He has told you, human one, what is good and what the Lord requires from you: to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8 I don't know how to talk about distances. And that's a problem, because I'm a distance runner and a coach, with kids who are currently obsessed with their track and cross country stats. When I go out for a run, I think about it in terms of miles. But when it's time to race, the standard distance for high school runners is 5 kilometers. Every track race distance is in meters, but yet every time I golf it's in yards and feet. Sometimes I'll ask the kids to grab something from the kitchen counter. "It's only a few feet to your left," I'll say. But a moment later we're hanging a painting on the wall and, "that left corner needs to go up about 1 centimeter." And don't even get me started about trying to figure out if I'm supposed to talk about liquid in gallons or liters?! AHHHH! My ways of measuring things are inconsistent at best. I use a whole lot of different metrics. And I'm regularly finding that this is true of life as a whole. A few years ago, it became more and more clear for those of us in church leadership that the dominant metric system was inconsistent. Ministry effectiveness was measured by church attendance, budget size ("butts and bucks") and one-time decisions for Jesus. But the sad reality was that all of these numbers could be trending upward, and yet people were not necessarily looking more like Jesus, experiencing a deeper sense of wholeness with God, or caring for the poor and marginalized in dynamic ways. None of those metrics were inherently bad! But they also weren't the measurements that Jesus seemed to emphasize. Jesus seemed to think that the most important metrics for our lives were related to discipleship and compassion. He tells his followers that the goal is to make more disciples, not simply converts (Mt 28:19). Disciples are people who are spending their lives as students of Jesus, growing in both grace and active love. He also says that what will matter is not religious sounding words, but lives that look like care and concern for those in need (Mt. 25:34). Here's the thing. Those metrics are much less impressive to measure, because they rely on inward posture as the starting point. Of course, this isn't simply about church. We are constantly feeling this pull in our lives, aren't we? What units should we use to measure success? House sizes? Growing our salaries and portfolios? A neat and tidy family that appears very impressive to the world around us? A lot of extra curricular community and religious activities? When we use the metrics of our dominant culture (or dominant religion), we find that we will be constantly chasing after impressive exteriors, but still never feeling like we are enough. And we will rarely take the time to be formed in the deeper places by God and live out of that depth. We will not value how the inward becoming is every bit as important as our outward actions in God's eyes. Jesus' metrics do not correspond with the world's systems. They can be messy, unimpressive, and difficult to measure. What is the state of one's heart? Are we helping people walk toward deep healing? Are we serving on another in humble love? Are we learning to give ourselves away and live more freely and lightly with God? Are justice and compassion flowing from our lives? But wait-- even these metrics can feel crushing. What good news that they are founded on this truth: God's grace goes before you, and you are loved dearly independent of any of those metrics. So when we move toward them, it's not from obligation, but because we are living with Jesus in freedom. If you're like me, you may go back and forth between which metrics you focus on even in the course of one day! How very human of you. But let me remind you today that so many of the metrics you are tempted to measure your life with are not from Jesus. Your calling today is simply this: rest in grace and seek to be faithful in each moment, reflecting the love you have already been given. That's worth measuring. Jesus, move me toward what matters to you today. Peace, Keith
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
October 2024
|