Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

I may be making too much of this, so if I am please ignore it. I was thinking in service yesterday that I do Christ a great disservice when I put him first in my life. That seems to imply that there is this list of things, people, influences, etc. that are competing for my attention and affection and, above them all, there is Christ. I am wondering if there should be a list at all. At work or home I usually have a list (a mental one anyway) of things that I need to get done in a day. There is something that is first on the list and, when that is done, I get to numbers 2 through N in an attempt to clear it. Sometimes I get through all of the items on the list but I, almost always, get the first item taken care of. This comparison may break down a bit but I am wondering, in regards to Christ, if there should be a list at all. I am wondering if, instead of Christ being the first of many things in my life he should be the "only"; instead of him as the primary influence he should ...

I took a goofy online test yesterday to help me determine if I was a geek or not. Well, actually, I wanted to know how much of a geek I was (according to this test) because, well, I know that I am a geek. I guess anyone who can say, "Oh I have seen this one before..." while watching the only real series of the Star Trek that has ever graced television (yes, the one that ran in the 1960's) can be considered, at least, a bit of a geek. Well, there were some questions that baffled me (decreasing my geek credentials a bit) but there was one in particular that disturbed me. There was a question that asked what my favorite method for inputting text was. I had to select the QWERTY keyboard as the option for Graffiti using a stylus (that came with my Palm Tungsten E). This absolutely decreased by geek score on the test by an order of magnitude. And I am not bitter about it. Much.

As much as I think I minister for an audience of One, it is hard for me to divorce "me" from the ministries that I have been called to. I want, so much, to minister on my terms and do what I think is the absolute best. It is so hard for me to subject myself to anything except me. Whenever the locus of control is somewhere else things work so much better. But I like me. I like me a lot. I like me so much that I would rather be ruled by me, even though I am a terrible master, than be under the authority of someone else. When things go my way I am so happy and convince myself that this happiness is really joy. I agree to myself that the cheese and crackers that I am eating is really Chicken French. I am about to be on a different path in my ministry with the church now than the one I have been walking down for a while. It is easy for me to look back on the "good old days" rather than be captured by the wide-eyed wonderment of where God is calling me. It is easy to regr...