The Truth that Takes a Lifetime

Today, when talking with a friend, I was reminded by him of the simple truth that God is greater than I am.

What a straightforward truth - one that we (of course) learn in Sunday School, and then can move beyond...right?

Maybe not. This is one of those truths that is so simple, and yet which seems to take a lifetime to learn and live. We probably each have those moments when we catch a glimpse of both God's greatness and our relative smallness (seeing the night sky, and having a small sense of the relative sizes and distances does it for me), and perhaps also those moments of conviction and guilt when we see how we have ordered our life around the illusory belief that we - not God - are the ones of ultimate importance. My comfort, my success, my fulfillment are the things I chase after and concern myself with. All my experiences must be bent towards these end goals.

But what a prison we create for ourselves when we are the only ones we pursue! We were intended to be in relationship with the only One of ultimate worth - God - and yet we would turn from His beauty to frantically try to magnify ourselves? We all do it, we all have done it, but by the grace of God in Christ, we have been raised with Christ in order to live a new life. May God in His grace put to death our sin and suffocating self-idolization, and move our hearts to value and praise and glorify the One who is worthy! And what freedom then, as we trust Him to provide for us by His perfect and never-ending grace, in ways we can never provide for ourselves.

LORD, be glorified. (and we can be confident of the fulfillment of this prayer!)

We Belong To...

Whose are we?

We often live and operate with the implicit assumption that we belong to ourselves. Our time, our emotions, our entitlement to feeling fulfilled or pursuing our passions...we cling to these rights. We may acknowledge that God wants all of us, but we want to keep something back.

Why?

Is this hesitancy to surrender to God perhaps due to our desire to cling to autonomy, security, and safety? In surrender, we give up the right to choose based solely on our own desires, and this can be a terrifying thought.

But let’s reflect on this...

If we claim to believe in the God who formed, who created both the world we live in, as well as our very being and identity, and if we profess that He is good, are we not contradicting our very reasons for autonomy?

We were created to be in a life-giving relationship with God. But when we try to separate ourselves, and to protect some of what we see as “ourselves”—that portion of ourselves we don’t want God to mess with—aren’t we also claiming that God is either not fully good or not fully knowledgeable and powerful? We are claiming that we (part of his own creation, who have been given our faculties by Him) can ultimately care for ourselves better than the One who knit us together, and knows every thought of ours. This makes no sense, and though we are called to use those faculties and abilities to work, we ultimately look to Him for care.

And to expand on this: Is, perhaps, this autonomy we hold to so tightly perhaps ultimately a grand illusion? Like God’s Lordship (He is Lord whether or not we acknowledge Him as such!), isn’t our dependence on God the truth whether or not we acknowledge it as true? If so (and it surely seems to be the case when we follow our professed beliefs to their reasonable conclusions), then we must admit that we are dependent on God for all things whether or not we want to admit it. And it is a hard reality to accept, because it is sometimes hard to trust God even when we give mental assent to these truths.

Trust in God’s goodness—it seems so simple and elemental, but it can be so difficult. But remember that God has already provided us with profound evidence of His trustworthiness, among which are such convictions as His creation of all, and Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. He is good (for why else would Jesus die for love of the world?) and He is able (for how else could Jesus have risen?).

Let us acknowledge that we are His, and lean on this good and able God!

Treasures - Evanescent and Permanent

This afternoon, I went to a memorial service for a wonderful, 102-year-old Christian woman. I had come to know her at the assisted living center at which I worked some time ago, and she was an encouragement to many of the staff there.

The memorial service was good. It was truly a time of celebration even amidst the loss, and her faith and love for Jesus was undoubtedly something to celebrate - both of which were deeply evident in her life.

It is said that, when you die, you can't take anything with you: treasures, possessions, knowledge, even talents ultimately seem evanescent when death comes. But she did retain the central treasure in her life - Jesus. Her life was especially full because of all the trust and time and love she had directed towards the one treasure she could keep (or rather, Who could keep her).

I want this too. I want my treasure in life to not be myself, or my possessions, or my abilities and resume, but to be Jesus Christ. May God help us treasure Him.

Deep Philosophical Musings In the Form of Images (or not)...

Time for a little bit less serious of a post...

These were from during a period of unemployment, hence too much time (and an old carrot) on my hands:

Give us today our daily bread (and more?)

“Give us today our daily bread.”

How do we understand this request, and how do we pray it?

Consider alongside it the following proverb:

Two things I ask of you, LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.” (Proverbs 30:7-9a, NIV on biblegateway)

Think of the dangers of wealth or fame or gratification of all our perceived desires for money/recognition/food/pleasure (the lives of many superstars as a sad example of this); might we not wisely ask for just enough? When we are engaged in this prayer, do we sometimes find ourselves asking, “Give me today all my wants and ambitions” rather than asking for simply our “daily bread?”

God is rich in His blessings, and certainly bestows wealth on some (not a bad thing, I believe, if God grants it, but something in which there is also great responsibility, and something deeply dangerous to desire after and form one’s life around). There is wisdom in the proverb above, for earthly wealth can all too easily cause us to despise real wealth—the knowledge of God and right relationship with Him through Jesus.

Maybe, in praying this part of the Lord’s Prayer, we ought to be asking God not only to give us what we need, but to also withhold what would be harmful to us.

Work AND Prayer? Or Work-Prayer?

As Christians, we work and pray, right?

Or is this a false dichotomy? Are work and prayer so different?

When we pray as petition, we are asking God to work, to be active, to be present in a mighty way. We are obeying His command to pray, and He answers. In these prayers, we are acknowledging our dependence on His power and work and love.

But when we are called to work, is it so different? Serving others, loving the poor, preaching the gospel - we recognize that in these things it is ultimately and foundationally God who is at work. He works through us, it is true, but it is His power that is behind and within and around it all. Our confidence in proclaiming the gospel, for example, is first in God's work drawing His people to Him (see John 6:44). We are called to proclaim faithfully, but this work will accomplish nothing if God were not the one first at work.

So in both these things - prayer and work - it is God who is at work first and foremost. Without His power there would be nothing accomplished in either, and so both are in their fullest essence utterly reliant upon Him. We are given the privilege and joy and work of participating that His power and love may be revealed through us and in us, but it is all from Him, not us.

So perhaps we ought to call prayer "work." Or maybe work "prayer." Either way, let us never forget that when we work, we must be as deeply dependent upon God as when we pray; and that when we pray, we are truly at work as we are asking God's care and provision and action and dominion.

A Disenchanted Vocation

Eugene Peterson writes,

The French have a wonderful phrase, deformation professionale, to refer to maladies that we are particularly liable to in the course of pursuing our line of work. Physicians are in constant danger of becoming calloused to suffering, lawyers in danger of cynicism about justice, and those of us who think and talk and read and write God are in danger of having the very words we use about God separate us from God, the most damning deformation of all.” (Eugene Peterson, Subversive Spirituality, 59)

This is scary. For any of us, that thing towards which we gravitate can become, if we are not careful, our very weakness.

How do we guard against this natural tendency? Well, we can't go wrong if we continually, persistently, regardless of roadblocks or failings, seek to be re-oriented to God. Unless we are striving to see Him throughout our lives and careers and callings, we will easily lose the very life of our calling.

But I believe that God, in His mercy, does not simply tell us to do this and fix our eyes on Him without help. And that help can, I believe, often be found most deeply in the work of the Holy Spirit through trials and pain.

I have grown in the conviction that my struggles and questions of faith - which feels like a daily battle with some longer and some shorter reprieves, though often not as many as I sometimes wish for - though not ideal, have been used by God to turn me to Him. During these times, I find it much harder to simply read a text assigned in class in a detached, simply studious, professional manner (as this deformation professionale tendency may naturally tend me towards). Rather, I am forced to wrestle with the text as it interacts with the weights on my own heart.

This, I believe, can be evidence of the mercy of God in our lives. He brings us to return to Him - not simply to His work - through these very difficulties and struggles. Perhaps an "easy" life is not what we want to pray for...