Boring

We’ve all heard that “honesty is the best policy.”  Michael takes it to a new level today!  He speaks about something that we all have had a desire to express at some time or another…and yet, he shows us just why it is important to “speak up” when the situation really demands it…

For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. –II Corinthians 4:5, 6

I had a life-changing revelation when I was talking to a man who had suffered abuse as a child that ended in his spending nearly the next forty years in counseling. He would tell the counselors about a beating, show the scar, they would talk to his invisible father in a chair, and so on. I listened to this man, wondering what Jesus would say. I am often just as surprised as those I am discipling at what the Lord gives me, and this time when it came I leaned forward, put my hands on his knees and said, “Listen very carefully, for Jesus has told me what to say. It is only one word, but if you receive it, it will change the course of your life. If you do not listen, well, amen.” The man leaned toward me and listened intently as I spoke the word, “Boooooring!”He just stared at me, but again I said, “Boooooring! Your story is boring; I am bored to death with it; I cannot stand to hear any more of it. 

Why have you not gotten a life? It is a terrible shame that you were beaten as a child; it is bad that it ruined the first twelve years of your life. However, it has become a tragedy because you have allowed it to steal another forty years. How long can you go on talking about the first twelve years of your life? It is boring; you are boring!” I explained that I was sick of myself, too; I was bored with Mike. I am exhausted from thinking about myself, who did what, said what, reacted, rebuked, hated, or liked me. Self-life is all so boring.Jesus is not boring. I had challenged myself to go one hour without thinking about myself. It took months, but I finally did it. Then I did it for one day and finally one week, the best week of my life; it added much to rather than detracting from my life, and I had a great time. I challenged him that I, too, would be bored and depressed if all I did was think about him. 

Again, the advice was to get a life, get Christ’s life. As I was talking, his wife interrupted and said to him, “Go look in a mirror! You will be surprised with what you see.” He did and discovered that he was smiling. He acted shocked and said, “Why would I be smiling?” The answer was simple, “For the first time in over forty years your eyes are on Jesus.” There is nothing His nearness will not cure. To be happy one must give himself to something greater than himself. The thing far greater than man is God.  

How many people do you know that have lost many years of their life because they are still talking about, still living, some event or person that did something to them years and years before?  What percentage of Christians do you suppose are living like this?

And the tragedy is those years have been stolen from them.  That Jesus Christ could have overcome that “event” or “person” way back when… 

And God’s answer to the matter is Christ’s life is supposed to be our life.  And He was never defeated by any attack, any offense.  I remember when Michael introduced me to Psalm 119:165…never again, by the grace of God, have I allowed something or someone to “offend” me.  That is what Christ’s life is all about.  And it is not that His life is “available” to every Christian…it is that His life IS our life.  At least that is what God has said: Colossians 3:4. 

We are either living the Truth, or not. 

God, give us the grace to live Your Truth.