He interrupted second service last week.
Our pastor, the ushers and security handled it like pros.
He left reluctantly, making a show of wiping the dust
from his shoes, giving the thumbs up sign
and grinning like a Cheshire cat.
As much as I’d like to rag on the guy, I can’t.
To be honest, the same force that pulled him
away from his true work and towards heckling
is the selfsame force that can thrash me soundly on any given day
if I even think of slacking off -
inner resistance.
I’m not talking about external resistance,
that stuff that happens to us from outside us
(like having a heckler interrupt your sermon).
No - I’m talking about the resistance inside,
the pressure to take any action except for the one you
know you should be taking.
For the heckler it was trading whatever
genius, gift and calling God had (and still has) for him
for a moment of cheap junk food shock -
his 15 seconds of fail.
If I think I’m any better, then I’m next in line.
You see, doing church can leave you blind to the ways that
inner resistance can screw you up, over, and out of
the life you’re meant to live.
Procrastination lies behind much of this -
not the outright denial of the work which needs to be done,
but its delay by any and all means possible.
Let me put it this way -
If inner resistance was called a headache, there would be:
- headache seminars
- headache ministries
- a bestselling book on the theology of headaches
- at least one Headache Sufferer’s Bible (in large print, of course)
instead of the simple advice to heed the still small voice saying:
“Medicine cabinet.
2nd shelf.
White bottle, red label.
Take two.”
Over-externalization is the problem here -
it’s so easy to want to make external acts,
especially those of uncommon grace
(healings, deliverances, and miracles in general)
the expected norm even when the internal prompts
of common grace beckon towards the medicine cabinet.
So it is with inner resistance -
it’s easier to cast the devil as the author of all our failings and foibles
than it is to own our own complicity in much of our present state in life.
Let’s get back to the heckler -
perhaps he has ministerial aspirations,
perhaps his gifts, his genius,
and even his calling all confirm this.
Instead of doing the work needed to be true
to his calling, genius and gifting,
he does what so many of us do
[and I'm convicting myself even as I write this] -
take what seems to be a shortcut to glory,
only to be shortchanged and shamed in the end.
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