:: M squared T ::

:: Saturday, January 17, 2004 ::

Discipleship and the DMV

I have been working with a good friend of mine to come up with "structures for life" or, as we revised it at Mayhem, "structures for love." We are choosing to design our lives so that God can move in and through our daily stuff of life - our eating, our sleeping, our going to work, our recreation.

We noticed almost immediately that these structures started to chafe our prior existence and commitments. In the process of reflecting on that experience, we developed the following analogy:

The process we go through when we create "structures for life and love" is much like the process of developing the "rules of the road" for a given society. Here in the states, everyone drives on the right, passes on the left. When we arrive at an intersection simultaneously, the person on the right goes first. And so on.

Most of the time, we don't even think about these structures - even though they are arbitrary and quite exacting in how they need to be followed. They are so "normal" that they are invisible to us. Most of the time, it doesn't take any effort for us to follow them.

So it is with "structures for life and love." We are attempting to create structures that are, yes, somewhat arbitrary. But they are necessary to be able to do and receive what we need and want and are called to do. If, however, we are still committed to old structures of existence that require us to drive on the wrong side of the street, run traffic lights, etc., we will find that the structures we are forming will chafe us. We must surrender the other things in our lives so that we can operate in one system.

We hope that these structures will eventually become invisible to us. It will take some adjustment to our schedules and to our lives. We believe it will be worth it. Instead of letting our structures dictate our lives and create a frenetic pace, we are intentionally creating structures that will be the support four our existence, enabling love and life in Christ Jesus.

:: Matt 1/17/2004 02:06:00 PM :: permalink :: ::
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