Busy

I'm not doing well in 2009 with keeping up the blog.

Things seemed to have spiraled here in the church, between the various organizations I have responsibility in and my calling as a pastor and wife.

But I wonder how much of that I choose.

I choose every day to be my husband's wife. Some days more graciously than others.

I choose every day to be a pastor. Some days more graciously than others.

I have tried to discern what God has called me to beyond the local church.

The choices I make have effects, not only on me, but on many others. My family, my congregants, my peers and colleagues, but also on myself. How do I go about balancing all of those in a healthy way?

And why is it that every time I try to make a decision I believe to be healthy, people keep telling me that realistically, I can't (or shouldn't) do it?

I'm preaching this Sunday on the cruciform shape of life, using 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. I'm pondering all of the ways in which the cross makes absolutely no sense, pays no attention to the "reality" of the day and flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But I wonder if it's even possible to break free from my own neediness (which translates sometimes into busy-ness) and the neediness of the church (which translates, somehow into creating more busy-ness than is either healthy or faithful) to get to a place in which I live life looking like the cross.

I'm being haunted by something just beyond my reach--that there is something more than working at "life in Christ". There is living into it, which is a different thing all-together.

I want to live, not just work.