Tag Archives: meditations

This side of heaven

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Below is the chorus of a song we sing in church sometimes.

I would run for a thousand years

If I knew every step would be getting me closer

I’d swim to the ocean floor

For my Lord is the Treasure

My Lord is the Treasure

– Treasure by the Desperation Band

Sometimes I wonder if I’m overthinking things, or if there’s something wrong with me. But I have a confession:

I can’t sing that.

Now, this isn’t self-deprecation or sham-humility. I honestly wonder how anyone can sing that. I wonder if St. Paul could sing that. This side of heaven, that is.

I believe that the person who wrote that song meant the words he/she was writing, on an emotional level, or at least desired to mean them. But we humans are fallible. In my more cynical moments I label songs such as these “brag worship”. I feel it’s a boast that few, if any, can keep.

Many of us have a hard time following the commands of Jesus in the mundane things of life, though there are many saints out there giving their all for the Lord.

But none of us can run for a thousand years, or swim to the ocean floor. And to sing this in a corporate worship setting troubles my spirit.

I realize, of course, that these lyrics are poetry. I am being too literal, most likely.

But I just know I can’t sing them yet, this side of Heaven. One day, though, I will be like Him, for I will see Him as He is. Then I’ll be able to sing this and other songs that we cannot even fathom or imagine yet.

Use words . . .

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Bob brings it.

Yesterday I went to hear a talk about sharing your faith in the workplace. Two speakers. Each of them emphasized that the workplace was a mission field (good). And they both also emphasized that you don’t have to beat people over the head with a Bible (that of course is a warn out straw-man, but let it pass). They both said we should let our lives and our demeanor be our message. And one of them repeated the alleged St. Francis quote, “Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary use words.”

About that quote . . .

I’ll admit that the first time I heard it I was beguiled. “Hey, yeah [that’s what I say when I’m beguiled], it’s really that easy!”

Now I think someone ought to take that quote out behind the barn and shoot it. Would somebody do that please?

Here’s the thing. “Preach the gospel” really does mean “use words.” When Acts 8:40 says, “But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea,” do you think Philip was just loving people and sharing his life, etc. Or was he SAYING SOMETHING? [Sorry about the caps; I get excited sometimes, and exclamation points just aren’t enough.]

When Paul advises Timothy, “preach the word,” well that little word “word” is a dead give away.

Read the whole thing. Convicting.

Seven Stanzas for Easter

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Make no mistake: if he rose at all

It was as His body;

If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,

The amino acids rekindle,

The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,

Each soft spring recurrent;

It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the

Eleven apostles;

It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes

The same valved heart

That–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then regathered

Out of enduring Might

New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,

Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded

Credulity of earlier ages:

Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,

Not a stone in a story,

But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of

Time will eclipse for each of us

The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,

Make it a real angel,

Weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in

The dawn light, robed in real linen

Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,

For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,

Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed

By the miracle,

And crushed by remonstrance.

Seven Stanzas for Easter – John Updike

[Hat tip: Andrew]

“In small coins”

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We often think we could lay down our life in a dramatic way to show our love for others. But God often calls us to lay down our lives little by little – in small coins instead of one large payment – but it is laying down our lives nonetheless.

– David Guzik, commenting on Ephesians 1:1-2

On battling doubt

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Jared over at Gospel Driven Church has a great post on the subject of battling doubt. Read the whole thing. Below is my favorite part; this is a view of the matter that I’d not considered before:

4. Re-focus your doubts toward your own failings and inability. Doubt yourself, in other words.



For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.

— 1 Corinthians 1:25

This is counter-intuitive to some, and it sounds like bad advice in this age of “Believe in yourself” and self-help and the therapeutic gospel of human potential, but we will not believe God more fully until we despair of ourselves more fully.

In this sense, the counter-attack is not to “stop doubting God” — telling someone awash in doubt to simply “stop doubting” is like telling a drowning man to thrash harder — but to start doubting yourself. It is telling a drowning man to stop thrashing, to doubt his own ability to thrash his way into safety. And in fact, when a drowning man relaxes and stops “fighting,” giving up trust in his ability to save himself, his rescuer is better able to swim him to safety.

If you think God can’t be trusted, think about yourself. How together are you? How well do YOU have it figured out? How in control are you? How are your plans coming together for a great life? How is “following your heart,” which is deceitful above al things, working out for you?

If we are honest with ourselves, we will realize our utter dependence and feebleness. And when we doubt ourselves, we are ready to trust God.

He must become greater; I must become less.

— John 3:30

“Completely unmanageable”

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Wickle over at A True Believer’s Blog offers a profound view of why Christmas is, often times, a holiday we prefer over Easter.

My pastor speculated that it’s because it’s really easy to deal with the baby in the manger. There He is, being born, there are shepherds around because God loves poor people, there are angels because it’s a big deal, and magi because they’re there to celebrate. Great. We can deal with this.

Once you take that baby and make Him into a man, He becomes harder to handle. He said things, He did things, and He called us to be changed. Then, He died and came back out of the tomb.

God out of the tomb is completely unmanageable. We can’t hold that one back, limit Him, or try to pretend that it’s just a nice story. The Nativity can be trivialized and tamed – the Resurrection can’t.

There is talk about how to “keep Christ is Christmas,” or whether Christians should observe Christmas at all, and just about everything in between.

For my own part, I think that it’s fine to observe Christmas as a remembrance of the event. But while we’re at it, let’s remember that the Incarnation of God on earth wasn’t an end unto itself. He came to the earth to live, teach, die, and rise again. He didn’t stay in the manger.

That’s part of why I was so excited to see the second chorus of “What Child is This?” when I read it. Right there in the Christmas song, it reminded us that He came not to be born as a baby and stop there, but to be pierced with nails and a spear (among the other things that ripped His flesh that day). It wasn’t His birth that redeems us, it was His death.

Yes, by all means, celebrate the birth. The birth of Jesus is the beginning of the process that leads us to the death and resurrection, which is what makes it possible for any of us to have eternal life.

But let’s never forget that ours isn’t a God in a manger, He didn’t stay wrapped up in swaddling clothes, and He sure wasn’t a baby forever.

Regarding the second verse of “What Child Is This”, mentioned above, here it is:

Why lies He in such mean estate,

Where ox and ass are feeding?

Good Christians, fear, for sinners here

The silent Word is pleading.

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,

The cross be borne for me, for you.

Hail, hail the Word made flesh,

The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Praise Him for His incarnation!

“Without Jesus, Christmas is an empty shell”

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An excellent reminder from Sherry:

Without Jesus, Christmas is an empty shell, not much to celebrate. Some of us can keep the shell game going for a long time; some even choose the empty shells instead of working to hang onto the real thing. But Christmas is about Christ, even if he wasn’t really born in December, even if you have questions and doubts, even if you’re messy or suffering or full of fear and even depression.

You can celebrate an empty Christmas and try to fill it yourself with material things and friends and family and whatever else happens to come along, but eventually, one Christmas, I predict that you’ll come up with a hollow place right at the center of your Christmas, right at the center of your life. And the only one who can fill that hole is Jesus Himself, the Word made Flesh who came to live among us full of grace and truth. If you don’t believe in that Truth, if you’re not sure Jesus really came to save sinners, then it’s worth your time and energy and material wealth to go on a search to find out if it might, possibly, maybe, under any circumstances be true after all.

On this Christmas Eve, I wish you a full Christmas, full of grace and truth, full of Jesus. Because He’s what Christmas is all about.



“The God of power, as he did ride”

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The God of power, as he did ride

In his majestick robes of glorie

Resolv’d to light; and so one day

He did descend, undressing all the way.

– George Herbert

(as quoted in Philip Yancey’s excellent The Jesus I Never Knew)

I hope your Christmas season has been glorious so far. I pray each of us will be humbled and amazed by the amazing humility that our Lord took upon himself in the Incarnation.

I will be writing more in coming days. I’ve been so busy, but it’s been a good busy.

Merry Christmas!

“The Lord upholds all who are falling”

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The Lord upholds all who are falling

and raises up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you,

and you give them their food in due season.

You open your hand;

you satisfy the desire of every living thing.

The Lord is righteous in all his ways

and kind in all his works.

The Lord is near to all who call on him,

to all who call on him in truth.

He fulfills the desire of those who fear him;

he also hears their cry and saves them.

The Lord preserves all who love him,

but all the wicked he will destroy.

My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord,

and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

– Psalm 145:14-21