Wonderings and wanderings

Confessions of a Convicted and Confused Professor
By Jim Beck
Chapel 11/6/2006

I take the last part of that statement quite lightly. I am not professor material. I am not nearly as intelligent as my colleges in the bible dept or any of the other departments on campus. For that reason I sometimes hesitate connection and interaction for fear my ignorance show. I am confessional (any student who has ever sat in class with me will confirm that and I am convicted and passionate about this Jesus Guy (I hope they could confirm that as well). I really like His style although I don’t often reflect His style and therein lay my conviction and confusion.
In this confusion and conviction I have been doing some searching and suffering. Searching for a more “real” relationship with God and suffering because I am not finding it. And on occasion when I do I realize I find Him, He seems to be in all the wrong places (in my drug addicted friends, the visitor off the streets without a home, the person who has lost everything, the radical non-conforming college kid) not in the places I have been led to expect to find Him. So I cried out the other night (nights are special times of connection) I had a long conversation with God. I cried (literally) to God to give me a plan, a vision, a blueprint of what this Christian thing is all about and how I fit into it (or live outside what it has become) – and He answered but not as I expected. First He reminded me he has sent a vision (and the word became flesh and we saw Him) and a blue print in Jesus. The problem is not that it is not evident; the problem is that I am not willing to truly see and follow.
I have not yet found any answers as to what I might be in the fullest sense of my walk with God, but I have been enlightened (I suppose by God and personal reflection) as to what I am not. And these I share with you as a beginning of a journey (my journey) toward God.
I am not a Christian. Someone once asked Gandhi “are you a Christian?” Gandhi replied "ask the poor they will tell you who the Christians are." Being a Christian is not a label or title, or most certainly not a descriptive I choose for myself – but one given me by the least of these, not the mightiest, the wisest, the richest. I do not believe it was ever a title chosen by the early followers of Jesus but an identity given by those who watched them live. I am not much like Christ – but I really want to be.
I am not comfortable. Regardless of how well our air conditioning works, or how padded our pews and relaxing our atmospheres I am not comfortable. Regardless of how well and skillfully I exegete the truth and demands of God for me out of Scripture, or how many people I find to pat me on the back and remind me that it is ok not being comfortable. I am stirred, dis-eased, and desperate in my inner being. Deep down in my soul I long for rest but resist taking my rabbis yoke to truly follow Him and find it.
I am not content to remain as I am. Change must happen and it begins with me. It does not begin with my country or the world. It does not begin with the church or my school. It begins with me making choices (often hard and frightening) about myself and my way of living and life. I must change lest I die, or rather, I must change so as to live. God did not call me to a physical death so as to live metaphorically up there, He called me to a metaphorical death so as to real – ly (with an emphasis on real) live down here.
I am not alone – God sits with me and sees my tears late at night and I believe He is the author of the stirrings. He has accompanied me to the literal ends of the earth, and to the bowels of the city, ever present longing to do more with me and for me, often in spite of my reluctance to allow Him. He has sat quietly hearing my question of wonder, anger and discontent, “God why do you sit by and allow so much suffering, pain and hurt?); and then gently and painfully hear Him ask me the same question.
Finally, I am not alone – others are convicted and confused. Others are neither comfortable nor content. Others are on similar searches as I.
That’s it – that is my confession.
Pray for me – maybe join me in this downwardly mobile journey toward God. But if no others share my discomfort and confusion – I am willing God to begin my journey.
You are free to Go – Metaphorically and Real – ly.