Nostalgia

This is a fairly lengthy quote, but read it ... read it well, and let Lewis weave his words around your heart -
In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country(heaven), which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you--the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter....The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to 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 worshippers. 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. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them.
~C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (1949)

A larger perspective

I am reading Philippians right now - has long been one of my favorite sections of Scripture, and I am understanding more clearly why. In Philippians 1:12-14, Paul explains why he doesn't complain of the circumstances he's in, in prison, chained between 2 guards - in my human perspective, I think of how restless he must have been -yearning to go out and preach the Gospel, and yet stuck in a dungeon writing letters.
Yet all he talks of is praising God, for through his situation, the Gospel is spreading, and that is all that matters to him.
that is all that matters to him? How much else matters to me that is of no consequence? The Black Friday sales coming up - the new clothes I bought last week in town - the practical aspects of the ministry and how to get different things done - decorating for Christmas - traveling to Amsterdam (or wherever random place I happen to be dreaming of...) - so many things (many good things, in fact) tickle my fancy and distract my focus, and here Paul says, "What then? Only that, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice."

How? By knowing WHO HE IS. Here is how MacArthur puts it: "Paul did not ignore or make light of his imprisonment, but it was INCIDENTAL to his willing, joyous, and immeasurably privileged status as a bondservant of Jesus Christ..." - every situation we find ourselves in is secondary to our status in Jesus' kingdom... EVERY SITUATION IS SECONDARY... WOW

"His ministry and his earthly life were inseparable. His earthly life would not be completed until his ministry was completed, and when his ministry was completed, his earthly life would have no further purpose." Oh the places in our lives that would be transformed if we could let this truth truly penetrate all the nooks and crannies of our complicated "personhood"!

Oh that I would learn to "seek first the Kindgom of God" and experienc the promise "and all these things will be added to you" (Lk 12:31)

To cherish...

A friend of mine lost her brother in a horrific accident last week... I have talked with her every day since this happened, and have heard the shock in her voice go to gut-wrenching pain and my heart has broken with her.

Tragedy. It awaits in the sidelines for each of us, only at different times and it hits us all in different ways. I used to live in fear of this... awaiting loss that I didn't think I would be able to handle. I don't know why I sunk into such morbidity, but it happened, and it started to take over my life. My husband, my precious daughter, my life as I know it ... fear of losing anything that I love so desperately threatened to rob me of all joy in these gifts.

I read this by MacArthur the other day: (speaking of Paul) "he makes it clear that difficult, unpleasant, painful, even life-threatening circumstances did not rob him of joy, but rather caused it to increase... the only certain cause for loss of joy in a believer's life is sin, which corrupts his fellowship with the Lord, who is the source of joy. (here I interpreted this to mean acts of sin - things we do to offend God... but then he goes on to explain...) Such sinful attitudes as dissatisfaction, bitterness, sullennes, doubt, fear, and negativism cause joy to be forfeited"

I talked with my friend last night, and then I went to bed and wrapped my arms around my husband - I held him a little tighter than normal, realizing a little more clearly how precious his place in my life is. Realizing a little more clearly how much I have been given, and how much I have to lose. And rather than let dread rob me of the joy God means for me to live in, I choose to cherish these days, to revel in today, not knowing what tomorrow may bring. I choose to squeeze as much out of life as I can today, and let God take care of my tomorrows (as He so clearly commands in Mt. 6:34) I want to be the kind of person Paul was, described here by MacArthur: "it seems as if the worst affliction merely tightened his grip on salvation's joy"

May we all grip joy tightly, because otherwise it slips away all too easily. May God grant us all the grace to be able to do this.

What is sin?

"Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the delight for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin."
written to John Wesley by his mother Susanna Wesley when he went to college.