I have always found this teaching awkward. It does not sound like Jesus. I have always "hung in there" and believed in persevering. I have believed in out-living and out-loving any opposition. I can understand the meaning behind the words. Essentially the message is, "There is an urgency and importance in the purposes of the Kingdom of God, don't muck about." I hear that but I have tended to hang in, compromise and cope with the tension of that compromise.
You tend to think you are here forever though, but you are not. I still feel relatively young and fit at 62. My dad, however, died at 49 years of age. I have high blood pressure, a prostate time bomb and possibly an enlarged heart. I am currently chaplain to St John and hear stories of (and sometimes see for myself) people my age and younger departing this life quite suddenly. In the light of my age, and the reality that I probably don't have heaps of years of real active living left, this teaching about the urgency of the purposes of God takes on new meaning. I am tending to look at the things I am doing and the things that happen in life and say, "I don't need this hassle at this stage of life! Time to move on." (I guess that was what happened with my involvement with Habitat for Humanity, an essentially good organisation that had made changes or did things in a way that frustrated me again and again - time to move on.) The reality is that life is a journey, things change. Organisations change, issues, people, friends, work - stuff you once thought important no longer has the same importance, and you have to move on. The move is often done reluctantly, often longing for the way it used to be but no longer is and often sad and hard to do. But the reality is life is not static.
In spite of my tendency to hang in there for long times, more and more as life gets shorter, I am feeling the need to "brush the dust off" and move on, rather than cope with things that frustrate, are no longer life-giving or hold me back.
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