Keep Moving

Sunday we invited some friends over, and had a great time doing just about everything you can do with Christian friends: sharing, praying, worshiping, hanging out, eating, telling stories, joking, laughing, staying up late. It was a good day.

At some point in our discussion, the importance of movement in the church came up. "Movement" as in "not stagnating." Not getting stuck on one particular aspect of God, or in one way of doing things. Movement is part of life, and if things come to a standstill, there is death-- if your heart stops, or your digestion stops.

So I thought to myself, the kingdom of God is like a bowel movement? I almost laughed out loud at the incongruity.

Then I remembered: several years ago, a friend of ours was caring for her elderly mother, who began to lose her appetite and be unable to eat, and began to slowly die. Finally our friend took her mother to the doctor, where it was discovered that the woman's digestive tract was completely plugged from one end to the other. There was no room for more, therefore, she was not only not hungry, she was nearly incapable of eating at all. (Some heavy duty laxatives soon put her right.)

And then I saw it. I was not having a teenage-boy-brain moment. I was being given insight. Bowel movements keep you hungry, and healthy. And alive.

I hear a lot these days about spiritual hunger. We are supposed to be hungry for God, to stay hungry. We even sing songs called "Hungry" and "We are Hungry." I think the way to stay hungry is to keep moving. To not get stuck in the last thing God did, but be child-like and adventerous enough to go where He's going next. To keep learning, and changing, and growing, using all that's gone before as nutritional building blocks, not monument building blocks.

To allow the Holy Spirit to do those things in us could be a little bit like taking doses of cod-liver oil. Isn't the anointing of the Holy Spirit often compared to oil? Well there you go.

Holy Spirit laxative for what ails ya.

Just keep movin'.

'Cause who wants to be part of the Constipated Church? Never heard of it? It's a new movement, I mean, non-movement.

(Ugh. Sorry. Couldn't resist. That really was a teenage-boy-brain moment.)