longing

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited" (Lewis, "Weight of Glory").

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Lewis, C. S. "The Weight of Glory." Mark Verber's Links to Christian Information. http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf

fidelity

I am reading Pilgrim's Progress for the first time this summer.
I read this picture book version many times as a child, but this is my first time encountering the original text as I prepare to teach my students about the text this fall.

In the first few pages, I have already been struck by the intensity of the allegory.
"Now he had not run far from his own door, but his Wife and Children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, Life! Life! Eternal Life! So he looked not behind him . . ." (Bunyan 15). 

I am currently dating a wonderful gentleman, and we are both looking excitedly towards spending the rest of our lives together.

I want to be a wife and a mother.
These are not bad desires. At least one of them has the very real possibility of coming true in the somewhat near future.

But, these desires have consumed me before and I fear they are beginning to do so again.

Christian ran from his spouse and children.
He ran with his fingers in his ears from the relationships for which I deeply long.
He let nothing, not even beautiful human relationships, stand between him and his relentless pursuit of his Savior.

Oh, how often I let people stand between me and the LORD.
Oh, how often I let my ideas about the future stand between me and the LORD.

That's the possibly greater problem.
I don't even have these relationships yet.
This husband, these children - they don't exist, yet; and already I am already more faithful to them than I should be.

My fidelity to the ideas in my head is far too great.

The more faithful I am to my own head, the less able I am to be present in the reality the LORD has put before me in this exact moment.

"Jesus sums up common-sense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity" (Chambers, commenting on Matthew 6:25). 

I am so guilty of common-sense preparation for the future.

Oh, LORD, may my fidelity be always anchored in You and never in my own head.
Oh, LORD, may I run hard toward the Celestial City always.

------------------------------------------------
Bunyan, John. The Pilgrim’s Progress. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2005. Print.

Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost For His Highest. Ohio: Barbour Publishing, 1963. Print. 

"You made all time; You are before all time; and the 'time,' if such we may call it, when there was no time was not time at all. It is therefore true to say that when You had not made anything, there was no time, because time itself was of Your making. And no time is co-eternal with You, because You never change; whereas, if time never changed it would not be time" (Augustine 263). 

Augustine, Aurelius. Confessions. Trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin. London: Penguin Books, 1961. Print. 

Augustine considers the Neoplantonists influential in his journey to understanding the nature of God's presence and the nature of sin.

C. S.  Lewis describes the parallel ideas and their difference in motivation quite beautifully.

"Christians and Platonists both believe in an 'other' world . . . for a Plantonist the contrast is usually that between an original and a copy, between the real and the merely apparent. . . for a Christian, between the eternal and temporal, or the perfect and the partially spoiled. The essential attitude of Platonism is aspiring or longing . . . In Christianity, however, the human soul is not the seeker but the sought: it is God who seeks, who descends from the other world to find and heal Man; the parable about the Good Shepherd looking for and finding the lost sheep sums it up" (qtd. in Ryken 53). 


Ryken, Leland. Augustine's Confessions. Christian Guides to the Classics. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2015. Print.

p.s. Ryken's study guide has been so beneficial!

I am reading Augustine's Confessions with my students.
Augustine's deep honestly, which leads to his deep awe of the Lord, is overwhelming.
I am fairly certain that, if I were allowed to highlight in the copy I am using to teach, I would highlight almost every sentence. It's probably better that I'm not allowed to highlight.

So, here is one of the many passages my students and I discussed today:

"You alone are the life which never dies and the wisdom which needs no light besides itself,

 but illumines all who need to be enlightened, 

the wisdom that governs the world down to the leaves that flutter on the trees" (140-141). 

"We need Christians to train their children and love their neighbors well. I think churches should consider building affordable schools for their community. Educating our families and communities guards the minds of our little ones, shows mercy to our neighbors, and shapes future generations of decision-makers in the family and in society. . . . Education will inevitably lead to change, for good or for bad. We should be thinking, praying, planning, and investing in how to teach children to think and feel and act for the glory of God."  

-Philip Holmes, excerpt from "Five Ways We Fight for Children"

"Prayer is a sincere, affectionate pouring out of the heart to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God." - John Bunyan

I'm reading a book with Caleb called One Thousand Gifts.
It's really quite beautiful and moving and convicting.
I would recommend it to everyone.
Mrs. Voskamp knows Scripture well and knows the gritty-ness of real life well.
She is raw and honest and deep and humble.
Also, on a mushy side note, I really love listening to Caleb read.
Anyway, here is a thought from chapter one.

"From all of our beginnings, we keep reliving the Garden story. Satan, he wanted more. More power, more glory. Ultimately, in his essence, Satan is an ingrate. And he sinks his venom into the heart of Eden. Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave.

Isn't that the catalyst of all my sins?

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other" (Voskamp 15).

"Since we took a bite out of the fruit and tore into our own souls, that drain hole where joy seeps away, God's had this wild secretive plan.

He means to fill us with glory again" (Voskamp 17).

"The promise of mercy is traceable throughout the Old Testament. Indeed, God has always had a disposition of kindness towards us. Before Adam and Eve sinned, God had determined to express love and mercy towards his people. There's nothing about sin that has ever changed his mind or altered his plan. And that plan, of course, finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ." 

-Dave Harvey

"Our greatest fear should not be of failure 

but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter." 

~Francis Chan

"Impatience is a form of unbelief. It's what begin to feel when we start to doubt the wisdom of God's timing or the goodness of God's guidance. It springs up in our hearts when our plan is interrupted or shattered. . . . The opposite of impatience is not a glib denial of loss. It's a deepening, ripening, peaceful willingness to wait for God in the unplanned place of obedience, and to walk with God at the unplanned pace of obedience - to wait in His place and go at His pace." ~John Piper

"If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ,

 success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts." 

~ Timothy Keller

"Corporate worship is designed to remind you that the story of your little life has been included in the grand eternal story of redemption." ~Paul David Tripp

Thank you Lord for this beautiful reminder today :) Thank you for a pastor from Maryland who shared this quote this morning and thank you for a pastor's wife from Erie who took time out of her busy morning to go out of her way to pick me up :) Thank you for her lovely little girls that make me smile  all morning long :) Thank you for the opportunity to stand (and dance) next to these little girls as we worship You :) and thank for the blessing of sharing time with their family every Sunday :)  

"Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness." ~ John Calvin

"The Christian concept [of 'hope'] isn't very well served by our English word 'hope' because the English word 'hope' connotes uncertainty, but the Biblical understanding of 'hope' is the life-shaping joyous certainty that your future is the eternal love and glory of God." 

~Tim Keller

"I think sometimes we think that happiness is the most important thing in life. But it’s not. You see, happiness… is just an emotion. Joy is a state of being. Even in hard times." 

 ~Rachel Hatcher

generations

"Generations are amazing measures of time -- overlapping, merging, each new one dependent on the past ones for very existence; affecting each other, passing genes to the next ones, influencing coming one both during a lifetime and after a lifetime is over. There is a terrific responsibility we have during our lifetime: 'The living, the living -- they praise you as I am doing today; fathers tell their children about your faithfulness' (Isaiah 38: 19, NIV). How many generations are being talked about? Children become fathers for century following century: 'He is the Lord our God . . . He remembers his covenant forever, the world he commanded, for a thousand generations . . .' (Psalm 105:7-8, NIV). With which generation will the responsibility stop? Certainly not the one we are in today . . . unless 'today' is the day Jesus will return. Until that moment, until that 'twinkling of an eye,' we are to 'walk around the reality of God's Word and His Works' in a way which seems to me to described in Psalm:12-14 (NIV): 'Walk around Zion, go around her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation. For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.' "

~Edith Schaeffer, The Tapestry (pg. 101) 

College students have a great tendency towards getting caught up in their own lives (which is only further fueled by the culture). 

What will happen to me in the few years? What will my career be? Will my life be "successful"?

In this though, we start to become oblivious to the beauty of generations.

Our lives are most beautiful as we interact with and enrich other lives. Our lives are most beautiful as we learn from those who have gone before us and pass along to those who follow after us. Our lives were never meant to be independent.

"And how many gods poured out their hearts to romance a world that's torn all apart?" ~Downhere, "How Many Kings"

"It’s a strange but powerful paradox that upends everything: 

Listening is what changes words."

"At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend." ~ John Stott 

"He has read our yellowed penciled pages, as well as our minds and hearts. He reads our written prayers on the backs of envelopes, on the margins of our Bibles, on the backs of weekly memo calendars or the unwritten whispers in the middle of the night." 

~Edith Schaeffer, The Tapestry