What Building Life Around Jesus is Not

My wife creates and publishes Christmas Cards each year for friends and family. She is very talented in design and throughly enjoys the opportunity to help others shine their family through cards. However each year she runs into the same problem. Some years the problem is minor and causes little disruption, but other years, like this year, the problem is major and creates a big ordeal. My wife designs the cards, orders the proofs online through a third party company, and then waits for the prints to arrive so that she can ship them to the right persons. It is in her dealings with this third party company that the problem always surfaces.

Inevitably every year the company will either ship the prints late, print the cards off-center or, like this year, develop a problem with the online ordering system not allowing my wife to order the cards until much later than anticipated. This last go around my wife was told story after story, reason after reason for which her cards could not be ordered. Each story from each person on each call was a different story and she quickly lost confidence in anyone's word from the company. The quick solution for my wife...get rid of the third party source of course! In her case, however, this is really not an option. She does not have the capacity to print the quality or quantity of cards she needs without them. So next year she will design cards once again, perhaps going with a different printing company this time, but keeping the third party nonetheless.

I can imagine that the way my wife felt during the past month of Christmas Card creations is likely some of the way God feels when He deals with His third party people: us. She felt frustrated and delayed. Unlike my wife, however, God does not need to continue to deal with us. He does not need a third party in order to accomplish His will. But His goodness and enduring love for mankind drives Him to exert great patience with us. The Lord recognizes the inherent risk involved and utilizes us anyway. It was not until recently that I realized just how frustrated with us God must be at times.

I have talked with an Islamic man on 7 or 8 different occassions now at a Dunkin Donuts locally. I visit this particular D&D's once a week for a few hours each week typing, thinking, planning. My Islamic friend is always there for some time during my stay. We initially met on account of his (not mine) evangelistic initiative. He noticed an open bible beside me and said, "Oh you don't read the rest of that I guess". I asked him to clarify what he meant and he gave me a discourse on the "Holy Koran". The 10 minutes we talked that first day could not be called a conversation as much as it was a monologue. I listened, he taught. I chuckled at the brief encounter that first day and went about my work again after he left.

The conversations that have ensued since them have been of the same style. He shows up to teach me what he knows about "Allah" and leaves puzzled that I have not understood his "revelations". Today in particular was the day that his musings broke the camel's back for me. I entered the D&D's, bought my coffee, plugged in my laptop, sat down in an adjacent table next to him, we greeted each other and the conversation began. He started by mentioning his 2 day fast that he was beginning at sundown after the order of the prophet Muhammed . His tone, facial expressions, gestures and over-all milieu were as they had been each time prior. He behaved as if he knew something within himself about "Allah" that I did not know and it was his direct order from "Allah" to teach me. Rather fed up with what I perceived, over time, to be self-righteous pride, I said to him,

"So you can teach me but I can't teach you. You have nothing else to learn, is that what you are saying?"

With half a smile he replied, "Well Allah has shown me the truth".

I said, "So if you have nothing else to learn then why are we having a conversation? Why should I even talk to you if you won't even consider the fact that you may be wrong in some of your beliefs?"

"Well Allah will reveal it to you if you want him to".

Increasingly perturbed by his self-righteous-God has spoken to me not you-attitude, I made it clear that I did not believe what he believed, that Jesus was more than just a prophet to me, and that his spiritual experiences, even though he was convinced they should have been proof to me of his connection to the divine, held no weight whatsoever in convincing me that "Allah" had spoken to him. In fact I made it clear that his spiritual experiences may just as well have been the work of Satan and his angels.

Shortly then-after he quit talking for the first time in 8 encounters.

My point in telling these two stories is to make the point that sometimes dealing with third-party sources can really mess things up. Every time I spoke to this man those 7 or 8 times I left wondering if that is the way I as a Christian come across in conversation to others who are not Christians: self-righteous and all-knowing. In fact I am convinced that this is exactly how I have come across in times past. God forgive me.

Folks, God is good. Jesus is Lord. But it is me, the third party, that oftentimes significantly distorts those realities and leaves others frustrated and delayed when I talk to them. Building life around Jesus is not about walking into a D&D's to empty onto the closest individual all that we know about Jesus. It is not about feeling superior to others under the hightened assumption that God has been working in our lives more than others. Building life around Jesus is about living gratefully in response to God's gift of mercy in Jesus. It is about praying face-down with the publican saying, "God have mercy on me a sinner" (Luke 18:13) and inviting others into the same face-down posture with us. The grace of our Lord Jesus breaks our resolved to feel superior to anyone. Instead it drives us to our needs in prayer, thanksgiving and sincere conversation with others longing for them to experience the fullness of joy, love and freedom we now know is only available in Christ.

"But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior" (Titus 3:4-6).