The anticipation is ... boring me.
On Monday night, in the midst of a church council meeting, I started to experience some serious pain in my lower right abdomen. I had eaten some week old hamburgers from the grill, and I thought it was a serious case of bad gas.
It turned out it was a 4mm kidney stone on the move. Folks have told me that this is the closest that a man can come to experiencing what it's like for women to give birth. I think that there are easier ways to avoid a church council meeting.
I went to the ER that night. Most of the pain had stopped before I was admitted. They gave me a cup and set me up in a bathroom for a while. They shot me full of motrin, and sent me home with a strainer and their most sympathetic looking faces that said, "sucks to be you."
There's no real certainty to when a stone will pass. A stone will pass when it wants to pass. There's no telling. You could go in and get it through operation. That's something I'm willing to avoid for now. I thought that the stone would come out on Tuesday. I stayed home and hydrated, hydrated, hydrated. And nothing happened.
I went to work on Wednesday. Nothing. Same on Thursday. Nothing. Until last night when the curious bugger decided to move a little more. But it has still yet to move on to its freedom from my ureter, and I have to say-- the anticipation is boring me.
But there's something to this anticipation that reminds me of one of the key postures of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The church year starts its year in December with Advent. It takes Jesus' birth on Christmas, and backs up a month to anticipate it. I've always thought it a little funny, but Advent has become one of my favorite times because of the focus on our posture of anticipation.
A Christian is one who anticipates the return of Jesus, finally, and lives that anticipation NOW by participating in God's kingdom where God is ALREADY establishing it. This is anything but boring, yet we treat it as such because we have become so accustomed to the fact that Jesus is taking his sweet time coming (like my kidney stone).
The earliest Christians weren't concerned in creating institutional structures of the church because they thought that Jesus would return within their lifetime. It'd be pointless to set up too much of an institution. So they focused on people LIVING ANTICIPATION. We find tons of "household codes" in the New Testament on how to organize our lives knowing that Jesus is on his way back. And I see these really as early Christian attempts on living their HOPE, living their ANTICIPATION. With Jesus prolonging his return, institutional structures are needed to live the faith for future generations. But we've become so caught up in the building of institutions that many find the life of following Christ to be extremely boring.
The fact of the kidney stone has changed my routine. I've cut out most soda and coffee (although I did have a nasty caffeine withdrawal and had to make a Starbucks run). I drink water, and I think about what foods might have contributed to the buildup of the materials in my kidney stone.
The fact that Jesus is going to return ought to have the same DAILY effect on Christians. This future reality changes our lives now, and it's lived through ANTICIPATION. I tell folks that what we believe about our future changes who we are today. If I believe I'll amount to nothing in my future, I live that now. If I believe I'll be successful, that shows in my life now. If I believe that the future is nothing, my behaviors would reflect that in the present. What we believe about our futures changes us now.
And I believe that Jesus is going to return again to judge the living and the dead.
We don't focus much on ANTICIPATION in our teaching nowadays. Perhaps the church needs a kidney stone to wake it up to what it means to live in anticipation and really, truly own that Jesus is returning again. I have a few that the church can borrow.
On Monday night, in the midst of a church council meeting, I started to experience some serious pain in my lower right abdomen. I had eaten some week old hamburgers from the grill, and I thought it was a serious case of bad gas.
It turned out it was a 4mm kidney stone on the move. Folks have told me that this is the closest that a man can come to experiencing what it's like for women to give birth. I think that there are easier ways to avoid a church council meeting.
I went to the ER that night. Most of the pain had stopped before I was admitted. They gave me a cup and set me up in a bathroom for a while. They shot me full of motrin, and sent me home with a strainer and their most sympathetic looking faces that said, "sucks to be you."
There's no real certainty to when a stone will pass. A stone will pass when it wants to pass. There's no telling. You could go in and get it through operation. That's something I'm willing to avoid for now. I thought that the stone would come out on Tuesday. I stayed home and hydrated, hydrated, hydrated. And nothing happened.
I went to work on Wednesday. Nothing. Same on Thursday. Nothing. Until last night when the curious bugger decided to move a little more. But it has still yet to move on to its freedom from my ureter, and I have to say-- the anticipation is boring me.
But there's something to this anticipation that reminds me of one of the key postures of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The church year starts its year in December with Advent. It takes Jesus' birth on Christmas, and backs up a month to anticipate it. I've always thought it a little funny, but Advent has become one of my favorite times because of the focus on our posture of anticipation.
A Christian is one who anticipates the return of Jesus, finally, and lives that anticipation NOW by participating in God's kingdom where God is ALREADY establishing it. This is anything but boring, yet we treat it as such because we have become so accustomed to the fact that Jesus is taking his sweet time coming (like my kidney stone).
The earliest Christians weren't concerned in creating institutional structures of the church because they thought that Jesus would return within their lifetime. It'd be pointless to set up too much of an institution. So they focused on people LIVING ANTICIPATION. We find tons of "household codes" in the New Testament on how to organize our lives knowing that Jesus is on his way back. And I see these really as early Christian attempts on living their HOPE, living their ANTICIPATION. With Jesus prolonging his return, institutional structures are needed to live the faith for future generations. But we've become so caught up in the building of institutions that many find the life of following Christ to be extremely boring.
The fact of the kidney stone has changed my routine. I've cut out most soda and coffee (although I did have a nasty caffeine withdrawal and had to make a Starbucks run). I drink water, and I think about what foods might have contributed to the buildup of the materials in my kidney stone.
The fact that Jesus is going to return ought to have the same DAILY effect on Christians. This future reality changes our lives now, and it's lived through ANTICIPATION. I tell folks that what we believe about our future changes who we are today. If I believe I'll amount to nothing in my future, I live that now. If I believe I'll be successful, that shows in my life now. If I believe that the future is nothing, my behaviors would reflect that in the present. What we believe about our futures changes us now.
And I believe that Jesus is going to return again to judge the living and the dead.
We don't focus much on ANTICIPATION in our teaching nowadays. Perhaps the church needs a kidney stone to wake it up to what it means to live in anticipation and really, truly own that Jesus is returning again. I have a few that the church can borrow.
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