Sputtering

So many discussions, talks, thoughts, arguments, and silent contemplations recently.  Heavy stuff.  Hard stuff.  Add it all up together with the regular stuff, and responsibility of leading and it has me feeling like on of those ACME rockets Wiley Coyote was fond of using...puffs of black smoke, sputtering jolts forward and then seemingly empty voids and falling. 

Empty voids and falling are no fun. 

This leadership thing is not everything it is cracked up to be either.  And there are people out there fighting to be in power, to make decisions, to be the one to call when something goes wrong (because why else would you call?)...makes me question even more as I get older why anyone would go into politics...or ministry leadership. 

Yikes...is it as bad as all that?  Probably not.  But boy it can feel crushing at times, and rather than avoid that...rather than pretend everything is perfectly placed and joy filled like a Facebook profile picture, it is good to just be honest and put it out there onto a blog where I presume only the truly interested will even read it.  We all need prayer, we all need lifted up and edified.  Anyone that thinks they can do it alone is as nutty as the proverbial fruit cake. 

Good things are being done in Christ's name.  But I have enough of an inner demon always reminding me my faults, mistakes, errors, pride...oh, I could keep going.  Plus there are outside forces that seem to chime right along as well.  How does one balance a right perspective of their sin with the confidence to still push forward rather than just curl in a ball and give up, among other thoughts? 

What to make of all this...what to think...what to do.  Eh?

Well, I am not sure, but I leave you with three things that are all sparked from these thoughts as I sit down to write, but may not necessarily be helpful, depending on where you are with something similar:

1.  I remember a song, one that seems much more identifiable now than it did when I was young. "Shades of Grey" by Billy Joel
"Shades of grey wherever I go
The more I find out the less that I know
Black and white is how it should be
But shades of grey are the colors I see"

I did not even know the Monkees had their own song by the same name.  Seemed a bit dark for the Monkees.
"When the world and I were young,
Just yesterday.
Life was such a simple game,
A child could play.
It was easy then to tell right from wrong.
Easy then to tell weak from strong.
When a man should stand and fight,
Or just go along.

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light.
Today there is no black or white,
Only shades of gray."

I wonder if Billy Joel would ever do a cover of their version?

2. These two things very far apart leapt together to my mind trying to put my finger on the struggle we have to want to do things right and know what to do, and the draw we have to be reminded that we are no good apart from the vinedresser...we would produce no fruit from being tied to Him.  

The first was the classic Bodeans song (which I have probably not heard in 20 years)  "Closer to Free"

"Everybody wants to live, like they wanna live and
Everybody wants to love, like they wanna love and

Everybody wants to be... Closer to Free"

 

Immediately contrasting and or complementing that with Bob Wiley from that philosophical motion picture "What About Bob?" wrestling with being lost in the world without direction.

"Gimme, gimme, gimee, I need, I need!"



3.  Think things are really bad and that no one understands?  Jesus does.  We think we are alone in despair often... but even Mickey, the happiest mouse around, was so despondent once to try to give it all up.   

(These strips appeared in newspapers in October 1930)