To Gloirfy and Enjoy

The ladies and I have been continuing to meet to discuss Ann Voskamp's 25 Points Manifesto. The topics have been rich fodder for discussion and each week I come away blessed, challenged, and encouraged. So much of the depth and meaning behind AV's 25 Points is rooted in understanding your purpose and pursuing that with focus and intention every day. But I think we over complicate this a bit as we get hung up on our purpose. Westminster's Shorter Catechism, Question One asks, "What is the chief end of man?" (put another way, "what is man's purpose?"). The answer, "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." It is that simple. Notice I say simple, not easy. I don't think this is an easy endeavor, but it is a simple one in that we can all, no matter the stage of life, no matter the circumstances were in, no matter the questions we have about our future or what, specifically we should be at work doing, we can all daily seek to glorify God and enjoy Him within the context of our day.

Part of glorifying and enjoying comes from the habits we develop. Do we affirm others daily? Not necessarily the same people, but do we just seek to encourage and speak life into others intentionally every day? Do we talk with God every day? - casually, as we go about our chores, tasks, play.. Do we acknowledge Him in the flowers pushing up through the snow? Or in the birds' songs in the air? Do we seek the enrichment of the Spiritual Disciplines? Stopping throughout the day to pray with focus for things outside of our immediate heart's cry? It is easy to seek God in prayer with the issues close to our heart, but He calls us to intercede for more than our own burdens. We are to pray for our nation, pray for the persecuted church, pray for the lost, pray for sick...

In our weekly meetings on these topics, we've tossed so many great ideas around, I think the easiest thing to do is throw out a bullet list of ideas for enhancing your walk with Jesus:

• Pray the Hours
• Go through The Hour that Changes the World
• Assign prayer categories to the days of the week: Praying for family on Friday, Others on Thursday, the Nation on Monday, etc. 
• Talk a walk daily for the purpose of seeing God in Nature and prayer.
• Light a candle every day for the purpose of contemplating that the Light of the World is with you and in you and wants to shine through you. 
• Post images in your home or office to remind you that your treasure is in heaven, that the end goal is to hear "well done," or to remember that the battle has already been won and victory is yours.
• Incorporate prayer into your chores and tasks - pray for family members while you fold their clothes, pray for those without access to clean water while you wash your dishes...
• Set a gentle alarm to stop you at certain points in the day for prayer or worship or reading Scripture
• Record your blessings daily - in a journal, on a wall, a calendar, somewhere keep track of the things God is doing big and small.
• Find some place and some time in your daily life to be a sanctuary, a "war room." - Maybe a laundry closet, a sun room, or even your car. Spend time in that space daily with the purpose of drawing near to God.

The most important thing is to do whatever works. Do something! Don't allow mindlessness and complacency to have a place in your life. Embrace wherever you are, knowing God is near and longs for time with you. But let yourself off the hook. The time He is seeking is not some deeply religious, intellectual or emotional foray into Scripture and theology. (Even though those are great and have their place.) God just wants to do life with us. He wants to walk the isles of the grocery store with us, sit at the kitchen counter and chat while we make dinner or do dishes, curl up with us on the couch at the end of a long day. To invite Him into the mundane moments is to glorify and enjoy Him. The truly beautiful thing is, as we learn to do this daily, our days become less mundane and more purpose-filled. Not because we've sold it all and raced to the mission field, but because He is there. Where we are. And we know it.

Judas Moments

I'm about to lose some of you by admitting to watching "Tyler Perry's The Passion" - I blame my friend who told me about it and I blame a lazy Saturday morning, when I should be doing dishes or homeschool prep. I will admit to much of the program being a bit too sensational and cheesy for my taste, but one scene in particular really struck me. The scene of Judas' betrayal and the arrest of Jesus:




We often vilify Judas, perhaps forgetting that he was a follower of Christ - one of the inner twelve who lived, ate, worked and traveled with Jesus for three years before this fateful night. Judas had hope, just like us. He had dreams and goals. He wanted more out of life, to live with purpose, to make a difference. But he was plagued by a darkness he just couldn't shake. We can all relate to that. So he turned to Jesus - just like so many of us have done.

Judas looked to Jesus to fix it - he did well. But Judas saw fixing it with a very limited definition - one which left Jesus with no choice but to leave Judas as he was - with his demons hiding inside. Oftentimes, we turn to Christ in the midst of a crisis, expecting our version of "fixing." How often does our limited vision limit the very healing we are seeking? How often does our insistence that it be fixed OUR way, arrest Jesus - stop him in his tracks, and force us to experience separation from him and his will?

Truth is, we all have Judas Moments. Moments when we wrestle with our lives or our situations being fixed our way or His. Judas shows us how bleak our way is. Our way doesn't lead to anything being fixed at all. Our way leads to devastation, destruction and death. But Christ's way leads to victory. His way doesn't pass over the devastation, destruction and death of this world, it passes through them, thereby conquering them. His way leads to the Cross, which leads to the Resurrection, which leads to His Return, which leads to our Everlasting Glory in Heaven. Oh that we might chose His way.