Imagine if your life were spent in a church with no windows save one.
People naturally want to see out - What's the weather? When the service is over, will it be sunny and warm or cold and rainy? Is there a nice meadow outside or a concrete jungle? What lies just beyond these walls? How should I best prepare for life on the outside? Periodically people leave, but they never come back to report. There is only one window, and it can only show so much.
But conditions on the inside have made the window almost inaccessible. Interior renovations lowered the floor, and now the window is high on the wall. The panes seem small and dirty, covered partly by a curtain and clouded by dust and carelessly spattered paint.
The pastor has options. He knows that at some point everyone will be called to leave the room and venture outside. What clothes do they need? Do they even need clothes? How can he help them prepare for their inevitable journey to the outside?
One option is to pass out brushes and paint and assign wall space. Each person can be encouraged to paint a picture - a window picture of what they think, or hope, lies beyond the wall. This is a seemingly wonderful idea, as each person affirms and shares their own ideas and beliefs. Some paint a window onto a warm, tropical beach. Others overlook a mountain meadow or a Parisian sidewalk cafe. The pastor can encourage and celebrate the diversity of preparations that accompany each painter's vision of the world beyond.
Or the pastor can climb to the window, peer out upon the outside world and describe it as it really is. Rather than allowing each person to paint his or her own window, he can work to clear the one that exists, cleaning the panes and encouraging the congregation to climb the ladder and look out for themselves. Those who can't, or won't look out must be provided with an accurate description of what is seen. There may still be diversity as people make individual preparations to move out into what they see, but they will be preparing based on the view through a window to reality.
When the Bible is devalued, marginalized or abandoned, we are left only the option of passing out paints and encouraging the congregation to paint their own windows on the world and the world to come. Which window would you rather learn from - a glass window that lets in light from beyond or an opaque, painted wall that can only reflect the views of a wishful painter?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Swimming the Kern & Hebrews 4:9-11
The Kern River flows out of the mountains in southern California bringing water to the desert community of Bakersfield. I spent two months in Bakersfield completing Campus Crusade for Christ's international and cross-cultural training course. There were 53 of us in training, and one day we decided to spend an afternoon on the Kern River.
The Kern is not a peaceful, meandering river. It's a powerful river that charges and pounds down a narrow canyon – all boulders and whitewater. As we drove into the canyon, there were several signs warning of the danger of swimming or wading. One big sign tallied a count of how many people had drowned in the river since 1968. The number of dead was 147, and you could see that the 7 was freshly painted over the previous 6. There's a new sign up now. This photo is from May 2008.
After a bit of driving, we found a spot where we could sit by the river under some trees – it was a rugged, rocky place. After a few minutes we found an inner tube snagged in the brush. Just upstream there was a place we could put in, and if we managed the right line we could get out just below our picnic spot. We had a great time, just letting the wild current bounce us around.
After we had finished tubing and eating our picnic lunch, we walked a bit downstream and discovered a wonderful little beach on the other bank. With smooth sand and nice shade trees it created an idyllic contrast to the rocks and cliffs everywhere else. Here there were no boulders in the water, just a very fast, deep channel, roiling and white through the middle. Below this fast stretch the river dropped violently over big boulders and into an angry right turn. Whoever got sucked into that cauldron would almost certainly become Kern River death number 148. But the beach looked good and we wanted to swim across. The water was fast, but not too wide. We had to raise our voices to be heard above the ominous din of the rapids below. There was only one way to make it to the beach, so I plunged in and started across. Seeing that I made it safely to the beach, three others decided to come over as well.
The fast water was only about 10 yards wide, but we had to swim at least 30 yards to make it to across. The speed of the current and the consequences for getting swept over the rapids dictated a course that had us swimming 45 degrees or more upstream of our target. It demanded hard, continuous effort. The only chance for rest came when we reached the beach, where we enjoyed a nap on the soft, cool sand.
The Christian life can be the same way. The goal of entering God's rest at the end of a life of faithfulness requires that we set our course to compensate for the contemporary cultural currents that seek to pull us away from our goal and over the rocks. In the Bible, we are reminded that many people who claim to follow God fall by the wayside through disbelief and disobedience. Hebrews 4:9-11 states that, "There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience."
Are you taking time to read the currents of the world around you? Are you diligently setting a course in life that that will keep you from being swept away from a faithful obedience to God? Are you striving to enter God's rest, or are you seeking your rest today? I encourage you to take time this week to think on these things, to make some course adjustments if necessary, and to diligently "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
The Kern is not a peaceful, meandering river. It's a powerful river that charges and pounds down a narrow canyon – all boulders and whitewater. As we drove into the canyon, there were several signs warning of the danger of swimming or wading. One big sign tallied a count of how many people had drowned in the river since 1968. The number of dead was 147, and you could see that the 7 was freshly painted over the previous 6. There's a new sign up now. This photo is from May 2008.
After a bit of driving, we found a spot where we could sit by the river under some trees – it was a rugged, rocky place. After a few minutes we found an inner tube snagged in the brush. Just upstream there was a place we could put in, and if we managed the right line we could get out just below our picnic spot. We had a great time, just letting the wild current bounce us around.
After we had finished tubing and eating our picnic lunch, we walked a bit downstream and discovered a wonderful little beach on the other bank. With smooth sand and nice shade trees it created an idyllic contrast to the rocks and cliffs everywhere else. Here there were no boulders in the water, just a very fast, deep channel, roiling and white through the middle. Below this fast stretch the river dropped violently over big boulders and into an angry right turn. Whoever got sucked into that cauldron would almost certainly become Kern River death number 148. But the beach looked good and we wanted to swim across. The water was fast, but not too wide. We had to raise our voices to be heard above the ominous din of the rapids below. There was only one way to make it to the beach, so I plunged in and started across. Seeing that I made it safely to the beach, three others decided to come over as well.
The fast water was only about 10 yards wide, but we had to swim at least 30 yards to make it to across. The speed of the current and the consequences for getting swept over the rapids dictated a course that had us swimming 45 degrees or more upstream of our target. It demanded hard, continuous effort. The only chance for rest came when we reached the beach, where we enjoyed a nap on the soft, cool sand.
The Christian life can be the same way. The goal of entering God's rest at the end of a life of faithfulness requires that we set our course to compensate for the contemporary cultural currents that seek to pull us away from our goal and over the rocks. In the Bible, we are reminded that many people who claim to follow God fall by the wayside through disbelief and disobedience. Hebrews 4:9-11 states that, "There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience."
Are you taking time to read the currents of the world around you? Are you diligently setting a course in life that that will keep you from being swept away from a faithful obedience to God? Are you striving to enter God's rest, or are you seeking your rest today? I encourage you to take time this week to think on these things, to make some course adjustments if necessary, and to diligently "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
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