All of life is learning. From the classroom to the distraction; from the Church to the house; from the coffee shop to the car, everything, all of it, contains teachable moments. But we don’t approach life that way.
We see life as the venue and the stage of performing our knowledge in front of the audience that ought to adore us. Being the spectacle not the spectator, being the star not the first-row (let alone the back-row).
But it’s hard to be the performer, the star, and the spectacle. It’s unsustainable. It’s exhausting. It’s killing.
Think about it, if life was seen as millions of opportunities to learn as opposed to your ‘special performance’ then resting and finding joy in the little graces would be comparatively easy. But if all of life is your ‘breakthrough moment’ then all of life is critically important and exhausting.
To be sure life is important and there are times were God uses you critically, but it is not always your show… In fact even when you are the linchpin you are not the star, you are used.
So the classroom is opportunity though monotonous; the happily welcomed distractor is opportunity though wonderful; the drive is opportunity though familiar; the book is opportunity though tiring; the friends are opportunity though fun.
All of life is learning, because all of life is grace. We live and breathe and have our movement because of God’s incredibly free and unflinching grace. So how does this apply to joy? Simply.
Mud-pies and sandcastles rather Mud-pies to sandcastles. Seeing every moment as opportunity to absorb knowledge creates joy. Child like joy in seeing things differently as if for the first time. So the monotonous moves from mud-pie to sandcastle. The act of changing a tire becomes fascinating as you watch your hands maneuver and work with just a thought.
Grace. It defines our joy. It ignites our joy. It moves us to worship. So simply stated our valleys and our low tides, our lack of joy is because we see the sandcastles of grace as mud-pies of familiarity. Lewis was, and is, right, “We are far to easily pleased.”
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Joy pt.2: Swelling Joy?
Every time I’ve talked with someone about their joy its been referred to like mountains and valleys. Some days, or weeks, or months are the mountains while others the valleys. But there is something else each of these conversations has in common.
Each time it has been implied, whether overtly through simple statement or covertly through shifting language, that all of life must be the mountaintop. All of life must be a swelling of joy like high tide all the time. But it won’t be that way, thank God.
It’s a simple thought; if everything were extraordinary then nothing would be extraordinary. The same applies here. If all of life were the mountaintop then none of life would be the mountaintop… We’d be these mindless joyless (or joy filled, both would look similar) zombies walking around on the plains of western Kansas.
Thank God there are deep, dark, depressive valleys. Thank God these valleys are full of cobwebs, spiders, and snakes. Thank God they smell of rotting flesh. Thank God they are filled with swamps and mires. Thank God the wear our souls raw and make us bleed.
If all of life were a mountaintop, none of life would bring us to our knees in humble adoration of being so frail and God being the maker of the valley and the mountain.
Those valleys, those low tides where your joy is under the carpet (or even the cement under the carpet) stand in stark contrast to those mountains, those high tides where standing on the carpet you were previously under is an easy thing to do.
However we thank God for the surmountable gloriousness of the mountains. We thank God these mountains bring us to the fresh clean air where our lungs are cleansed. We thank God these mountains bring rest and mend our souls.
The tide must always go out, and the valley follows every mountain it is the rhythm of saved-sinner’s lives, so when these happen and we are the dirt beneath the concrete we bless the hand that counts us worthy to suffer for his glory and in so doing kindle our joy (by God’s grace).
Each time it has been implied, whether overtly through simple statement or covertly through shifting language, that all of life must be the mountaintop. All of life must be a swelling of joy like high tide all the time. But it won’t be that way, thank God.
It’s a simple thought; if everything were extraordinary then nothing would be extraordinary. The same applies here. If all of life were the mountaintop then none of life would be the mountaintop… We’d be these mindless joyless (or joy filled, both would look similar) zombies walking around on the plains of western Kansas.
Thank God there are deep, dark, depressive valleys. Thank God these valleys are full of cobwebs, spiders, and snakes. Thank God they smell of rotting flesh. Thank God they are filled with swamps and mires. Thank God the wear our souls raw and make us bleed.
If all of life were a mountaintop, none of life would bring us to our knees in humble adoration of being so frail and God being the maker of the valley and the mountain.
Those valleys, those low tides where your joy is under the carpet (or even the cement under the carpet) stand in stark contrast to those mountains, those high tides where standing on the carpet you were previously under is an easy thing to do.
However we thank God for the surmountable gloriousness of the mountains. We thank God these mountains bring us to the fresh clean air where our lungs are cleansed. We thank God these mountains bring rest and mend our souls.
The tide must always go out, and the valley follows every mountain it is the rhythm of saved-sinner’s lives, so when these happen and we are the dirt beneath the concrete we bless the hand that counts us worthy to suffer for his glory and in so doing kindle our joy (by God’s grace).
Friday, September 24, 2010
Uncategorize-able
We live vibrantly and breathe wholesomely not because we are worthy of the breath or the life but because God bought the breath and the life… I don’t have a category for this.
It was put well at Community Group last night, “We are poodles with smelly necrotic maggot ridden flesh and tumors growing all over our bodies. Deserving nothing more than to be buried or shot. Completely unworthy of life. But God pulls up in his Cadillac takes us to his mansion and bathes us, picks the maggots from our flesh, and calls us his own.”
We are redeemed… We who were once covered in necrotic festering flesh with only the maggots to clean the wounds have been adopted by the King, taken to his palace and bathed by his Son.
We are redeemed… We who once were lying rotting in the morgue have had God breath life into our lungs.
We are redeemed… “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:21-26
We are redeemed… Though wretches we are and sinners will be; though idols we’ll seek and God we will hate; by the unrelenting grace and mercy of God we are redeemed…
This cannot be categorized. Indeed my life must go into its category. ‘He made him who knew no sin to be sin so that I might become the righteousness of God; that while I was still a sinner Christ died for me; there is therefore now no condemnation because I am in Christ Jesus.’ Redemption.
It was put well at Community Group last night, “We are poodles with smelly necrotic maggot ridden flesh and tumors growing all over our bodies. Deserving nothing more than to be buried or shot. Completely unworthy of life. But God pulls up in his Cadillac takes us to his mansion and bathes us, picks the maggots from our flesh, and calls us his own.”
We are redeemed… We who were once covered in necrotic festering flesh with only the maggots to clean the wounds have been adopted by the King, taken to his palace and bathed by his Son.
We are redeemed… We who once were lying rotting in the morgue have had God breath life into our lungs.
We are redeemed… “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:21-26
We are redeemed… Though wretches we are and sinners will be; though idols we’ll seek and God we will hate; by the unrelenting grace and mercy of God we are redeemed…
This cannot be categorized. Indeed my life must go into its category. ‘He made him who knew no sin to be sin so that I might become the righteousness of God; that while I was still a sinner Christ died for me; there is therefore now no condemnation because I am in Christ Jesus.’ Redemption.
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