I was thinking about the REM song today and reflecting on these last few months of ministry at Kaleo. Here’s the lyrics I keep repeating again and again as a kind of victorious anthem of gospel change taking place.

Life is bigger
It’s bigger than you
And you are not me
The lengths that I will go to
The distance in your eyes
Oh no I’ve said too much
I set it up

That’s me in the corner
That’s me in the spotlight
Losing my religion
Trying to keep up with you
And I don’t know if I can do it
Oh no I’ve said too much
I haven’t said enough
I thought that I heard you laughing
I thought that I heard you sing
I think I thought I saw you try

I find these words fascinating, not because our dear boy Mr. Stipe is giving us some profound lesson in theology, nor do I think he’s headed the other way in this song by declaring himself an atheist. I think these words speak to a loss of faith that he had in something or someone that he had placed his hope in.

For me, these words speak pointedly to what I’ve sensed over the last couple of years and what I’m growing more and more aware of each day. God is at work in my life and in my soul as he continues to extract me from my religious tendencies. I sense God has graciously given me some needful, sanctifying afflictions this last year as a way of illuminating my conscience to the sad truth that ministry can be the most spurios lover. An idol so subtle and so powerful it can act as the very basis and foundation of our identity, hope, and can ascend to our “religion.”

The great difficulty in church planting, ministry, and the desire to proclaim and teach the Gospel is that we can turn it into a way in which we attempt to save ourselves. It becomes our hope, our identity, our daydreams, our love, and it is where we spend ourselves analyzing and pondering when we have spare moments. In other words, the act of ministering Jesus to people can actually keep us from being ministered to by Jesus. I know this is remedial as the Martha and Mary story comes to mind. But the sad, sad admission is that the closer we get to Jesus the more we’re forced to recognize and loose our religion, and that means, for me, to loose the hope placed in the false messiah of ministerial success. He bids us to come and follow Him with no other hope than His summons and grace are sufficient for us. Yet in the heat of ministry we can easily slip into a need for ministry to sustain us to the loss of our need for Christ.

I don’t know why I thought I should share this. It’s really nothing new or terribly profound. Yet I find myself walking with a limp, tender around recent wounds, but rejoicing that my Father loves me so very much that He refuses to let me keep my affections divided. He loves me so much that He is willing to wound my heart by painful strokes so that I’ll come to rely more and more on His only provision for sanity of heart.

What a good and gracious God we have!