Grinding the clutch...
It's the worst feeling when you're learning to drive a manual transmission. You rev the engine (too high, in fact), let the clutch out, and you hear that whining sound as the clutch attempts to engage. As the car starts to move forward you let the clutch out more (too fast), and the car bucks like a wild horse a couple of times before the engine stalls and you're left sitting in the middle of the road. Might as well have "newbie" on your licence plate.
That was me 19 years ago in Driver's Ed, trying to drive this ancient 70s Toyota around a closed course at the Driver's Ed campus in Chamblee, Georgia. Yikes. Almost made me give up the whole clutch-thing. I would've been fine with that if I hadn't fallen in love with this 1985 white Toyota Supra that I got when I graduated high school. If I wanted to drive it, I needed ot learn to drive a 5-speed. So I did. And now, even our 2004 Mazda 6 is a 5-speed, because my wife and I have found that a manual transmission can just be downright fun to own once you know how to operate one.
...
Unfortunately, life often feels like my experience on that Driver's Education practice course. I'm trying and trying, but everything stalls out.
Lately, I've been really agonizing about this. Too much, I confess.
I know what I want to see happen in a lot of things, but every time I seem to inch forward, the machine starts bucking and sputtering.
I guess I just get hung up on the obstacles that keep the full potential of our lives - our faith, our friendships, our effectiveness - from being realized. I agonize over the theological, spiritual, and self-pitying baggage that still dominates the lives of so many people that I've encountered. (I'm not pointing fingers...the fact that I get hung up on this stuff indicates that I have my own baggage). The simple truth is that baggage weighs us down so much. Pouring salt into old wounds only keeps past pain a present 'indulgent' reality. Theological debate (vs. dialogue) can divide people. Finding flaws in all things engenders an aura of negativity that drowns out things like joy, celebration, and grace. Mistrust, bitterness, and self-serving attitudes are counter-conclusive to building real friendships and making any sort of a difference in our world.
And all this brings me back to the "me" centeredness I've blogged about before. That everything revolves around us.
In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes:
The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me.
God brought me to Graceland (Don's community) to rid me of this deception, to scrub it out of the gray matter of my mind. It was a frustrating and painful experience.
I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit...but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.
Wow.
Nothing will kill a vision of real friendships/faith/community/effectiveness quicker than a pervasive vision of self-servitude. I am guilty of this sometimes. A lot of the time. I dunno. Maybe more than I want to admit.
Until we all can learn to contend with the lie that is the "me-" prefix we add to everything we do and instead focus on serving/reaching/helping/loving people no matter what it takes to make it happen, the best we can hope for is lots of false starts and stops, 'issues' that we'd be better off without, and just an overall 'feeling' of discomfort and despair that dominates everything as we fail to see the self-focusing circle slowly close in and choke the possibilities out of our lives . We'll start out, think things are going great, then something will come up...the vehicle will start bucking and fail to accelerate ahead. We'll winding up just staying right where we are. Not going forward. Not going...anywhere.
Of course, God works in spite of us so much, maybe I'm wrong about that. Sometimes all the negative stuff we carry around could be an entry point of how god begins a work in us. But that only happens when we're sick of carrying it and throw up our hands in desperation - and take our eyes of ourselves just long enough for God to start something in our lives.
For me it boils down to this (as I've said recently in another post): I'm either passionate about God, or I'm passionate about me. I have to choose which will drive all my decisions. I have to choose whether I'm going to serve God or my own interests. And I'd better make the right choice.
As Don Miller says: "Nothing is going to change in the [world] until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror."
That was me 19 years ago in Driver's Ed, trying to drive this ancient 70s Toyota around a closed course at the Driver's Ed campus in Chamblee, Georgia. Yikes. Almost made me give up the whole clutch-thing. I would've been fine with that if I hadn't fallen in love with this 1985 white Toyota Supra that I got when I graduated high school. If I wanted to drive it, I needed ot learn to drive a 5-speed. So I did. And now, even our 2004 Mazda 6 is a 5-speed, because my wife and I have found that a manual transmission can just be downright fun to own once you know how to operate one.
...
Unfortunately, life often feels like my experience on that Driver's Education practice course. I'm trying and trying, but everything stalls out.
Lately, I've been really agonizing about this. Too much, I confess.
I know what I want to see happen in a lot of things, but every time I seem to inch forward, the machine starts bucking and sputtering.
I guess I just get hung up on the obstacles that keep the full potential of our lives - our faith, our friendships, our effectiveness - from being realized. I agonize over the theological, spiritual, and self-pitying baggage that still dominates the lives of so many people that I've encountered. (I'm not pointing fingers...the fact that I get hung up on this stuff indicates that I have my own baggage). The simple truth is that baggage weighs us down so much. Pouring salt into old wounds only keeps past pain a present 'indulgent' reality. Theological debate (vs. dialogue) can divide people. Finding flaws in all things engenders an aura of negativity that drowns out things like joy, celebration, and grace. Mistrust, bitterness, and self-serving attitudes are counter-conclusive to building real friendships and making any sort of a difference in our world.
And all this brings me back to the "me" centeredness I've blogged about before. That everything revolves around us.
In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes:
The most difficult lie I have ever contended with is this: life is a story about me.
God brought me to Graceland (Don's community) to rid me of this deception, to scrub it out of the gray matter of my mind. It was a frustrating and painful experience.
I hear addicts talk about the shakes and panic attacks and the highs and lows of resisting their habit...but no drug is so powerful as the drug of self. No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are characters in my play. There is no addiction so powerful as self-addiction.
Wow.
Nothing will kill a vision of real friendships/faith/community/effectiveness quicker than a pervasive vision of self-servitude. I am guilty of this sometimes. A lot of the time. I dunno. Maybe more than I want to admit.
Until we all can learn to contend with the lie that is the "me-" prefix we add to everything we do and instead focus on serving/reaching/helping/loving people no matter what it takes to make it happen, the best we can hope for is lots of false starts and stops, 'issues' that we'd be better off without, and just an overall 'feeling' of discomfort and despair that dominates everything as we fail to see the self-focusing circle slowly close in and choke the possibilities out of our lives . We'll start out, think things are going great, then something will come up...the vehicle will start bucking and fail to accelerate ahead. We'll winding up just staying right where we are. Not going forward. Not going...anywhere.
Of course, God works in spite of us so much, maybe I'm wrong about that. Sometimes all the negative stuff we carry around could be an entry point of how god begins a work in us. But that only happens when we're sick of carrying it and throw up our hands in desperation - and take our eyes of ourselves just long enough for God to start something in our lives.
For me it boils down to this (as I've said recently in another post): I'm either passionate about God, or I'm passionate about me. I have to choose which will drive all my decisions. I have to choose whether I'm going to serve God or my own interests. And I'd better make the right choice.
As Don Miller says: "Nothing is going to change in the [world] until you and I figure out what is wrong with the person in the mirror."
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