What Messes You Up?

The e-zine "Wrecked for the Ordinary" turned me on to this video from Bill Hybels:



and it reminds me a phrase that often gets thrown around the office. Whenever an office mate says, "Man, it messed me up!" my ears perk. There are two rules for using this phrase in the office. 1.) Use it with care and caution; flippancy in using the phrase is like the boy crying wolf. And, 2.)to be "messed up" is a positive thing. It's cue to go out and buy this or that book, or watch this or that movie. It's a promise that the book or movie or what have you is so impactful, so disturbing, resonating to the core.

The positivity of being "messed up" stems from the assertion that, as the e-zine blogger put it, "we, as Christians, are called to step into circumstances that wreck us. As Hybels points out in the video, going into these places is what our hearts desperately yearn to do. In other words, we want to be wrecked, because we somehow innately know that the healing of creation is, at least in part, hinged on how broken we are for it."

Could it be that God desires to use our discontent to bring about redemptive change, to bring above His kingdom on earth?

Hybels' latest book "Holy Discontent" has also been on the lips of a few people in the office. This latest endorsement has pushed me over the edge; I now think I'll have to go out and buy the book.