For a Feeling

I mentioned in this column last November my fascination of how much time and money we spend on sports for the main purpose of feeling something specific. That's really why we pour so much into sports - so that we will feel something. For most of us, that's our main takeaway from sports. In that article, I also mentioned why I didn't think that was necessarily a bad thing. We give sports so much because we want to feel something specific.

The same thing is generally true about most of life. We work in our jobs to feel something (security, success, worth, significance). We get married because we want to feel something (loved, safe, known). We watch movies, go on vacation, and have hobbies to feel something. People abuse drugs to feel something ... or to feel nothing. We choose our politics because of how we want to feel (and this year, "feel" is part of a prominent campaign slogan). We have oomph in our activities because we so strongly demand to feel something specific.

Our faith activities, no matter how noble we want to be, are often in pursuit of a feeling just as much. Gathering together on a Sunday morning, being in a Bible study, having Quiet Time (or not having Quiet Time), participating in (or arguing about) music, volunteering with the kids, bringing a crib to a family in need, sewing dresses for orphans ... let's face it ... we do these things at least in part in order to feel something in particular. Perhaps we want to feel something noble (obedient, faithful, helpful, closeness to God, purification after confessing sin) or perhaps we want to feel something a little more self-centered (significance, heroism, superiority, self-righteous), but we definitely look forward to this activity producing that feeling.

Feelings are a big motivator in every aspect of our lives, including how we live out our faith. This is true whether we want to admit it or not.

It's true (I most firmly believe), and furthermore, I believe it's unavoidable. It's not even necessarily wrong.

If I'm right that this is unavoidable, rather than deny it, let's embrace it. You can confess it with me, "Much of my motivation to do anything is so that I will feel something in particular." Denying this entraps us in a loop of continually denying what is universally true, and as long as we're in this loop, we have trouble making real progress.

Let's admit that we're moving mountains in order to feel something, stop long enough to evaluate what feelings we're chasing, and then assess which of those feelings are futile to chase. Or even which of those feelings are counterproductive and even harmful to chase. What feelings, then, should I be chasing instead? What do I need to do to chase those feelings? Am I willing for God to be the only truly fulfillment of the feelings He wants me to have?

In the West, we fancy ourselves thinking, rational beings, motivated by what's smart and logical. (That's how we want to feel, anyway.) However, we want to feel! How we spend money proves it. Even "scientific" shows on TV are produced in a way to make the audience feel something. Don't fancy yourself more like Spock than you truly are. Embrace that you're motivated by chasing feelings, and then work on which feelings you want to pursue.

Kingdom Passion for the World

In last Sunday's message, I asked what your "Kingdom passion for the world" is. Put another way, what is something about the Kingdom of God that stirs you emotionally enough to bring it to this world? The Kingdom of God is marked by complete shalom, a complete wellness and peace in every aspect. The Kingdom of God is holy and just and good. Our destiny in the Kingdom is to be fully restored. What jazzes you about the Kingdom in a way that you want to bring that something to others here and now?

Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." In praying that, if we really mean that prayer, we are opening ourselves up to God for Him to perhaps answer the prayer through us. We will never bring the fullness of the Kingdom to this world, but at the core of how Jesus wants us to pray and to orient ourselves is this idea of continually bringing aspects of the Kingdom of God to those around us.

Since there are a myriad of perfect attributes of the Kingdom, there are plenty to go around for followers of Jesus to be passionate about. Your passion doesn't have to be my passion, and we can work in harmony in making the Kingdom tangible for others. I feel quite certain that every follower of Jesus can have His passion for at least one aspect of the Kingdom for this world.

What is yours? I'd love to hear what it is.

If you don't have an idea what it might be, would you be willing to seek the Lord's face about it in prayer, to ask Him and listen to see if perhaps He's waiting to unleash such a passion in you? Not just a five minute prayer, but a long-range pursuit until God answers!

Furthermore, how can we, the people who are called "church," help you pursue that passion? What encouragement, equipping, networking, and companionship might we offer to help you passionately do on earth as it is in heaven?

Please email me any thoughts, questions, or ideas you have. Let's talk.

Too Much to Process

I have not yet had a chance to sit down and sift through my notes to write up a trip report to encapsulate the last two weeks in Kenya. I need to get this done, and I will. But not today. Therefore, I am left to ponder singular events and activities for the moment.

On Sunday, I briefly mentioned a reading in Jeremiah that impacted me in a strong way while in Kenya - Jeremiah 2:5, Thus says the Lord, “What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me and walked after emptiness and became empty?”


I was reading this one morning during my Quiet Time. I hadn't read Jeremiah in a long time, and so I just picked it up that morning. There's so much in the first two chapters that catch our attention, and so I've never really dwelt on this verse before. The image of becoming empty because of walking after emptiness shocked my sleepy-headed system. I asked myself, In what ways have I been walking after emptiness and becoming empty?


One could easily say, "Well, here I am in Kenya on a mission trip. I've given up so much earthly comfort to be here. Surely this is anything but walking after emptiness." And it is true. But if one satisfied himself with this statement, he can successfully ignore the power of the passage. Even if I'm willing to go to Kenya, that doesn't mean I don't have times in my life where I'm walking after emptiness.


I can walk after emptiness by wasting time in front of the tube, by pursuing recreation to the point of imbalance, by getting caught up in consumerism, by letting my mind wander onto topics best left alone, even by pursuing ministry goals for personal benefit more than the purposes of the Kingdom. Anything (and indeed everything) I do that is unrelated to the Kingdom of God in some way is walking after emptiness, from sin to idleness to occupying myself with strictly temporal matters.


And by pursuing emptiness, we become empty. In a sense, we get what we've been looking for, to a tragic fault.


"Weigh" the hours of your week. Do you hours have any weight in God's Kingdom? If too few of your hours are pulled by the gravity of heaven, perhaps you are walking after too much emptiness. For our pursuits to be un-empty, they must be substantive in God's economy. We will get what we're looking for - if we walk after emptiness, we'll find it. If we walk after the weighty stuff of God's Kingdom, we'll find it.


I didn't expect that a mission trip to a developing nation would reveal just how empty some of my pursuits are. However, had I read that passage from the comfort of home, I may well have missed what it has to say.