I'm Actually Impressed with the Israelites

We are forgetful people. This was impressed on me when my pastor asked us a month or so ago for the top 2 times we had seen God at work recently, in either our lives or the lives of those around us. I'm sorry to say, I couldn't think of a single instance. That isn't to say that God hasn't been at work, but it does say something about my memory of His workings.

Looking at this from a different perspective, my pastor took us to Exodus 14-15. In this passage the Egyptian army is drowned in the Red Sea, the people of Israel praise the Lord for his deliverance, travel through the wilderness for 3 days, and then begin complaining about the lack of water. Now I don't know about you, but I've always seen the Israelites as "The Complainers." They see God's miraculous works time and time again, yet still seem to be able to quickly slip into complaining. As my pastor pointed out though, they went three days before they started complaining. This was followed up with the question: How long do you go through life before you start complaining? Those three days of the Israelites is much more impressive now, isn't it?

As the sermon progressed, one specific way was highlighted to combat our forgetful tendency: Regularly attend corporate worship services with your local Body of Believers. One of the reasons we should gather to worship as a body on Sunday mornings is to remind ourselves of God's greatness and mighty acts from the past, present, and future. Because of our individual forgetfulness, we need to come together as a Church Body to help reorient our focus back on Christ and off our individual situations.

On the flip side of the coin, we should also look to actively share with others how the Lord has been working in our lives. This was impressed on me as while reading the Psalms for my personal Bible Study. Consider Psalm 35:18 and 28 (ESV):

"I will thank you in the great congregation;
in the mighty throng I will praise you....
Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
                and of your praise all the day long."

So the challenge to us is two fold: 1. Are we feeling down, and in a dry place in my walk with the Lord? We mustn't let that stop us from gathering with fellow believers. In fact, we probably need their insight and encouragement to help us to focus back on Christ. 2. Is the Lord working in our lives? Great! Who did we tell about it? We can't hold the good news to ourselves! On that note, here are some of the things that I have to be grateful to the Lord for, small and personal perhaps, but they are ways that I have seen His presence in my life--a decent grade on a paper which I didn't know whether the prof would agree with - peace in answer to prayer during a troubled moment last night - conviction of sin from Scripture reading.

What about you? How has the Lord been working in your life recently?

Weeds

My daily Bible study today had me reading Matthew 13, which contains quite a few parables related to the Kingdom of God. One of the more well know of these parables is the Parable of the Sower (verses 3-9, 18-23). In this parable, Christ describes 4 sets of seeds.

The first set are sown on hard ground. There is no potential for them to actually get into the soil and grow, so they just sit on the surface and are eaten by birds. The second set are sown in soil which is full of rocks, and they are unable to develop a root system deep enough to survive. The third set is sown in a plot of land full of weeds which keep the growing plants from receiving the nutrients and water they need. The forth and final set of plants is sown on good ground and they produce varying amounts of fruit. As Christ explains to his disciples later on, each of these sets of seeds represents different types of responses to the Word of God in the lives of people.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, frankly it is because my life has been in the weeds lately. I don't know about you, but I think I always had this idea in the back of my mind that the weeds were evil influences, sinful desires which crept in and stole away time from God's Word. What I've been seeing in my life though, is that these weeds can be good, or at least innocent, things. If I were to get down to brass tacks, some of the weeds in my life have included work, school work, Facebook, spending time with friends and reading outside of school for my own enjoyment and edification. Everything on the list (Facebook excepted) is as a rule rather wholesome and a necessary part of living a good life. However, by letting them all overcrowd my day so that I don't have time to study the Bible, they have turned into weeds which ultimately will choke my faith.

As has been pointed out many times before, the good is the enemy of the best. Important, necessary parts of the Christian life can never substitute for its foundation. If we are not going back to the Bible and re-centering our lives on Christ and His Word, our Christian walk will fall apart. At least I know that I can't live the Christian life without Christ's grace and strength.

Praise the Lord though, there is mercy and forgiveness for sinners like myself. The fact that weeds are in the garden doesn't mean that it needs to be given back to the wild. Instead, it means that there is an opportunity to claim ground for Christ and pull them out! So, let's go conquer some weeds!

What about you? Do you see yourself in one of the sets of seeds? What kind of weeds to do you see in your life? What have you found helpful in preventing/pulling out weeds in your life? Feel free to leave a comment and join the conversation!

Why Read Fiction?

Why read fiction?

I mean, why would one want to read a story that never really took place? Couldn't your time be much better spent reading what has actually happened (history) or thoughts on how the world actually works (theology, philosophy ect.)? That was certainly my thought once upon a time. Fiction was a pleasure that I rarely let myself indulge in, because I wanted to keep my mental muscles in tone, and reading something for the pleasure of the story would only make them flabby. Fortunately for me, one of my professors at Summit Semester helped me to see fiction in a completely new light. In his book, The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton sums up this new perspective well:


"We know the meaning of all the myths.. We know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying, 'These things are.' It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, 'Why cannot these things be?'"

"Why cannot these things be?" Could this be why the fictitious stories in literature touch us in a way which is uniquely different from the facts of history or the abstractions of great thinkers? Couldn't it be because we know that the would ought to be different, and that what we experience in our lives are not really the experiences for which we were ultimately made?

Further on in The Everlasting Man, Chesterton muses on what the shepherds found when they were lead to Christ on the first Christmas Day. His thoughts highlight the importance which story can have in understanding our faith:

"The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorized or dissected or explained  or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search"


In Christianity, the stories are made true. The Velveteen Rabbit comes to life. The things which the idealist wishes were, really are, and are in a much larger and fuller way than he could ever have imagined. As Chesterton puts it elsewhere in The Everlasting Man: "But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom." In Christianity we find a unity between the logical abstractions of what is true about the world and the stories which attempt to paint the picture of those same truths.

So, again, why read fiction? One ought to read fiction to shake themselves awake from the stupor that comes from looking at the broken world in front of us and trying to make sense of it. One ought to read fiction to bring out the wonder and awe which only a picture of the truth can bring. One ought to read fiction to learn what questions need to be asked about reality. As God's reveled Truth, the Bible contains all the answers we will ever need in this life. However, sometimes in our day-to-day lives we can lose sight of what we were looking for in the first place. Dipping into the search of mythology can help remind us again of the object of our search: Jesus Christ Who is both The Word become Flesh and the Truth.

That is why I read fiction.

What do you think? Is this accurate? Have I overstated my case? Could it be a more nuanced? Leave a comment and join the conversation!