Living beyond the Hype

Lately I've been praying simple prayers in exchange for profound depths of longing in my heart. One that surprised me tonight was: "Lord Jesus, I want to live beyond the hype" and immediately upon hearing that, I felt such an ache in my spirit.

Oh, how I want to live simply!

Looking at many websites and online communities as well as talking to people about what they are really passionate about gives me an interesting picture of our spiritual state as a people.

Are all the things we hold so dear really all they are cracked up to be? Our culture is one that is completely driven toward getting the next big thing, the hottest party, the next cool drug to try. There is a push to subscribe to fads and fashions in the way we talk, dress, watch, listen to, believe in. Even down to the things I enjoy and deem relatively harmless, like music, vegetarianism, gypsy-ism. With all these different interests of mine come communities dedicated to this one particular cause. All around me, as if I were submersed in a whirlpool of chatter and hearsay, I can barely keep all the dissenting voices out of my head.

Yet I know and love the revolution of simplicity.

Following our Lord is not a new or old idea, but it's still revolutionary in that very few people truly follow Him. If Christians actually lived like Jesus, we probably wouldn't be content to just "go to" church Sunday morning. Rather, we'd be living church day to day. We would be clothing the homeless, feeding the poor, welcoming the societal rejects into our communities, sheltering orphans and widows, going out of our way to bless someone that painfully wronged us. We would be the most welcoming, forgiving, selfless people on earth.

Instead, we believe a lot of hype. We think following Christ is about sitting in pews or listening to a preacher once in awhile to get us "fired up". We think it means smiling at people who piss us off but inside we're still bitter towards them. We think we got it all figured out when the first step to knowing God is humility in that we can't figure it out on our own. That's why we need Him.

Hype: It chokes out the real life of God in us. there shouldn't be new books we have to read, new methods we have to try, new doctrine we have to believe in. It's all there and I believe from the beginning of creation: the timeless Word of God, that Word which spoke the universe into being. A Word that contains the very essence of God which the Holy Spirit helps us to understand and live out.

Jesus didn't come to start a new religion... he wanted to awaken us to the essentials of what was already there, which was a God before time: holy, loving, perfect.

Oh, Jesus. I need You today.