Leaping From Information to Inspiration

It’s here. You can’t deny it. We are passing through liminal space. A place on the threshold where we can’t go back and haven’t gotten up enough courage to move forward. Mystics and prophets all around us are using different words to describe the same thing. It might be:

Rob Bell calls it “The Holy Shift”.

Matthew Fox describes it as the “Coming of the Cosmic Christ.”

John Phillip Newell calls it “Reconnecting with Compassion.”

Maybe it’s The Great Turning, or

The Age of Aquarius.

I kind of like Dawson Church’s “Jump Time.”

Whatever. If your spirituality stands still, it will eventually get run over and flattened like a pancake. A steady diet of left-brain theology is the kiss of death. Period. So, how do we avoid the freight train barreling down on us?

We’re stuck in the information age and need to evolve to the inspiration age.

Maybe I should have said “devolve”, because, in part, that’s where we need to go. Back, I mean. Back to a time when stories about Jesus, The Spirit, God, humanity, and the entire cosmos were inspiring to people. It wasn’t about bible study, seminars, checklists, and sermons. It was about being radically amazed by the example of Christ to go out and live a life like no other.

Do you want some of that?

To live a life animated and directed by the Holy Spirit? A life that lives by the greatest mandate ever given, “love one another”. A life surrendered to trust instead of inhibited by beliefs. A life that stops going Mach 6 with its hair on fire and resolves to quit majoring in the minors. It can be done. Because here’s what I know;

You…will do…what you want…to do.

Uh-huh, you. Your choice. Your mind. Your heart. How much more simple can it get? Not much, but we do an excellent job of convoluting our responsibility into circumstances out of our control. Grow a pair (ladies, you get my meaning; this is even for you) and own it. Your spirituality, I mean. How inspiring would you say your life is? Do people encounter you and say, “I want what you have!” If your life is simply falling forward with the grace of the Holy Spirit, then you are making an impact. Warts and all.

And others will smell the aroma of Christ all around you. That’s all you need to do. God’s got your back. The rest is up to him anyway. We are all distribution centers for God’s love, but too often, we become collection centers. How do you think a bunch of rag-tag fishermen and social outcasts conquered the Roman Empire? By inspiration, that’s how. By exhibiting lives so radically transformed, they created an unstoppable force.

So what happened?

An over-dependence on information, that’s what. I will concede, however, that knowledge and learning are good, but only when they are not considered an end unto themselves. Never think in terms of “arrival” but in terms of “revival.”

Live life such that you constantly need to be revived because the wonderment of God has taken your breath away.

Unknowing is way more fun than knowing. However, you must be vulnerable to the what-ifs to be inspired by it. I already told you — to stand still is to die. That’s the total opposite of “follow me”. Jesus actually chastised Peter over his finger-pointing and, in no uncertain terms, told him to keep his eyes focused on Him. Don’t worry about the other guy.

Right here.

Me.

Focus. Then he dropped the mic...