Confessions from the Lunatic Fringe

John 3:30 Amplified “He (Jesus) must increase, but I must decrease.

[He must grow more prominent; I must grow less so.]”

It has been way, way too long since I’ve set behind my little laptop and written anything.  Life just has a way of getting in the way.  For too long I’ve found myself just existing, going through the motions and making it from day to day.  This is not something I like about myself, and have vowed to reclaim.

I know when I’m writing, it is therapeutic.  Perhaps not for anyone other than myself, but what with the price of a counseling session being in the hundreds of dollars, I find this does me almost as much good, and it only costs me the time spent behind a screen, pecking away at these tiny little keys.

I’ve been thinking about where I am as a man lately, and truthfully I haven’t really liked what I’ve seen in the mirror.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not living a hedonistic lifestyle of debauchery and sin.  Nero is not living in my house, although from time to time I have felt a little like taking up the fiddle while everything I hold dear seems to be burning around me.  Okay, so maybe I paint a much bleaker picture than what is actually going on, but hey I'm a writer, I'm supposed to use metaphor and I felt Nero and Rome burning was a good one.

When John the Baptist said the words in the Scripture I used, I wonder if he truly realized where the course of his life was heading.  He was the cousin of Jesus, but I feel his true claim to fame lay in his ability to say what needed to be said in the moment.  If you do a study about him, you will find he was very vocal about the cultural events happening in his day, and he wasn’t always very tactful about it.  I can imagine if he were living in today's society how the political pundits would cringe every time he spoke.

 It always seemed he would be calling out the religious people and talking about how the king of the Jews was living in sin, (he had married his sister in law).  People flocked to see this supposed crazy man from the desert who wore camels hair outfits and had a steady diet of locust dipped in honey.  Yet the whole time he was calling people out and baptizing them, he was actually looking for someone.  He was waiting for the Messiah to appear, only he didn’t know who it was going to be.

John's disciples were very numerous by the time Jesus showed up on the scene, and when he realized it was Jesus who God had chosen to use as the way for mankind’s salvation, John tells those following that he must decrease, so that Jesus and His ministry can increase.  How do you think John's disciples felt about that?  If they were like us, (and we know they were) they were probably pretty excited about being on the ground floor of a new and upcoming ministry.  They may have even had delusions of granduer about where following John was going to take them.  I'm pretty sure they didn't understand why John was saying this.

I wonder how often I allow myself to decrease so that people can see Jesus in me, instead of me trying to be the focal point.  If I was going to be honest, (which is the best way to be in a counseling session right?), I’d have to say more often than not I’m trying to get people to see me instead of pointing them to Jesus.  Sometimes it may not be a conscious decision on my part, probably more often than not however it is a decision which I've made. 

So what is the cause of this?  What makes me want to stay in the limelight and keep Jesus off to the side?  It’s probably more of a lack of diligence on my part, or like I said earlier, just existing, kind of going with the flow instead of swimming towards an actual destination.  Now there’s a thought out of nowhere!  (I love it when those happen don't you?)  Perhaps I’ve not spent enough time with Jesus to find out where the course of my life is heading, or here's a thought; supposed to be heading.  Making ends meet, doing the due diligence as a husband, father and friend.  In other words, just going through the motions.

Okay, so this is huge.  Maybe it has nothing to do with increasing the ministry of Jesus and decreasing David, maybe it's just that right at this moment in time I am not very motivated to go in the direction God would have me go, because I’ve just allowed myself to live without purpose.  Purpose, now I’ve got to go check out purpose and what that means to me as a man.  What is my purpose?  Do I get up every day and worked towards fulfilling my purpose?  Having a purpose would give a person a reason to meet the day head on, and I can see how if I’m following God’s purpose for my life it would actually be easy to decrease which in turn would cause Jesus to increase.  After all, wasn’t John fulfilling his purpose when he said this? 

I need to follow this thought further, but seeing as our time is up now, we’ll have to pick up here again at our next appointment.  For now, know that God loves you and has a plan for your life, and it's a great one.  Think about this Scripture until we talk again;

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.  They are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

  Strength and honor for the Kingdom and the King!