August 3 - 2 Corinthians 6: The Smallness Within

I sit down this morning with a list of non-negotiable tasks for the day. We have house guests coming and preparations that must be done. I need to write this blog and also finish writing another letter of application. I'd like to exercise but not sure how that will fit into the demands of the day. I'll have to fight traffic during rush hour to pick up my husband from work and then come home and try to fix dinner for everyone who will be waiting at our home. And then there are all the normal requirements of living that will have to be squeezed and poked into any open moments of the day. Ah yes, this is how I let my inward life become small.

I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I'm speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! (6:11-13)

There's a not-so-lovely response inside of me that wants to tell Paul to try and live expansively with three active children, a husband whose the sole provider and works a lot, a household that has to run on limited funds, ministry needs, extended family that have their own demands on me, and all the emotional stuff swirling around all these things that I'm trying to keep in check.

...in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we're beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we're telling the truth, and when God's showing his power; when we're doing our best setting things right; when we're praised, and when we're blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all.  (6:5-10)

Oh.

Maybe I should quit my whining and complaining. That is just a part of what creates the smallness within me. God brings to mind other small ways in which I'm living:

"[believing] woundedness - how others treat you is a more serious problem than selfishness - how you treat others"

"self-serving determination to ignore [your] conscience and to feel superior, powerful, and important"

"[failing] to see selfishness as [your] absolutely worst problem...[continuing] to believe that [your] feelings of emptiness and pain and loneliness deserve priority attention from a grandfather-like God who simply wants all His little ones to feel good"  (66LL)

I feel the Spirit calling me out of the smallness and to an expansive life, regardless of my circumstances. Something deep within me yearns for it and it's beginning to crack the selfishness a little. Again, I hear God calling to me through Larry Crabb's words,

"Live for your relational comfort, and your joy will be shallow and temporary. It will not free you to love. Live to know the truth of My story of forgiving love, and you will be deeply unsettled by how profoundly you need forgiveness. You will then suffer the slow death of your entitled demand that you be treated well. But, you will discover, slowly but surely, the power of My ongoing forgiveness and Presence to change you into a person who loves.

"Living to love is difficult. In this life, I promise you  no comfort but My Presence (sometimes unfelt), My power to love (often unclaimed), and My promised hope (typically undervalued) of a never-ending existence of experiencing My perfect love in a perfect world where everyone loves perfectly. It was that kind of comfort and hope that excited Paul so that nothing could hold him back."  (66LL)