A Disrupted Church

Posted by parkejladd on Feb 1, 2010 in Featured {Article} | 3 comments

Forgive me.

Forgive me for my feeble attempts to appear strong.  For an artistic legacy of painted words and hand sculpted sentences.  For a self-concocted life spent ignoring the easily ignorable.  For my lack of attention in the midst of constant hurry and waste.  For a life spent in willing comfort, separated from those afflicted by misery; cut off from inner city, high rise slums; and detached from broken, underground societies.  Forgive me for made-up rules used to shackle and control–not release and set free.  For self-guided, service oriented ambition.  For good deeds done in vain.  For easily packing my bags, fueling my car, and driving away from the pain.  Forgive me for my legalism, for task oriented obedience.  For heartless, lukewarm deed-doing in the midst of an eagerly awaiting crowd.  For arrogant strength, attempted safety, self-prescribed confidence, and the pursuit of an over-glorified, perverted sense of happiness I called normality.  Forgive me for misdeeds and futile attempts to cover them with wine, war, words and money.  Forgive me for my numb smile and hardened heart.  For self-preserving security.  For self-righteous Christianity.  For loving routinely and relating coincidentally.

Rescue me.

Rescue me from this self-imposed, self-constructed prison.  Tear down my walls, scale my tower, defeat my ego, destroy my pride, and retrieve my burdened, enslaved heart.

Lead me.

Lead me away from a life of ease.  Lead me down the narrow way, the path of most resistance, the path of highest cost.  Lead me over the crags, the cracks, the juts, the sharps, the fissures, the boulders, and the slants.  Lead me through the darkest valleys, under the coldest bridges, and into the most sinister of hallways.  Lead me through the cold.  Lead me through the night.  Lead me through the depths of mourning.  Lead me through the tension.

Carry me.

Carry me when the weight of this life is too heavy to take another step.  Carry me when tears blur my vision.  When I can’t see the path in front of me.  When I can’t let go of this life you’ve given me.  When I’m paralyzed on the edge, and the trail is falling out from beneath me.  When the plaster cracks, and the mask falls away.  When the noise becomes deafening, and my ears bleed from the anxiety of the trial.  When I am unable to shift while the ground quakes under foot.  When my buildings collapse and my house is in ruin.  When I cannot breathe.  When I cannot stand.  When I cannot lift my head.  When I cannot bear my yoke.  When my burden is overwhelming.  When my heart bursts, and the remnants scatter about the city.  When all else is lost, and the path is but a thin, red line in the desert–carry me.

Overwhelm me.

Overwhelm me with your Spirit, with your love, with your grace.  Overwhelm me with your presence.  May the mystery of who you are disrupt this habit of a day I call my life.  Surprise me with your joy.  Quicken me to your voice.  Hasten me to your cry.  Build in me a new nature.  Overwhelm me with your gentleness, your compassion, your burden, your yoke.  Overwhelm this broken, undeserving monstrosity, and capture me in your caring arms again.

Disrupt me.

Disturb me.  Disrupt this life, for it would be of great travesty to live in such a way that no part of it could be obviously attributed to anything other than what I can accomplish on my own.