20050407

thought process

You'll never believe this, but I'm presently listening to High Noon by Andrew Peterson again. Shocking? You know it! It's a great song. I recommend Mr. Peterson whole-heartedly.

I have another shocking revelation for you all, though. I'm a jerk. Now, you're thinking, "here we go, momentary conscience attack" but that's not it at all. I've been sitting here trying to come up with something to talk to you guys about, scouring the internet for inspiration. I've looked at news, at Christian commentary, at music info. All i can say to any of it is, tell me why I care. I don't care that Amy Grant is getting a reality show. I don't see what it matters that the pope thought about resigning — it's like football stats. I find it just passably interesting that Relient K is opening for Simple Plan and Good Charlotte.

Now, it's all fine and good to not care about pop-junk-info. (a.k.a. 3/4 of what the news media reports.) My problem is that this often sweeps from my view of culture into my view of people. It's easy to despise people for being petty, self-obsessed, and caught up in a super-lame culture. the problem with that is, most of the time I'm petty, self-obsessed, and caught up in a super-lame culture. But, I don't think of that. I just marginalize everyone else, and act like I'm the king of everything. Self deceit is an interesting thing, i think. I'm good at convincing myself that I'm good, fair, important, right, and all those other things. Everyone else is a moron... me? Great. And not even regular great, but Tony the Tiger... GRRRRRREAT!

Anyway, the moral of my story is, I ultimately found something to talk to you guys about. Click here to read it. (Also, the connection may not be perfectly clear... and that may be a reflection of how my head works. Either way, it's a good read) It's an interesting little meditation by John Piper.

It's easy for me to try to be a firebrand and to tell myself that "It doesn't matter what people think." But, there's an important aspect of my Christian calling that does put some weight to what people think. And while, as JP points out, there is the possibility that they will hate our message, if we act like I've outlined above, they won't ever get around to looking at the message—they'll be too busy hating us.

Thats it for now.

2 comments:

rebecca said...

Hmm. That was quite the thought provoking article. Thanks for drawing attention to it. Makes my sob story "I'm the pastor/missionary's kid, and every body's judging me" seem pretty lame...

Anonymous said...

I am really just posting because that "1 Comments" drives me crazy. ;-D John Piper rules! Oh, wait---Christ rules, but His wisdom is reflected well in Piper.