Traditions

The other day I was playing with my buddy, Drew, when his mother told us to play quieter because the baby was asleep. So, being the four year old that he is, he turned to me and shooshed at the top of his lungs. Then he turned back around and began to "tip toe" across the kitchen floor. I put the action in quotes because he wasn't really tip toeing. He was violently stomping- on his toes- completely defeating the purpose of tip toeing.

It was adorable, but it also got me thinking about myself and other Christians. We constantly do stuff because we are "supposed to," but the way we do them makes  more racket than if we had just walked.

I believe in doing rituals and carrying on traditions. They work. But we shouldn't be doing things because "that's just what we do." When we act this way, we run the risk of stomping when we are supposed to be tip toeing because we don't truly understand the value tip toeing. Granted, Drew knows that he needs to be quiet, and he has very little practice doing so. Just as I know that I need to not think about myself when I'm preaching and have very little practice doing so. This is not an attack on style or skill.
This is an attack on knowing what tool "so and so" would use, but having no idea how or why.

Let's do these things, but let's know why we are doing them. It'd be a shame if communion became something that wasn't world changing. It'd be a shame if the Lord's prayer became an anthem rambled by many and sung by few. It'd be a shame if baptism had more to do with water or age than death and life. It'd be a shame if crosses became beautiful for any reason other than the fact that one led to life for the world. I'd hate to see people slander their brothers because of their style of tip toeing, stepping, dancing, sliding, or rolling across the kitchen floor.

Since when was it about traditions? I thought it was about joining Jesus Christ in loving the world.
Since when was it even about tip toeing? I thought it was about not waking up a baby.

We have mixed up our "hows" and "whys."

Vomit.

Today I threw up a lot. A whole lot.

Around 4 am I woke up and puked for the first time and continued to do so every thirty minutes until 5 this evening. It was a bummer, but I am never going to be the same.

I could share a lot of what I got out of it, but instead I'll just talk about one part. This part is less personal and more universal.

Every time I threw up, I immediately went to the fridge and drank some water so I would have something else to throw up in thirty minutes. I think I threw up about 95% of the water I drank, but retained enough to keep living. My  stomach must have known that water is good. It has been receiving it for its whole life. I don't think that the water was sent back up because it was bad. It was sent up because that was the program my stomach was running.

I must have water to live. But my body was in a mode in which even water was vomited back up.
I must have Truth to live. But my soul is in a mode in which even Truth is vomited back up.
I am blessed to have a Lord who is patient enough to keep pouring it into me, all the while knowing that most of it won't even be used. To Him, life is worth the time it takes. To Him, life is worth the smell of something good being heaved out of something bad.

Our sickness is what keeps the water from our tummies. Not the water. Let's be patient with each other and keep pouring love into hearts- Especially the dehydrated ones.