Near Perfect Pinnacles of Ignorance

That's what Donald "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" Rumsfeld said this week about those in a whisper campaign building up anxiety that the United States would reconstitute the draft. Though I have beef with Rumsfeld on a few of his ideas I must say that his phrases which is the title of this blog pertains to so much of what I'm living through right now.

How is it that I have been a Jesus follower for several years now, have taken college and graduate level courses dealing with Scripture, church polity, leadership and the like and yet know so little? I know that I've heard the answer to that be, "Well, that actually shows your wisdom because you realize what you don't know." I appreciate the intention of that but that doesn't help me sleep much at night anymore.

I have been overwhelmed with the diminuitive amount that I know toward leadership and shepherding a group of people toward maturity in our faith. Man alive, I am realizing so much these days that it is mind boggling. I have long been afraid of leading a group through subversive tactics or in a way that would impact them negatively to the point that for several years I put myself in situations that were safe. There was no danger. There was no risk. I just had to show up. Nothing ventured but nothing gained.

Now I have been providentially placed in positions where I am the leader. Sometimes I am frightened. Sometimes I am confident, not because I am self-sufficient but because there has been affirmation from God in/to my spirit. Thing is also this: I never really learned how to keep healthy relationships healthy. I never learned practical steps of admonition, confronting and sticking to relationships. I have this bad habit of "just forgetting" offenses. Someone will say something and I will talk myself into thinking that they meant it in a way that would not be of any concern to me. I lie to myself a lot.

The pattern is this: their spoken word, a feeling in my gut that I supress and then a few days or weeks later I will say to myself, "That really upset me when they said that. I should've said something." The truth is that sometimes those thoughts just don't/can't come to you right at the moment. I'm a slow processer from facts to feelings. I'm learning how to have that stuff going on and yet still have my faith strong.

I am really tempted to finish this with Bible verses and a flury of fantastic quotes pertaining to this, or a quote from the ever wise Oswald, but I will just leave it at that, because I think we all know what the Bible says about some/most of what I've mentioned. I should just concentrate on the application of it.