Last week, late at night, riding in the back of the rig on a routine fire alarm call (so routine in fact, the other arriving engine called us off before we even got there!), I randomly glanced out my half-cracked window and saw the following on the marquee sign display of a small neighborhood church:
IF GOD IS YOUR CO-PILOT…
CHANGE SEATS!!! QUICK!!!
I loved this sign for a number of reasons, and it was rather odd that I even saw it in the first place. Normally, if I look out the window at all (riding backwards on the fire engine) I can make myself dizzy if I look at moving objects up close. So, I tend to stare off into the distance….the city skyline, the mountains, etc. But for some reason at just the right intersection at just the right moment –and I being in just the right mindset—I saw this gem. And it got me thinking with my old ‘minister’s brain’ again, and it got me itching to write again, and it got me reminiscing about one of the major themes I always hit upon during my nearly-ten years in ministry…
That clear starlit night, the old marquee sign prodded me to remember how essential it is not to approach my faith from a self-centered point-of-view…How incredibly important it was to approach my day in worship and faith, only if I was willing to do so from God’s point of view and purpose, not mine: How I was not to make my pseudo-drama-soaked life the center hub of my existence: How I was to live for something bigger than my own satisfaction: How my faith was not to be viewed as “My” faith in any possessive sense, ie something I owned and used as I pleased: How God was not here to attend and serve ME, but it was meant to be the other way around.
When I was a vocational minister, unfortunately I witnessed many well-intentioned Christians of all ages living a faith in which their desires, wants, and needs took center stage, placing God as a oft-used but more oft-neglected machine sitting stage left just waiting to dispense blessings, help, miraculous healings, etc. God was an accessory to many, a source of inspiration to some, even an idol to a very few. It may sound harsh or judgmental for me to say this, and I indeed have nothing to particularly gain by making this observation, but it worried me that so many folks (especially young adults) focused so intently upon themselves while in church: Even their thoughts, views, and opinions about God where in essence about their own selves. This startled me quite a bit, and I soon made it the center point of my ministry.
And by the way, I address this so boldly only because I was perhaps the absolute worst, self-absorbed, navel-gazing center-staging Christian I know (always well intentioned, but waaaay off…) Because I was so self-inclined in my faith and meditations, prayer and analysis, evaluations and observations, I was completely missing the point for what God intended me to be. My purpose was never to be my own, my purpose was to be what God wanted for me, to slowly (and often painfully) to become no less than ‘Christ-in-Me.’
So in the coming months I am going to focus my blog posts on exploring this phenomena of the “Christian Narcissist”: How we become so faithfully self-absorbed without particularly realizing it, why it’s dangerous, and how we can avoid this trap in the future. Who knows, perhaps I’ll try and make a small book (or a fat pamphlet) out of it. And for those of you that were in my ministry at one time and have heard all of this before...its been over two years, so it’s time to revisit and be reminded of what our focus should always be…
I will end for now, but I want to leave you with the basic premise of this whole project, the whole point, the whole end to which all these means will wholly strive:
Quite simply, you will never experience the enlightening peace, love, and tranquility of truly resting in God’s grace until you learn to focus upon Him with each breath, for each breath is his.
If God is your co-pilot….change seats! And be quick about it!
Mark
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