Cynicism.

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, Do it again; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, Do it again, to the sun; and every evening, Do it again, to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

-G. K. Chesterton

I've been feeling old lately. The culprit could be any number of things: working with college students and realizing the age gap, the marriage thing, buying a house, feeling not as healthy as usual, among others. However, my instincts have led me to point to something else... something internal.

The above passage was taken from Orthodoxy, one of Chesterton's most well-known works, and a highly-regarded work of Christian apologetics. Not that I've read it, of course; but I've wanted to. That's got to count for something, right? (Late to the party again.) The first time I came across this passage was on a worship album produced by Mars Hill Church. The title of the track was "The Dead End of Cynicism," and that was where I found myself today: facing that dead end, wondering where to go from here.

You see, I'm at a bit of a crossroads... more so than usual, I guess. Over the past few years, I've been fortunate to be the worship leader of the college ministry at my church. Seeing the growth that has happened from its inception has been sweet. We've built up an absolutely amazing worship team, for starters. The guys on the team have a band that's so exciting to listen to, because you can tell how much they love music, and how much passion they have playing it. In my opinion, that passion should be resonating from your speakers whenever you listen to music, period. Rebekah, our token girl in the band, is a legitimate musician as well (she once opened for Phillips, Craig & Dean - some serious street cred right there). I just lead worship. It's only a matter of time before I'm found out.

This past week brought a major change to our little ministry. Starting next Sunday, things are getting real. We're starting a new service, and the church has asked Rebekah and me to be the worship leaders. First and foremost, this is really exciting.

Second, it's somewhat terrifying.

A phrase that has been tossed around at North Heights for what our mission is as a church body is that we are to "see what God is doing, and go join Him in the work." Fairly simple. Then it got me thinking about fearing God; as a Christian, I'm commanded to fear God - not fear as in my fear of driving off a bridge, but a 'healthy respect of power' type of fear. I acknowledge that God is much bigger and more powerful than me, and that His ways, while they don't seem to make sense and I sometimes wonder what skewed system of calling the shots He uses, are better than my ways. This means I want to be on board with what He wants to happen. This new service, for example. I've been given this opportunity to lead because God wants to use me to accomplish His work. I have a choice in the matter, however; I can choose not to act and squander the opportunity entirely. This would probably suck a lot.

The point is, if God can't use me to do this stuff, He'll just use somebody else. This is where the fear comes in; I don't want to miss out. My fear of God translates into action in that I will do whatever it takes to be used in this new venture; fear/respect leads to obedience.

How, exactly, could I miss out? By playing the cynic, as is often the case. It takes almost nothing to be a cynic (especially in a massive church), always pointing out the flaws and what's going wrong. But to offer solutions, or a new perspective - that takes real work. There's nothing wrong with identifying areas where we could do better; cynicism and honesty are not the same. It's about attitude.

The past couple years, my view of God, or at least my view of worship and ministry, has been corroded by cynicism. Several factors have contributed to this, the most influential being the simple fact that I'm involved in ministry at a church, and people are people. When one puts oneself in relationships with others, it's taking that risk that, somewhere along the line, likely more than once, you will be hurt. It's one of those inevitable things. But another part of my cynicism had to do with my response to these things that naturally occur in life. I had a choice: I could be bitter, or I could be better. Over time, I chose bitter.

And I saw - and felt - the results, not just in my relationships with others, but in my relationship with God. In the book of James, the Bible teaches that "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." To me, this basically means that if you are really serious about following God, you should be concerned firstly with others who are in need, and you should fight back against the way the world wants you to be; that is, self-seeking, power-hungry, etc. - I wrote about this a couple posts back. That cynicism, that bitterness I'd been harboring was definitely not the way I was supposed to be feeling. If there was a prime example of what it looks like to be corrupted by the world, I've been living it for awhile.

"...For we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

Simply put, I've been feeling old lately.

Thankfully, this aging can be reversed. That's where I'm headed.