There’s something more important…

Photo by Victor Benard on Unsplash

Sir Doug Nicholls. Many of you, especially those beyond Australia’s shores, will have no idea who this Aboriginal man was. Honestly, until recently I didn’t know anything about his life.

He died in 1988, aged 81. He achieved so many things against the odds, given the racial discrimination he faced. Yet, he was honoured by Australian and Royal society. And, what inspires me most, he was not only a legendary footballer and a governor, but he was a pastor and Aboriginal rights activist.

At this time of year, I am especially given to vision. I’m wondering what God has in mind for me next year. I can imagine it might be the same for you. I’m in reflection mode, pleased with my efforts to do for this year what God has placed me on this earth to do.

But I cannot help asking, what next? What is around the corner… on the horizon?

Pastor Doug, as his family affectionately refer to him as, was an inspiration in the shape of someone like John Wesley — a doer. He achieved. He was not full of wind, not full of his own voice, like so many who waste their lives promoting themselves. John Wesley preached 45,000 sermons and wrote 300 books. Not satisfied to live the comfortable life, to write one or two best-sellers, Wesley just kept going. And so it was for Pastor Doug. He worked tirelessly and seemed tireless in his pursuit of change for his people; as a people made, like everyone else, in the image of God.

He made a difference. He spent his life out. And 30 years after his death, we’re still marvelling at his legacy.

I don’t need to do anything great, or be great, to honour God through the living of my life. Neither do you. Of course, I speak in terms of what the world considers great, for even as Christians we have much difficulty understanding and accepting what Kingdom greatness is.

One thing I feel compelled to do next year is live more boldly between the fissures of a divided church. I sense there are so many agendas, so much nepotism, so much partiality, so much politicking, and still so much abuse. I feel positioned as an inside-outsider, having lived most of my life outside of the church, I feel I have an historically-valid vantage point to pass comment on how the world might judge the church. Church and Christian exclusivity sicken me. I feel true disciples have been through, or are going through, tremendous and transformational suffering, yet there are many who don’t ‘get’ the gospel — much like I didn’t get it through my first nearly 13 years as a Christian.

If the gospel doesn’t radically challenge
and therefore change your life
you haven’t ‘got’ the gospel.

But the way I have to do these things will need to be moderated and harnessed in the kind of way Nicholls and Wesley would have done them. I can’t afford to upset people just for the sake of it. There needs to be due reason for due result.

There’s something more important than acquisitions, possessions, comfort, silence, favouritism, opinion, political idealism, one’s own achievements, being heard at all costs, sell outs, lobbying, and anything else apart from Christ.

That one thing more important is Jesus; for his agenda to be our one and all. This will cause us never to ever be predictable again, and his agenda will cause us to make true change, sacrificing hundreds of forms of compromise in the process.