I hope the title of this post intrigued you--I wasted a lot of time coming up with it!

Better (on several levels) don't ya think?! :)

Remodel vs. Resurrection

It was about a year ago that I started complaining to God that my life (and by association, his kingdom) was a bit blah, boring, mediocre. I told him I didn't think it should be this way and I didn't want it to be this way. I asked him to rescue me from my boredom.

Well, then we started the adoption process and I thought that was the key. Surely, my life wouldn't be boring any more. But it is. Because as much of an emotional roller-coaster as all of this is, well, it's still not ALL that God intends for me and my family. Nor will their homecomings be the end of my boredom.

A few months ago I heard someone say that we often treat our "conversions" or "salvations" or whatever you want to call it as though God just wanted to remodel us. Most of us (relatively "good" Americans anyway) think we are pretty good and that God only has a little work to do on us. Friends of ours are in the design phase of remodeling their house and I think it is a pretty good "visual" for what I've thought my "Christian" life should be like--making more room here and there, "repurposing" this room or that, adding Jesus as another level to everything that already exists. I never would have said this is how I treated the whole thing, but it is pretty much true.

But, I've come to think that God doesn't really want to remodel us. He wants to kill us. That seems a lot more in line with Scripture to me. After all, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live..." (Gal 2:20) That's a pretty popular verse and one I have memorized for years. But, it doesn't sound like a remodel or a make-over. It doesn't seem like there's much room in that for keeping a few things just the way they are while I let God fix up the ugly and outdated parts. It sounds like death, like the complete end of a way of living, like starting over from scratch. And that sounds pretty scary.

Sure the rest of the verse is pretty rosy: "but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." But to get there, you have to die. Uuurgh. Not pretty.

So, I'm reevaluating everything. Finances. Values. Priorities. Friends. Where I live. What I believe. How I apply what I believe. Who is my neighbor. Lots of things. I told Aaron that I know I have a tendency toward extremes and it would be easier for me to just drop everything, move to Liberia, become like the Liberians, and just start it all over than it would be to stay here in comfy-cozy America and strip away the layers of culture that I've bought into and adapted to my "Christian" life. If I'm at Point A, it's like I have to go to Point Z to even see clearly what in the heck Point A really is. I don't think Point Z is necessarily all that much more real and healthy than Point A (and I'll probably end up somewhere between B and Y), but at least from Z you can tell what A is.

Add to that (ie--my extremism) to my over-developed sense of right and wrong (there's very little gray in my world and I recognize that as a weakness) and you have a recipe for a very legalistic little puppy. So, while my eyes are being opened to some ways that I am not living like I believe, not loving like Jesus, not living like Jesus, it would still be very easy for me to just cut Jesus out altogether, to decide for him what I should do, whom I should be, what my life should look like in response to his, all in an attempt to be like him, to please him, to be a "real" follower of Jesus. That's sick and strange, eh?

A friend of mine says that she was caught off-guard when Jesus confronted her self-reliance. "But, but, God... that's one of my best qualities!" she said. I hear her! It's one of the hardest to leave behind because I (and my society) value it so deeply. But, Jesus (duh!) wants us to depend on him, to FOLLOW him.

Blather, blather, blather. I feel a bit disposessed--as though I no longer fit in this world but I'm not ready yet for the other one. (Hmmm, that sounds suspiciously biblical too...) So, bear with me as I'm figuring all this out, divesting myself of layers of stuff and trying to discover (I'm not sure whether to say "again" or "for the first time") who Jesus really is and who I'm supposed to be. In any case, I'm done with the boring remodel. I want a resurrection... and, um, could I get that without any death...please?