I never told anyone: Part Deux

Remember the love I told you about?

I should probably give you an update as to its whereabouts. 

My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. I was startled by its ringing so I grabbed it to see who it was. I didn't recognize the number right away, but I assumed it was someone from school who's number I didn't have saved. Anyway, I proceeded to pick up the phone. Unfortunately my family was blaring a Marc Anthony concert so I had to exit the room to hear the voice on the other end. Once I heard the voice I immediately knew it was him. He said he needed to talk to me about something. Naturally I assumed the worst. I was at a family function so I told him I'd call him back. 

When I got home that evening I prayed and mustered up the courage to call. He didn't pick up the first time, and of course I missed the call back, so I dialed once more and--he answered. The next hour would be spent listening intently to everything he had to say. There were moments I let out small giggles, but I never let him know I was crying on the other side. My tears? Pure Joy. Finally he pulled his thoughts together enough to spit out three words-- "I love you." I clasped my hand over my mouth and sat as a stream of tears ran down my face. I had waited for him to come back, but I never expected him to come back with something as big as those three small words.

Of course I responded a while later assuring him that I reciprocated. The next couple weeks were spent in pure bliss. Catching up, random texts, ridiculous story lines, and picture message after picture message. We had both known and considered the realities of pursuing a relationship with the other, but both decided to keep hushed till the time came. 

One night he called and spent the next couple hours talking about distance and differences. I had recognized them prior to our conversation, but my heart felt so right in his hands I didn't want to take it away so suddenly.

And, as quickly as love came--it left. Well, it didn't necessarily leave. More like I kicked it out and shut the door. The only problem here is...I didn't lock it. I told him that since he wasn't spiritually equipped to "lead me" we couldn't be together. I sound like a fool to anyone who hasn't walked the road I've decided to travel. It's an age old battle. Heart vs. Head. My head tells me he doesn't serve in the church, or worship the way I do, he doesn't pray as vigorously as me, or attend services on a regular basis. My heart tells me he's never walked in my shoes for even a moment, but he understands everything about me. He knows my secrets, my weaknesses, and my strengths. He knows my quirks and makes me laugh. He talks my ear off but I somehow never get bored. He listens to my gripes intently and makes no criticisms or judgements even though I've judged him countless times. He's not a spiritual man. But he's a noble man. Then I get to thinking, spirituality doesn't equal nobility. I know plenty of guys who serve in churches but aren't noble in the least. And here I have this man who doesn't but has ten times the love in his heart. I know men from churches who are two faced and some who serve but can't protect. He admits his faults, he knows he needs God and is willing to admit his lack of "spirituality." 

Have we become so picky as "children of God" that we decide who will suit and who wont simply because they aren't as avid in the faith? As far as I can tell his heart is true. But I cant judge his heart...can you? 

I spend so much time thinking about what I could have done differently. Or whether or not I made the right decision. I pray constantly that God looks favorably on the sacrifices I've made in his name. I gave up my life, my family, my home, my friends, and now I've given up my love. However, Im not angry at God in the least. But my heart is shattered. There have been moments where I could barely breathe. Nights where I can't sleep. My peace is gone. But thats not supposed to happen when you've followed God right?  

He brought my Isaac, and I willingly brought him to the altar. But when Abraham brought his sacrifice God brought him a ram in a thicket. Not to mention he got to keep Isaac. 

I lost him and got no ram. I dont know what to do anymore.

The crosses we bear

John Howard Yoder. 

Ever heard of him?

If not, I highly recommend taking a gander at his book entitled The Politics of Jesus. He gives interesting insight on the "type" of Jesus that people prefer. I was particularly drawn to his discussion of the term "bearing the cross." The following is an excerpt from the above mentioned book:

"Only at one point, only on one subject--but then consistently, universally-- is Jesus our example: in His cross. This much could have been said without special attention to our learnings from Luke. But all of this language of imitation and participation, all the pious and pastoral meditation on the believers cross takes on a new dimension if we take the measure of the social character of Jesus' cross. 

The believers cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of what is commanded. The believers cross is, like that of Jesus, the price of social non-conformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of a path freely chosen after counting the cost. It is not, like Luther's or Thomas Müntzers or Zinzendorf's or Kierkegaard's cross or Anfechtung, an inward wrestling of the sensitive soul with self and sin; it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come. The word: 

      "The servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me they will persecute you. (John 15:20)

is not a pastoral counsel to help with the ambiguities of life; it is a normative statement about the relation of our social obedience to the messianity of Jesus. Representing as he did the divine order now at hand, accessible; renouncing as he did the legitimate use of violence and the accrediting of the existing authorities; renouncing as well the ritual purity of non-involvment, his people will encounter in ways analogous to his own the hostility of the old order.

Being human, Jesus must have been subject somehow or other to testing of pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust; but it does not enter into the concerns of the Gospel writer to give us any information about any struggles he may have had with their attraction. The one temptation the man Jesus faced--and face again and again--as a constitutive element of his public ministry, was the temptation to exercise social responsibility, in the interest of justified revolution, through the use of available violent methods. Social withdrawal was no temptation to him; that option (which most Christians take part of the time) was excluded at any outset. Any alliance with the Sadducean establishment in the exercise of conservative social responsibility (which most christians choose the rest of the time) was likewise excluded at the outset. We understand Jesus only if we can empathize with this threefold rejection: the self-evident, axiomatic, sweeping rejection of both quietism and establishment responsibility, and the difficult constantly reopened, genuinely attractive option of the crusade."

After reading this, what then is the point of bearing the cross? Is it through enduring as much suffering as possible that we become Christlike? If so what constitutes as suffering if, as it seems, it is an extremely relative term?

For so long we've been taught that any kind of suffering or trial we endure is considered "bearing our cross."But we forget that the cross was meant to be a public death. It was a sort of public humiliation. Jesus constantly fought the social norm. He came to change the world, more importantly, he came to change society. How then can we compare our minute struggles to bearing a cross? The cross was heavy, the cross was a symbol of death. We die to ourselves not for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of our brother. Jesus didn't take up the cross to make His life better. He took it to make our lives better.

Now then, as a part of Christian ethics, wouldn't bearing your cross as a propellor to further your individual overall state of being be a contradiction to the purpose of the cross? Furthermore, wouldn't it constitute as unethical if our intentions are self-promoting? 

The crosses we bear are not parallel to the cross Christ bore. He broke social boundaries. And us? We sit quietly in our churches and homes, and the only time sociality takes place is when we go out to eat in our designated cliques and crews. Christ-like? Not in the least. Church--your cross should be like that of Christs. Persecution for public displays of Godliness. Persecution for incessant preaching and praying. Everywhere Jesus went He was about the fathers business. Every city, every town, every house. That was his cross, and it should be ours as well.