Also, I started writing this blog for myself and then I started writing it for others. Though that sounds selfless, it was most definitely not. It was very subtly self absorbed.
But now I write again as if no one will read this. If you are reading it, I hope that God's Spirit encourages you with it. But, from now on, I will write it as if no one else is lurking around.
I write today because I am overwhelmed. Up on the second floor of Fred Meyer watching people as I prepare for future sermons, I am overwhelmed with how powerless I feel to transform someone's life.
People from different neighborhoods, different worldviews, and each sporting different hairstyles all come to find the best prices on their tomatoes. There is a leveling effect.
Here the wealthy and influential mingle (silently) with the marginalized. Some walked determinedly through the produce section to get the freshest organics while others sneak in shyly, hoping not to be noticed as they buy their craft beer. Deep arrogance shares the same space with resigned hopelessness.
In brief moments I feel the compassion that Jesus felt when he saw the crowds, how they were weary and scattered like sheep without a shepherd. Some of those people are around me now, eating a microwave warmed Stouffers lasagna.
One way or another, though, I think there is a depth to that compassion that I will not truly take in until I come to an end of myself...the end of my own desire to wield the power to save. I am too afraid to take it all in (to express the heart of my King) until I understand that I really am an earthen vessel. What all of these people need is not my striving to "fix" them, but a real experience of the loving, authoritative power of God.
And, when it comes down to it, that is true for me too. I will only cease striving, cease worrying when I experience the same power and know that the power is from God and not from us.
I will go back to studying now and wait for the Spirit of God to do what only He can do.
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