Godly Wisdom From Ordinary Tasks...

A funny thing happened on the way to feeding the cat this morning…
See, after years of feeding my beloved Bean in a spot beside the living room end table it was noticeable that he was no longer comfortable eating there. Despite his social shortcomings, Bean tends to be a fairly hungry cat and can be quite demonstrative about his food. He will meow, he will rub his furry little self against my clean black pants, he will scratch at my door, and even pounce on my head in the middle of a REM cycle all to tell me he is finally ready to eat. So, it was odd when he became a little disinterested in his food. After much contemplation, it was decided that Bean’s food needed a simple change of location. As such, he has quietly munched on meal after meal of Friskies in his new corner nestled between the buffet and the wall.
Bean eats twice a day. Bean eats the same amount of food every day. And, he eats in the exact same spot every day. It’s predictable, it’s consistent, it’s not too hard to figure out. So, I found it quite odd that after months of Bean training me where to put his food, I wandered off the path of normalcy and strayed back to the old location. Thankfully, I caught myself before kitty chaos ensued, but I instantly thought – “How weird… Why, after months of doing the new routine over and over again, would I suddenly go back to what I used to do?”
I think it happens a lot. We resolve and even become habitual in a new way, a better way and suddenly, and sometimes mindlessly, we drift back into an old path. I think both the conscious and the unconscious need to be tended. It might seem silly to wax poetic about revelations initiated by cat food, but this one resonated. Every step, no matter how easy or small, is to be made intentionally. We may craft a life full of healthy and habitual spiritual disciplines… But habits and obedience are not always the same.
Where has routine overgrown a passion to obey? How do we push ourselves in the midst of our long obedience in the same direction? How can we refrain from sliding back into an old and familiar comfort?
These are the questions I wonder about after a small step in the wrong direction this morning. Needless to say, my steps will be more cautious and intentional when I wake up tomorrow.

Fellows Reflection: November 2010

During my short time with the CS Lewis Institute, I have heard rumors and collected a healthy respect for what those who have gone before call the “hardest” month: next month, or the month of humility. In doing so, I hardly walked into October expecting to be confronted by a constant barrage of questions, doubts, and convictions. The month of love seemed easy. It seemed like a nice topic just before the painstaking examination necessary for a life of humility. What I found, however, was that first things needed to come first and love must precede humility though the two often go hand in hand.

I’m often guilty of wanting things – well, everything – to come in nicely wrapped packages: ones that can be easily transported, nicely delivered, and, if necessary, cleaned up and removed quickly. But, love doesn’t follow these rules. Godly loves means surrendering to the greatest of contradictions. It means being empty to be filled. It means loving others as you love yourself. It means messy is beautiful and brokenness leads to wholeness. From an earthly perspective, this really makes no sense. But then again, the earthly tend to put second things first and forego that which is eternal for that which is temporal all the time.

I read this CS Lewis quote over the summer: "Every preference of a small good to a great, or a partial good to a total good, almost always ends with the loss of the small or partial good for which the sacrifice was made. Apparently the world is made that way. If Esau really got his pottage in return for his birthright, then Esau was a lucky exception. You can't get second things by putting them first; you can get second things only by putting first things first."

This is a thought I come back to regularly because I am immaturely putting second things first all the time. But, in the pattern of doing so, I have noticed the same sins, weaknesses, and insecurities coming back to haunt me time and time again. See, there is this “at least” mentality to my faith and as my human heart fills in the blank of the “at least I __________” statement, I slowly identify what replaces God in my life and what keeps me from fulfilling the greatest commandment of them all.

In Matthew 22, we learn that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind. This is a first thing. The next and similar commandment is to love our neighbor as our self. This is a second thing. We can’t very well go on loving our neighbor as our self with any measure of hope or success without first loving God fully. For if we do, it is merely a human and; thus, empty love void of infinitude or selflessness.

Getting back to first and second things, I am surprised at how often the world and the flesh rival God for primary position in my own life. Even more, I am also “surprised” by the difficulty that ensues, attributing it to my own faults and failures, and not necessarily looking at is as a good measure by which the Lord invokes my discomfort in this world to ignite the memory of the world I actually belong to. Peter Kreeft, in his book, The God Who Loves You, puts it nicely saying, “The thorns and thistles that spring up after the fall prevent us from contentedly sleeping in our exile and mistaking it for home.” Agreed. Suffering, a medium through which God expresses his love for us or as the author defines it “God’s love getting its way”, is also the avenue by which we look temptation in the eye and remind it that is not the landlord of our soul… God is. That our feelings are not governing our thoughts and actions, but rather God, being primary, who determines the direction and duration of our suffering in order to rend for himself a heart ready to love him fully and completely. We idolize God because he is worthy. We deny the idolatry of all else because we understand the failure in making anything tantamount to God. Again, Kreeft notes that, “we must always think of first things first. Then second things will fall into place. We will see the temptation to idolize those second things for what it is: sheer folly.”

Recognizing that folly and, subsequently, the priority of God’s love, is so important when fostering relationships of love with other people. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “The knowledge of God humbles us to the dust; and in that position you do not think about your rights and your dignity. You have no need any longer to protect yourselves, because you feel you are unworthy of everything.” This loss of protection is part humility and part trusting God. As we remove the temporary fences we have guarded our heart with for so long, we are sensitive to the elements of community and the weather of God’s love. We are exposed, but our exposure now means, as CS Lewis says, “(that) when we are such that He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.”

In love we find happiness. In happiness, we find something far different from that pedestrian definition that we’re given in grade school. We find that the glory of God is man fully alive. We find God’s love not by hiding who it is we truly are, as if we could actually be misunderstood by God, but by being fully known… For love and vulnerability are often synonymous in the kingdom of God. Such as love and suffering often find the same end. Lewis perpetuates this notion by affirming that “It is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love, but for less.” I may “want” less love in my mind, but I certainly do not wish for it in my heart.

More love may resemble more pain while we dwell here on earth. Love is not easy though I mistakenly entered into this month thinking that. We are only loved as we are fully known and we only love as we fully know both God and others. We are not called to a life of neatly wrapped packages and easy escapes. Love encompasses less of what we want, yet more of what we need. To do it well, it requires that we put first things first and be completely sold out to the master plan of both blessing and suffering that God has designed for us.