Once again, I am overwhelmed with several questions concerning the truth of Christian life and how we interact in our postmodern culture. Which disciplines are truly important? Do we, as postmodern young adults, pick and choose which disciplines we practice according to values of our individualistic culture? And if we do, is that ok?
A few weeks ago, my church started planning evangelistic events for young adults. Though I've been involved in several similar events in the past, and even had a class that covered practical evangelism in college, I found myself dismissing the idea of evangelism: "I'm sharing the gospel... just in my own way... I have people I'm witnessing to. I don't need to go into coffee shops and talk to strangers. God may be calling some people to radical evangelism, but that is definitely not my thing." I can almost hear the words boiling up under the surface: "That may be true for you, but that isn't true for me."
I was wrong. I knew I was wrong, and honestly, this is something I'm still struggling with. But even now as I think about my reaction to evangelism, I can't help but wonder how many of us do this all the time? How often do we excuse our responsibility to spiritual disciplines with statements based on personal (and often relative) truth?
The spiritual discipline that comes to mind most readily is worship. A few months ago, I started a Bible study on worship. I actually had no idea this study was about worship because the title said something about finding intimacy. My initial excitement faded when I was given homework of 20 minutes a day of worshiping God. I have to admit, praising God didn't come naturally, and I didn't experience anything besides disappointment for the first week, but by the third week, I realized that setting 20 minutes of my day aside only to worship was changing my whole life. I was experiencing intimacy with GOD!
My excitement has been overwhelming! Yet, as I continue to share my excitement with young women who confess feeling distant to God, I hear the same thing over and over again: "God meets with each of us in very different ways, Cassie. You may drawl close to him through privately praising him, but that will not work for me. I tried it once or twice and felt silly." In other words: "That may be true for you, but that is not true for me."
I really struggle with this. Is it ok to only do things that we feel is "working" for us? I mean we don't have time to do everything we could be doing, right? We have to pick and choose the really important ones. And who am I to say that God reveals Himself more in one way than another? Who am I to tell people what to do?
Honestly, my heart wants to shout with urgency at those around me that they are missing out on knowing God intimately! But what if my truth really isn't their truth? Or what if we are all so caught up in our postmodern, politically correct culture that we can't tell what real truth is?
