Worship can also be described at not what you know, but what you are willing to learn. This can be done in your response to singing a song (what God speaks to you in that quiet time), scripture you commit to reading, praying and asking God to speak to you instead of you to Him (or both), or just what you can learn by giving your time to someone who needs you. Challenge God to grow you, and see what happens.
May your day be filled with opportunities to worship through growing, individually or communally.
Grace and peace,
EB
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Freedom, grace, and bank robberies
I have not been feeling very taciturn lately. Probably something that will prove to be a weakness in my life, yet, thoughts ramble in my head and unless I release them, they shall remain to be nocturnal distractions.
Oh, how thoughts run around like ubiquitous little ants in a kicked over mound. From ideas for songs or books, to debating on confrontation, to wondering what life would have been like had a choice here or there gone the other way. It Is easy to get lost in thought, as easy as escaping into a movie, consuming too much alcohol, or checking our brains at the door of religion can lead us into a world we do not truly belong to.
One thought in particular has become increasingly consistent: to live in freedom. Not much else has been as piquant as the lingering ideal of shining light in the darkness. Books, essays, articles, songs, and even conversations overheard at coffee shops on an early Sunday morning ring of how free it is take ownership of oneself. While it seems evident that man’s first nature is to look out for self, it has become an insatiable inner dialogue with most. “Always seek the best for yourself” is a dwindling excuse to not focus on reality. Sure the Bible talks about Nehemiah and his big dreams and how God has plans for your hope and future. I do not attempt to disregard these teachings, for I do believe them. I do. My point is that I believe those teachings have somehow been misleading in how they practically look and are applied. When did theosophy come so much into play? Our intuitive thinking and developments are now verbalized as the will of God? Hmm…
Recently, I had a conversation with a dear friend for a number of years, and we agreed things that are meant to be will be. Things will happen and there is nothing we can do to alter them from happening. But what about the freedoms in our lives, the choices we get to make? It is these freedoms, I believe, that have somehow imprisoned our hearts and minds. Words we use, luxuries we take in, sacrifices we do not make, all for the sake of claiming a freedom that we have somehow become involuntary slaves to.
Words mean more than what they should these days. But then again, not a lot of words make sense to me these days either. For example, adultery is not a very good word to relay a full picture of being an adult, but yet we allow it to do so. There are plenty of words that are commonly mistrued to mean other things. Faith, love, work, sacrifice, and, for topic of conversation, freedom, to name a few.
A couple of months ago, I was surrounded by critical thinkers, brilliant minds of those who not only think outside the box, but choose to reside there… and dip in occasionally to let the rest of us taste the waters of geniusness. The topic that night was “what does character mean?” And though we had generally the same idea, our words and thoughts were different because our histories were different. We had all come from different forms of adolescence into our (stealing a word from Kevin DeYoung) ‘adultolescence’. The image of character was very positive. We did not hash out the good and bad, but focused on the good depiction of what it means to have character. To be honest, I am not sure we really defined it, but merely were able to list the visual and nonvisual effects of having it.
It is the wrong definition of words that have given a false sense of freedom that has been the impending trap of the total person. Scratch that. It is the not even considering what the definition of words we so easily get entangled with is that trap us.
One of the freedoms we are allowed to live in, that is so good for our souls, is that of grace. Grace has tremendous impact on the people who consider it. I have not seen many people, if any, encounter grace and not continue to desire more. There is not only something so amazing about grace as Phillip Yancey has written about, but something so appealing that once a person has embraced it, it is hardly thereafter rejected. Why is this?
In the Bible, the Psalmist wrote, “taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that takes refuge in Him.” Part of the journey through modernism, post-modernism, and now alter-modernism is the underlying search for what is good, what is bad, what is truth. We say God is good, but what does that good look like? What is God’s goodness? I would argue that it is His desire to be in relation with us, His sovereignty, His omnipresence, omnipotence, His grace, and the sheer joy of knowing eternal life starts not when we die, but today. Many things are His goodness, including freedoms in life He has given us.
And it seems these freedoms have come back to haunt us. At least from what I see, in my own life and the lives of those around me. We have freedom to choose a mate. Most of us do anyways. Yet, we bring in some ugly truths about who we are into those relationships and oddly enough, in the one setting that they should be discussed, they are pushed even deeper into our being, hidden from the person who wants to know us the best. Now I am not saying that it is wrong to bring ugly truths into relationships. It is more so wrong in the method that ugly truths are discussed. It reminds me of a bank robber. You know how they come in with their mask to hide their face, but are getting what they want the easy way. Their idea of earning money is to elaborately work on a way to get it without working for it. (Notice my elusive definition of ‘work’ to further my point about words.) They are not being real with everyone else about who they are, though they are real with everyone else about what they want. Kind of like relationships I have seen, and have been guilty of myself. The ugly truth comes out with guns waving around and people screaming and…not really, but you get the idea.
Mostly this comes from a lack of inviting grace into our conversations and into who we are becoming. Our selfishness tends to take over when we feel like we are (or actually are) being taken advantage of. It is a natural response. I get that. A response we should keep in mind when someone says, “I think we should talk,” but a response nonetheless.
To be continued…
Oh, how thoughts run around like ubiquitous little ants in a kicked over mound. From ideas for songs or books, to debating on confrontation, to wondering what life would have been like had a choice here or there gone the other way. It Is easy to get lost in thought, as easy as escaping into a movie, consuming too much alcohol, or checking our brains at the door of religion can lead us into a world we do not truly belong to.
One thought in particular has become increasingly consistent: to live in freedom. Not much else has been as piquant as the lingering ideal of shining light in the darkness. Books, essays, articles, songs, and even conversations overheard at coffee shops on an early Sunday morning ring of how free it is take ownership of oneself. While it seems evident that man’s first nature is to look out for self, it has become an insatiable inner dialogue with most. “Always seek the best for yourself” is a dwindling excuse to not focus on reality. Sure the Bible talks about Nehemiah and his big dreams and how God has plans for your hope and future. I do not attempt to disregard these teachings, for I do believe them. I do. My point is that I believe those teachings have somehow been misleading in how they practically look and are applied. When did theosophy come so much into play? Our intuitive thinking and developments are now verbalized as the will of God? Hmm…
Recently, I had a conversation with a dear friend for a number of years, and we agreed things that are meant to be will be. Things will happen and there is nothing we can do to alter them from happening. But what about the freedoms in our lives, the choices we get to make? It is these freedoms, I believe, that have somehow imprisoned our hearts and minds. Words we use, luxuries we take in, sacrifices we do not make, all for the sake of claiming a freedom that we have somehow become involuntary slaves to.
Words mean more than what they should these days. But then again, not a lot of words make sense to me these days either. For example, adultery is not a very good word to relay a full picture of being an adult, but yet we allow it to do so. There are plenty of words that are commonly mistrued to mean other things. Faith, love, work, sacrifice, and, for topic of conversation, freedom, to name a few.
A couple of months ago, I was surrounded by critical thinkers, brilliant minds of those who not only think outside the box, but choose to reside there… and dip in occasionally to let the rest of us taste the waters of geniusness. The topic that night was “what does character mean?” And though we had generally the same idea, our words and thoughts were different because our histories were different. We had all come from different forms of adolescence into our (stealing a word from Kevin DeYoung) ‘adultolescence’. The image of character was very positive. We did not hash out the good and bad, but focused on the good depiction of what it means to have character. To be honest, I am not sure we really defined it, but merely were able to list the visual and nonvisual effects of having it.
It is the wrong definition of words that have given a false sense of freedom that has been the impending trap of the total person. Scratch that. It is the not even considering what the definition of words we so easily get entangled with is that trap us.
One of the freedoms we are allowed to live in, that is so good for our souls, is that of grace. Grace has tremendous impact on the people who consider it. I have not seen many people, if any, encounter grace and not continue to desire more. There is not only something so amazing about grace as Phillip Yancey has written about, but something so appealing that once a person has embraced it, it is hardly thereafter rejected. Why is this?
In the Bible, the Psalmist wrote, “taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that takes refuge in Him.” Part of the journey through modernism, post-modernism, and now alter-modernism is the underlying search for what is good, what is bad, what is truth. We say God is good, but what does that good look like? What is God’s goodness? I would argue that it is His desire to be in relation with us, His sovereignty, His omnipresence, omnipotence, His grace, and the sheer joy of knowing eternal life starts not when we die, but today. Many things are His goodness, including freedoms in life He has given us.
And it seems these freedoms have come back to haunt us. At least from what I see, in my own life and the lives of those around me. We have freedom to choose a mate. Most of us do anyways. Yet, we bring in some ugly truths about who we are into those relationships and oddly enough, in the one setting that they should be discussed, they are pushed even deeper into our being, hidden from the person who wants to know us the best. Now I am not saying that it is wrong to bring ugly truths into relationships. It is more so wrong in the method that ugly truths are discussed. It reminds me of a bank robber. You know how they come in with their mask to hide their face, but are getting what they want the easy way. Their idea of earning money is to elaborately work on a way to get it without working for it. (Notice my elusive definition of ‘work’ to further my point about words.) They are not being real with everyone else about who they are, though they are real with everyone else about what they want. Kind of like relationships I have seen, and have been guilty of myself. The ugly truth comes out with guns waving around and people screaming and…not really, but you get the idea.
Mostly this comes from a lack of inviting grace into our conversations and into who we are becoming. Our selfishness tends to take over when we feel like we are (or actually are) being taken advantage of. It is a natural response. I get that. A response we should keep in mind when someone says, “I think we should talk,” but a response nonetheless.
To be continued…
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)