Feeling shallow

It wasn't just five years in Bible college that made me think a lot. I had always been critical and cynical. I had always questioned things fed to me as truth. I had always taken the time to examine my own thoughts and feelings and motives. I liked to debate and learn. I liked to paint pictures of my own spiritual state, then paint over them again and again. I liked and hated to think about the way that church fell short, and society fell short, and people fell short. And I always mulled over my own short-comings and beat myself up.

Then, somehow, full time ministry made me shallow.

Maybe I just lost the spark of challenge. I spend my days with more-or-less like-minded people. I stopped the search for information, exchanging it for the necessary search for RESOURCES to suppliment my job tasks. And when the challenges do arise that might give me food for thought, I shut down instead of stepping up. Of course, that's mostly because the challenge of philosophy takes the shape of a personal affront, and if I allow myself to dwell to much on the PRINCIPLE in question, I end up dwelling on the PERSONAL, and just cry and fight the urge to quit and run.

I need to think again. I need to reclaim the principles I believe in and not allow living by them to set me up for EMOTIONALLY dying by them. I need to find people to fight with again. I need to stop escaping into books and media, and stop blogging about my cat.

Or do I?

Maybe I REALLY just need to become more of a servant of the church than a slave to my work. To live my life and serve based on the light I've been given and the inspiration I receive. Oswald Chambers always warns against becoming consumed with your own spiritual life and journey rather than simply focused on the tragedy of the Cross. But I MISS it. I MISS it.

Yet when any deep thought DOES sneak through, I end up thinking this way:

You say you hate the actions of hypocrites, but you don't confront them. You say your heart breaks for hungry children, but you don't feed them. You say you won't settle, but you HAVE settled. You say it's not about YOU, but every time you get your feelings hurt, you announce to yourself that you're leaving the ministry and heading back to Payless. You say you don't value Sunday mornings compared to the rest of what the Church is, but you spend up to 60 hours a week devoted to it. You say you want to spend more time reading the Bible and praying. You say you want to get into shape. You say you want to learn to dance. You say you want to help your church be so much more than it is.

You say. *I* say. I say a lot of things. To myself, that is. But after I say I don't THINK, not like I used to. I don't fight and demand and pick apart and beat my body to make it my slave. Because it's easier to admit how tired I am, to climb into my PJs at 6:30 at night and blog about my cat.