Well done my good and faithful servant

One of the wisest people I've met recommended to me a quote today that could not have been more poignant and piercing:

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence. Frenzy destroys our inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our work, because it kills the work of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful. 

Thomas Merton

If you are wondering if this may apply to your life, see if you are able at a random moment to pray. Is your spirit restful? Is it ready to wait patiently upon the Lord and rest silently before him before uttering a word? My hurried, anxious, surface skimming prayers are a clear symptom of the anxious life I am living, overcommitted to a million things and causes. Think of how often slowness irritates you-whether in line, while driving, waiting on someone. Think of how we race through scriptures, our minds drift as soon as our pastor starts talking or someone starts praying...when I try to pray right now its just words. And the way I treat God and the way I treat people are always the same. If I am impatient and unable to listen to the love of my life, how can I expect to do so with a friend? And if I am so annoyed with all these beings made in the image of God, do I really think I can adore the one who made them. Could you ever be close to a man whom you constantly put down, criticize and belittle his wife and children?

Every word I have written is to myself. You may or may not struggle with these things, but I know them well. I'm trying to live this rushed existence and it’s so destructive. My sinfulness manifests itself in my constant need to control my ministry, who I pour into, who I listen to, who I care for. 

Jesus is so beautiful. Yesterday I had my day so structured and put together and back-to-back and someone forgot to pick me up and I was so hurt that I was trying to love on girls and it didn’t work out. I was so upset with God that he would mess with my plans. I was like, “this is for you, alright? Why are you messing up what I am trying to do for you? “I said out loud, “you’re killing me God!” At that moment his response was clear:

Of course I am. And the words Jesus said so many years ago flooded in:

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

Of course I will take your ministry right out of your hands because the only thing I have to offer you is myself.

I will strip you of everything that is not me. Leave you with only the cross to cling to. With only Christ to cling to.

A few minutes later, feeling hopeless and useless and pointless the words entered my mind

Well done, my good and faithful servant.

Those words, when I was crying and consumed by my own selfishness. Those words when I was doing nothing good. When I was so evidently not faithful. Not his servant.

That is the scandal of the cross. I was like, don’t call me that. I am not any of those things. And God responds, in the midst of our darkness and self loathing, don’t you dare call yourself worthless when I have called you Beloved. Of course you are not good and faithful but Jesus is and was and will be past forever and when I look at you, he is who I see. And those who have been made pure are being sanctified. He is turning us into little Christs. It’s painful. He promised it would be. But in order for him to build us, he breaks us first. Jesus went to the cross before he was resurrected. Any part of our souls that we don’t let die cannot be resurrected. We first die with Christ, but he doesn’t ever ever leave us dead. We rise with Christ. We share in the resurrection.