I spent a few days with Ohio friends Matt & Angie back in February. As usual our topics of discussion circled around mutual friend updates, our goals/dreams, philosophies of life and when Angie is ever going to get on Facebook. In listening to Matt share his topic for the Sunday message at church, I realized, I may have it all wrong. I might just have my religion on backwards.
For years I espoused, "Search within, find your purpose go do it!"
Matt, challenged, "Isn't that self-centered? What if we searched God and asked, 'what is your purpose and how can I help to accomplish it?"
As if I wasn't already feeling awkward enough in this new philosophical suit, Dr. Norman Benz delivered this paradigm shifter: "Life isn't a blank page waiting to be filled by you; God has already filled the pages and is waiting for you to respond."
Both suggest I am not the center of my universe. Shucks! I knew that, yet my philosophies, did not reflect it. Ooops. It reminds me of the times I dressed as a child, put a mismatched outfit on, thought I looked absolutely stunning, only to be told the colors/patterns/textures didn't match. Or as a teen the time I accidentally wore two different color socks to school. As an adult I may be doing the same thing, only instead of textiles its beliefs.
I've been wearing my religious views the same way for years now. New notions have been offered to me (more than just these two), and I still wrestle with how they fit. Maybe that is even wrong. Maybe it isn't really about how it fits on me, but how I fit into it. So more than ever the clumsy way I've dressed myself in my religious garb isn't fitting as well as it used to. It's that awkward age in my spiritual growth where adolescence is meeting maturity. And in searching out Truth I just may have put the whole thing on backwards.
Comments