A Commitment

A few weeks ago I started to make a few realisations about myself. There were certain things that I lacked (and still lack) in my life, that I was clinging to much too strongly.

I remember earlier in the year, perhaps it was even earlier than that... feeling burdened to take the path of Isaac. Isaac if you recall was the "quiet man" of the patriarchs... the biggest event in his adult life was his marriage to Rebekah... and even then, he didn't play a proactive part in the story... he was meditating in a field while Abraham's servant was doing all the hard work.

It's been true that up until recently I had been hankering after relationships like a dog chasing cars and by observing emotional similarities in other people I am close to, I realised how dangerous a thing love can be if it grows out of context.

In the past when I have fallen in love, I have fallen fast... and I have fallen deep and it has so consumed my attention that everything else... even the important things, faded into the background. the trouble with falling that fast and falling that deep, is that you also fall hard... and when you hit rock bottom... it blinking well hurts.

I recalled a time when a friend of mine gave up a relationship he was in because he felt that he "loved the other person" too much at the expense of his relationship with God... ergo, he believed his relationship to be idolatrous. I always respected him for that... always.

The wisdom of the world would tell him he would be crazy for thinking such a thing. "When you have something that precious, you never let go", they would say. But you see he was absolutely correct.

Context is everything.

If you love something so much that it blinds or at least obscures you to everything else around you... then it is idolatrous and really, if you are honest deep down... it is not love at all, it is something else...

...infatuation.

I think that in the past when I've liked a girl... it's definitely fallen into that category... even when I felt God telling me that I was to walk the way of Isaac... I just took that to mean "wait until I bring someone along and then pounce". However in hindsight, I don't think that was ever the intention.

So we come to a few weeks ago and the commitment I came to.

Essentially I've decided to go full tilt Isaac. That is to say that I'm entirely putting that area of my life on the back burner. I'm allowed to like people of course, but I'm not allowing myself to actively pursue them. That's God's turf. So either God sends someone my way or I stay out of action until I get some kind of personal message from God (I don't know... perhaps stone tablets), but either way it's not my focus anymore.

It means accepting that this could be it... the end of the line (as much as I of course don't want it to be and indeed have faith that it won't be). However, I have to make this sacrifice in order to prove to God that the idea of love and romance is not more important to me than him.

This is the point where all worldly friends and foe alike will in all probability burst out laughing and scurry away sending my name and address to the Darwin Awards... for attempting to ensure the extinction of my own genetic makeup.

Let them.

Whether or not I believe in Evolution (within the context of my belief in God) is besides the point. Whether or not I am prepared to trust my God is exactly the point.

Developments since walking this path have been... interesting to say the least. Needless to say, all secular girls who I have taken a shine to in the past have suddenly seemed to have universally had a eureka moment and have even started flirting with me... what's with that???

I'd be lying if I said things weren't in some ways awkward (there are some complicated issues... well they aren't complicated at all but... well never mind). However I'm finding I'm a lot closer to God at the moment, a great deal more energised and considerably braver when it comes to seeking out his will.

So there we have it evolutionary suicide or a leap of faith.... but it's been my decision nonetheless.

The Priorities of Change and Connection.

Recently I've succumbed to a dawning realisation that Christians as people (and I of course include myself in this analysis), are too easily swayed by the things that we are emotionally attached to.

What I mean by that, is that we find it so easy to make changes in lifestyle for the tangible... yet when God asks us to make some kind of alteration ton the way we live out our lives... suddenly the temptation to become emotionally tightfisted, hovers ominously overhead.

It's all the more easier when you have empathic qualities... because it is then, that you seek out connection with others. Don't get me wrong here, empathy is a really great strength and blessing... but as with most strengths it carries with it an Achilles Heel. The weakness is that in seeking out connections, we can allow ourselves to embrace things that don't really fit who we are as an individual. I guess it's a bit like having a jigsaw puzzle with a few pieces from a different puzzle thrown in. The pieces might even physically fit... but the picture on the front is different to the rest of the puzzle.

This isn't to say of course that we shouldn't allow diversity to culture growth in our relationships with others... but we mustn't sell out on ourselves so easily. We shouldn't give up the things we care about, that matter to us or interest us... just because someone new comes along who doesn't really like them. Neither should we worry if we aren't interested in the things that other people are all the time. We are who we are... we don't belong to others, we belong to God.

If we allow ourselves to become enamoured and swayed by things other people say and do... without offering at least the same privileges to the one who created us and purchased us with his Son; isn't that idolatry?

If we allow people to change us, or if we allow their interests or companionship to rule us at the expense of our relationship with God... or at the cost of the identity he has given us (and I'm not only talking of the new identity we are given when we become a new person in Christ, but also generally just the individual character he has blessed us with), then we do sell out and become idolaters.

Don't let yourselves get robbed blind by an overwhelming need to fit in. Have faith that in this universe you do have a place and time, and there are people that God designed you to fit in with. Who cares if your superficial interests aren't to everyone's taste? As long as God's cool with it, sing your song - the song he set in your heart when he designed you.

That's what he made you for!

Idols & Idolatry

I've had a blog brewing for some time, but I wasn't quite sure what angle to write from.

Various things have motivated me, ranging from a recent visit to a christian message board that was entirely focused on the policies and performance of the Bush administration, to the fact that a friend of mine has recently revealed his faith has fallen by the wayside, and finally even my own recent struggles with sin.

Quite varied subjects that are seemingly unconnected, I think you'll agree... but they all have one thing in common...

... idolatry.

"Eh? How can that be?" I hear you cry.

Lets take a look at what idolatry really is when you get down to the core of it. Idolatry is not just praising sculptures of strange creature like gods, that is merely one aspect but the true nature of idolatry is a lot bigger.

Idolatry is letting anything... ANYTHING become bigger than God, in our hearts.

The christian message board was committing idolatry because they were looking at a man and letting him become bigger than God.

Whatever you think of George W Bush... he is still just a man. Or as I put it on the message board:

"George W. Bush is nothing... but Jesus Christ is EVERYTHING!"

People on that board had stopped encouraging and building one another up... and had begun tearing strips off one another over their politics. This was not constructive, it sent out the wrong message to non-believers and it was potentially damaging to people young in their faith because it drew their gaze away from Christ and into the worries and concerns of this world.

My friend has grown cynical because he works for a nominally Christian company. He feels that his boss takes advantage of him, but more than this... it is the company's Christian customers who are the worst for haggling - they use their mutual faith as a bargaining chip... and so dishonour the God they follow. In both cases, idolatry is at work. My friend has let his view of men and their flaws become bigger in his heart become larger than his view of God... to the point that he can't see past the darkness to experience the light. The Christians who haggle have let money become more important and should careful lest God call it to account.

As to my recent struggles with sin... yes indeed I consider sin itself a form of idolatry. When you commit sin, you take your eyes off God... but it's not just that alone. When you have been convicted of a sin, and you repent... you still struggle with that sin, at least for a time. In fact it is possible to become that hooked up on fighting sin, that you don't regain your focus on Christ. The sin has become an idol because you have allowed your perception of it to cloud your relationship with Christ. In my case, I knew I was in the wrong... but for some silly reason I was afraid to pick up the Bible because I was convinced God was going to blat me over the head with it! However, I knew in my heart what the right course of action was. so I turned to my Bible... and do you know what the passage set down in my notes for that day was? It was this:

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

I expected a smack on the head and instead found myself being warmly embraced by the arms of God. I should have known better. That is why grace is there... it bridges the gap that separates us from God in the first place... and enables us to remain on an even keel with him, after we have stumbled. As my friend later put it, God rarely has a problem with you when you know what you are and where you have been. It's when you get ideas above your station and think you are something (compared to God)... when you are nothing at all, that he tends to get angry. you can see that in the parable of the pharisee and tax collector.

So I encourage you to think about your own life at the moment... is there something you are struggling with... something that has become bigger in your perception than God? Be it a person, an object of desire, the behaviour of others.... or a sin you struggle with. I urge you to let God's grace sweep in and draw your gaze back to him.

Blessings

Nick