Thursday, August 05, 2010

Getting Rolling Again...

I've been asked, oh, maybe twenty times why Lindsey and I write for this site. Sometimes the questioner forgets to sugar coat it and asks point blank: "Why should I care to read your blog?"

Usually, in the past, I've fumbled for an answer. (I'm Southern. Rudeness throws us for loops.) Usually I respond with whatever's off the top of my head. "God just placed the opportunity in our laps." "I just like to write, bla bla bla," or something else vague and barely helpful.

The truth is, there isn't a special reason you should read this. There are a trillion blogs on the internet. The advice columns in the paper are probably more scintillating. We're not half as interesting as listening to the Old Spice guy on Youtube, and we know it.

So why do I blog?*

Profound question.

Let's see. The internet is filled with filth. Scratch that--the media is filled with filth. Scratch that. We're up to our necks with filth, so much that half the time we don't know it's there.

Do I write because I want to somehow try and counter all that, with some Superman complex? Uh, no. None of us can singlehandedly do that, because honestly, our hearts are all filthy too.

Here's what I do know:

In Ephesians 2:19-22, it says that all of us who belong to Jesus are being built together into a dwelling place for God. A crazy, incredible thought. Jews, Greeks, hippies and kings; all that live for Jesus are being built to become a dwelling place for God.

Meaning that God connects all of us together; uses each one of us as building material. We've all got jobs. We're all created to carry weight.

Great power means great responsibility--but even without power, we're still held responsible. It doesn't matter if you had an eating disorder when you were thirteen, or if you've spent your whole life looking down on those you sense are "less holy." We're part of a city on a hill. We're shining to angels, principalities and powers that Christ is worth it and is making all things new.

This applies to blogs. This means that, sometimes, we must write simply because God deserves to be praised even in the dustiest corners of cyberspace.

And as this principle becomes more clear, it becomes possible to trace into other areas of life. Forget communicating on a blog. What about praising Him through time and love?

Recently I read about Jesus washing the disciples' feet, a story I've heard told since childhood, but still have yet to fully absorb. After preaching to them, sharing meals together, and roadtripping all over the nation, Jesus washed his follower's feet. After speaking to them with words for so long, He forever imprinted His meekness in their memory by action.

The guys--they were his students, and dense ones at that. He was a famous rabbi the people, at one time, wanted to name king. They were fishermen, who dreamed they could ladder climb by sticking close to Jesus.

In the most poignant portrayal of His humility (next to that of His death) perhaps ever recorded in the Bible, Jesus wiped clean the feet of his friends.

It was an act any of us could do. We're all given opportunities to serve the hard-to-like. We can forgive and serve our family members. We can ask that little sister we've wronged for forgiveness, even though she's partially to blame. We can go out of our way to love on those former friends who've decided to shun us.

I guess the common thread that knits all this together in my mind is this: are we waking up every morning in order to lift His praises higher, and to put aside petty things?


*Which is a funny question in light of the fact that Lindsey and I haven't blogged in several months since the site's been down. But humor me.