Yes, and I must and will esteem
All things but loss for Jesus’ sake:
O may my soul be found in Him,
And of His righteousness partake!

When I was in senior high, I taught our girls’ Bible study a few times. I remember saying, in the context of Romans 12:1-2, that we were supposed to “glorify God in our sleep.” That idea freaked my listeners out well enough, but there was quite a different one spinning in my head: How do I justify “free time”? Novels and the like. Fluff.

We talk about Christianity as a war. We’re soldiers. We’ve got armor; swords. Christ is our captain. The devil is our mighty foe.

Earthly soldiers get free time. They get leave. The Army doesn’t seem to much care how they spend it. It’s time to relax, time to snap out of the soldier persona, time to realize that the Army isn’t the world, that their commanders only have authority over them while they’re on-duty, and that the war isn’t all-consuming.

But with us, Christ is all. He isn’t just some battlefield commander who we can leave when it suits us. We say that God is intrinsic to who we are, but that doesn’t go nearly far enough. There’s no “intrinsic,” no “key part,” no “determining factor.” He isn’t just the “essentials” or the “essence” or the “reason.” He is our All. We can snap into SuperChristian mode whenever we need to witness to the perishing or encourage our brothers and sisters, and we can carefully make sure we don’t commit any of the big no-nos of the Christian life. We can spend two hours every morning reading the Bible, and be in church every time the doors open. But what do we do in the meantime?

Tozer, in the book I mentioned yesterday, says of those who “constantly practice this habit of inwardly gazing upon God,” that “even when they are compelled to withdraw their conscious attention in order to engage in earthly affairs, there is within them a secret communion always going on. Let their attention but be released for a moment from necessary business and it flies at once to God again.” It’s a little hard to understand out of context, but I think here Tozer paints a vivid picture of what it looks like to be truly focused on God. It’s like, when I’m really nervous, excited, or curious, I can’t get the object of my interest out of my head. It’s a fixation. And how incredibly awesome it is that we’re invited — commanded — to have that obsessive single-mindedness directed toward our Savior!

I worry (agonize might be a more appropriate word) over my tendency to be a Christian of habit. Do I know our dogma so well that I don’t even have to think twice to react to situation in a “Christian” way? Do I have the dance steps memorized, or I am following His lead? Do I speak to my lost friends about this Hope I have because it’s what I do, or because my heart aches to know that these I call “friends” are my Master’s “enemies”? Is He my everything, so much that the concept of “my” ceases to exist, or is He just a general theme?

I want to be so starving for God’s presence that I can’t get my mind on anything else for even a split second. Like the deer pants for the waters (+)… that deer isn’t thinking about much else. And there are times when that’s true, when my soul is thirsty for Him. In some underlying sense, I think it’s probably always true. Our thirst for the Eternal, for the Perfect, is deep within our beings. But I know my every thought isn’t consumed throughout with Him. I want to live in His presence, in constant awareness of His presence, not this business of floating in-and-out!

It’s backwards to figure out what “living in His presence” looks like and to try to imitate it, though. The problem isn’t in my actions, it’s in my eyes. The only way “we” can ever achieve holiness is by fixing our eyes on the Author and Perfecter of our faith (+). On what is unseen (+). And, to bring it back to the soldier reference, our Commander is our Lord. He is all we see. On “shoreleave,” He’s all we see. When we’re sleeping. When we’re reading. Ever, only, always Him.

And when I look at my life, there are a lot of places where I’m not looking at Him. Books, I think, are an excellent example. Books can profit. I enjoy reading. I learn a lot from the books I read, even the novels. I experience some sort of psychological regeneration through the “break” from normal life that books can provide. But I don’t think my eyes are fixed on Christ every time I read a book. Pleasure is good, and it is undoubtedly God’s intent to delight and satisfy His children. But that doesn’t change the fact that we — I — sometimes misuse His gifts, which ultimately is nothing short of idolatry. We can all repeat the mantra of “worship the Creator, not the creation,” but if God requires our gazes, our focuses, our fixations, our eyes, our thoughts to be aimed at Himself for all eternity, couldn’t we use a word that we’re less comfortable with than “worship”? It’s easy to explain how our obsessions aren’t “worshipful;” ask me to choose between God and books, and I’ll easily reply “God.” But ask me if I focus on books when I should be focusing on God (i.e., ever), and I think an honest answer would be far more difficult to admit.

The question I asked myself years ago still applies: How do I justify “free time”? I can’t, not the way I meant. And I don’t want to justify it. I’ve tasted and seen that the Lord is good; I want my eyes to look straight ahead, my gaze fixed directly before me (+); I want to revel in His delightful and holy and flawless Presence.

Our pastor this morning preached on Matthew 6:19-21, and I’ve been thinking about all the different “treasures on earth” and “treasures in heaven.” I think, in the final scheme of things, we have only one heavenly Treasure, and that sweetest and highest and purest delight is God Himself. Crowns and rewards we shall receive, but these we will grasp only so we can lay them immediately back at His feet. It isn’t just a recognition of Christ’s lordship that will compel us; recognizing all glory as belonging to God is the very act for which we were created, and the most thoroughly satisfying experience for us. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (+); my eyes need to be fixed on the Prize.

Tags: more coherent special tag no 2

Jessica’s post and its accompanying comments (sorry, it’s a protected entry) made me think, and my thoughts are too tangential to make as a simple comment on her entry. Discovery first: I think differently than most of these people. Which means that the following random thoughts aren’t in disagreement with the above link; they’re about me, and mostly, only me.

I’ve mentioned my philosophy about accepting marriage proposals elsewhere. (And more Elsewheres, I know.) And I’ve only ever met maybe three or four guys in my entire life who posess the depth of spiritual character I’m looking for, and I’m not settling for less — I’d be much, much happier to be single for the rest of my life than to marry someone who isn’t completely consumed with glorifying God. I mean, people mess up and aren’t perfect, and I’m not looking for perfection. That’s God’s business, not mine. I just want to marry somebody who’s a true servant of the King — it’s an are/aren’t thing; there is no matter of degrees. And men who truly are completely His are rare, and they have an alarming tendency to be married/engaged/girlfriended already.

My “best friend” and I have very little in common. I’m an English freak (i.e., major); she isn’t. I’m a history buff; she isn’t. I’m somewhat into computers and geekishness; she isn’t. She’s into biology stuff; I’m not. She’s a lot of (good!) things I’m not. We’re two very different creatures. Our personalities could hardly be more different, and I can’t think of a single interest or hobby we share. But we relish our time together, limited though it is because of the very different lives we lead. We have that strange kind of friendship that belongs in books written centuries ago. I don’t tell her everything, but I could, and I do when I need to, which is a strange confession coming from a person well-accustomed to keeping as many of her own secrets as possible. I trust her completely. Not that she’s perfect. Would she ever betray my interests? Possibly, although I doubt it. I don’t think that she’ll never make mistakes; that’d be expecting too much from any human. “Complete trust” doesn’t mean that someone expects perfection from someone else; it means that they’re willing to overlook imperfection because they know there’s something larger and more important at stake. I know she isn’t perfect, but I know that she is devoted to serving my King, and so He becomes the only Foundation for our relationship. As long as we’re both striving for Him and Him alone, we’ll always be in perfect harmony with one another; sister “partakers of grace”. We have yet, to my knowledge, to have a single disagreement, but even if we do, I have confidence that He will draw us back to Himself and thus back to each other.

Okay, that was a very-much related tangent. I’ve learned so much from her, but I think maybe the most important thing I’ve learned is that a relationship like ours automatically (and, I might add, helplessly) exists between two people who are committed to God’s glory. So few people seem to experience a friendship of our depth, and it’s a shame, because the unavoidable realization that flows from such a relationship is that Christ is the only basis for any true friendship (or, more pointedly, any marriage). And I don’t mean that both bride and groom have to be “Christians” and go to the same denomination church; that doesn’t come anything near to cutting it. It’s deeper than that, and higher. It’s not about what we believe or how much we believe it or live it — any more than Christianity itself can be summed by those trite phrases. It’s about grace, and it’s about God, and it’s about people whose only identity is that they’ve received God’s grace and are bound to Him forever.

My “best friend” and I wouldn’t be friends if we didn’t know each other. But once we did know each other, the more we learned about each other, the deeper our friendship grew. We really had no choice in the matter, either; neither of us was looking for a friend, and neither of us expected to find a friend in the other. But it wasn’t about us. We’re two sisters in Christ; that’s all and that’s everything.

Obviously friendship is an essential component of marriage, but they aren’t the same thing. The relationship I have with my friend is not the same as the relationship I expect to have with my husband. But the standard, the foundation, is the same. And so, I think, is the inevitability. My youth pastor in high school compared his then-future marriage to two travelers with the same destination. No matter where the two travelers begin, ultimately they’ll find that they’re both moving in the same direction. And the nearer they come toward their mark, they’ll find that they can’t help moving closer to each other, because they both have eyes only for their destination.

So, the idea of “clicking.” I’m not worried. The beauty of the destination idea is that it never stops. If the focus of a relationship is on the people in it, then it’ll waver and be uncertain. But if two people truly share a joint and all-encompassing devotion to delight in the glory of God, then they can only grow closer. The more I learn about God, and the more I understand and grow in His grace, the nearer I’ll inevitably become to anyone else who shares that delight.

I know a few guys who seem absolutely “perfect” — common interests, philosophical, weird, sweet, etcetera — seemingly hand-crafted, except for the not-so-little thing that they think about Christianity as their philosophy, instead of Someone Who’s extended grace to them unearned. And I know a few guys who seem to be the opposite of all the “little things” I like in men, but they actually honestly care about glorifying God. And the latter group, in spite of their utter un-Prince-Charming-esqueness, are far more attractive than the first group. I don’t mean just rationally, either; I’m talking about an instinctual gut-reaction that says I like this. And the first group, despite their adherence to my mental picture of the perfect husband, hasn’t got a chance. It kind of makes sense, anyway; there’s not really any other scriptural “husband requirements” I could add, and it makes sense that God could curb our instincts to allow us to be “in love” — in the gooey sense — with anyone He chooses.

So, somewhat conclusively, I know that deep friendship is based on mutual servanthood in Christ, and really nothing else. And I can’t imagine anything more enjoyable than spending the rest of my life with someone whose delight is serving the one Person that is also my delight to serve. How much more “common interest” can we get than that? If everything I do is for His glory, and everything he does is for His glory, then don’t we get to spend every minute of the rest of our lives doing what we love to do best, and doing it together? What’s more, we get to serve Him in a way we couldn’t have alone, and share in the constant joy of watching a fellow believer draw ever nearer to our journey’s final end — and to our ultimate beginning of perfect life in the constant light of the Son of God.

Tags: more coherent singleness special tag no 2 spouse criteria

(”We Are Waiting” by Geoff Moore and the Distance)

You know how sometimes songs speak? I’ve known this song since it came out in 1995, but the words, the idea, still echoes in my head.

I see one problem frequently in Christianity, including myself — there’re three independent ways people look at our time on earth: 1)we’re here to work and spread the gospel, therefore we should be completely focused on the task at hand, 2)we’re not of this world and therefore should be completely focused on heavenly things, or 3)we should find a balance between the two.

None of which I agree with. Moore’s song has undoubtedly shaped the way I look at the issue, but God says we’re in the world but not of it. Or, as Moore writes, with hands into the soil, and hearts toward the sky. My mental picture is of people working in a field — the white field ready for harvest — and working with all their might, but when they stand up to wipe the sweat from their foreheads, looking longingly, solemnly, joyfully, at the sunset. Working with all their mind on their work, on bringing in the sheaves, but knowing all the while that the field isn’t home, and that one minute that sun is going to set, and the owner of the field is going to come and tell them the job is complete. And suddenly everyone’s eyes are all lit up with the joy that kept them going while they still worked; the sparkle and hope transformed into shining reality.

It’s not a balance, it’s both, both completely, fully, and simultaneously. Balance implies contradictions or paradoxes, I don’t think this is either one.

I’ve been thinking about this — not the song or my nice little mental picture, but the idea of ultimate purpose — I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Thinking my life needs a few recentering adjustments. There are things I want, things I’d like to tell God, Hey, ya know, I’d really appreciate it if you did this. And I do say that, rarely, but sometimes. The struggle is in saying God, if this isn’t what you want for me, then it doesn’t matter how much I think I need it, I don’t want it. That’s a pretty absolute statement, and I don’t take absolute statements (especially to God) lightly. And, although the idea is nothing more complicated than “Thy will be done,” it still requires much soul-searching, because it’s easy to say here I am, and much harder to specifically discuss things I care about with God and to willingly give up stuff that I just always assumed would be part of life. And I know that God is awesome. Entirely, absolutely. And I know He wants my best. So I guess I’m really just saying, God, I shouldn’t complain. An acknowledgement that He knows best; of His sovereignty and perfect will.

And ultimately it comes down to this: I should be working with a heart that is waiting. Out in the field, but waiting for the sunset; working totally and completely for my Master and His glory.

So I hope I have a smile on my face, a twinkle in my eye, and hands dirtied by a life of working.

Tags: more coherent

Heh. Thinking about a Wednesday night many moons ago, when I was in junior high. We had a guest speaker, and I remember nothing of what he said, except that he told us we should all go home and write out a list of requirements that our future spouse would have to fulfill, so we wouldn’t be tempted to compromise out of desperation. He then listed about fifteen suggestions. I thought about it. Quite a bit.

Rebellious child that I was, I went home, rummaged the fake cherry rolltop for a piece of paper, and wrote out my complete-for-all-eternity list. All two words of it. Loves God. I figured that covered everything, but I added parentheses just in case: (Has an all-consuming, all-encompassing passion for the glory of God that far surpasses any other passion.) I think that’s a little redundant, but hey, it was junior high.

Didn’t ask much, huh?

I don’t suppose I really talk about romance much. Mostly because I can’t quite convince myself that I have any business whatsoever doing so, and because I equally doubt that anyone really cares what my love life looks (or doesn’t look) like.

Anyway… I would be interested in thoughts on my junior-high philosophy of ‘just the bottom line’. I mean, I could have said that I wanted to marry somebody who likes to learn, likes to mix things up a bit, hints at unpredictability, is creative, happy, and whose soul/spirit understands and knows mine. (Not a list. Just random things that popped in my head tonight.) But wouldn’t any such list only invite trouble? Suppose I meet a man who’s terribly good. Not somebody I ‘click’ with, but somebody who’s godly and who I would complement? Oh, sorry, can’t marry you, ’cause you’re too dull. Well, you’re not really dull, but you think stars are just another part of the night sky, and I could never marry a man who didn’t feel this magic I do when I look at all that shimmering white dust. Or you don’t understand why slap bracelets are just so cool because of the weird way the metal works to bend and flex with a life of its own that I’ve found irresistibly fascinating since grade school. It just doesn’t hold water, you know? I mean, he might not like the fact that I am totally uninterested in his new car — and what’s the real difference? Honestly, I can’t think of anything that a Christian could claim as essential that isn’t summed in my two-word phrase and its implications, but is such simplicity too broad?

Tags: more coherent spouse criteria