A burning fire!...

Lying on my desk is a scrap of paper. It has been there for at least a year. You would have to see my desk to fully understand! Somehow of late it has made its way to the top, and into my view.

I wrote it, not sure how long ago, and it is headed... 

'Jeremiah 20: 7 - '

'O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived; You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; Everyone mocks me. For each time I speak, I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long. But if I say, "I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name," then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. For I have heard the whispering of many, "Terror on every side! Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!" All my trusted friends, watching for my fall, say: "Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him." But the Lord is with me like a dread champion...[Jeremiah 20: 7 - 11]

I can identify with that! Please don't sympathise with me. But I do feel like a fish out of water, a square peg in a round hole, a laughingstock! But more than that I know the 'burning fire shut up in my bones', and the weariness of holding it in!

The note on my desk was some notes I took for it goes on to talk about quitting. Apparently the Bible is full of people who quit, reconsidered and changed the world. (These are the notes I took.) Wanting to quit is a sign of success. You can have the luxury of wanting to quit, as long as you know you will never quit. Every time you overcome the urge to quit you open up the possibility that anything could happen. And those who think to quit should, instead, ask questions pertaining to what's on the other side of 'quit'. Those are the sum total of my notes on this piece of paper.

Why would this make its way to the top of the stuff that lies on my desk? A note about quitting!

There's only two answers to that. I either quit, or I don't.
I am writing this and bang, at the exact moment a video is shared on Facebook. The video is about 'being missional'. So I click on it and watch it.
The presenter is slick in his rap presentation of 'being missional' but he begins with sharing that he used to hold the 'stereotypical concept of mission' that as being 'rice fields in Cambodia...'
Wow! That cuts! That mocks! That denounces!
So mission is no longer preaching the gospel in some place but some airy-fairy declaration that people don't do anyway, presented in a rap style!
Please! I don't criticise your mission, please don't criticise mine. My call is real, whether you want to believe it or not!

I'm into 'mission' so I viewed and listened and as I did so the question came again; I can either quit or not.

Quit would be easy and, no doubt, would release you all from the irritation of this blog.

But sadly, for me and you, the message of the grace of God in Christ Jesus 'in my heart...becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; And I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.'

 It's a burning fire shut up in my bones that I have to release. To not is a weary place, I cannot endure it!'