I tend to wander around in this thing called faith. I often figure things out as I am going, and it can be really frustrating, sometimes, to feel like everyone else knows more about following Jesus than I do
And I, too, want that to be said of my life.
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It is a struggle every day knowing that I am not as close to God as I really wish I could be. It is a struggle every wanting to see and hear this God that I try to follow. But then, when I am honest about my struggle, I am comforted by the assurance that I am not the only one who has ever been wrecked over this.
There have been many saints who have wandered through these same murky waters. There are two lives in particular that I really look up to because they have traveled the lonely road of trying to figure out what it means to live for God despite not knowing what they were doing. These are my heroes.
Growing up in Northern Africa, Aurelius Augustinus (aka Augustine) didn't have a lot of money. His parents spent more on his schooling than they could really afford. Augustine had a lot of second-rate school teachers in Thagaste.
He was a prophet and a poet and a beggar, more comfortable with the homeless than the wealthy, more in love with Jesus than religion, more interested in the music than the song. He felt too much, and held too much. He searched desperately his whole life for a way to belong down here, but he never did. He was just passing through.
1. St. Augustine
After a while, his family was able to afford to send him to Carthage, the best place in the world at the time to get a great education. But while he was there, he couldn't sit still. Though his mom prayed for him all the time, he had an insane craving for pleasure. He found himself a girl who became his concubine for many years. With this unnamed woman he had a son, Adeodatus. That same year, Augustine's father died.
For many years, even though he was pursuing a higher understanding of religion, he couldn't shake his lifestyle of wanting more pleasure. This was his life for many years. But after a lot of frustrated searching and anxiety, Augustine had a crazy vision in his back yard. Before him he saw Lady Continence, who told him to take a leap of faith. He had been so agitated in body and mind that the vision came as a release. When he overheard the phrase "pick up and read" from a child at a nearby house, he grabbed his book of the Apostle Paul and read a passage. It seemed to be talking specifically to him.
After that, he gave up all his worldly dreams. He quit his teaching job. He left Carthage, and the following Easter, he was baptized by Bishop Ambrose in Milan. Augustine and his mother decided to return to Africa, where they felt that they would be able to do the most good for God. There, he was very active in his church, and wrote a lot of things for the church so they could understand the Bible better.
Over the last 17 years of his life, he had lost his father, his mother, and his son. He also lost his young, ambitious dreams of gaining the whole world. But he gained something far more important - a life that mattered and a hope that carried him through everything. He gained Jesus.
Rich Mullins was a musical prodigy who rose to Christian music fame and fortune only to walk away and live on a Navajo reservation.
2. Rich Mullins
An artistic genius, raised on a tree farm in Indiana by a callous father, Rich wrestled all of his life with the brokenness and crippling insecurity born of his childhood. A lover of Jesus and a rebel in the
church, Rich refused to let his struggles with his own darkness tear him away from a God he was determined to love. As he struggled with success in Nashville and depression in Wichita, Rich desired most of all to live a life of honest and reckless faith amidst a culture of religion and conformity.
He was a prophet and a poet and a beggar, more comfortable with the homeless than the wealthy, more in love with Jesus than religion, more interested in the music than the song. He felt too much, and held too much. He searched desperately his whole life for a way to belong down here, but he never did. He was just passing through.
He said at one of his concerts one time,
“I’m all the time being asked by people, ‘How do you feel closer to God?’ And I kind of always want to say, ‘I don’t know.’ When I read the lives of most of the great saints, they didn’t necessarily feel very close to God. When I read the Psalms, I get the feeling like David and the other psalmists felt quite far from God for most of the time. Closeness to God is not about feelings. Closeness to God is about obedience. It’s just as simple as that.”
Because of his life of love, Shane Claiborne said this about him,
“Rich Mullins is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever known. Interesting because he was honest — not perfect. He made you feel like Jesus was part of the band, telling stories around the fire, laughing with you at the bar. He made you feel like you could own your darkness and be honest with your doubts. He knew that inside each of us there is a sinner and a saint at war, and on good days the saint prevails, and on bad days –Jesus loves sinners. He was as winsome as a kid and as wise as a chief. This film captures the life of one of the most important people in the history of modern evangelicalism, a ragamuffin that our children and our grandchildren need to know about.”This was a man who loved God no matter how he felt, no matter what other Christians were doing, and no matter what lies he heard from the enemy. He was committed to following Jesus no matter the cost.
And I, too, want that to be said of my life.
