How our cause can cause a crash

Sometimes it seems like life is one long course correction. I’d venture to say I’ve probably only been “right on” course for about 13 seconds of my life. And I have no idea when that was! The rest of it is a series of small corrections—a little left, a little more, oops not quite that much, a little right, there perfect—whoops!—not so much, there we go.

Right? We veer, swerve, and narrowly miss catastrophe more times than we probably we even realize.

Recently, I’ve been chewing a lot on what causes us to become so blinded, distorted, or deceived that we tailspin out of control and plummet to our demise.

A month ago my friend had a vivid dream, which I’ll talk more about later, but it was of a plane flying backwards, plummeting toward earth, then crashing in an enormous explosion. There were some aspects that applied to a certain situation, but the overarching gist of it was the danger of the church (Christians) going backwards, being led by the tail instead of the head.

I’ve been praying about this dream for a month, so struck by its vivid imagery, asking God to show us in what ways we’re susceptible to letting the tail lead.

Turns out, there are so many ways, but the gist of it is this: When our gospel follows our cause, we’re headed for a crash. And actually, let me reword that because even “gospel” has become sort of a buzzword these days, and it’s difficult to define.

When our “God” follows our cause, we’re headed for a crash. Our strengths become weakness. Our good cause can become the very CAUSE of our veering off course.

Let me explain. I remember when God was radically ruining our lives, in the best way, by giving us a love for the poor and a desire to ditch the American dream and live differently, I was absolutely obsessed with this newfound love and passion. Which is GOOD. It was God’s leading, and so incredibly fruitful in our lives. But, in the middle of that there was a danger. There was a subtle tendency to filter everything through my “give to the poor” cause. This is a great cause, but IF I shift my focus off of HIM and onto “my cause”, I begin leading with my cause, and the whole thing gets wonky and weird. I cannot tell you how many times He has had to course-correct my life so that I’m not letting my cause lead my life. See, there are so many great causes.

We can be all about serving the poor.

We can be all about “encountering the presence” of God.

We can be all about creating a “safe space” for seekers.

We can be all about signs and wonders.

We can be all about stopping abortion.

We can be all about foreign missions.

We can be all about planting churches.

We can be all about “winning souls.”

We can be all about healing.

We can be all about a certain method of preaching.

We can be all about upholding traditional marriage.

We can be all about racial reconciliation.

We can be all about discipleship.

We can be all about “relational evangelism.”

We can be all about Bible Study.

We can be all about the environment.

We can be all about loving the LGBT community.

We can be all about loving Muslims.

We can be all about America.

We can be all about homeschool.

We can be all about Israel.

We can be all about a certain political candidate.

We can be all about the KJV.

Clearly not all of these are AS noble of a cause, but different people are ALL ABOUT each of these things. It might be easy for us to see how becoming ALL ABOUT this cause can lead us astray, even those that seem the “highest” or most noble. (Arguably, “making disciples of all nations” encompasses pretty much everything, Jesus seemed to place this pretty high up there.)

But, the thing is:

No CAUSE is meant to lead our lives.

Christ is meant to lead our lives.

Please hear my heart: MANY of these things listed are AWESOME. They are passions of mine. Bring up some of these things and I can get fired up in no time flat. We invest thousands of dollars each year to some of these things. And, some of them are clearly more biblical than others. Many of us need MORE of a cause in our lives. This isn’t a post excusing apathy! 🙂 My point is, when our CAUSE (no matter how good it is!) becomes what drives our lives, we begin flying backwards and are prone to crash.

No cause was meant to lead our lives.

Now, again, this most certainly isn’t something we can judge from the outside. The last thing we need is more fodder for Facebook rants and mud-slinging. Let’s look at ourselves for examples of this. Scripture tells us to “examine yourself, as to whether you are in the faith.”  When a cause leads our lives, we become narrow-minded, we love less and judge more, we reinterpret Scripture to fit our cause. We criticize those who don’t champion our cause.

But Christ is the only one who can safely steer my life. Christ is the only one who can lead this plane into safe landing at the end of the age. Christ Himself, who never does MY bidding but demands I do His, for my own good.

Seeking God has got to become our focus, our gaze, our goal, our aim, once again. Ministering to Him, loving Him, seeking Him, worshipping Him (minus strobe lights and fog machines) must become what leads my life.

God, help us let You lead.

{Thanks for reading.}