Would I Even Let Jesus Drive My Shopping Cart?

And so it begins… A new chapter. A new city, a new husband, a new job, a new life, and most recently a new understanding. I am certain that every believer knows the path Christ has chosen for them, and either chooses that path or chooses to ignore it. Many believers believe the two paths can be reconciled into one. I can live my life for the comforts of the earth and for the development of the kingdom. However, I am coming to understand that these two are not as evenly attainable as we have believed. These two paths start out side by side when we become believers. But slowly, step by step, the paths grow apart, almost imperceptibly. And, ten years later, you wonder why you hate going to church and are knit-picking the song selections. You can’t seem to allow someone to cut in front of you in traffic or get through the door before you. One eye is on your Bible and the other is oogling a sales add. And we ask ourselves, “Is this the Christian life?” We’ve surrendered so little in such a long time, that we are disillusioned with our faith and wonder if it’s really worth the effort at all. However, the path of following Christ is a slow, often painful process of disconnecting ourselves from the strings of attachment to the world. As Christ loosens the strings, our hunger for the kingdom grows insatiable. Our annoyances now are not customer service issues, but the endless marketing around us that beckons us back to the world, and perhaps more greatly, our weakness of longing for those things. As our eyes grow spiritual, our attachments to the world make us weary. “If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” (Hebrews 11:15-16) This process for me has been so very painful. I vacillate between what I know to be God’s gentle wooing towards himself, and my American mentality of success. I know that Christ is calling me away from those things toward his greater purpose, but the cost seems too high. What of public opinion? What of my self-esteem? I cannot tell you what a good shopping trip does for my state of mind. And yet, listen to the hollowness. I am actually saying that the deep gravity of Christ and the beauty of His kingdom is still not enough for me to completely abandon my consumerist mentality? Can that really be what I believe? Many will say, “But we must be clothed. But we must eat to live.” Yes, but I cannot bring myself to as of yet to spiritually grasp “Consider the lilies of the field, they do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:28-29). This issue is not actually about what we are wearing or what our house looks like, but the power we give these things in the depths of our heart. This is about wicked attachments that will be burnt up when Christ returns and reveals what was really important all along. Yes, this is an issue of the heart much more than externals. But isn’t the Christian life all about the heart? Rooting out those things that are not perfect like our Lord. He is so patient with us, and we are such mindless sheep. We are masters at watering down truth to convince ourselves that we do not need to change, but I think if we loosened the chokehold we have on our lives, Christ’s word would truly penetrate our lives and humble us beyond all the barriers of pride. As C.S. Lewis says of Aslan, “Safe, of course he’s not safe, but he’s good.” Our comfortable lives are not safe in the Master’s hand, but he is so good, that we cannot help but find our hearts bursting in the glorification he gives his childen. What a big God we serve!- if only we would stop trying to fit him inside of our shopping bags.