerry played his guitar and sang "There is no one" by Jason Morant, and it was so good just to be able to sing a little with Jerry and with the rest of our body.

Also, Nicolette took an opportunity to lead at the end and challenged everyone there to live up to our discussions about efforting to be connected with God for as long as we could. It made me excited for next week, and about our body in general. I have been going through somewhat of a funk the past few days and it was last night that God used to get me dreaming again.

One thing about that night really got my attention, though. During the teaching, I read excerpts from Brother Lawrence's journal concerning his efforts to commune constantly with God. I read about 6 or 7 entries from his journal, and I was very inspired by it all. But at the end of the night, several people said that while I was reading his entries, they were expecting the last entry to say something along the lines of "...after months of trying, I'm finding out it just isn't working... I hate my life." I was genuinely surprised. I really didn't expect to hear that at all. It led me to understand that the lies we believe are deep, and that the futility of life sometimes skews our understanding of God.

I didn't share their cynicism in that situation, but I indulge many times in thinking that what I'm doing really doesn't count- confusing the futility of life with God's call on me. What I discovered with my friends last night surprised me, but after considering it, if my friends knew how much despair I act in, it might surprise them more.

1 comments:

jerry said...

being the person who actually spoke out that i felt that way, i honestly was suprised to see how many other people felt the same way too. i just knew that i would be the only one that felt that way, but i was ok with it because it showed me just why i dont maybe have those "magical" experieces with god as often as i would like. it was nice though, i must admit, to see others with the same take on it. it reassures that it is a battle that all mankind faces, its not that im not good enough.