Check out Jared’s post at the Thinklings about his thoughts after spending vacation with his best friends. After being “set free for more than a week to actually sit down and talk substantively with brothers in Christ”, he posts these 25 not-so-random reflections. Very powerful stuff. I may or may not have some more thoughts on his later, but for now just go read.

So, a couple weeks ago, I posted this post. Later, in the comments, my friend Paul posted this (and this response has been awaiting publication ever since):

I wanted to share something with you. I spent a decade and a half, and still to this day, watching with vigilance to not “slip” from God. Then I started to consider the fact that I will not get any closer to God, than Christ crucified and resurrected. What I mean by that is that I was killing myself, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually trying to stay “spiritual.” Sharing my faith, showing up to functions, having my prayer and bible reading times, and so forth. Then I realized that I was missing the elephant in the room. It is not my divine responsibility to remain spiritual. I will never be spiritual in the sense of my actions. I will only be as good as Christ Crucified and resurrected. My whole Christian responsibility is to express the love I’ve received by obeying the command of God, which is clearly defined by the love we share for our fellow Christians, and our neighbors. It is to express mercy, compassion, and forgiveness. It is not a heavy burden of having the correct behavior every minute of the day. It is to forgive as I have been for given Ephesians 4:32. I had to stop, stop doing bad, and simply start what was doing good. Focus on what is doing good, and do that. You will sin as long as you live on earth. Period. Why stress out over a lull in the way things were going? Did you stop being compassionate and forgiving? Did you stop offering mercy to your neighbors? These are the things of God. Be holy as God is holy. Set apart by your purity and divine nobility. Being spiritually relaxed, and spiritually receding can be two different things, if you let it.

Boy, did that hit my right where I live.
Lately, I’ve been in this funk. I just haven’t felt like, well, doing anything. Yet, I felt guilty about not doing anything. Bleah.
For 17 years I lived under the impression that what I do defines who I am. I scrutinized my actions and behavior. I compared myself to others, inside and out of my fellowship, to see how I was doing. I quantified how I was studying my Bible, how often I prayed, my giving, my church attendance, etc. It was all about measuring up to The Standard of The Bible.
I’ve come to understand over the last year or two of that, intellectually anyway, that this is so incorrect, and obviously so. As I look again at this pattern, I see that there is no grace, or at least that grace is so marginal as to be dismissed. It becomes all about what I do, instead of what was already done for me, namely Jesus’ death on a cross. It’s the treadmill that has to be run, and at a certain pace, lest I get thrust off the end, lost forever. There is no stopping, no breaks, no rest, and my spiritual life becomes all about what I do and accomplish. Me, me, me.
I say I understand it, intellectually. You see I know that it’s wrong thinking in my mind, yet my heart and emotions are still worrying about that treadmill. When I stop and think, that’s OK then, Jesus paid it all for me, it’s not up to me to do anything, then my heart gets antsy. It’s saying, “But you have to …. You’re not …. What about …. You’re falling behind!” You see there is some truth to the treadmill. Scratch that. There’s a truth that underlies the treadmill lifestyle. There is a standard in the Bible we are called to. We are called to be different, to be set apart. We are to watch our life and doctrine closely.
We are called to do some things and not do others. The fallacy is in the believing that our running, our acting, our doing, has any bearing whatsoever on our belonging to God. Yes we must run, act and do, but God loves us already and Jesus has saved us already, whether we run, act and do or not. (That last sentence bothers me a lot. I’m not 100% convinced that is true, but I’m not sure it’s false either. Oy.)
So there is this battle in my heart and in my brain and it drives me crazy. I’m the kind of guy who wants to have it all figured out. For years I thought I did, and it was good. I just keep running and everything is fine. Now that I know that’s not completely true – I can’t run enough to be fine – I’m going crazy not knowing just how much I should run and when. Should I sit, should I stand, should I fight? There is no right answer, and that drives me nuts.

Go read this excelent post at Tent Pegs. I had a similar experience today. OK, no trees were talking but I did get caught up in a Hallucination.
The house next door just sold and the new owners have been coming buy painting and making the house theirs. I hadn’t had the chance to meet them yet, and this evening he and I were both out cutting grass. We nodded at each other out in the front yard, but when we both came around to the same corner of the rear I motioned at him and we both shut the mowers down and introduced ourselves.
They were moving from a town house across town, had a 1 year old boy, were originally from Akron, then Chicago before Columbus and were glad to have a house. hey had been beaten out on two other homes in the neighborhood before getting this one. At some point, I can’t remember why, h mention he was planning to put up a fence. “Oh really, what type?” I asked. “Six foot.”
Now when we moved into our home 5 years ago it came with a fence. A six foot privacy fence. I felt like I was in prison. Two or three summers ago we cut it down to size and spread the boards out so we now have a less restrictive 4 foot-ish open fence. So when my new neighbor tells me that he’s putting up a six foot fence, I’m angry. My biggest fear was that the new owners would put up a privacy fence. Never mind that they might be ax murderers, cannibals or child molesters, they might erect a tall fence!
So, in my most loving and Christ like way I mentioned how we had just took our six foot fence down and, well, let’s talk before he puts up his fence so we don’t have two fences running together. Hard to control the weeds between. He was pleasant enough in reply and we went back to mowing.
As I continued on I kept thinking about that conversation. Here was a guy I hadn’t known for longer than 5 minutes, a guy I’d have to live next door to for several years and I was already trying to set him straight on a fence. Worse yet, I’m an ambassador of Christ, and what does he see? A controlling, self focused, manipulator. Ouch.
When I read Patrick’s post at tent pegs, I was even more convicted and ashamed. I had bought a hallucination that the fence was an important issue. More important than building a relationship of mutual trust and respect with my new neighbor. More important than demonstrating Jesus. I now have an uphill battle if I’m to really show him Jesus, up a hill of my own construction. I fully intend to apologize for my attitude in the hope that a little humility and contrition will help him see me as something other than a meddlesome neighbor.