Christian Limbo

Moses bowed down to the ground at once, worshiped God, and prayed:
"Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as Your Inheritance." Exodus 34:8, 9b

As I moved from my teens to my 20’s, to my 30’s I remember feeling more accomplished and more self confident with each passing year. I graduated from college in my early 20’s, became a wife in my late 20’s and had a baby at 30. I did well in corporate sales, had lots of friends, and many interests. In my mid-30’s we moved to a larger house in a nicer neighborhood. But, by age 40 a sense of angst was beginning to grow. I took an inventory of my life and what should have added up to j-o-y, feel short somehow. I had a widening hole in my heart and I just could not figure out how to fill it. AND, to make matters worse, I had begun to feel guilty about it. I began stuffing more and more stuff into my life. If there was a committee I wanted to be on it...a worthy cause, then let me be part of it.

Hurrying from one commitment to the next with a jam-packed dayplanner made me feel important and in control....That’s the American Dream, right?

Adding on….more & more stuff….I even got active in church in an effort to increase the stuff of my spirituality! If there's many, many rooms in heaven, then, what would it take to get that penthouse suite? How many good deeds would be needed to eclipse the bad ones? I approached the Christian life in the same way that I did corporate life. Rediculous, but true, I wanted to be 'a perfect Christian.'

Our lives are so fastpaced, we are rushing so much that we even try to RUN to heaven! Unless we ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to the Truth we will never even see that we are living upside down, and contrary to how God intended us to live... It is about laying down, being still... listening... not running.... letting go of control.

I had the wrong operating system in place for the first 40-some years of my life. How could I change that? The answer is: I could not. I realized that it was about allowing the LORD to change me and work through me. Jesus layed down His LIFE; and He was calling me to lay down my pride and my busy-ness for Him. Christ was asking me to YIELD, to acknowldege that He was in control and let Him lead. I knew that only His Agenda would bring the peace I so desperately sought; yet, the process of laying down my will continues to be a daily event, sometimes a minute by minute choice.

Following Christ is not an upward quest, like climbing the corporate ladder; but a descending one. A call to go low, serve others, just as our C.E.O., Jesus, did when He was earthbound. "Christian Limbo," Webster defines LIMBO as "an acrobatic contest, requiring bending backwards, passing under a horizontal pole, which is lowered slightly for each successive pass of the participants."

Jesus, teach us to go low. Humble us gently, as You lower the pole and ask us to bend our stiff-necks. Transform us into people who desire to serve You and not exalt ourselves. Conform our will to Yours. Teach us see the world as You see it, Your Will be done.