But active participation is something that Jesus calls us to, using words like "come", "go", "get up", "love" - and the lukewarm will be spit out. Maybe my apathetic heart needs to be microwaved. The guy who recently predicted the end of times was wrong: May 21st came and went (we saw a sign saying "Happy Judgement Day" posted on a bus shelter with a blue ribbon bereft of a balloon taped to it). But I agree with my pastor in that we should strive to have the same conviction and passion for the truth as that man had or seemed to have for something that was not true. Because truth is not relative in my opinion: Jesus proclaims "I am the way, the truth, and the life". If I'm wanting anything above Jesus, there's a major problem; if I'm not wanting Jesus, that also is a major problem. What I should want is what God wants, because His will is perfect and He has put His Spirit in us to will and to do.
After my conversation with the elderly man at the market, I've been considering what I want: to write, to encourage others in action as well as words, to create, to hang out with people, be in a band, take my Master's in creative writing, to treat my body better, to be vulnerable with people, reconnect with my family, reassess my convictions. But ultimately, I hope I can say like Paul that "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me" (Philippians 3:10-12).
