Avoiding conflict, that is my professed policy.  Becoming so tolerant and so bland that I risk nothing, seek nothing, find nothing, ask nothing of myself of any consequence.  They don’t want me to pray, so I shut my mouth, they don’t want me to ask so I forget about the urge to know, fit perfectly into the groove they’ve set before me I find comfort in my unchanging road.  Yet, though they said things would reside in perpetuity, they promised what they could not deliver, for life continues to transform.  Storms come, jobs and people go and somehow in the middle coping mechanisms require a struggle to maintain the status quo.  Is there nothing worth the price of one average man’s life, nothing worth giving everything for its acquisition?

The storms have begun, the birth pangs ring clear the bell of God’s timing.  I may call myself simply present and keep my eyes, ears and heart open for the trump’s inevitable sounding or I may recognize my circumstance and set my shoulders, back, mind and heart to purpose.  I want to be liked, but not enough to lay down by my dish, dismissing the voice of spirit sounding alerts within my soul.  This man, this Christian man has something to say that most do not want to hear or they have been resisting in hearing.  The exam nears end.  What must I do to say that I gave it all before they shouted, pencils down.

You would have me buy into the devil’s lies, exchanging my glorious position in grace for a cardboard crown.  Crown’s are nice but I really don’t want to be king, I don’t want to be in charge, being tempted to make subjects of my loved ones.  I just want to serve, to help, to love, to encourage and pray for you.  That must diminish me in your eyes and for that I am sorry.  Sorry for you that you have not met Christ, my king.  For from him I’ve learned the greatest treasures are those found in service to the good of others, the loss of self for purpose.  Comfort found in being what I was designed to become instead of spreading myself thin, trying to keep everyone comfortable, respecting your do not disturb signs even though I know that leaving you alone will almost guarantee you miss the last trumpet or worse clarion call.