Who me? Ok. Huh? Oh.

I am rereading Michael Yaconelli's Messy Spirituality and wanted to comment on one of his paragraphs:

I often dream that I am tagging along behind Jesus, longing for him to choose me as one of his disciples. Without warning, he turns around, looks straight into my eyes, and says, "Follow me!" My heart races, and I begin to run toward him when he interrupts with, "Oh, not you; the guy behind you. Sorry."

How often do we have this feeling about our lives? We try our best to be "spiritual" yet for some reason we don't rise up to the "standard." I know for me, I often feel like my spiritual life is very inconsistent. I got through times of unbelievable commitment to times of inability to read my bible. As Yac says, the only thing consistent for me is that I am inconsistent. I guess you could say that I am consistently inconsistent.

I try. I try hard. But there is no rhyme and reason to my spiritual life. Not to mention that most of the time I feel exactly like Yac's paragraph, a misplaced disciple. I often think, WHY? I mean I haven't made the best disciple. It has never been my desire. The desire is there. It's mostly what comes out in action. Now that is another story.

But overall, I am a pretty sorry disciple. I am not the one that you would think Jesus would choose....but then again who is, right? I don't have the best past, I don't have the best temperment, I don't have the best, well I obviously don't have the best spiritual life. Why would Jesus choose to let me follow him initially and follow him still? I am a......well, like Yac said, I am messy. I do my best, but it is starting to appear from everything that maybe my best isn't good enough. Maybe I am just not making the grade.

And you know what? That stinks. I mean I want to be a good disciple. I really do....but right now I am having a really hard time. Part of me has no desire to ever go to church again. Part of me wants to run away from this thing called Christianity. And truth be known, I am running. I am running just as hard as I can. Yesterday as I was driving.....I was deeply "bothered" by the thoughts I was having. It brought a short and brief tear to my eye. I hate all this. I hate the way I feel and I hate that I am having these feelings.

I feel as though Jesus called me to be a disciple and I started walking behind Him and we walked for awhile, even miles. Then He turns around and says to me, "Actually I meant the guy behind you. Where is he at? I would rather have him. You'll have to go back now."

That is a pretty sorry feeling to have. But this book is a good book. It is reminding me that my spiritual life is not based on numbers that I have to meet but is rather based on an unconditional love that my Father has for me and will always have for me......no matter how messy I am.

Live in that.