Mobile

If I had to choose one word to describe my life over the past several months, it would be "mushy."

I've grown lethargic. Apathetic. Lazy. I've become intellectually mushy. Socially mushy. Physically mushy. And, to be honest, spiritually mushy. And maybe you've found yourself in such a situation at times as well. You don't feel sharp or disciplined. Your life is just feeling a little...blah, and it become increasingly harder to roll yourself out of bed in the morning or off of your couch in the evening.

This last week, I had the chance to join in something that I sorely needed. It's something that I used to do every week, and I now realize that I probably didn't value it near as much as I should have.

While visiting friends in Joplin, Missouri, I attended the chapel service at my alma mater of Ozark Christian College, and there I saw a lot of people who were passionate. As the worship band sang, I heard several hundred students singing. And as the sermon was preached, I saw these same students pull out their Bibles and follow along in the text. There was a sense of excitement in the room. It seemed like people wanted to be there, and they were stoked about what was happening in that place.

I also had a chance to chat with a friend who is soon moving to Japan to work with a church plant in an urban area there, and I was able to sense her passion. She's excited about where God is leading her in her life, and she's excited about what the God is doing in a nation where the gospel is not well-known, and she's passionate about the opportunities that exist for the church there.

Passion is the opposite of the mushiness that has been so prevalent in my own life, and it was re-energizing to be around such passionate people this week. I realized that I need to become passionate about something. I need something to be excited about. Because right now, the thing I look forward to the most each day is going back to bed at night. But I don't think that's the way we were meant to go through life.

So where does passion come from? As I sat in on that chapel service, I realized that it begins with God. He is at the center of it all, and the first step has to be to rekindle an excitement and passion for one's relationship with him.

In his book The Shack, William Paul Young compares God's proper place in a believer's life as the center of a mobile. Everything else revolves around him and only has meaning in their connection with him. I've always liked that imagery. Life finds its greatest meaning and value when God is smack dab in the middle of it. Everything else moves around him. So when one's passion for God is allowed to cool, other healthy passions tend to follow suit, and before you know it you're spending the evening wiping Cheeto crumbs off your chest while watching yet another sitcom rerun on TV.

I wasn't made to be mushy. I believe that God made us to be passionate people--people who are enraptured by him and stoked about living in this world in which he has placed us and which he has entrusted to us. I've written recently that I need something to get excited about. And that's still true. But this grows first and foremost out of a deep, even desperate relationship with God. Everything else branches from that.

Have you ever felt "mushy?" How do you recapture passion in your life when that happens?

Not Home Yet

Where do you call home?

As I'm writing this, I'm back where I used to call "home."  I've taken a much-needed break from my responsibilities in Cincinnati in order to visit my family in Topeka, Kansas, where I grew up. It's been a great trip so far--I've gotten to eat some delicious cheeseburgers, I've gotten to meet my two new nephews, and this afternoon I enjoyed Sonic's Happy Hour for the first time in ages. Many would say that on this trip, I've gone back home, but as I think about it, I realize that I'm not really home.

Don't get me wrong. It's nice to be back in Topeka, and I've loved getting to spend time with my family. But this isn't my home anymore. I don't live here. I'm a guest. I'm sleeping in a room decorated with a cat-theme. I've this were my home, it wouldn't be decorated with cats. And again, I don't mean that since I've moved away from Topeka, I feel that I'm not part of this family or anything like that. But this house isn't my home anymore. I've moved on, and things here have moved on as well.

So where is my home? If not Topeka, it must be Cincinnati, right? That's where all my stuff is. That's where I pay my bills. That's where the CIA would come looking for me if they needed me for a top-secret mission. And yet, Cincinnati doesn't feel very "homey" to me either. It's a temporary residence, and I know that when I graduate from grad school next year, I'll likely be leaving it behind.

I'm in an awkward place in life, where there is no place that I can really call home.

All of this has reminded me of my favorite few verses of Hebrews 11. This is a famous chapter that outlines the lives of the Old Testament heroes who lived "by faith." The list includes the likes of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. In the middle of this chapter, the author writes in verses 13-16:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

 The faithful life is one characterized by a desire to find a home. The Old Testament saints described in Hebrews 11 never felt settled in their life. They realized that they were journeyers. And while they had families and flocks and tents and houses, they were always looking forward to something much grander. They never felt quite at home.

The old adage states that "Home is where the heart is." I think that's true. But for these people, their hearts weren't in anything that the world could offer them. They had given their hearts to God, so their home was where God is. They lived with a continual restlessness, awaiting the city that God had prepared for them.

We weren't made for what the world as it exists now has to offer us. We were made for much more. And when we lose focus and forget that truth, and when we fix our thoughts and hearts on what the world can give me right now rather than how we can use our lives for the sake of God's kingdom, we're selling ourselves far short of the plans God has for us.