My life is very comfortable.
I find my heart often pricked with compassion when I think about how many around me cannot say the same. The Spirit makes me squirm when I read verses about caring for the poor, needy, orphaned, or widowed. Engaging in those things is not regular activity for me.
My life is very comfortable, and I like it that way.
But I have found the Good Lord convicting me of late that my comfort is not His end goal for me.
I don't even realize how much I love (read: cling to, adore, idolize) my comfortable little life, until the suggestion is made that I rock the boat by getting involved in something that might make me need to (gasp!) trust the Lord to work, to trust the Lord for wisdom, to trust the Lord for my all.
As I read God's Word, think about what He cares about, and let myself wonder what He might have for me, I can't maintain the status quo and also live a life of integrity, let alone say I love God. And so we come to today's interruption. It all started the day before yesterday, when I ignored God's direction.
I've had this off and on relationship with a neighbor woman very different from me in life experience, socioeconomic status, and relational stability. In the fall, it got to be too much for me, so I pulled back. I've felt awful about it, but didn't do anything about it. Coward much? Yes, yes I do. Anyway, the day before yesterday, I saw her walking in the neighborhood with her son. Twice. I did not stop. Either. Time. I made excuses in my head and set aside the urging in my heart.
Yesterday, I could do so no longer. So I breathed deep and sent her a text.
She did not get back to me until late in the evening. She was needy. I arranged to see her this morning. So here I am back in the web of a nothing-like-my-other-relationships friendship, desperately wanting to share Jesus with her so she can know real life and peace. The cry of my heart to engage with the people of my city is being answered in a real, practical way. Yet already I think I've had enough, would like to take it all back, and run the other direction. It's all so far beyond me.
None of it is beyond God, though.
As I inscribed a New Testament for her today, I was interrupted by grace as I considered that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God: those with comfortable lives and those without. My friend and I are equals at the foot of the cross and there is Good News to share with her, a Good News that I need just as much as she does.
So here I am, caught between what I want for God's sake and what I want to run away from for my sake. Would you join me in praying for my friend when you think of her? Thanks!
How have you been interrupted by grace these days?! I'd love to hear your stories too. It can get boring only hearing my own. ;)
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