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Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Hacky sack.
The first time I ever saw the leather "footbags" was when some guys on our high school soccer team (that had several foreign-exchange students) had them to help them prove their footwork for their sport. They'd goof around with them whenever they had a free moment or two.
For some reason, the craze took off at our high school my senior year. We had a courtyard where seniors could go if they had a study-hall or free period or whatever, and when the weather was nice, you'd see lots of people standing around in a circle, trying to keep the footbag from hitting the ground before everyone touched it once...or you'd see a couple of guys showing off all sorts of tricks and impressive moves.
We all got one. We'd run over them with our cars to get them to loosen up faster. We'd oil them up every now and then to keep the leather from cracking. We carried them with us everywhere we went. In fact, some of the deepest conversations me and my friends would have were after the group had "hacked in" in a parking lot somewhere and we could talk without focusing on the talking. Guys are like that. Anyway, the last memorable footbag session I had was a couple of nights before my group of friends headed off for our respective colleges.
A couple of weeks later, I had pledged a fraternity. After our session of cleaning up the house and all that, I busted out my hacky sack and started kicking it around, half expecting a few guys to "hack in" and we'd hang out for a little bit. A couple of my pledge (freshmen) friends did and they were actually pretty good.
The next thing I know I hear this scream of horror from one of the "brothers" in the fraternity who grabbed my footbag and literally threw it as far as he could onto the roof. He said something about how only "stoners" or "California pretty boys" or "(insert a derogatory term for homosexuals you might have heard somewhere here)" played this stupid game. In fact, he went on for a minute or so about how we were never supposed to be seen with one ever again. Apparently, the guys of Sigma Pi weren't into that game.
A few weeks later, me and the same friends who were "hacked in" that day were walking to class and passed some other guys who were playing hacky sack in their yard and laughing and having a good time.
"Stoners," I said.
"California pretty boys," said my friend.
"(Derogatory term for homosexuals)," said another.
We laughed at them and their stupid game, too.
How did something that I really thought was fun and a great way to spend time when you're hanging out with friends change from that to my ability to associate it with the drug culture or surfers or homosexuals?
Simple, really. I allowed the thoughts of others to influence the way I thought. And I didn't want those others to dislike me or give me a negative label or anything like that...so I adopted the "party line" and even became an "anti footbagger."
It's a small example.
But it happens to us in the spiritual life, too. Notice in Romans 12: 1 & 2, from The Message:
"So, here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.
Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside-out. Readily recognize what He wants from you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings out the best in you, developing well-formed maturity in you."
Remember yesterday how pointed out that, in the Greek, verse 1 is written in the "aorist" tense...which implies a one-time, decisive action? Well, verse 2 is written in the "present" tense...which implies a continuing action. So, it isn't too much of a stretch to say that verse 2 offers insight into how to continue to apply the one-time decision you make (made?) in verse 1.
So, the key to presenting yourself to God as an offering?
It's being transformed from the inside out, by the things you think about. You have to think like God thinks because the world spends most of it's time trying to get you to "conform."
In the NASB, verse 2 begins, "And do not be conformed to this world..." The word conformed connotates something being pressed into its mold. And the world lies to us continually: You should look like the girls on the magazine covers, or you should smell like the body spray that will get a bunch of girls on elevators to kiss you (well, more than that, actually), or get a certain car because you deserve it or you should act certain ways to gain popularity...
...you get the point, right?
These same events we should begin to transform (or change) by "renewing our minds." We should take those same lies and run them through a "God-shaped filter." So, instead of saying that you're going to college so you can get a good job and live a comfy life, maybe you begin to thank God for the opportunity to get an education and that you'd use the time to figure out the make-up of the universe and discover your place within that universe (that's why they were originally called UNIVERSITIES). Or maybe you should realize that smelling good and good hygiene might be good things, but that buying a spray that will get girls to enact sinful acts upon you might be a lousy motivation as well as indulging sin...or whatever.
The idea of offering yourself to God involves the continual, almost moment-by-moment present-tense thinking like God thinks...not as the world thinks. This will help you to maintain that once-for-all commitment of verse 1.
So, for today, let's play "SPOT THE THINKING ERROR" as we go about our day: What lies did you see perpetrated? Go ahead, list them out in the "comments" section...and while you're at it...what would do you think God's response to that lie would be?
Brent 4:29 AM
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