Reality

"My friend who owns the coffee shops told us, in a tone of kindness and truth, that nobody he knows who is successful gambles; rather, they work hard, they accept the facts of reality, they enjoy life as it is. "But the facts of reality stink," I told him. "Reality is like a fine wine," he said to me. "It will not appeal to children."

Searching For God Knows What, Donald Miller, p11.

Satan Vs Holy Leisure

"In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in 'muchness' and 'manyness,' he will rest satisfied."
Celebration Of Discipline, Richard Foster, p19

"The church Fathers often spoke of Otium Sanctum, 'holy leisure.' It refers to a sense of balance in the life, an ability to be at peace through the activities of the day, an ability to rest and take time to enjoy beauty, an ability to pace ourselves ... we must pursue 'holy leisure' with a determination that is ruthless to our diaries."
Celebration Of Discipline, Richard Foster, p31

Expendable (Part 2)

Following on from a previous note on being expendable for Christ (link) often, it's not our physical life that is required (i.e. martyrdom), but various little portions of our daily life. Finances, work, comfort, hobbies, fitness, luxuries, time... all of these need to be labeled 'expendable'. We give them up as and when required for the cause of Christ.

If you just stopped moaning you might actually be happy

I felt God really speak to me clearly this week. And he said that I ought to stop moaning about everything. Life is hard work, yes. And you don't get much time to yourself and you're often quite tired. All good points, but you constantly moan!

What sparked it off was watching an older work colleague of mine who's had a tough week, and was sick, but was cheerful all the way through it. I realised that if I can do what I do, but in a cheerful spirit, I would be an awful lot happier. And my works would be a lot more pleasing to God.

"If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."
1 Corinthians 13:3

It's like, if I short-curcuited that whole meditation process where I get really manked-off with everything, my whole outlook on life would lift dramatically. It's not so much the moaning, which is really just the symptom, it's the meditation process that's the real issue. The process of churning things in your mind over and over.

"As a man thinks in his heart so is he"
Proverbs 23:7

Anyway, a good bit of repentance is the order of the day. Which makes me think. Repentance almost makes sense to be done as a weekly habit. Surely lots of little acts of realignment with God are much better than the big dramatic acts of repentance that only occur when your whole life is devastated. A thought to dwell on.

Frustrations, time, and spiritual muscle

A lot of life is very hard work. Constant toil and struggles –  you pretty much have to fight to get the time to do anything, and put up with being knackered as a result. But maybe that's a good thing. Maybe God's allowing it all to happen to basically put you through a training regime.

"You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
Matthew 22:37

This is basically saying 'love God with everything you've got. Inside and out. Engage the whole of yourself in this task'.

When you have to engage your whole body against resistance for sustained periods of time to tend to do two things. You lose a bit of fat and gain a bit of muscle.

Maybe this is what God has got in mind for us on a spiritual level. To actually get time to read your bible and pray each day can take a lot of effort. And it makes us spiritually strong. If it was all too easy we'd become doughnuts.

Incredibly hard workers

One thing that's really come to mind from reading a number of biographies is that the people worth writing books about are always incredibly hard workers and very passionate people. None of them were slack. None of them were half-hearted. None of them started well, only to lose their way later on. They didn't backslide. They all persevered right the way through their lives to the very end.

A very interesting note I think. Although it's all about grace, to actually produce a life of meaning and substance requires hard work, diligence and real grasp of holiness. And these need to be sustained through all the years we live on earth.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Galatians 6:9

"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord."
Romans 12:11

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."
1 Corinthians 15:58

You have to fight for everything

A thought which has been lingering with me for a while is that the work vs church vs social life vs wifey-time vs spending-time-with-God balance is one which is in constant conflict. And the reason for this is as follows:

"Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it ... by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground."
Genesis 3: 17-19

It's the dreaded Genesis 3 curse! Everything beneath you is cursed. Literally everything you try to do is like pushing a boulder up a hill. It's really hard work; one slip and it rolls back and crushes you.

If you could identify the biggest threats to your walk with God, busyness would definitely be at the top of mine. But life is busy, basically, because it's constant toil. And the reason it's toil is because God made it that way when we sinned.

But it must be fair to say that God knew that, and he decided to do it anyway.

So there must be some sort of purpose to this constant struggle, and the need to fight for quiet times, prayer, reading etc. Perhaps to reveal our true priorities, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and those that really love God.

hmmmm..... just a thought.