Beautiful Fight — Part 2

Sep 18th 2008

So all week long — with these pastors from Estonia — we’ve been talking about how to see our lives, and our world transformed by Christ.  Why is that transformation so difficult?  Why is the beautiful journey of becoming like Jesus, such a fight?

In my last blog I talked about the way that our consumer-culture has us looking for the quick fix and transformation is not necessarily a quick fix.  Here’s another potential reason:

2) In a text-message culture, we can loose the art of meaningful conversation. Now the reality is that I don’t have to pick on texting.  I could just talk about the way that we are always connected, our souls are always online, and it simply leaves us with less time to be online with God.  (Maybe I’ll talk about that one tomorrow.)  But texting is a different kind of online — it’s communicating, without communion.  It’s words without conversation.  And it really is changing some of the ways we relate.

Did you know that 10 billion text messages will be sent in 2008 — oops that’s just by the Australians.  I didn’t even know they had cell phones.  (jk)  In fact, it’s estimated that world-wide 2.3 trillion text messages will be sent in 2008, up almost 20% from 2007.  Now the .3 (trillion) comes from four people in my family (Sarah, Katy, Jake and Josh) so I know something about texting.

Now honestly, I enjoy texting, iming, facebook chat…and various other sms opportunities.  Sometimes it’s the only contact I have with my kids.  :)  There are positives.  Texting helps me feel connected.  I don’t have to be alone when I’m alone, if I have my phone.  And those little check-up messages between friends can bring a positive lift to my day.  And when I’m out in public if I want people to think that I have friends I can hold my phone and just hit buttons really fast, pretending to be a world-class text-messager.

But I just want you to consider for a moment, if there are any ways that our text-messaging culture shapes our relationships.  Maybe not, but maybe…  Here’s the point and if you don’t think text-messaging affects you, still hear the point.  Discipleship, transformation, involves a conversation with Jesus.  One time Jesus said, My sheep (meaning my followers, my disciples, those who want to be like me) know me and they hear my voice. Transformation involves a conversation with the one of whom the disciples said, You have words that bring life. Becoming like Jesus involves a conversation that takes time, is deep, requires listening, and meaningful response.

If we want to change, we have to take the time to join Jesus’ conversation.  Do we have the time?

More tomorrow…unless I sleep all day because of jet lag.  :)