In the Name of Jesus

I have really grown to love the writings of Henri Nouwen over the last few years. Here are some thoughts on one of my favorites of his, "In the Name of Jesus".


I just finished this book by Henri Nouwen called In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. I like the books this guy writes and I have been challenged by his life because he left a lot of big titles and job opportunities to go and work and live with mentally handicapped people. The American Dream is too become powerful and succesful so that many people will like us, we are to acheive great things (We forget that often great things come in small packages though). Henri gave up his powerful achievments and left them all for something smaller and simpler and much less profound in the eyes of the world.
He wrote this book from that place of smallness, a book about leadership. In his book he describes three tempations that I think face not only leaders in the Christian fields but also all of us who are in leadership of any kind (I believe that includes all of us because we all have opportunity to lead someone or have someone looking up to us).
The temptations are:
1-The tempation to be relevant
2-The temptation to be spectacular
3-The temptation to be powerful
It is a description of our desires to have people like us and I think describes our temptation to change ourselves so that we can be relevant, spectacular and powerful. We worry so about how we will fit in when maybe we shouldnt fit in but go against the flow of the world around us. In the end we become fake and forget who we really are. Maybe we should value the simple little things in life and that which is true rather than what is most popular. I believe that following Christ is following the truth, it is the best way to live. It is not the most popular way or the way to become powerful in the world or the way to be relevant in our world today.
As a believer my desire is not to please the world around me but to be found faithful and do what is right before the God who made me. The simple things seem to matter the most, like just being faithful over being popular. Popularity poles change all the time but faithfulness before God lasts forever.
How much of our lives I wonder is driven by a desire to be relevant, spectacular or powerful?
How much of our lives is driven by a desire to be faithful to God?