I've had this low-grade running angst in me lately because of my Lenten discipline of blogging. Although it's been grrrrrreat for me, I still seem to be "making myself" post everyday.
But my conversation with a friend helped me this morning,
It goes something like this:
Buddy enters the room stage right, where the Apostle Paul is writing at a small desk by candlelight, although plenty of florescent lights are available...
Buddy: I just ran to out to buy some almond milk for our morning cereal.
Paul: What?
Buddy (with a gentle but slightly louder voice): I said, I just ran to out to buy some almond milk for our morning cereal.
Paul: You picked an almond from a tree to milk it?
Buddy: Well, you can't milk one, you buy it at Krogers.
Paul: Huh?
Buddy (a little louder than last time): I said, you can't milk one, you buy it at Krogers.
Paul (without looking up from his writing): What's a Kroger?
Buddy (increasingly irritated at the age difference between the two. Paul is approaching his 2008th birthday on November 30): It's a grocery, uh... I mean, an indoor market where folks use cash, I mean denarii, to purchase food to drive home to cook for the family.
Paul: Drive?
(Buddy's jaw starts to slowly drop until Paul looks up and says):
Paul: I'm writing a letter to some church friends in another town. You know a lot about what I am trying to communicate and I could use your help...
Buddy (proudly): Sure, what's it about?
Paul: What I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do.
Buddy: I hear you, but I've always thought it to be this way - I do only what I want to do, and if I don't want to do something, I don't do it.
Paul: You hear my words with a subtle difference. Buddy, that's your old, dead, false self, the selfish one speaking... and that's where you have your gaze locked, trying (willpower, I think you call it) hard to do the things you ought to do. When you fix your eyes on the present and eternal Jesus, your TRUE self (seeing your true identity in Christ, I think you call it) will rise up and trust Him instead of using resolve and determination
Buddy: I've been telling several friends in their 20's (wrongly, now it seems) that they need to stop being so selfish by doing only what they want to do. But what your saying is, that that approach is more about living a better life than knowing the Better One.
Paul: Yes. Trust Him and you'll see it this way: What I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate I do. And seeing it THIS way, leads us to say Thanks be to God! My willpower does not deliver me... You are my Deliverer!
Buddy: This helps me with my blog for the day.
Paul: Huh?
Buddy: I meant to say, may I borrow your quill? I'd like to write my church friends a letter.
