Takeout Spirituality

It always amazes me that we as humans interact with spirituality using a drive-thru mentality. We pull ourselves up to our favorite spiritual watering hole (church, para-church, faith community or small group) and place our order for one of many spiritual combos offered up. Sometimes we even have the gumpstion to order something off the menu. Perhaps we even try to weasle in some extra bonus spiritual bites or tidbits if we up-size our biggie-blessing combo!

I realize the above description may seem somewhat ludacris, and perhaps even outlandish...but I also think it is somewhat true. We've often looked to church or to faith as a service to us, instead of a place to serve, to give and to belong. We can become so blinded by our need to "feed" that we shudder at the thought of not have our spiritual needs met at our earliest convenience. And yet when you think about it, truly living in a relationship with God and with others is so not convenient!!

Relationships are messy; they are "organic"; they move and sway, grow and rescend, bring joy, frustration, hope and life. In the midst of this chaos and messiness, relationships are still about connection.

I love strategy. My mind thinks in waves of systems, structure and order. I love functioning within parameters like this in all facets of my life. But sometimes relationships don't follow a pattern or system or set of guidelines. In these moments where my desire for structure and order smashes headfirst against the wall of chaos I am faced with a choice. Do I cling to my system, or do I cling to the relationship?

When you read through the Bible you can see our default human programming and how we crave structure. But if we elevate structure above the relationship, we miss the very purpose of life.

Spirituality is messy. Relationships are messy. Rest in the fact that God is so much larger than we are and in His economy messy is good because messy means we are learning that we are not in control...only He is.