Streams of Living Water :: Social Justice - The Compassionate Life

As I finished this chapter of Foster's book I felt the need to slow down and really reflect on this "stream". The contemplative and holiness tradition fit into my experiences of Christianity, but (sadly) social justice hasn't. This is changing. In an act of what I can only see as divine providence some dear friends in our church gave me Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical. The impact has been instant, refreshing, and unnerving. I've known God is writing a new chapter in my life for a while now; new concepts are birthing new convictions. While this is exciting, it is also scary. Conviction demands action, and action requires sacrifice. I'm beginning to realize why little tweaks and fixes haven't equated to the "new life" promised in the Scriptures. You can't look with the same eyes and see something different, you can't feel with the same heart and love divinely, you can't live the same life and live new life.

I find myself looking at Jesus in fresh ways, and realize more than ever His radical call, His challenge to convention. Okay...this feels more like a ramble than a post so I'll stop, but there is an awakening occurring, not as much a shedding of the old as it is a realization of what it was always intended to mean.

"If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior or attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvements, work on paradigms."

- Stephen R. Covey

"...you have heard it said, but I say..."

- Jesus