Making room for Wisdom

Making room for Wisdom.

Southern California is burning up—all of us, due to high temperatures, and some of us from raging wildfires.  So this morning I headed out on the early side for my workout.  Donning my skates, I hit the Pacific Coast Highway in San Clemente en route to Dana Point and back. 

This is a landmark I skate by, an American flag posted up next to a piece of driftwood at Capo Beach on Nine-Eleven, the Pacific blue waters bumping up against it.  Skating, listening to God-honoring music not only lifts my arms in praise, but my heart as well.

It is important for Christ followers to be in shape.  Deciding to get fit means making room for exercise and giving careful attention to proper nutrition.  [This is a great topic for the now because we just spoke about this time of year being the ‘new year’ for some folks—a time to set things straight]  But, you know what?  The same thing applies if you and I want to get spiritually fit.  We must make room.  I mean, really, you invite God “in” and give him what—a little corner of yourself?  ‘Come on in, God; change me, grow me—I’ve given you this little bit of myself . . . so come on, perform!‘ That’s what so many of us do, and then we wonder why nothing really seems to change.

Practicing spiritual disciplines—Bible study, earnest prayer, worshipping God with other like-minded people--is great, but it would be easy to miss that what God really wants is our heart.  He is not interested in just a little corner; he wants all of us.  Maybe we fall backwards in our spiritual walks because we either fail to give him our whole hearts from the ‘get go’, or we just keep knocking him off the throne, and putting ourselves, our wills and wants, ahead of him. 

Hmm, there are so many problems with contemporary Christianity—it just is not very Christ-like, in many respects.  I think that is because we Christians are not a terribly committed lot.  [note to self: the first Christians did not name themselves; people who knew them gave them that name because they were little Christs—that is to say, they lived like Jesus . . .  I’m wondering who watches my life, and says, ‘she is Christ-like’ – and you?  Do people observe your life and know you follow Jesus?  Just a thought]   ‘Seems we are committed to the extent that it suits us, maybe to what is visible to others, but not to where it would inconvenience us or require too much of us.

Yet Jesus taught that following him would be costly; he did not teach that it would make us popular or prosperous.  So if you choose to simply dabble in Christianity that is okay, but honestly, that is all it will be—just okay.  Plus, I’m not sure how interested God is in the fragmented self we offer; after all, God sent the MOST he had,

the MOST he could give,                                                                                                                                                                      the BEST he had . . . his one precious Son. 

Jesus said, ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  He did not say ‘love God with the leftover portion of yourself that you have allotted to God, or ‘spirituality’, as folks like to say now.  Let’s ‘examine and test ourselves and see whether we are in the faith.’¹

‘Fact is, if many of us were honest, we think a little like this guy: “I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please, not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine … I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack.  I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please.”2

‘Many of us believe we have as much of God as we want right now, a reasonable portion of God among all the other things in our lives.’  Most of our thoughts revolve around other things in our workaday worlds, right?  But the fact is, all of this will pass away, yet our souls will remain, so

nothing should consume us more than our relationship with God.

 ‘God is not someone who can be tacked on to our lives.’  And after all, it is about eternity, and nothing compares with that, my friends.

 I challenge you to give yourselves wholly over to God.  Simply tell him,

“God, I let so many things crowd you out—I get lost in the details of my schedule and demands . . . I would like to know you more, and I would like to know how to love you more.  Could you show me?  On this day, I, ____your name___________, surrender my life to you.  I want to live for you, so show me how to be a fully-devoted follower.  Amen”

Christine