Today marks another milestone. Eight years ago on this date, I woke up on a Saturday morning to hear that Rich Mullins had been tragically killed in an automobile accident. I was stunned. I felt a strange sense of loss for me (and the world) yet a gain for God.
My pat answer to those people who ask that getting to know you question, "who has been the most influential person in your life" is almost always Rich Mullins. I never met Rich Mullins personally. I had the chance once; at an after-concert (September 22, 1995 at the Arena Theatre) meet and greet at the then Theophilus book store in Bellaire. Although I didn't go because after the concert I was tired and thought I'd have another chance to meet him. First lesson learned: don't take anything for granted.
Regardless of whether or not I met him personally, Rich's impact on my life has been substantial. You see, Rich really got it. Know what I mean? I mean really? When you meet someone who really gets it and maybe you haven't yet? And you're drawn in like a moth to a light... seeking to understand what they have that you want. I am richer to have learned so much from him and I thank God for that. You see, Rich didn't have the perfect life... or have it all figured out. He appreciated the unfathomable greatness of God and surrendered his imperfections... and has the perfect testimony because of it.
Just some of the things that he did stick in my head. Like the fact that he allowed his board of directors to give away his yearly earnings (millions), save a medium wage (thousands) for himself. And at the Dove Awards buffet one year (after he was a "big name"), he went behind the buffet to relieve a server who had been on his feet for a while.
I want to take a moment, in a tribute of sorts, to remember some his thoughts:
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In terms of eternity, those people who did the greatest things for God were the people who weren't trying to do anything at all. They were just simply being obedient
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We all want to be useful to God. Well, its no big deal. God can use anybody. God used Nebuchadnezzar. God used Judas Iscariot. Its not a big deal to be used by God and the shocking thing in the book of Mark, and the reason why it is so shocking is because Mark is the briefest of all the gospels but he has these terrific little details and one of the little details is that it says, "and Jesus called to Him those that He wanted." And you realize that out of the twelve people that He wanted, only one was essential to His goal in coming to earth. The other eleven people were useless to Christ but they were wanted by Christ. And I kind of go, I would much rather have God want me than have God use me.
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The hardest part of being a Christian is surrendering and that is where the real struggle happens. Once we have overcome our own desire to be elevated, our own desire to be recognized, our own desire to be independent and all those things that we value very much because we are Americans and we are part of this American culture. Once we have overcome that struggle then God can use us as a part of His body to accomplish what the body of Christ was left here to accomplish.
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The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart. It is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that benefits mankind. It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice. It does not so much nibble at our shoe as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from bone to bone. It does not give us answers fitted to our smaller minded questions but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask.
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I don't think you read the Bible to know truth. I think you read the Bible to find God, that we encounter Him there.
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And it was just a few years ago that I finally realized that friendship is not a remedy for loneliness. Loneliness is a part of our experience and if we are looking for relief from loneliness in friendship, we are only going to frustrate the friendship. Friendship, camaraderie, intimacy, all those things, and loneliness live together in the same experience.
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God is a good God. He will complete our lives. He will impute his holiness onto us. The wonderful thing about God is that I deeply feel that once we come into the covenant through Jesus, once we have come through the way with him, that God really sees Christ when he looks at us and the sin in our life really is buried with Christ. And when God looks on us he sees what Christ has imputed onto us. And the work of the Spirit is just to get us to catch up with what has already happened.
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I think the big problem is that, as Christians, we forgot that our identity is wrapped up in Christ and for a long time we bought into the illusion that the will of the masses would be more generous and more benevolent than the will of one dictator. But democracy isn't necessarily bad politics, its just bad math. A thousand corrupt minds are just as evil as one corrupt mind.
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There's so much more, so I enourage you to click on the link marked Rich Mullins and read more of his writings and his songs. They are all to the glory of God.
I leave this last part to my friends at Houston's First Baptist Church who have ventured out, with the grace and mercy of God, to start a new Sunday School class...
Rich's walk with Christ was highly influenced by a book by Brennan Manning
entitled "The Ragamuffin Gospel". And in that book Mr. Manning wrote, among
other things, "The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins including
sins of the flesh, that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show
compassion, but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders
in the Spirit." Rich Mullins was certainly no pretender. He was the real deal.
-- John Rivers, 20 the countdown magazine tribute to Rich Mullins
All for now,
Lisa
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