Church Can Still Be Cool

I’m having a melancholy day.  Now real reason, just sort feel down a little bit.  Things are going pretty well, I just feel… well, blah I guess would be the word for it.

I am disatisfied with my spiritual place right now.  I feel lazy.  I don’t feel far from God.  This is different.  Like, I know he’s in the room, but I’m too apathetic to get up and talk to Him.  Does that make sense?  How do you fight that?  I would be happy to take any suggestions.  The funny thing is I could probably teach on it, but I am having trouble taking what I know and transforming it into what I live.  David Crowder says, “I’m so bored of little gods while standing on the edge of something large.”  I think that sums it up nicely.

You know what is convicting?  I will wake up early to go play golf, a game I suck at… a game which hates me and makes fun of me and makes me question my manhood.  I’ll wake up before dawn, pound some coffee, and hit the links and never even think twice.  But wake up early for a consistent quiet time?  Where’s the snooze bar?  It’s not that i don’t have time with God, but I have to ask is this what He intended our relationship to be.  I think that if i gave my wife the same amount of time I did my Savior, my marriage would fail.  Guess I take grace for granted.

Maybe that’s it.  I heard my brother once talk about the difference between cheap grace and costly grace. He quoted a really smart sounding guy named Dietrich Bonhoeffer and I was moved and challenged, but if I’m honest, cheap grace is easier.

A couple of weeks ago I went with my Mother-in-law to buy Carson a toy for doing such a good job being ring bear at aunt wowies wedding. (that’s ring bearer at aunt valerie’s wedding for those of you who don’t speak two year old).  Anyway, we went to Dollar General to look for a prize, and Carson found the $2 tractor everyboy dreams of.  It wasn’t fisher price, or even close to one of the expensive models, but it was a tractor.  And he loved playing with it for the 7 minutes lasted.  Cheap tractors are more accesible, but they break.

And that’s what I’m feeling about grace.  I always feel like it is broken… like it won’t work for me or isn’t enough.  Cheap grace is easy to come by, like a get out of jail free card in Monopoly, but, as I am learning, it often breaks.  Costly grace, on the other hand, grace that came at a great price and asks more of the reciever (it’s not an in case of emergency, it demands a way of life) lasts.  It’s forever… it’s a legacy.

When we were in Iowa, my father-in-law showed carson a tractor of his from when he was a kid.  Carson was fascinated… he loved it.  No doubt Steve’s tractor cost more than Dollar General imitation, but it remains as a tractor loving legacy that now impacts generations.

As it is with grace.  Costly grace changes you… it leaves it’s mark and affects the way you view and relate to your whole world, but from my seat, it’s worth it if lasts, if it refuses to break.  That’s the grace God wants us to wash ourselves in… grace that is forever.  There is much that stands between me and it, namely self because this type of grace will demand I lay down my life and my wants and my desires, but it also promises to replace them with new ones… ones that fulfill.

So, as for the blah’s, they are still hanging around, but hopefully not for long.  I want to find ways to press in… ways beyond a quiet time and a token prayer at dinner.  It seems like a lot of work.  Hard work.  Painful work.  But as I type, I realize that cheap grace isn’t any less work.  The cheap grace I settle for demands that I work to fix it, a work I’ll never be able to complete.  Costly grace simply suggests I work to enjoy it.