Around in Circles

In the last two days I’ve had three interesting conversations about the same topic; the impetuous cycle that the world seems to be living in. This is true for most people that aren’t believers, but sadly I see it all the time in the church also. Every time I go home, I am bombarded with two realities. One is my home church and all the friendly faces and the other is everyone else that lives around me and I see in the bar, casino or at work.

For some reason every time I go home, I get dragged out to a party. One of those parties that most Christians think it’s either sinful to go to or just won’t go because they have no friends that are there. Nevertheless, I find myself there. I get to see all my old high school friends, drunk and high and typically the conversation doesn’t go very far because they are too concerned with hitting on the girl next to him. I usually get bored out of my mind of being there after about an hour (sometimes in less than 5 minutes) but I stick around anyway because I’m the DD that everyone can trust and knows won’t be lying. I’ll run into a few friends who will be going to the local college and taking the course so they can go work in Chemical Valley (for those of you not from Sarnia, that’s the industry that keeps Sarnia moving) and just make sure they survive. I’ll have a few more conversations of friends who are away at school but are just living it up party style. Of course, I will also have great conversations with my friends that are doing something with their lives, but this entry really isn’t for them.

What’s the point? I know that all those friends aren’t happy, most have them have told me that straight out. They are living in a constant cycle that I have been watching since grade 9. Some of you reading this know exactly what I’m talking about because you’ve lived in it, or you’re living in it right now. You know what I’m talking about. Wake up, school, hang out with friends, party, maybe get laid, some booze, drugs if it’s a long weekend and then go back to sleep. Typically if you’re in the cycle #1 90% of your life consists of that. There is always cycle #2 that most of our parents are in though also, wake up, work, come home, eat, rest and go to sleep. It becomes boring after a while so you need to add more alcohol, more sex, more thrills and more money just to enjoy yourself. I seriously don’t get it. Maybe I’m naïve. How do you do it? How does one go about living their life with absolutely no purpose and no fulfillment? It seems life is an endless cycle of chasing satisfaction.

Christians aren’t left out on this one. Sure we claim to have the answer, but how many actually live it? How many Christians actually are outside this cycle themselves? Christians differ a bit though. Switch parties with youth group, and drinking with chip get-togethers and you have the Christian. If you’re a better Christian maybe your at the church three or four nights out of the week and you have really sold yourself out to the church. Is that what Christianity is all about? Living the same cycle but adding church and good deeds to the picture. Count me out.

.Maybe life is more than that. This isn’t an entry that I’m trying to convert all my non-Christian readers to Christian, don’t read it like that. This is my encouragement to everyone that there is more to life than a cycle. If you are happy in your cycle of life, the repetitive process of life, then by all means, stay in it. I’d like to venture and say though that most that are in it want to get out. Look for purpose. Look for meaning. You were not born on accident (despite what your parents may tell you). It’s not really my place to tell you how to get out of your cycle, answers will range with everyone. We were meant to live with passion, and full of life, not a life where we feel like a tether ball with a never ending rope.

Examine your life, expand your horizons. What do you do just for the sake of doing or because of habit? Is it going to the bar every weekend? Is it going to church? Is it logging on MSN the second you get home? It’s different for everyone; it will take different things to get out of it. I challenge you to do it. Stop living the cookie cutter life. Stop being the cookie-cutter Christian. Start questioning tradition and the things that you and everything else are doing and you don’t even know why. Watch how liberating it will be when you start doing things because you know there is purpose in them and you know that your life being integrated with will bring results instead of just doing them because you always have. It was one thing for me to go to church because that’s what I did. I love going to church now. It’s no longer about me having to wake up every Sunday and having to go to church. I look forward to going to church, and its for reasons that I know are purposeful.

Trust me, I speak from experience, you will face opposition. You will get people telling you that “you need to just take that kinda stuff by faith” or “be careful, that’s a dangerous road to be treading.” Yes, those kind of comments will come for just asking questions. Ask a question like “Why is the Bible the Word of God?” and you will get a quick uneducated answer or told that you just have to have faith. Live outside that. Dare to live in your doubt and in your own questions. Dare to challenge the flow of everything to do what is right and moral.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

I don’t know about you, but I want to live life to it’s full. I’m sick of the mundane, cyclic life that culture, church and everyone hammers into my head. I’m breaking that. I’m going to live a life on fire for my purpose and a life that is fueled by my passion. I’m going to live life to its fullest, and that is going around in circles.