"He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." ~Jim Elliot
Psalm 86:11-12
Teach me your way, O Lord,
that I may walk in your truth;
unite my heart to fear your name.
I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,
and I will glorify your name forever.
A few days ago as I skimmed through my Bible trying to find some source of hope, my eyes found this passage. The past several months have held a great deal of difficulty for me spiritually as I try to balance school, work, study, and seeking God. It's one of the hardest tasks I have been given. And for the most part, I have failed. It had been so long since I experienced the spiritual hunger and thirst for righteousness Jesus preached about in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5:6).
There used to be days I could say with David, "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you" (Ps. 63:1). But lately those experiences have been mere memory:
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival (Ps. 42:4).
Needless to say, I have no desire for memories.
But I am finally seeing what I have been missing all this time. In an act of grace last week, God revealed it to me through His word. He does not desire external actions or dead religion (Joel 2:12-13; Rm. 2:29). He wants my heart. And not just a portion of it or most of it - He wants all of it. So often my efforts to please Him are only half-hearted. I will open His word and skim a few pages or go to church and take good notes, but the hunger and thirst are not fully there.
Only He can restore me to that hunger and thirst for righteousness I find so easy to go without. May we (believers) never settle for mediocrity in our fellowship with one another or with Christ. May we never rest on the mundane or be content to simply walk through life as a set of rules and rituals. Rather, let us hunger and thirst for our Savior, Jesus Christ - our Treasure.
And let us give thanks to Him with a whole heart.
What will be said on this blog is nothing new or original. If it were, it would not work. We get through life not by whimsically shooting at abstract new concepts but by relying on ancient ones (in the word of God). Because I am feeling a little down, I thought it would be beneficial for any readers to hear a brief statement on getting through hardship.
All I have to say is something C.S. Lewis has already said (which accounts for most Christian literature anyway). But here it is: when the worst happens, just press on. No matter how hard or how meaningless or pointless - just press on. The only alternative is suicide, which is ludicrously selfish. Stay in the game. Choose to believe that some day - somehow - things will get better.
That is all my mind has the capacity to think right now. I wish it could be more, and more substantial. But for now, this will suffice. God desires faith.
Trust Him. Keep moving.
Alone. That is a word I loathe with a passion. It is so distant and even, in many ways in fact, deceptive. The truth is, those who are in Christ never have to suffer true isolation. God is always with us, and He promises never to leave us, forsake us, condemn us, or let any true harm come upon us. That is great news.
Holding onto those truths gives us comfort (even though it can be a little scary sometimes). And yet we so often forget or feel another way. This and that happened, he lost his job, somebody got cancer, another tragedy struck today, and so on. In our darkest moments, we feel alone. So often I think mentioning the solution only makes it worse because it attempts to quick-fix and eliminate. Sometimes that doesn't happen.
Keep your head up. Stay in the game. Some days are better survived than fought.
You are never alone.
Nothing too long here, just a quick thought.
This season of life has been a trying one for me, especially with my job situation. Before I quit my last job, I told my GM that it was the second to last thing I wanted to do: the last thing I could ever do was stay there. But now I am realizing that this truth sometimes applies to more than one area of life. In an imperfect world, sometimes there is no "good" thing to do. In a place bound to friction, sometimes the best thing to do is the second worse thing you could possibly do. I am seeing that in a few areas now.
It's easy to be discouraged. Don't. Don't give up. That is what all the demons against you - and worse, your flesh - want. "Press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Php. 3:14). Continue to do what God has revealed as right, what He has prepared for you. Sometimes it's the second worse thing, but it can still be the best thing.
After working in the pizza world for a year, I decided to make some general observations that are extremely important to the preservation of mankind:
1. There is no such thing as an "Artesian" pizza (unless it's French pizza or pizza that comes from the Artesian Well). It's Artisan ("ar-ti-sin").
2. Pizzas are not made with tomato sauce. Never! It's pizza sauce.
3. The crust is not the fluffy outer portion of the pizza - that's the rim. The crust is the whole piece of dough under the toppings.
4. It's all about metabolism. In the year that I worked in pizza places, I ate approximately 65 whole pizzas. I'm six feet tall and weigh less than 150 lbs.
5. Always tip delivery drivers. If you don't want to tip, don't get delivery. They will hate you. FOREVER!!
6. If you want it on time on a weekend, place a timed order. Pizza people aren't superheroes.
7. When calling Domino's, don't ask for a "meat-lovers" or "stuffed crust." When you choose Pizza Hut or Papa John's, avoid "lava cakes," "parm bites," "cinnastix," and "stuffed cheesy bread."
8. Don't even think about using counterfeit money. We see it. Oh, we see it.
9. Please let the workers just make and deliver your pizza. If you have questions, Google them.
10. Avoid general stupidities and rudenesses people are prone to. Order, pay, tip, and eat. Thank you very much.
I must confess that lately I have been focusing on everything but the most important thing. My faith has, as of late, seemed rather weak and my hope, dim. A new semester loaded with information and demands has come down on me. Six months of stress is culminating in a job change. Some days it's hard just to get out of bed.
So I complain, I pray, I doubt, I ask for help - humble desperation mixed with sinful exasperation.
God,
Take my imperfect obedience and my failing strength - replace it with the perfection and power found only in your Son who died to give a reason for the world.
As my girlfriend, Megan, and I sat together on the couch last night, an interesting report came on the news. It was Fox News interviewing Joel Osteen in lieu of his new book titled Break Out, which is already a bestseller. Any time Joel Osteen's name is mentioned, my reaction is to sit up straight, put my thinking cap on, and listen. And I do so because I believe he does as good a job as any at opening wide the gates of hell to all who will listen.
It's not that Osteen's message is lies through and through. It is sprinkled, battered, and coated with strong biblical truth. But the core of the message is poison. His gospel is not a gospel of complete transforming power - it is a gospel of self improvement. It is the realization of potential already inherent within every human being.
And since I've been meditating on Romans 1:16-17 this week, I began to think about what the gospel does to us. Is it the power of God to make good people better? Or is it the power of God to make dead mean alive, to make sinners saints, to make old people new? Does God stop at improvement? Or does He make the children He chooses into new creations?
The New Testament is packed with illustrations that answer this question. And the Bible states in clear terms that we once indeed were "dead in [our] trespasses and sins" (Eph. 2:1). Part of the glory of God in the gospel is the truth of resurrection. And it is also transformation:
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26).
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Cor. 5:17).
Before we say anything about "better," let's talk the gospel. Let's talk about a God who took us when we had nothing to bring to the table and made us new creatures in Jesus Christ.
