Self Destruction

I just spent a week at annual conference. This is not exciting to anyone outside my denomination. It is not exciting to anyone inside my denomination either. Its a couple of days where business is conducted, policies are reviewed and there is time to take stock of where we are, where we are going. It's a whole lot of boring reports and an occasional emotional discussion. I think they throw that in to hold your interest. There is some very good worship, good music, good Bible study. It's nice to see people I have met in various places, have nice relaxing evenings and good food. Lots to find good. Somehow though, it's not quite good.

I think we stand at a crossroad. I haven't been here long enough to know how long we have been standing here. I think long enough though that making the wrong turn has become a habit. That happens for some odd reason, that form of insanity, where you keep repeating a pattern thinking this time you will get different results. I understand how it happens, I have practiced years of insanity in lots of ways. I just know at some point if you want to grow beyond that, you have to embrace a different choice even if the same old one is comfortable and convenient. This is the place I think God brings us back to as individuals and as communities to help us make a different choice. Pick the harder way, step out in faith, choose to believe that God can do what He says He can do. I have often wondered when the spies came back from visiting the promised land, described it exactly as they had been promised how they still ended up recommending that perhaps God was not up to the challenge. It seems so ridiculous. You just want to jump up and down and say, did you see the water trick? Or the plagues, or the cool stuff you got to take out with you, just like God said? What is the deal with you people?! Only of course, I am running into them at annual conference, and maybe in the mirror.

It is the ultimate in self destruction, to know where the light is and choose to stay in the dark. It is the most ridiculous thing ever that when God is gracious enough to love us in extraordinary ways, to answer prayer both big and small, and move mountains in our presence, we say but we have always done it this way....why do we have to do something else now? Then we cry because we are still outside of the promise land and sometimes entire generations are stuck wandering around until another crossroad is met and a different choice is made.

We made a new choice this go round. It was made with a little ripple and a great deal of grumbling. Not everything was resolved and a choice that is made in name only and then not lived out with any kind of action or follow through wont mean a thing. In fact, it will be worse because this doorway will never work again. It will just be one of the new insanity patterns. I am really praying very diligently that this is not the case. How very sad that would be.

I don't pretend to know God's mind in these matters, but I believe I do know His heart. This isn't arrogance, it's just Scripture. God wants us to know Him, and to love Him and to serve Him and by doing so, become the tools He uses to reach all of His children. Any choice that leads us to do that more effectively for the world we live in today is a step in the right direction. This become the opposite of self destruction, it becomes the ultimate self affirmation: to be the child of God we were all created to be, unique yet made in our Father's (or Mother's for those who prefer)image. Why do we resist with so much determination?

Back to the annual conference, wouldn't it be great if next year it was closer to being good. In five years, it was the high point of the year. In ten years so good that we extend it a day, just to celebrate God together. I know, this is a different form of insanity altogether.