Calling Me

There have been times in the course of several classes I've taken when I was instructed to write my faith story.  The format is always the same - 1) what your life was before you knew Jesus; 2) how you came to know Jesus; 3) how your life changed after knowing Jesus.  I have always struggled with telling my story in this way because I have no recollection of a life before Jesus.  Some of my earliest memories revolve around church.  One in particular is when I turned three and *graduated* from the nursery to Sunday School.  I can remember standing in a line watching the door open and marching with the other children to our new class room. We were not babies anymore, we were big kids.  I can remember making a diorama out of a shoe box depicting the home of the widow where Elijah occupied the upper room (I Kings 17).  What I can't bring to mind is a single memory of life before Jesus.

This is not a bad thing in and of itself, outside of the obvious difficulty in articulating a faith story that requires a before picture. It is what we want for our own children: a life of always knowing God.  Beside the in-the-box-faith-story-dilemma, though, the lack of a before lends itself to taking for granted the reality of God in one's life, much in the same way we take our parents for granted.  They have always been there and love us no matter how stupid we are, and that is what we come to expect.  It's not until we reach early adulthood that we realize the sacrifices they made for us and that discipline really is one of the truest forms of love.  The same is true of God, and it is entirely too easy to fall into adolescent behavior, thinking that the world revolves around me and that He is here to do my bidding, not the other way around.

As I ponder the beginning of the new year, I am dreaming about what it could look like.  I am tired of taking God for granted.  I am tired of cliche faith that so easily becomes formulaic: quiet times plus obedience = discipleship.  I am hungry for the kind of everything love that is alive and authentic and vital and makes whatever might have been my before story seem completely irrelevant.

I want to love God with my whole heart, soul, mind and strength.

This is more than a mandate.  It is more than setting time aside for the spiritual disciplines.  It is about experiencing deeper relationship and walking hand in hand with Jesus, loving Him more intimately than ever before.  I think I have been guilty of focusing on the mechanics as the means to an end.   I am praying He will breathe new life into me and help me to see Him in new and refreshing ways.  His love is calling me.  I want to love Him with all that I am and articulate it in a way that those who are on the before side of the equation can hear His love calling them, too.