Slow dance

We're goin down

and you can see it too

We're goin down

and you know that we're doomed

my dear

we're slow dancing in a burnin room

-John Mayer

I was listening to this song last night and it got me thinking as to what type of relationship we have with the world that wraps around us so tightly. In a class I was teaching on Wednesday a girl asked me how you can not be friends with the world. We had just been reading out of James where it says that if you have a friendship with the world then you have an enemy with God. It was hard for me to draw a line in the sand for her because even I have become so blurred in my perception of God and of the world. At first i wanted to tell her that the world cannot be the main influence in her life, then I wanted to tell her friendship with the world means to attach yourself to the world therefore you must have no attachment here. In the end I told her that the closer you get to God the harder it is going to be for you and the world to be friends. I feel like my own Christian walk is like slow dancing to fast music. I'm constantly off beat and stumbling over my own feet, do you know what I mean? Is it God that gives us the dance floor and the music we dance to given by the world? What is to truly be a friend to God and yet not be in a difficult relationship with the world I must live in today? I look at Abraham who was actually called a friend of God. I can imagine him showing up at God's birthday parties, having guy nights together, you know? Doing all the things friends do together. However, when I look at his life I see only one thing that clearly separates him from everybody else; he unquestionably, irrevocably, undeniably cast his lot with God instead of the world he lived in. From giving Lot the first choice of the land, to leaving Ur and Haran, to sacrificing his own son; Abraham's trust in God was not just seen in his prayers and words but also through his actions towards others outside his tent. Are you slow dancing in a burning room? do you want to take in every second of life while refusing to accept the truth that the room you’re in, that this world around us is quickly going to be destroyed? Just imagine what it would be like to be in heaven and see God smile at you and then in a smooth voice call you his friend.