Grave Concerns

When I was at the Passion Conference this year, Andy Stanley's message may have been the most practical, most memorable message preached.  It may have also been my least favorite.  The power in his message was the use of three chairs, each representing one facet of human experience.  The chairs represented:

What We Do              Who We Know               Who We Are

As he gestured to these three chairs, he continually made the point that it is a mistake to decide what we will do until we first decide who we want to be.  He may have said that 20x during his message.  He made his point very well, and it stuck in the minds of those who heard him.

He then used a hypothetical question in preaching that I may have heard at least as many sermons about.  That is, what do you want people to say about you at your funeral?  He boiled his list down to eight character traits that included such things as being Honest, Pure, and Generous (he didn't list them all).  And he explained that once he had decided first who he wanted to be, that decisions about what he would do naturally followed.  The prior commitment to his preferred identity formed a barrier around his decision making process.

So, what sort of person do I want to be?  Well, that sounds like such a nifty question, except as one person shouted out at Passion this year during Andy's message, "What About Jesus?!?"  It may well be that who I want to be and who Jesus wants me to be aren't exactly the same.  If that's the case, I need structure my life and identity around His desires for my life and not my own.  The character He wants to instill in me needs to be my life aim, and not following great sounding advice and motivational concepts.

I appreciate what Andy Stanley, John Maxwell, Steven Covey, Zig Ziglar, and even Joel Osteen can contribute to people's lives about breaking bad cycles and maximizing potential.  But I'm not here on my mission, I'm here on His . . . until the day I die.