Happy 24th birthday!
(original post – Friday, September 01, 2006)
There is a temptation to think of one’s spiritual journey as individual. I do not believe that is true. I am one part of the pilgrimage of all of God’s people. We each have our own unique encounters, experiences, trials and detours but we do not travel alone. We must not, cannot proceed alone. We need the strength, companionship, encouragement, wisdom and experience of fellow sojourners. The journey is perilous and we may need to be rescued or to rescue. The journey brings us joyful experiences and beautiful vistas to which we enthusiastically direct our fellow travelers. Of course we could make better progress without the burden of others but its not just about the destination. It’s also about the experience of the journey. Too often our perspective is like the impatient child: “Are we there yet?”. We pay little attention to the wonderful experiences, opportunities for relationship and love and the beauty and wonder of the scenes passing the window. We are only concerned about the destination.
(Original post 2007-02-03)
N. T. Wright in Simply Christian challenged me this morning as he wrote about what Christianity is about. He first clarifies what Christianity is not about:
Christianity is not about a new moral teaching as though we were morally clueless and in need of some fresh or clearer guidelines. … Christianity isn’t about Jesus offering a wonderful moral example, as though our principal need was to see what a life of utter love and devotion to God and to other people would look like, so that we could try to copy it. … Nor is Christianity about Jesus offering, demonstrating, or even accomplishing a new route by which people can “go to heaven when they die.” … Finally, Christianity isn’t about giving the world fresh teaching about God himself though clearly, if the Christian claim is true, we do indeed learn a great deal about who God is by looking at Jesus. …
After reading the above, I felt somewhat stripped bare. But, Wright offers a challenging and encouraging definition of what Christianity is about.
Christianity is all about the belief that the living God, in fulfillment of his promises and as the climax of the story of Israel, has accomplished all this … the finding, the saving, the giving of new life in Jesus. He has done it. With Jesus, God’s rescue operation has been put into effect once and for all. A great door has swung open in the cosmos which can never again be shut. It’s the door to the prison where we’ve been kept chained up. We are offered freedom: freedom to experience God’s rescue for ourselves, to go through the open door and explore the new world to which we now have access. In particular, we are all invited, summoned, actually, to discover, through following Jesus, that this new world is indeed a place of justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty, and that we are not only to enjoy it as such but to work at bringing it to birth on earth as in heaven.
What Wright has to say has profound implications on what my life in Christ should look like
Occasionally I run through a neighborhood which has mostly neat, well maintained and attractive houses. The first time I ran through the neighborhood I couldn’t help but notice one house in particular. In stark contrast to every house around it, the place was a mess. The yard was overgrown. There was all kinds of “junk” scattered about. The front porch was cluttered and the only thing that seemed to be missing was a refrigerator or sofa. There was a vehicle on abandoned in the back yard. I wondered about the people that live there and what their lives must be like. Surely they are not aware of the conditions. Why wouldn’t they do something about them?
After a considerable amount of time, I recently passed through the neighborhood. When I came to the messy house, I could hardly believe what I saw. Everything about the house seemed to be just as I had noticed earlier, except for one thing. About 10′ from the front of the house, an eight foot privacy fence stretching across the width of the house had been constructed. Problem solved. Apparently the owner believed that it was better to expend time and money to build a facade than to clean the place up. Ironically, the fence was incomplete. The final section of fence leans against the house where it fits perfectly into the surrounding scene.
Surely no one in their right senses would go to the trouble to build a facade like that rather than just clean up the mess?
Yesterday we took Ryan and his new loft bed to Louisville. With his dad and mom, we assembled his bed in his newly painted bedroom. It looks very good and Ryan seemed to be pleased. There is a desk that will go underneath the loft bed.