A Comfortable Prison

"The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

John 3:8

People in general are creatures of habit and routine. It is even safe to say that many are slaves to those things. We have to have our paper and our coffee in the mornings and head off to our predictable 8 to 5 job every day. We have to have our church meetings on Sundays. Our church meetings have to be just so every week with little variation.

We sing our songs with a rock band and call it worship, we listen to someone tell us how to live from the Bible. We sing a song or two more, then go home.

We have our bake sales, our annual retreats or summer camps. We have our mid week services or small groups. And we do it all again. Like clockwork. We want things predictable. We want something we can build a schedule around, something we can control, something that will never surprise us. In short, we want something comfortable. And, in short, God is the last thing we want. Because God is not comfortable and God DOES surprise us and change things. God can't be controlled and be put in a scheduled box or format. He is indeed, a wild one.

I noticed that in church, after plugging myself back into the Institution I took a sabbatical from awhile ago, if you suggest a change in structure or plans, suggest a change in the way things are done, and people look at you like you just insulted their mother.

I hear churches pray for change. I hear churches in rapturous music beg God to bring them to a new level of spiritual living. I hear churches even ask God to take them back to the way things were in the book of Acts when things were fresh and powerful, and when the spirit moved mightily and the heroes of faith performed miracles beyond even our imaginations. (mind you, those were the times Christians got killed.)

They ask God for those things, with one condition. The condition is that they don't actually have to change things. The condition is that we keep doing what we are doing the way we have always done, only harder and more passionate. Yes, that has to be the answer. Doing the same thing over and over again, even with more conviction and passion, expecting different results. A thinker once observed that is the definition of insanity.

I hear an impassioned preacher from the pulpit announce that God wants to bring real change to the church and to the city. Well, yes, I agree with that pastor. But my question is, is how badly do we as a people actually want that change? What are we willing to give up? Are we willing to stop being so predictable and so damn comfortable?

When Jesus spoke the verse at the beginning of this blog, he spoke it to a well learned teacher of the law; Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He knew his stuff. He thought for sure, when he approached Jesus at night he would be a shoo-in for the kingdom. What Jesus told this man stunned him. Jesus told him that he had to be born again, that is, we as Christians know, to die to everything we ever knew before and take on a whole new life.

Jesus explained to Nicodemus what it was to be born again. To be born again is to live like the wind, not knowing where it comes or where it goes. Being born of the spirit is to be free, absolutely free, not tied down to schedules, routines, tried and true religious traditions which may have served a purpose at one point but the meanings are so watered down and outdated they really don't matter.

After leaving my comfortable, yet miserable life in the hot dust-bowl of Phoenix, I am beginning to see what it is to live as the wind, that is, what it is to blow where I will with no one knowing from where I come or where I go.

I hold that the one who is truly born again is quite unnerving to the rest of the people who are creatures of comfort and routine. Such people don't know what to do with someone who is truly born of the Spirit.

All through Jesus' ministry, especially the famous sermon on the mount, he gave hints and descriptions through radical teachings and parables about what it is, exactly to be born again. Someone born of the spirit is unpredictable, wild, and free. Someone born of the spirit doesn't concern themselves with tomorrow, not worried about food or clothes. They live as the birds of the air or the lilies of the field. They know their Father cares for them.

What is it to turn the other cheek when someone hits us? What is it to return a harsh word or insult with kindness? What is it to love those who hate us? Some may see that as being a doormat. I say that is freedom. It is defying the expected and the predictable. It is defying the control one would seek to have over us, knowing we don't have to play their game.

I discuss my ideas and the vision Father God has given me with others still plugged into this malady of comfort and routine addiction, and I get every reason in the world why I am wrong, or why I am impractical and why it won't work. I am learning that those still attached to these things don't get along well with those of us who wish to stay free and be free, that is, those of us who, like the wind, blow where we will without anyone knowing from where we came or where we go. Even I don't know those things for myself. I ride the Great Wind Himself to wherever He will take me.

And when I hear people say that they want all that God has for them and they want God to change their lives and change their church or their city, I almost laugh, yet it is a frustrated laugh, because when God wants to answer their prayers, they protest and kick and fight against it tooth and nail.

I look back on Moses with a new appreciation concerning what he endured, leading Israel to freedom and they fought against Him every step of the way. God never promises us comfortable, predictable lives. He promises us a Comforter, the Holy Spirit because He knows, that especially the Born Again life, is far from comfortable and easy. It is difficult, but, in the end, it is free.