Are we but very old sons and daughters?

(This post has much to do with the previous one, but again, I wanted to split them up so as to not make the reading seem too daunting.)

Just as we, as adults, often take for granted the beauty of the created things that fill our lives, things that we brush by everyday without thinking of the completely astounding nature of their very existence, we also often ignore the beauty of monotony.

Again, I quote here G.K. Chesterton, from his work Orthodoxy:

[Children] always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

I often hear of children who are said to possess short attention spans, but maybe we should ask ourselves if it is, in fact, adults who have this problem. I am apt to wonder if the reason why I took for granted the breathtaking loveliness of the ocean that was so much a part of my daily life was simply that very fact: it was so much a part of my daily life.

I have an addictive nature. Much of this may stem from the fact that there is alcoholism in my family. My grandparents were alcoholics, and my mom, in a wise attempt to break the cycle which is so common to many families, decided to be extremely judicious in her use of alcohol while I was growing up. Nevertheless, I still struggle with alcoholism from time to time, and occasionally need to abstain for a period of time from any alcoholic beverage so that I can judge whether I am experiencing any difficulty with its absence.

That being said, this causes addictive tendencies which I believe stretch to other areas of my life. When I am fixated on something, there is scarcely anything else that I can think of. I have watched stereo equipment, video games, art, photography, relationships, and even theological study (for the sake of knowledge), take over much of my life at one point in time. And yet, no matter how much I get of any one thing, I can never have enough of it (this, by the way, can be a mark of an idol). I cannot seem to find joy in any particular source, and am constantly jumping from one addiction to another.

This is because I have misplaced my source of joy.

God finds joy in the day in, day out, subtleties of controlling the universe. To put it another way, God finds joy in just being God. Have we grown so very much older than our Father, that we can no longer find joy in the things that bring Him joy? Have we lost our child-like nature which allows us to jump up and down at the sight of an amazing act of creation... simply because we've "seen it all before"? Do we look at a sunrise, and say to ourselves, "Oh great... another day to get through"? Or are we rather, in looking at a sunrise, filled with praises for the joy of creation, and say to God, "O Lord! Thank you for this new day that have You given us!"

I pray that our Creator would once again fill us with the "appetite of infancy".

A Child's Heart

(So, this topic will be split into two posts, because I thought that one post would be too long, and that nobody would want to read it!)

This post is not intended to stray from more serious theological matters, to dip into the pool of touchy and feely and cutesy and warm and cuddly (for, though it looks cuddly on the surface, it is of utmost importance); but since I'm looking forward very much to beginning to teach Sunday school for some of the little ones at my church, reading the excerpt for this post struck me more than I think it would otherwise.

Our Lord has revealed in three of the four written gospels (Matthew 18:3-4, 19:14; Mark 10:15; Luke 18:16-17) that we are to enter the kingdom of God as children. But what exactly does this mean? It is clear that this includes, at the least, humbling ourselves as children, not looking to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:4). But is there more than this that we can gain from looking at the lives of children, and at their response to the world around them?

G.K. Chesteron, in his book Orthodoxy, begins, I believe, to uncover the wonders of the simplicity of a child's world view:

When we are very young children we don't need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales - because they find them romantic.... This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples are golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water.

How sad it is when we realize that we, as adults (or even as older children), take for granted all of the things that once sparked joy in our young souls!

I have had some small experience of this in my short life. Growing up in Washington state, I was always surrounded by vast mountain ranges, endless valleys and hills blanketed by the green of trees, and more water than I could ever imagine swimming in. These were all aspects which helped make up the whole of my life: they were what I knew of the world. Then a few years ago, I studied in France for a semester; it was the first time that I had ever lived away from water. During spring break, I traveled with a friend throughout Italy. On one of the first nights, we had unloaded our stuff in the hostel room in Sorrento, and decided to take a walk down at the docks.

I will never forget that night.

I could not see the water, because of the dark of night. However, the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves gently lapping up against the rocks sent a feeling through me that made me stop to rejoice in the grand artistry of God's creation.

Since that night, I always try to remember the beauty of water whenever I look at it. Why must I try to remember? Because the feeling that I had in Sorrento that night was a feeling that I had never experienced before, even though I had lived my entire life around water. I try to remember the beauty of the water because if I don't I will take it for granted.

I am making a new resolution. I will try to do the same for all of God's creation as I have chosen to do with water: namely, I will not take it for granted. When I walk by a tree on my way to school, I will think not only of the sovereign process that the Creator has set in place to nourish and grow and sustain this tree, but also of all of the ways that it helps sustain the life of other creatures in this world. When I see a squirrel cross my path as I walk to my office, I will think upon the complex nature of the makeup of this little organism, and of all of the care that God has put into making something so small, a creature that is not even made after His own image.

I pray that God might change not only my heart, that I might have the humbleness of a child, but my eyes as well, that I might be able to be fascinated once again by the marvelous creation that surrounds me every day.

Selfless Prayer

I've been noticing lately a correlation between my joy, and how I pray. I know that this may seem elementary, but stick with me on this one.

Yesterday was good for me, as I continued to read through Piper's book: I was able to understand more about how to find joy in God. Yet I still went to bed last night with the anxieties of my life swarming through my head and divebombing me as I entered the throne room of the Almighty to pray. Then something quite amazing happened. Here's how it went...

I started my prayers as I often do with giving praise and ascribing glory to the One whose holy presence we are in when we engage in the wonderful act of prayer. I recommend to you to start your prayers this way if you do not currently do so; it will help you keep a Kingdom perspective, and will aid the Spirit in aligning your will with the will of the Holy Trinity.

I then started to pray for myself. I began by saying, basically, "Here I am once again, Lord. I come to you with this problem once more, to hand it over to You today."

Then I stopped...

I spoke to myself. I said, "Self, your life is not all about you."

So I changed gears and started making intercession for others first, before I came with my own requests. I prayed for our city, I prayed for missionaries from our church, I prayed for my friends, and I prayed for the other people who are involved with my current problem, that God would draw them to Himself, and that they would see His glory above all else, and would find ultimate, breathtakingly beautiful joy in that glory.

Only after I had done this did I pray for my own wants (O how I so often forget this! A brief review of the Lord's Prayer will reveal that this how we are to pray). And you know what? The anxiety had left...

I remembered to do this because of something that my pastor had said about the anxieties of our life: when we are anxious, we are self-absorbed. He recommended that we spend more time giving to others to get our thoughts off of ourselves, to draw our gaze from our own navels, as a way of combating anxiety.

Intercessional prayer was a way for me to serve others, to give to others, to show others love.

Long story short: I entered the presence of my Lord last night full of worry and possessing a disquieted spirit...

I left His presence full of peace.

And it was a most restful sleep.

Talking to yourself is healthy

I recently received four new Piper books from the $5 sale at Desiring God Ministries. Of all of these books, the one that I started reading a couple of days ago is called "When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy".

Now, I'm not completely certain why I chose this one to read. I'm not particularly lacking in this gift right now: God has been staggeringly gracious in granting me the desire to seek after Him lately, and for that I am utterly grateful, for this has given me a glimpse of the joy that I was created to have in praising His name and being found in His glory. However, I have found it difficult lately to allow God to let that joy overcome other areas of my life which seem to be lacking joy. In other words: Chris ain't feelin' too hot right now.

Well, even though a loss of desire for God does not seem to be one of my current ails, I am beginning to see how this book will bless me. Here's a look at what I've been reading today (quoted from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in his book Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cures, in reference to Psalm 42, especially verse 5):

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them but they are talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. Who is talking to you? Your self is talking to you. Now this man's treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you."

It was a very encouraging moment when I read this. God has given us promises in His word, and we (read: I) need to speak these promises to our (read: my) own souls, otherwise our souls will continue to speak to us... and the Creator of our souls is certainly wiser than our souls themselves!

Brethren, please pray for me, that God would grant me the strength to do this. My joy has been robbed once again by the anxieties of this world, and after having tasted and seen that the LORD is good (Psalm 34:8), I long to be overcome again by the deluge of joy which was meant to flood my life, the joy that can only be found in taking refuge in the LORD.

Yo, bro! The slow-go of no mo' uh-oh (also: show and sow mo' glow) is fo' sho' a yo-yo!

Wow… if you’re actually choosing to read this post after having endured the title, I applaud you for your tenacity…

Since I rarely have an original thought (nothing new under the sun, eh?), today’s post is taken from an analogy that my pastor used in Sunday school this morning (this one’s for you, Crystal).

Sanctification can be tricky for us to understand sometimes. Period.

I once had a conversation about sanctification with my pastor, and I told him that I have sometimes asked myself if God has actually done any work at all in my life, because the same sins and desires that haunted me before still haunt me now. I knew that He has, obviously, but sometimes I feel very discouraged in seeing these old demons raise their ugly heads again and again and again.

Pastor Mike said something in response which I think will always stick with me. We recognize that there is a battle constantly raging within us, one of flesh and Spirit. Far too often, however, we view the process of sanctification as a reducing of the flesh. However, this will always yield a downcast heart when we find that the flesh is still very much alive in us. If we ever assume that an old temptation is no longer present, if we take our foot off of the snake’s neck (Genesis 3:15, Romans 16:20) – even if God is gracious to give to us old age, and we are still walking with our Lord; even then – it will leap up to strike us. In light of this, we must view sanctification as a process of the Spirit overcoming the flesh, rather than of the flesh simply disappearing (1 John 4:3-4, Romans 12:21). Temptation, as well as the desire for the things of this world, will never disappear from the battlefield… but our fight therein, by the work of the Spirit, will become more effective with time.

So, that being said, we’ll get to the analogy (don’t we all love analogies?). There were two that Pastor Mike used this morning, and I’ll mention the first one briefly:

Sanctification is kind of like one of those blow-up “bopper” dolls that kids use as punching bags: you punch it, it falls down, it comes back up. This is similar to our fight against sin in that once a temptation is defeated… it doesn’t stay down for long! This means that we will never stop “bopping” our sins. The good news is, however, that the “bopping” does become easier, because our arm becomes stronger the more we use it.

Okay, good analogy and all, but this is not the one of chief concern for this post. Here goes:

“Sanctification is like a man playing with a yo-yo while walking up stairs.”

I know, I know… but stay with me here…

The yo-yo will continue to go up and down, just as we continue to have highs and lows in our spiritual walk and in our fight against sin. However… we are still moving upward with every step that we take!

There is danger in focusing too much on any of the highs or lows of the yo-yo itself. Concentrating on a point where the yo-yo is near the floor robs you of your joy and ignores the power of the cross; concentrating on a point where the yo-yo is at its apex will set you up for disappointment when it falls back down.

Therefore, let us run the race as to receive the prize (1 Corinthians 4:24-27, Philippians 3:12-14), and let us not be discouraged if we fall down: the race is not over, the prize is still in sight! We must be confident that

He who has begun a good work in [us] will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. -Philippians 1:6

This means that God is actively sanctifying us through the glorious work of His Spirit, and that this work is currently being perfected. Try no longer to do what God is already doing in you! Turn to Him and receive the boundless joy that is to be found in freedom from sin!

Huh... that's funny...

Believe it or not, I did not write the previous post in response to the one before it. I didn't even have the first one in mind when I posted tonight, but I just re-read it after I posted my last one.

I was just blessed by my own blog post!

God is good.

God's Faithfulness

We started our small group time tonight with singing songs that professed praise to God. One of them was based on Psalm 96, and I was struck by a beautiful truth as we were singing the chorus. Here are the last five verses of the Psalm (vv. 9-13):

Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns;
The world also is firmly established,
It shall not be moved;
He shall judge the peoples righteously.”

Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and all its fullness;
Let the field be joyful, and all that is in it.
Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the LORD.

For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth.


What a strange thought: we rejoice because the LORD is coming to judge the earth in righteousness and truth.

By all rights, the prospect of coming face to face with the holy Lamb in that day should cause us to cry out to be crushed by rocks rather than face His wrath (Revelation 6:16). And yet, what is the psalmist's response? He rejoices in this thought! Why does he rejoice? He rejoices in the LORD's ultimate judgment because he knows that he serves a faithful God, a God who will unquestionably keep the covenant which He has sealed with His people, which guarantees that they will not face His wrath in those last days.

If the psalmist - who was a member of the first covenant - rests upon the promises of God to the extent that he rejoices in His coming to the earth to judge humanity, how much more reason do we - as members of the perfect covenant of the Son - have to rejoice in the same thought!

And if we can trust in God to be faithful in His promise to save us from His wrath by the covenant of His Son's blood, to the point that we delight in the judgment-bearing return of that Son upon the earth, how much more can we trust in God to be faithful to His people in this life! If we believe that God has already done the unthinkable in counting us righteous by the sacrifice of His Messiah, why do we so often doubt that this same God will provide for us in ways which are far less bewildering?

Why do we have reason to rejoice? We rejoice because we know that we serve a faithful God, a God who will undoubtedly keep His promises, be they large or small. If we rest upon this truth, we will be most certainly blessed by it.