I confess that I live in two worlds. One is the world which says, “I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” The other is the world which says, “If I’m late to this meeting, they will be upset with me. What if I don’t know the answer to that question. That’s not done? I’m in trouble now.”
I suppose this is just revealing the script that is running in my head, and that script, perhaps, just needs to be changed. That’s what some counselors would suggest anyway. They, of course, would be working on the stuff in my head without necessarily having anything to say about the words that are outside my head.
I could use some kind of shorthand and call them “spiritual/secular” or “ideal/real” or God/human” but I’m not comfortable doing that kind of dichotomizing. Somehow, there has to be a connection between the big stuff that Jesus says and the level of human interaction.
Into this ongoing struggle that I am having came a little beam of light this week. I subscribe to a list called Daily Manna, that sends me 3-4 verses every day. A couple days ago, I read, “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together
with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the
promise in Christ Jesus.” So Paul is talking about some big mystery that he is called to proclaim, and the mystery is that people who hate each other with a gut-level, from generation-to-generation, to the death kind of hatred, those kind of people will belong together. I’m reading this at the same time the news is talking about the ratcheting up of conflict in Israel.
So maybe, the practicality of the mystery is that people who hate each other can, with a common ground in Jesus, overcome that hatred. That I can imagine on a daily basis. I can imagine a couple people starting to get along because of forgiving each other and the history.
I’m still working on the abundant life part when dealing with some of the computer issues I have to solve, but reconciliation between enemies, that’s a pretty cool sample of there only being one world…as long as it somehow includes Jesus.
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