Magna Carta of Trust

taken from Leonard Sweet’s A Cup of Coffee at the Soul Cafe

I am part of the church of the out-of-control.  I once was a control junkie, but now am an out-of-control disciple.  I have given up my control to God.  I trust and obey the Spirit.  I have jumped off the fence; I have stepped over the line; I have pulled out all of the stops; I am holding nothing back.  There’s no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up, or shutting up.  It is a life against the odds, outside the box, over the wall, the game of life played without goal lines other than “Thy Will Be Done…”I’m done lap-dogging the top dogs, the wonderdogs, the overdogs, or even the underdogs.  I’m done playing according to the rules, whether Robert’s Rules of Order or Miss Manner’s Rules of Etiquette or Martha Stewart’s Rules of Living or Louis Farrakhan’s Rules of America’s Least Wanted or Merrill Lynch’s Money-minding/Bottom-lining/Ladder-climbing Rules of America’s Most Wanted.

I am not here to please the dominant culture or to serve any all-show, no-go bureaucracies.  I live to please my Lord and Savior.  My spiritual taste buds have graduated from fizz and froth to Fire and Ice.  Sometimes I am called to sharpen the cutting edge, and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge.  Don’t give me that New Time Religion.  Don’t give me that Old Time Religion.  Give me that all time religion that is hard as a rock and soft as snow.

I have stopped trying to make life work, and started trying to make life sing.  I am finished with secondhand sensations; third-rate dreams; low risk, high rise trades; and goose stepping, flag waving crusades.  I no longer live by and for anything but everything that is God-breathed, Christ-centered and Spirit-driven.

I can’t be bought by any personalities or perks, positions or prizes.  I won’t give up, though I will give in…to openness of mind, humbleness of heart, and generosity of Spirit.  When short-handed and hard pressed, I will never again hang in there.  I will stand un there; I will run in there; I will pray in there; I will sacrifice in there; I will endure in there; in fact I will do everything in there but hang.  My face is upward; my feet are forward; my eyes are focused; my way is cloudy; my knees are worn; my seat, uncreased; my heart, burdened; my spirit, light; my road, narrow; my mission, wide.

I won’t be seduced by popularity, traduced by criticism, travestied by hypocrisy, or trivialized by mediocrity.  I am organized religion’s best friend and worst nightmare.  I won’t back down, slow down, shut down, or let down until I’m preached out, teached out, healed out, or hauled out of the Out-of-control…to unbind the confined, whether they’re  the down-trodden or the upscale, the overlooked or the under-represented.

My fundamental identity is a disciple of Jesu—but even more, as a disciple of Jesus who lives in Christ, who doesn’t walk through history simply “in His Steps” but seeks to travel more deeply in His Spirit.

Until He comes again or calls me home, you can find me fillin’, not killin’, time so that one day He will pick me out in the line-up of the ages as one of His own.  And then…It will be worth it all…to hear these word, the most precious words I can ever hear:  “Well done, thou good and faithful…Out-of-Control Disciple.”