recovering self-help junkie: Nothing Else

We should consider Paul's words before we claim to know anything else.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ~1 Corinthians 2:2, ESV

My Journey

Each of us has our own personal journey of faith. That’s not to say that we don’t contribute one to another. If anything, we desperately need more meaningful community in the midst of a culture in bed with runaway individualism.

While it is obvious that we live in a nihilistic, materialistic, and narcissistic age that places the utmost emphasis on the self and ones’ own possessions—I am also keenly aware of the reality that Jesus didn’t ignore nor discount the self. As Bonhoeffer so aptly put it, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die"—and that he surely does. But while Jesus bids us come and die, he does something rather miraculous at the same time—he gives us new life. While the postmodern culture is hard at it in worshipping and glorifying the fallen self and the institutions of man, Jesus is busy building his everlasting Kingdom while redeeming the crucified self.

My journey has not been an easy one. I have experienced personal loss words cannot describe. And yet, it has been at these lonely intersections of deafening and excruciating pain that I have met Jesus anew. It's as if the truths that once stirred my soul have deeper significance, and in a sense—as if I never knew them at all. T.S. Eliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started—and know the place for the first time.” Some of us doze off only to awaken again.

It's called a reawakening.

recovering self-help junkie

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Nothing Else

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