The Chronicles of Dan- Volume 1.2

Warning: It is in the reader's best interest not to read this post until they have read Volume 1.1 (For Volume 1.1 scroll down)

Hmm, it has been brought to my attention that, had a meteor fallen on my car and crushed me, I would not be here writing this. This is true- no meteor has fallen on me. Yet.
The X-box, in fact, did not placate me. Whether I'm bonkers or not is, of course, a matter of opinion, and it is my opinion that I have enough sanity to get along.
When I last left you, poised on the edge of your seats, I faced a great moral, existential, and theological dilemma- that of what to do with the life I've been given.
Well, so there I was, having beaten every contender as far as the eye could see for the title of supreme and undisputed Halo Master (Halo being an X-box game, the X-box, of course, being a video-game console, for those of you who perhaps weren't sure?); and yet I wasn't satisfied.
There had to be more. And so, with no further shirking, I began to search. I looked, I thought, I prayed, and I listened, and realised that Missions more than anything else seemed to intrigue me. So I looked further into it, and was told that my very own church was host to a class on the Christian Missionary Movement over the last two thousand years- "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement". I signed up for the class, and attended most of the sessions, but alas, a lifetime of slacking is not easily given up- I was lax with my homework, and very bad with my readings. Perhaps it was because of this; perhaps I wasn't yet ready, or perhaps there was just too much momentum to my lazyness; but while the class challenged me and made me think, I did not draw as much from it as I could have drawn from material of this caliber.
Nonetheless, it did give me something to think on- maybe I could become a lawyer and support missionaries around the world! I would be potentially, if indirectly, affecting thousands of lives.
And so life went on- busy with work, ministries, friends and a new found interest in triathlons- which kept me busy indeed with some 12-15 hours of training every week though the spring and summer of '05- I was quick to accept the possibility of supporting missions as being the more meaningful aspect of my life; and thus was contentn to have my life continue to move along its well-oiled rails.
By the end of the summer of '05, rather tired by the swimming, biking, and general running around of life; I decided, after having helped lead my church's College and Careers ministry for almost four years, to retire from leadership.
This I did by the early fall, and all of a sudden I had a lot more time on my hands. I decided to use the time to catch up on some deeper reading. By here, I think, God was done with waiting, and decided it was time to jump-start my heart. I read a series of books through that fall and early winter- each one in no way connected to the other, but each one picked up exactly where the previous one had left off as far as my heart was concerned. Through the books I read and thought about, God brought about a tremendous revival of passion in my heart. What had once been barely warm was suddenly superheated to boiling. I knew I had to do more with my life than live from week to week, with weekends as high points, and nothing to look forward to but retirement and comfort. I felt I was spoiled for odinaryness- I would never be happy with a regular life, a life that was not spent in something greater.
My series of books in fact culminated with a book that would change my life- a book by a writer named John Piper, aptly titled 'Don't Waste Your Life'. In his book, Piper- whose passion for God is palpable- spoke of our society and how bland it has become. How so many Christians, professing to believe something that has life-changing ramifications, nonetheless live their lives in a manner that's hardly any different from the society around them. They go to work, and return, and spend time with their families, and pursue their pleasure, their comfort; and give perhaps a tenth of their money, a tenth of their time, a tenth of their hearts to a God who is all-consuming.
Piper wrote about the very real spiritual war that is going on around us, whose stakes are the souls of men, and how unmoved we are to do anything about it. He wrote about passion, and the great voluntary sacrifices that were wrought during the Second World War, where people at home gave up their metal and their rubber, their meat and their milk, their gasoline and their canned goods, for those serving at the front; and those serving at the front gave everything they had in return, for the cause of American freedom and democracy. And yet we stand here with a cause that is infinitely greater, and do so little. We choose instead to be passionate about sports, about entertainment, about friends, about work and careers and money, about clothes and cars and other irrelevant things, while millions perish.
He spoke about the frivolous mindset that we have- doing just enough to keeps ourselves out of trouble, just enough to not feel guilty, just enough to tell ourselves that we care; when instead we should be asking ourselves 'What is the most I can do?' 'What is the greatest that I can do with the one life I have to live?'
He spoke about the glory of God- the purpose for which all humanity had been created. The only pursuit which will bring meaning and peace and lasting joy to the human heart. The greatest of all possible of life's pursuits.
Piper's book was terribly convicting, and incredibly inspiring. When I finished reading that book I knew that there was nothing that I could do with my life besides spending it in the pursuit of the glory of God; and I chose- in January of 2006- with my life, to pursue the majesty of Christ in Missions and Mercy.



Next: Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of what happened to Dan from here. Coming soon to this very same blog site in Volume 1.3