Thinking in decades

I think Pete (Grieg) said something in one of his books, along the lines of; many young adults are disillusioned about their faith and failing to find an outworking for their passions/dreams to change the world, because they fail to think in decades.

It took me a while to understand what was meant by this statement but it has become very true to me over the last few weeks. As I look at my life and those of my friends at similiar stages of life/faith, I have come to realise that I need to look at my life a lot more intentionally than I sometimes I do. I think sometimes the risk of stepping into the new things God is promting us to pioneer and the costs of living out the ideologies of what we are learning it means to really follow Jesus, are all safeguarded by the fact that we are prone to think in the short term. i.e. we think we could try it for a summer when we're off work or for a short term mission expereince at most. I not saying these experiences are not worthwhile - they are, but I wonder if there is this safety mecahnism we fall back on - 'If it does not work then we can return to our normal lives.' Do we think that the holy frustration we are feeling inside, the thoughts about stepping out courageously into new things that God wants us to do, are maybe just a wee phase we are going through? Are we disillusioned because the sense of fulfillment we got when we truly gave of ourselves cannot be matched when we our living our 'normal' lives? Does this remind us that the cost is a lifetime/lifestlye and not just for a phase of life?

I more than ever want my life to count. I know I'm not old, but I also know I not getting any younger. I don't want to get stuck. I love talking and exploring the values and outworkings of the kingdom with my friends and I suppose I believe I am contributing my life to the cause at present. But I know there is more. I know there is more to give. I know there is a greater cost. I know their is a call to living a more true expression of the Jesus message in the power of the Spirit. I know God is calling my generation to be the change they want to be and I know He is calling us to be courageous in acheiving this. I dont want to talk about it anymore, I want to live it out. But it has got to be more than dabbling at something for a year or two.

We need to put the notional, maybe-attitude, never-gets-past-ideas stuff to one side I think - we are only patronising ourselves if we think this is just a wee phase we are going through, and eventually just allow the world and society to define us as settled.

We need to think in decades at the very least. What do I want to lay my life down for over the next ten years? What am i prepared to give up in that amount of time? What do I want to have acheived in that time? What kind of person do I want to be in then years?

When I start to think like this I find that the stuff I think God i bubbling within me becomes a lot more realistic and acheiveable. It's certainly not safe and it certainly will cost everything but it definitely becomes more realistic.

When we think about the cost of following Jesus over the next decade of our lives as opposed to simply next week, I think there is a new dimension to Jesus words to us to 'count the cost' before we choose to follow him.

NOt sure this makes any sense but if you concur sure let me know!!