You Can't Tony Robbins the Thing.
I read in Susan Cain's Quiet a few months ago about her experiences at personal development seminars. She described how thousands of people would chant mantras at a Tony Robbins Seminar. At the end, people were given the option to do a firewalk with everyone yelling and chanting these power giving phrases to spur one another on. Later on in the book, Susan visited Saddleback Church. She said how oddly similar it was to the Tony Robbins seminar. I thought about that . . . alot.
I started thinking about most of the books and shows available to Christians. Our lives are flooded with Christian self-help. We are taught to overcome everything in 7 easy steps. We act like we are running across a firewalk to overcome our problems while yelling, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
The problem here is that we are trying to give ourselves a rowdy pep talk to get something done that we are afraid of. We use the latter half of that verse in theory only. What Christ tells us to do is trust Him, to bring things to Him. He wants us to trust Him and that is the most important thing we can ever come to. We can't even do that ourselves. Faith is a gift. We ask for it and we trust Jesus to work things out in.
When we are hurt, we tell Him. When we are desperate, we lean into Him. May we quit trying to manipulate words and ideas and simply go to Jesus. We could all do this thing on our own and focus on the strength and weaknesses in ourselves and others or we can humbly go to Jesus. We could choose to topically apply all we know and like the Stepford wives of Christendom or we could allow the Holy Spirit to do a work so deep that we could never find our way there. You can do this yourself and slap a Christian tag on the end of it, but you will be fake and of little good to the people around you. Who wants that? Be honest. No matter how you feel, go to Jesus. Enjoy the peace in His presence. Bring others.
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