Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

I was reading this book last night, which talked a bit about calling.  It got into what it takes to lead in a church, and one thing it did that I found especially thought provoking was look at the qualifications outlined in 1st Timothy 3:1-3.

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

I like to think I am on the way or arrived at most of that.

• One wife - check.
• Sober-minded?  Well, I am pretty serious most of the time.
• Self-controlled?  Hmm.  Need to work on that.  I think I let myself wander into self-absorption more than I should.
• Respectable?  Well, you’d have to ask around but I think I am getting there.
• Hospitable?  I love having people over, but I think there is a missing ingredient there, in the sense that I don’t do enough to prepare my house to be open.  And I let “things” keep me busy.
• Able to teach - I am getting there I think.  The more I do it the more comfortable I feel in it.
• Not a drunkard - yes.  That is for sure two so far.
• Not violent but gentle - only one person has ever angered me to the point of violence.  It’s been a good ten years since that one occasion.
• Not quarrelsome - I used to be pretty argumentative, but I am slowly learning to rein that in.
• Not a lover of money - I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with that, but even more so lately, I see money as a means to an end.  I think of what can be done with money, not the money itself.

But you know what gets me?  The above reproach bit.  I think it is a call for personal holiness.  Man, I just feel very inadequate in that field.  I don’t pray enough.  I don’t spend enough time in the Word.  I don’t let Phillippians 4:8 guide my thoughts nearly enough.  When I wander off on the internet into “gossip” sites (which are more and more passed off as “news” but that’s no excuse) and junk like that, I can feel it sap my vitality.  It’s actually beginning to physically affect me.  You’d think that would drive me away from it, but oh no.

I do realize that I can’t overcome this stuff on my own, that I need to enlist God in it.  But you know what?  The Bible says flee from sin.  I don’t do that enough.  It also says I actually have to ask for help from him.  That I don’t do enough of.  So it’s my own fault.

I think I’ll quote the Paulmeister.

“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

Like Paul, I know the answer.  Now if only I would actually take advantage of that rescue more regularly!