More than the Sum of My Past

Several years ago I had lunch with a friend of mine from church who, at the time, was working as a manager in the food services industry. This guy had a good heart for others, but had learned through life that he needed to recognize people's limitations as well. His experience was pockmarked with frustrations - missed shifts with little notice, false illnesses, and the general messiness and, well, drama of people's lives. All of this understandably played into and influenced his world view. And I was right there with him - like many I had worked as a waiter and bartender through college...I know my fair share of "drama" and was among those who could be far more casual than I should about missing a shift now and again.

One statement has stuck with me over the years from that lunch conversation. My friend, assessing all that he had to deal with, said something like, "I just have to remember that people are living the lives they've chosen - the lives that are a consequence of their choices. I even council them to that effect."

Basically the point my friend was making was this: the decisions we've made in our lives either open up possibilities or close doors (or perhaps both). That when we experience discontent about "our station in life" we need to at least recognize that our options, our limitations, our circumstance are a direct (and even cumulative) result of the decisions we've made along the way.

Makes sense, right? I think I tend to live this way most of the time. It gives me freedom to interact with others on the level playing field of life choices and circumstance. It provides "a reason" for the pecking order in life...for our stations and significance.

But is that the truth...according to the Gospel?

While, philosophically speaking, my friend's statement holds up - it now appears to me in direct opposition to the faith he would also hold dear...or, perhaps more important, it isn't. If I believe that faith is something I work at - that Christ's death and my acceptance of salvation is one "choice" in my history that puts me "in" or leaves me "out" of heaven...well than I suppose it makes sense. I am a sinner, I repent, I receive Christ, I am forgiven...now I go back to work.

But, even in that, isn't the whole point of His plan that we are rescued in the midst of our choices? That we can be...that we ARE...altered by the Lord?

And if you allow for that, for heaven's sake don't stop there. The big word I hear often is called "sanctification" and it seems to imply (or be applied so) that we have work to do to become more holy...a string of choices to make that continually winnow our options down until, presumably, holiness is the only thing we have left. But if the Lord rescues us from our choices the first time, why would we believe that he leaves us where he found us to move on from there?

Don't take me wrong here...I'm not saying we should throw our choices to the wind or that we have no choices to make. Romans 6:1 addresses this: "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" (NIV) Nope. But do we approach this from the idea that we must simply try harder? Or do we approach this from the idea that we must passionately seek His altering of us. Not a repeated trip to the alter, but a life altered by the Lord.

You see I am writing this today as I look back on the choices I've made (repeatedly, often from a place of hurt, iteratively losing more and more ground) not to write another entry on this page. I'm staring at my last post from February and walking back through the days that felt like a slow slide away from the Lord, from myself, from creating and caring...and I'm more than a little self conscious about it. In fact the easiest culmination of my choices would simply be to fade away. And I just might be game for that, left on my own I mean.

Or I could be triumphant and man up and overcome...

But the Lord has other plans.

He chooses to alter me - not with shame or with an assignment...but by revitalizing my heart and giving me hope which sparks desire. Not something I did or solved or fixed...but something He is working in me. A healing of the heart...at least the beginning of it. So, forgetting what lies behind and reaching, stretching, yearning forward to the hope of my heart that lies ahead...I press on...

Good to be back;)