So the last few weeks I have been “fasting” from blogging so to speak. I’m temporarily breaking that fast because there are some things that have been raging in my heart that I need put words to. This post isnt about anyone or anything but me, so no need to worry about directly or indirectly being attacked

For the last few months we have been going through the gospel of Mark in the Rock. I’ve noticed a trend that has really been impacting my life. It seems to me that there are two kinds of people in the gospels, those who could follow Jesus, and those who couldn’t. I know, I’m captain obvious, but stick with me here. There were people who responded to Jesus with humility and were able to follow Him. (By “follow” Him, I mean a Luke 14 type of following Jesus). But then there were people who just couldn’t follow Jesus in this way, in fact they were actually opposed to Jesus. We typically refer to these people as the pharisees. In looking at the gospel narratives, I see this trend that forces people to either follow Jesus or be opposed to Him, that is that the people with an agenda were unable to follow Jesus. The pharisees had an agenda of power. The rich young ruler had an agenda of wealth. There are other examples of this. The point is, the people who were able to follow the best were the ones who came to Jesus with no agendas.

I have so many different agendas. I have an agenda to get married someday. I have an agenda to be a strong, respected leader. I have an agenda to make money. I have an agenda to be a really trendy Christian that can’t be labeled or even associated with mainstream Christianity. And because I have all these agendas (and others that I didn’t list off as well I’m sure) I have been spending most of my Christian life trying to fit Jesus inside the constraints and confines of my agendas. So when it seems to me that God is making my agendas into a reality, I love God. I worship Him, I read the Bible, I pray. But when it seems God isn’t helping me to achieve my agendas I don’t love God. I don’t read the Bible, I don’t pray and I don’t sing. I’m like a 2 year old who throws a fit every time he doesn’t get a candy bar in the grocery store.

The simple fact of the matter is that Jesus isn’t interested in my agendas. And He sure as heck isn’t going to allow me to be so deluded as to think that He will play 2nd fiddle to my agendas. I think we as American Christians tend to look at the pharisees and wonder how they could be so stupid. But I think the only difference between me and them is that through years of sunday school, church and christian school I know that I’m supposed to follow Jesus. The pharisees didn’t have that little tidbit of information. I don’t really think there is any difference between me trying to fit God into my agenda of marriage or leadership and the pharisees trying to fit Jesus into their power schemes.

So I’m trying to give up my agendas to God, but  its really difficult because I hate not being in control. Also, I feel like with all the hard work and perseverance I have put in these last few years, God owes me some favors. I know that’s terrible, but I think it develops from this train of thought that I think many of us fall into. We often hear how following and submitting to God is the best thing for us. I have heard this for most of my life, but I think that has taken the emphasis off of loving and serving God and put it on “what is best for me”. It is best for me to follow God turns into “what is best for me?”. And after awhile, it becomes painfully clear that God’s best for me is really hard to attain, and to me it seems that what is best for me is what is easiest for me, and then I binge on sin for awhile, until I try and convince myself that I need to pursue what is best for me, which I remind myself is following God. To be honest, I think I just need to love and serve God and not worry about if it is the best thing for me.

Right now I am a pharisee. I have tried to fit Jesus into my agendas. I hope that someday I can be a zaccheus, a woman at the well or anyone else in the gospel narrative who followed Jesus not because it was “the best thing for them”, but because they loved Jesus and would do anything for Him, regardless of how it affected them.