Lose your life

I was thinking about inner city restoration and how often Satan tempts me to take this thing, that is so good, and make it an idol so I think that inner city restoration is the end I am aiming for. Another example is that I spent the whole weekend learning about the achievement gap and immediately I get so excited and want to see the gap become smaller and I think about mentorship and engaging park scholars and pairing them with inner city families and how if we can get kids graduate they can break out of the cycle of poverty. Don't get me wrong, this is huge. And beyond being huge, it is God's will and the desire of his heart for people to be self sustaining and to worship him with their work. But if I take Christ out of the picture, I lose sight of the only goal there is. Which is people knowing Him. 

We cannot forget that we are not home here and that we are only staying for a little while. In our lives, we don't reach the ultimate destination. An illustration:

Our lives on earth are sort of like a plane ride. Obviously, on a plane ride you want to be as comfortable as possible. Its much better to have some snacks, good conversation, sleep, whatever. But regardless of how comfortable you are, you're not staying on that plane for more than a few hours. So while it may seem important now to have the air conditioning working, whether or not it does is sort of irrelevant in the scheme of things because there is a destination in the near future. In fact, it may be more dangerous to have a really great plane ride, because what it you don't want to get off the plane? What if you start to get really comfortable and you think that the plane is the best thing there is and you just want to stay? What if you are afraid of the uncertainty of the destination and begin to think that it would be much safer to not leave? Can you imagine? The flight lands, people are getting off, excited to see family and friends, to start their real journey, and someone is so busy decorating their seat and making it as nice as possible that they refuse to get off? 

We're not home and we are not going to be home until after we die. Real life starts after we die. We were always made to be with Jesus. Made for our lover. No one gets a plane ticket just for the plane ride. There is always a destination. And even if its somewhere we've never been, we have our ticket to remind us that this is not where we will end up. God knew a ticket wouldn't be enough. Thats why Jesus became a passenger and got on the plane. 

Jesus is such a good example (imagine that huh?) because he did amazing things.. he healed, he spoke, he told people how to live, he cast out demons, he changed lives but he always, always really only concerned with obedience to the father and his destination. And physical healing was a way to point to a deeper healing, a better hope, a way to engage in true faith. There is not one situation where Jesus does not bring the ultimate destination into the conversation with whoever he's with. Because whether or not someone is blind is an awful small thing compared to whether or not they are going to be with their abba for eternity. Same for us. Whether or not a family is poor DOES matter but the difference between rich and poor is really pretty miniscule. The advancement of our intelligence during our earthly life seems huge to us, but to someone as big as God, its almost negligible. 

God's put this in our hearts. There is that feeling I have gotten time after time, where I pushed for something and got it and was so happy but so quickly that feeling sets in deep in the soul where we don't want anyone to see..

that feeling that we thought it would be more satisfying than it is. 

Thank goodness for that feeling. The greatest tragedy would be to invest so much plane ride and be so satisfied that I forget all about the destination. 

Thats what can happen with inner city restoration becomes my goal. Best case scenario is that people do rise up, people go on to accomplish wonderful things, get great jobs, care for their families, and all of that is good. 

But its still the plane ride.

Yes we want people to have the best plane ride possible but compared to the magnitude of the destination its a great tragedy if people get so comfortable that they start to think the plane is all there is. 

Not to mention the fact that inner city restoration, caring for the poor, raising families, being married--all of it are God's ideas in the first place. So for me to think that I can do without him is just silly. I know what happens when I have beautiful vision and I try to carry out on my own and I think it belongs to me. It has the opposite effect. The person or the object or the mission either starts to control me or I start to manipulate and control it. Usually both. Healthiness for the sake of healthiness made me more unhealthy than I ever was before. Knowledge for the sake of knowledge immediately becomes competitive and I want everyone else to do worse than I am doing. When I have a mission, I want everyone to know, and how well I act depends immensely on who's watching. 

When we let go of our missions, our dreams, our relationships, everything here and only then can God get to work in fulfilling those missions, that were his all along, in and through us. 

Its either both or neither. We can give everything up for Jesus and everything will get thrown in along with Jesus, or we can cling to stuff here as hard as we can and we'll lose it anyways. 

the words I've known for so long and thought I understood are just beginning to take on life

Keep your life and you will lose it. 

Lose your life for my sake and you will find it.