"Faith is walking with God. The biggest problem with life is that it's just daily. You can never get so healthy that you don't have to continue to eat right... Spiritually, we're in much the same place... It's not what you did, and not what you say you're going to do, it's what you do today." - Rich Mullins
This seems to be the crux of all the spiritual themes in my life right now. In college as a young believer, I found that I tended to grow and mature spiritually in spurts - have a week or two of great times with God, followed by a period where I'd shut Him out in order to study or whatnot, then go to a praise night or some other event, and so on so forth. Now that it's been a few years, I've graduated from college, and my lifestyle has changed from the hectic, intense, "event-driven" ("event" referring to midterm, project, etc.) where each week would have something "significant" happening, to the lifestyle fondly referred to by many as the "daily grind" or "rat race." I know that one fear of mine when getting ready for work was falling into a rut where I'd wake up, go to work, do something, come home, eat, watch TV, and go to sleep to begin the cycle again the next day. Then weeks would flash by, months, and all of a sudden I'd be over 30 years old and wondering where my youth had gone.
While I can't argue the fact that it seems time is going by more quickly during this stage of my life than almost any other stage of my life because of the similarity of the daily routine of working, I can say that it has made the challenge of daily spiritual growth much more apparent and relevant. This has now grown into a habit and an integral part of my life... I can now honestly say, where I couldn't before, that my days don't feel complete without some focused and concentrated time in God's presence and Word. I'm now beginning to understand what Jesus was talking about when he refers to the Scriptures as the "Bread of Life" - as in the quote above, you never get so healthy that you can stop eating, and you can never have so much faith that you don't need to exercise it by being in God's presence regularly - we're called to persevere to the end (Hebrews 3:14)
This theme seems to be showing up in several areas of my life. Since joining worship team at Canaan, I've been considering what it means to live a daily life in worship... been reading "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster, which has provided a lot of good, practical, Biblical guidelines on meditation, prayer, and study... several sermons, retreat topics, quiet times, and the Bible study from my men's group have all reinforced the fact that while God's grace is extended freely and without reservation to all men, and that there is nothing we can do to attain salvation on our own, this grace is still costly because taking grasp of that grace requires that we let go of our lives. I get the image of a rock climber who needs to make a traversal from one rock face to another behind his back - he literally needs to let go of one in order to grab and start climbing on the other. If you have one hand on each face, you're certainly not going to climb, and you can most certainly fall. If you keep both hands on the first rock face (the world), that wall will eventually crumble and fall. But once I've made the decision to die to my previous self, let go of that wall and start climbing towards Christ, I'll have the opportunity to learn, to grow in faith, to stand on God's promises - and even when I slip up and fall, the grace of God is there to catch me.
It's remarkably freeing to wake up each day and dedicate that day to God. When I look at the world and my place in it through God's eyes, a lot of other things fade into the background. One example in particular... last year during a time of reflection, I asked myself the question, whether I would be disappointed and sad at unrealized dreams if I was to say, perish tomorrow, or if Christ were to come back this very moment. At the time, I had to admit that one of the dreams and challenges that I looked forward to was leading a family - I wanted the challenge of being a good husband and father, and shepherding my kids into grown people the way my parents did for me, and that I would feel that disappointment if those dreams weren't realized. As I've grown and learned since then, however, I think that I've begun to be able to change my dreams and goals into a longing for heaven and God's presence. I am less fearful of death than I used to be, because I'm learning to look beyond death as the cessation of worldly dreams and possibilities - such as leading a family and achieving success - and looking ahead to an eternity of 100% of the presence of God that I get just a taste of on a daily basis. What this frees me up to do, then, is to set many and varied goals for myself to strive for - but, I won't be crushed if they don't come to pass. As my pastor is fond of saying, "I don't know what the future holds, but I know the One who holds the future." I believe that this freedom - of knowing that God has my back, thus I can attempt big challenges in order to glorify God and to draw nearer to Him - has helped to refresh me on a nearly daily basis over these past few months. It's particularly freeing when I remember that because He has my back, stumbling doesn't have to be nearly as despairing as it used to be.
I hope that some of that made sense... if not, email me or leave a message on the guestbook/message board to the right. But I'll finish off this very long blog with some song lyrics from the guy who uttered the quote I opened it with:
If I stand, let me stand on the promise that You will pull me through
But if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has borne in me these songs
And if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home
- "If I Stand", Rich Mullins
This seems to be the crux of all the spiritual themes in my life right now. In college as a young believer, I found that I tended to grow and mature spiritually in spurts - have a week or two of great times with God, followed by a period where I'd shut Him out in order to study or whatnot, then go to a praise night or some other event, and so on so forth. Now that it's been a few years, I've graduated from college, and my lifestyle has changed from the hectic, intense, "event-driven" ("event" referring to midterm, project, etc.) where each week would have something "significant" happening, to the lifestyle fondly referred to by many as the "daily grind" or "rat race." I know that one fear of mine when getting ready for work was falling into a rut where I'd wake up, go to work, do something, come home, eat, watch TV, and go to sleep to begin the cycle again the next day. Then weeks would flash by, months, and all of a sudden I'd be over 30 years old and wondering where my youth had gone.
While I can't argue the fact that it seems time is going by more quickly during this stage of my life than almost any other stage of my life because of the similarity of the daily routine of working, I can say that it has made the challenge of daily spiritual growth much more apparent and relevant. This has now grown into a habit and an integral part of my life... I can now honestly say, where I couldn't before, that my days don't feel complete without some focused and concentrated time in God's presence and Word. I'm now beginning to understand what Jesus was talking about when he refers to the Scriptures as the "Bread of Life" - as in the quote above, you never get so healthy that you can stop eating, and you can never have so much faith that you don't need to exercise it by being in God's presence regularly - we're called to persevere to the end (Hebrews 3:14)
This theme seems to be showing up in several areas of my life. Since joining worship team at Canaan, I've been considering what it means to live a daily life in worship... been reading "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard Foster, which has provided a lot of good, practical, Biblical guidelines on meditation, prayer, and study... several sermons, retreat topics, quiet times, and the Bible study from my men's group have all reinforced the fact that while God's grace is extended freely and without reservation to all men, and that there is nothing we can do to attain salvation on our own, this grace is still costly because taking grasp of that grace requires that we let go of our lives. I get the image of a rock climber who needs to make a traversal from one rock face to another behind his back - he literally needs to let go of one in order to grab and start climbing on the other. If you have one hand on each face, you're certainly not going to climb, and you can most certainly fall. If you keep both hands on the first rock face (the world), that wall will eventually crumble and fall. But once I've made the decision to die to my previous self, let go of that wall and start climbing towards Christ, I'll have the opportunity to learn, to grow in faith, to stand on God's promises - and even when I slip up and fall, the grace of God is there to catch me.
It's remarkably freeing to wake up each day and dedicate that day to God. When I look at the world and my place in it through God's eyes, a lot of other things fade into the background. One example in particular... last year during a time of reflection, I asked myself the question, whether I would be disappointed and sad at unrealized dreams if I was to say, perish tomorrow, or if Christ were to come back this very moment. At the time, I had to admit that one of the dreams and challenges that I looked forward to was leading a family - I wanted the challenge of being a good husband and father, and shepherding my kids into grown people the way my parents did for me, and that I would feel that disappointment if those dreams weren't realized. As I've grown and learned since then, however, I think that I've begun to be able to change my dreams and goals into a longing for heaven and God's presence. I am less fearful of death than I used to be, because I'm learning to look beyond death as the cessation of worldly dreams and possibilities - such as leading a family and achieving success - and looking ahead to an eternity of 100% of the presence of God that I get just a taste of on a daily basis. What this frees me up to do, then, is to set many and varied goals for myself to strive for - but, I won't be crushed if they don't come to pass. As my pastor is fond of saying, "I don't know what the future holds, but I know the One who holds the future." I believe that this freedom - of knowing that God has my back, thus I can attempt big challenges in order to glorify God and to draw nearer to Him - has helped to refresh me on a nearly daily basis over these past few months. It's particularly freeing when I remember that because He has my back, stumbling doesn't have to be nearly as despairing as it used to be.
I hope that some of that made sense... if not, email me or leave a message on the guestbook/message board to the right. But I'll finish off this very long blog with some song lyrics from the guy who uttered the quote I opened it with:
If I stand, let me stand on the promise that You will pull me through
But if I can't, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
If I sing, let me sing for the joy that has borne in me these songs
And if I weep, let it be as a man who is longing for his home
- "If I Stand", Rich Mullins
posted by Bob at
6:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home