Discontent

I was able to catch CNN Hero Awards on TV today. They honored Christopher Reeve with the Heroes' Hero award for his efforts to battle paralysis and help others going through the same experience as him. The award was received by their foundation's CEO and their two children. He's gone but his legacy lingers. Also his late wife Dana has to be admired also for walking alongside him. For some time now this has been speaking to me and it has spoken again. It will draw me sometime in the future. I can't really fully describe it. But let me explain it to the best of my ability.

For sometime now I've been drawn by the lives of people who go to the hurting and the lost--on the field. Sectarian or non-sectarian alike, I longed for that kind of involvement where the rubber meets the road. And I feel the church has barely touched that. We sit in the comforts of our sanctuaries, teaching and preaching, encouraging and reprimanding. We teach the principles of the Full Life Jesus commanded us. But yet I'm growing restless and discontent that we are gaining more intellectual wealth and rarely spend it in reaching the poor and the hurting. Don't misunderstand, the Gospel is the Gospel, they need Jesus and they need salvation. But I feel that I am not helping in bringing the essence of Full Life to others.

Full Life is the inspiration I've drawn to pursue in my life and for others. This is how I want to live my life and share it with others too. Jesus said, "I've come that they may have life, and have it to the full." Life is not all about spiritual discipline and victory. It's living the full life in all aspects of our lives. Chuck Quinley shares that there are eight areas of life we are living: Spiritual, family, career/studies, ministry, social, financial, health and personal life. And indeed I've realized that Jesus desires that every aspect of our life are to be fruitful, BALANCED and victorious--Christ-centered. Today I exist in an environment mediocre of such pursuit. I like what the announcer keeps on saying at the end of every Joyce Meyer podcast, "Remember, God desires that you truly start enjoying everyday life." Life is more that doctrine and keeping in with the rules that you miss enjoying it. Life should not be bound and limited by denominational lines and things-to-do checklists. Life is experiencing joy and victory in Jesus. This is the kind of life I want.

A friend lovingly reminded me early in the ministry not to settle for a powerless ministry life confined in the four-corners of tradition, legalism and routine. I thought I will never come to that. Yet today I feel I'm in one now.

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18-19). From the very words of the Master, he went and moved into our world to bring true transformation. From man's low condition he brought hope and true change. I began to question my work. Am I bringing true transformation in the lives I've touched? In the lives of the youth and the student's I've tried to minister to? Or did I just handed them an instant-candy-coated-Jesus that later they will take for granted and will deepen their cynicism about the true Giver of Life?

I admire the one who runs their church's orphanage, bringing a gleam of hope to scores of homeless and abandoned children. I admire the one who runs a feeding progam to the homeless so that they will refrain from sniffing the deceitful rubber adhesive just to feel full. I admire the one who helps young women find a decent living so they won't make their living on prostitution. It's more than emotionalism, even more than passion, it's commitment and calling. I don't want to be a hero. I want to be a USEFUL instrument. Lord, stir me towards Your heart ...