The Practice of Godliness

WISE WORDS from Jerry Bridges:

I have been in a full-time Christian ministry for well over twenty-five years nd have served both overseas and in the United States. During this time I have met many talented and capable Christians, but I think I have met fewer godly Christians. The emphasis of our age is on serving God, accomplishing things for God. Enoch was a preacher of righteousness in a day of gross ungodliness, but God saw fit that the brief account of his life emphasized that he walked with God [Genesis 5:18-24]. What are we training ourselves for? Are we training ourselves only in Christian activity, as good as that may be, or are we training ourselves first of all in godliness?

(Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness, NavPress (Colorado, Colorado Springs), 1996, pp 33-34.)

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 8

Obedience

Why don’t people ask us about our hope? The answer is probably that we look as if we hope in the same things they do. Our lives don’t look like they are on the Calvary road, stripped down for sacrificial love, serving others with the sweet assurance that we don’t need to be rewarded in this life. Our reward is great in heaven ... If we believed this more deeply, others might see the worth of God and find in him their gladness. (DWYL, p 109)

If you were arrested and accused of being a practising Christian would there be enough evidence to convict you?

A number of years ago David Cook, Principal of Sydney Missionary and Bible College (SMBC) read a book by Michael Hart called The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History in which the author ranks not the best, or the greatest people in history, but rather the most influential. We might expect Jesus to be right up there at Number One, but unfortunately he is ranked at Number Three. According to David Cook, “Hart, who claims to be neither a Muslim nor a Christian, has put Mohammed first because in his observation of Muslims and Christians, Mohammed has far more influence over the lives of Muslims than Jesus Christ does over the lives of Christians”(p 10). Or as Cook puts it: “… Christians, from [Hart’s] observation, do not widely follow, believe or take heed of their Lord and Master, Jesus Christ” (David Cook, The Unheeded Christ, Christian Focus Publications Ltd (Fearn, Ross-shire), 2008, p 10).

It’s not easy to hear that kind of judgement, is it? But fair or not, non-Christians have a pretty clear idea of how Christians should behave and they’re quick to spot inconsistencies between what they think we practise and what they think we preach. And fair or not, they judge our God by the lives we lead and the decisions we make.

In three excellent chapters towards the end of Don’t Waste Your Life, Piper exhorts us to think carefully about what we do for God, and why. Making much of Christ from 8 to 5 is probably the best and clearest thing I have read on the Christian understanding of work. His challenge to all Christians to adopt a wartime lifestyle, and his emphasis on the imperative of mission in a world where so many still have not heard the gospel, deserve reading and re-reading. But I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that the ‘doing’ aspect of obedience finds its foundation in the ‘believing’. As Christopher Ash so aptly puts it:

On-going obedience is the outworking of our salvation (Philippians 2:12). It is not a subsequent thing – a consequence of faith; it is faith in its concrete expression. (Christopher Ash, The Briefing, Issue 365, Matthias Media (Kingsford, NSW), February 2009, p 21.)

If I read his words closely, John Piper makes it clear that a single God-centred, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion can only come from a belief in the saving work of Jesus for sinners. He is adamant that the enjoyment of God’s blessings this side of the cross (and in the life to come) should point me in constant thanks and worship to the Saviour who died, and rose again. Giving God the glory, living for him, and dying for him, is not a waste, but the only life worth living.

I’d like to give the final words to an ancient preacher:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

The Lamentation

Lee Carter has provided this prayer to accompany yesterday's post:

THE LAMENTATION
(Old Version, 1562)

O Lord, turn not away Thy face
From him who lies prostrate
Lamenting sore his sinful life
Before Thy mercy gate;

Which gate Thou openest wide to those
That do lament their sins;
Shut not the gate against me, Lord,
But let me enter in.

So come I to Thy mercy-gate,
Where mercy doth abound,
Requiring mercy for my sin
To heal my deadly wound.

Mercy, good Lord, mercy I ask,
This is the total sum;
For mercy, Lord, is all my suit;
Lord, let Thy mercy come.

John Marckant (1560)

From: Michael Card, A Sacred Sorrow, NavPress (Colorado Springs, Colorado), 2005, p 160

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 7

Regret and remorse

“I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” No doubt, the regret and remorse behind those anguished words from the old man at the revival meeting (p 12) ensured they were words young John Piper never forgot. I wonder about the old man, and find myself hoping that, in God’s kindness, he soon knew the hope and joy of salvation in Jesus. But given the depth of his sorrow over what might have been, and given John Piper’s emphasis on not wasting our lives, I think it’s worth asking some questions. If I am a Christian, what should I do with feelings of regret and remorse? If I am convinced I have wasted my life (maybe even for just a short time) how do I deal with that knowledge or memory?

Regret is something I feel when I am sorry about something, especially something that is lost or gone, or my fault. Remorse is even stronger because it involves a “deep and painful regret for wrong-doing”, an uneasy conscience and genuine penitence (The Macquarie Dictionary, p 1438). One of the best-known examples in the Bible is Psalm 51 – a striking and heartfelt expression of penitence by King David, after the prophet Nathan confronted him with his adultery with Bathsheba. David confesses his sin and guilt before God, and recognises his desperate need of God’s purifying forgiveness and restoration. And he describes his inner state with the words:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)

‘Contrite’ and ‘contrition’ are not words often heard today, even among Christians. But maybe they should be, because even my secular dictionary defines contrition as “a sorrow for and detestation of sin with a true purpose of amendment, arising from a love of God for His own perfections” (The Macquarie Dictionary, p 405).

The apostle Paul described himself as the foremost of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), and he said this about contrition: “For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Paul was directly responsible for the terrible persecution of the early church, and had more reason than most people to regret his past; if he had cried, “I’ve wasted it! I’ve wasted it!” it would be easy to understand. But because he knew true repentance, forgiveness and salvation in the Lord Jesus, his confidence was placed firmly in his Saviour’s righteousness and sacrificial death, enabling him to live without regret: free from regret, but ever conscious of his status as the foremost of sinners.

In God’s economy I don’t think anything is ever wasted for he can – and does – bring good out of evil. He has the power to do so, the willingness to do so and the plan to do so. Through Paul – the foremost of sinners – God brought good out of evil, growing the body of believers and spreading the good news of salvation throughout the nations of the ancient world. But overshadowing all of this is the cross on which Jesus was crucified – the ultimate evil which God turned to the ultimate good.

The more we grow in grace and the more we know of God, of Christ and of ourselves, the greater will be the depth of our mourning at how far we fall short of consistently living ‘in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ’ (Philippians 1:27). It is totally out of character for a true Christian to treat sin lightly, commit sin deliberately or remember sin cheerfully … Mourning for sin is not the same as hopeless confession of guilt. God calls us to mourn in the assurance that if we do he will graciously respond in blessing. Biblical mourning for sin is not self-centred. It does not wallow in despair, it looks for deliverance.

(John Blanchard, The Beatitudes for Today, Day One Publications (Epsom,UK), 1996 (2nd printing 1999, pp 101-102.)

Your obituary

Have you ever wondered what people would write about you in your obituary? What would you want them to say?

“A pacifist at heart and an inventor by nature, Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite. However, the invention that he thought would end all wars was seen by many others as an extremely deadly product. In 1888, when Alfred's brother Ludvig died, a French newspaper mistakenly ran an obituary for Alfred which called him the "merchant of death." Not wanting to go down in history with such a horrible epitaph, Nobel created a will that soon shocked his relatives and established the now famous Nobel Prizes.”

Jennifer Rosenberg http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/nobelhistory.htm (viewed 6/3/09)

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 6

Life in the light of death

Back in the 1980s a popular bumper sticker claimed that “The one with the most toys wins!”. It was an amusing claim, but it revealed something more serious, something darker somehow. I wonder if anyone ever asked “Wins what?”. So much of life is about competition; we strive to be the best we can be, perhaps even hoping someone else isn’t better than our best. We might compare ourselves to others, evaluating our success by calculating our stockpile of ‘toys’, hoping that one day we can withdraw from the race and enjoy our toys in peace and serenity. Maybe that’s what you ‘win’?

In Anne Tyler’s novel A Patchwork Planet, the main character Barnaby Gaitlin is a young man struggling through life, doing odd jobs for elderly people for a small fee. Over time a number of his regular clients die. On one particular day he is employed by the family of an elderly woman who has died, to help sort through her home, and during the course of the day Barnaby has a revelation:

Every now and then, in this job, I suddenly understood that you really, truly can’t take it with you. I don’t think I ordinarily grasped the full implications of that. Just look at all the possessions a dead person leaves behind: every last one, even the most treasured. No luggage is permitted, no carry-on items, not a purse, not a pair of glasses. You spend seven or eight decades acquiring your objects, arranging them, dusting them, insuring them; then you walk out with nothing at all, as bare as the day you arrived. (Anne Tyler, A Patchwork Planet, Vintage (London, UK), pp 284-285)

It’s possible to get caught up in the physical world around us, becoming attached to our possessions, careers and social position, all the time worrying if we have acquired enough ‘toys’ to ‘win’. But John Piper warns us that not only are we in danger of forgetting we can’t take the toys with us, but we also have no idea when the referee is going to call “Time!” and blow the final whistle: will it be in two years, in forty years, or at 3 o’clock this afternoon? Death informing life is an important principle for every Christian, and Piper expands on this further:

Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. The dying I have in mind is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland. These may be taken from us at any time in the path of Christ-exalting obedience. To die daily the way Paul did, and to take up our cross daily the way Jesus commanded, is to embrace this life of loss for Christ’s sake and count it gain. (DWYL p 71)

Personally, I’ve found it really helpful to read Luke 12:13-34 to find out what Jesus said about possessions and our mortality. Ask yourself ‘how does the reality of my death, and my ignorance of its timing, change my perspective on life and what’s important’? How does dying daily shape my priorities?

Authentic faith

“I asked a friend of mine about her impression of a Christian conference she had attended. This friend is by no means a critical woman, but I could hear her heart’s sadness as she said, “Virtually every emphasis was on how to become more fulfilled, more successful, healthier, you name it. It just seemed like a very self-centered approach to me.” It’s a fine line to walk, because, in general, we will prosper when we listen to God’s wisdom for handling money. Our relationships and families will be stronger when we adopt the attitudes and virtues of Jesus Christ. We will experience more joy as we walk in obedience, and God does bless us in many ways – but if any of these blessings become the focus, or even worse, the purpose, of our faith, we have slipped from practicing an authentic faith and substituted instead a gross distortion. Christianity was birthed in sacrifice …” (Gary L Thomas, Authentic Faith, Zondervan (Grand Rapids, Michigan), 2002, p 201).

Photo from www.iam-usa.com

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 5

More on risk

The strength to risk losing life in this world is faith in the promise that he who loses his life in this world will save it for the age to come. This is very different from heroism and self-reliance. When we risk losing face or money or life because we believe God will always help us and use our loss, in the end, to make us more glad in his glory, then it’s not we who get the praise because of our courage; it’s God who gets the praise because of his care. In this way risk reflects God’s value, not our [valour]. (DWYL, p 90)

Some people thrive on risk – skydivers and mountaineers come to mind. But most of us seek to avoid risk and go to great lengths to insure against it. I’m wondering if our aversion to risk sometimes translates into a desire to be safe in our Christian lives: to be secure in God’s arms, protected and loved, and to enjoy all the benefits of that. Sitting in prayer group several years ago, I listened as the mums around me asked for safety and protection for our children in half a dozen different ways – the kind of prayers I’ve uttered myself, many times. (My children are now independent drivers, so it’s a familiar kind of prayer!) Suddenly I was aware that I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. But what could be so disturbing about asking God for something so reasonable and natural?

The world seems to have changed a lot in recent years. The focus of media reporting is doom and gloom: disasters, wars, terrorism, global warming, and the world’s current economic meltdown, to name a few. As a result, it seems that we see the world increasingly as dangerous and unstable, and we crave peace and protection, especially for our children. It’s good and right for Christian parents to be concerned for the safety and welfare of their children, for our young ones are dependent and vulnerable, and God requires that we care for them. But what do we really want for them, as we pray for protection?

In the prayer group situation, I think I began to wonder if our clear thinking about what we want our kids to be protected from was matched by a reciprocal clarity about what we want them to be protected for. Success, comfort, and a happy and prosperous life perhaps? Do we spend as much time in prayer for their salvation, their growth in godliness and their part in following Jesus and sharing the good news with the lost? Can we honestly say that we would rejoice if our child came home in their final school year and announced that they had decided to become a missionary in Russia, Colombia or Afghanistan? What would we advise them to do?

Mothers, godmothers, grandmothers and aunts all have the power to influence the choices children make and the direction they take in life; whether you are aware of it or not, your priorities will be communicated to the children you know and love. At a Bible study recently, a very honest, young mum shared how God had helped her to see how much she was emphasising school work and extra-curricular activities with her sons, rather than reading the Bible and praying with them. She saw how her own inner priorities were affecting the way she parented and immediately repented; now she is seeking to care for her children in a way which reflects her changed priorities.

So what are the concerns which shape our own prayers and priorities? In Suffering and the Sovereignty of God John Piper observes that today’s Christians have much to learn from accounts of the persecution of the early church, which eventually led to the spread of the gospel to the nations. He continues:

… comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom often cause a tremendous inertia in the church. The very things that we think would produce personnel and energy and creative investment of time and money for the missionary cause instead produce the exact opposite: weakness, apathy, lethargy, self-centeredness, and preoccupation with security … Persecution can have harmful effects on the church, but prosperity seems even more devastating to the mission God calls us to. My point here is not that we should seek persecution … The point is that we should be very wary of prosperity and excessive ease and comfort and affluence. (p 102)

Rib Cage

Lee Carter has provided another poetic treat to accompany Thursday's post.

Stephen Rue, Jonah in the Whale, oil on canvas, 26.25"x25", 2006. From www.artisttrust.org.

Rib Cage

Jonah, you
and I were both signs
to unbelievers.

Learning the anatomy
of ships and sea animals the hard way –
from the inside
out – you counted (bumping your stubborn head)
the wooden beams and the great
curving bones
and left
your own heart unexplored.
And you were tough.
Twice, damp and undigested
you were vomited. For you
it was the only
way out.

No, you wouldn’t die.
Not even burial softened you
and, free of the dark sea prisons,
you were still
caged in yourself – trapped
in your own hard continuing rage
at me and Nineveh.

For three nights
and three days dark as night –
as dark as yours –
I charted the innards
of the earth. I too swam
in its skeleton, its raw underground.
A captive
in the belly of the world
(like the fish, prepared by God)
I felt the slow pulse at the monster’s heart,
tapped its deep arteries, wrestled
its root sinews, was bruised
by the undersides of all
its cold bony stones.

Submerged,
I had to die, I had
to give in to it, I had to go
all the way down
before I could be freed
to live for you
and Nineveh.

Luci Shaw, from Polishing the Petoskey Stone, Selected Poems, Regent College Publishing
(Vancouver, BC), 2003, p.49-50

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 4

Risk

Why is there such a thing as risk? Because there is such a thing as ignorance. If there were no ignorance there would be no risk. Risk is possible because we don’t know how things will turn out. This means that God can take no risks. He knows the outcome of all his choices before they happen … But not so with us. We are not God; we are ignorant. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. God does not tell us in detail what he intends to do tomorrow or five years from now. (DWYL, p 80)

Have you ever read the story of Jonah the Old Testament prophet? Reading John Piper’s chapter “Risk is right – Better to lose your life than to waste it” I was reminded of Jonah. When God commanded Jonah to travel to the ancient and powerful city of Nineveh with a message of God’s judgement, Jonah ran in the opposite direction. This was a risky venture he wanted nothing to do with! Imagine taking such a message to a city which represented all that was most persuasive, influential and sinful about human society.

So, thinking he was taking the safe route, Jonah headed west when God said ‘Go east, young man!’ and ended up in the belly of a great fish in the depths of the sea. Jonah knew his disobedience was being challenged by God and so after three days and nights he cried out to the Lord in an impassioned prayer, asking for deliverance, perhaps understanding that he was being given another chance. This proved to be another risky venture because God then reiterated his command for Jonah to go to Nineveh with his message of impending judgement.

At this point in the story it’s not hard to imagine Jonah trudging grumpily and reluctantly towards Nineveh, muttering under his breath. But he obeyed God and pronounced God’s judgement upon that great city. No sooner had Jonah finally done the deed, than the entire city – king and noblemen included – was swept by a wave of genuine repentance. “Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish”, decreed the king (Jonah 3:8-9). And to the prophet’s utter disgust, this is exactly what happened: the people repented of their sin and God forgave them, sparing them from his just punishment. Why was Jonah so cranky? Because God had once again shown his true colours – “for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster,” Jonah complained! (Jonah 4:2).

He thought the Ninevites didn’t deserve to be let off the hook, and in a way he was right – nobody deserves forgiveness. But Jonah’s anger knew no bounds now for he asked God to let him die; the ready repentance of the pagan Ninevites had shown up the ungodliness and disobedience of God’s own people, including Jonah. Jonah was angry that God had exercised his sovereign right to have mercy on whom he will have mercy (Exodus 33:19).

As it happens, God’s mercy and grace extended even to Jonah, but he did not relent from his righteous and compassionate purpose. Jonah discovered that belonging to God is a risk in itself for God’s ways are not our ways. But he also discovered something Adrian Plass describes so well:

He will keep us safe, not as the world keeps us safe, but by bringing us to the centre of his will. (Adrian Plass, Jesus Safe Tender Extreme, Zondervan (Grand Rapids, Michigan), 2006, p 151)

When Jonah headed for Tarshish, he desperately hoped he was headed for safety, but the opposite proved to be the case. Belonging to God meant that he needed to trust God, to love God as he is (not trying to mould him to his own specifications) and to find safety in the centre of God’s loving will. God doesn’t promise that we will not have to take risks. He asks us to take the one and only ‘risk’ worth taking: trusting him. Then safe in him, we can be sure we will not waste our lives.

On His Blindness

Lee Carter has provided another wonderful poem to accompany yesterday's post.

Milton Dictating to His Daughter by Henry Fuseli

On His Blindness
by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-labour, light deny’d.
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and waite.

John Milton (1608 – 1674), The Penguin Book of English Verse, Penguin Books (London, UK), 1956, p 147. [The final line of this poem was the official motto of The Royal Observatory Corps in Britain whose members served on the home front for many years, and with particular distinction during WWII.]

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 3

Passion

Are you ever tempted to think that what you do, day after day, is not useful enough? Or maybe that what you have done with your gift of salvation isn’t significant enough? Perhaps reading Don’t Waste Your Life causes you to give in to this temptation; the book might seem to be aimed at the young, the able, the talented, the brave or the risk-takers – the ones who can and will make a difference.

Certainly, some of the language John Piper uses sounds very heroic – not the stuff of everyday, humdrum life. When I’m up to my elbows in housework, or burdened with a ‘to-do’ list that only seems to get bigger, what do I do with the following statement? How does it apply to where I am right now?

But whatever you do, find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life. (p 47)

It’s an inspiring and motivating way to talk. But how do I find this passion? What if I’m frail or weak, or I’m tied-down with responsibilities I cannot control? What if I find the God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of my life and I give it my all, but it doesn’t seem to result in a difference that lasts? Will I have I wasted my life?

This is when it’s good to consider the context of what Piper says – the context of the whole book and Piper’s own passion. If you’ve read anything else written by John Piper, or heard any of his sermons, it is as obvious as the nose on your face that this man is gripped by a genuine, consistent and compelling passion: that God would be glorified and that people everywhere would find their delight in God. In a way his book Desiring God – now a Christian classic – established a theme by expounding the driving passion of Piper’s life. And in a way, Don’t Waste Your Life is a variation on that theme; the theme is still there, it’s just presented in a different way. But I think that’s what’s so infectious and convincing about John Piper: he really does live and breathe the all-consuming passion he writes about. He can’t help himself!

In Don’t Waste Your Life Piper is urging us to be single-minded in the way we live as Christians, for to be anything else is to waste the gift of life. He is backing up the apostle James who warns us not to be in two minds and doubt God. Instead James urges us to be single-minded in trusting God and drawing near to him in humble repentance (James 1:6-8; 4:8-10). Jesus himself warns us that it is not possible to have divided loyalties and serve two masters, for we will love one and hate the other (Luke 16:13). Or as Piper puts it, to follow Jesus we need to have a God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion which we live and die for, and this is the only way not to waste the gift of eternal life which is ours through Jesus. I think the difference it makes is firmly in God’s hands. Do we trust him for that, or not?

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 2

Prodigality

But whatever you do, find the God-centred, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated passion of your life, and find your way to say it and live for it and die for it. And you will make a difference that lasts. You will not waste your life. (DWYL p 47)

There’s a famous parable told by Jesus which many people know today as the story of The Prodigal Son. A young man demands his inheritance from his father, leaves home and squanders all he has on high living. Eventually the money runs out and he becomes destitute and starving, caring for a farmer’s pigs. He comes to his senses and resolves to return to his father, confess his wrongdoing and unworthiness to be called his son. He decides to offer to become a servant in his father’s household. However, the father – who has spent the years watching and waiting for his son’s return – runs to meet him when he is still far away, embraces him and rejoices over his return. Restoring to him the honour of sonship, the father orders a huge party to celebrate the return of the one who had been lost to him.

It’s an astonishing parable which captures every nuance of salvation by God’s grace: the waywardness of the lost, the need for repentance, the compassionate and forgiving love of the father, the undeserved and costly restoration. So many profound concepts contained in this one short story. And yet I can remember a time when I felt outraged by the forgiveness of the father. In truth, I identified with the older son in the story, who could only see the sin of his brother and his own (self-)righteousness. But that’s how it is if you are convinced that you must earn God’s love; perceiving that you have earned the Father’s love through what you do, you believe you deserve it. And the worst of it is that your belief in the worthiness of your own efforts, completely negates the worthiness of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross – his payment for the sin you cannot see and will not acknowledge. It’s a soul-hammering realisation when the legalist finally understands salvation by grace alone, through Christ alone. As it is for anyone. But it’s interesting that Jesus includes the older brother in the story.

For me, the light only came on when I understood that – just like everyone else – I was the prodigal son and – like him – I had indeed wasted the gift of life. That’s what prodigal means: wastefully or recklessly extravagant (The Macquarie Dictionary p 1355). Like the old man whose heart was opened to the gospel of Christ through John Piper’s father (p 12), every sinner must come to the realisation that they have wasted it. Life lived apart from God is life wasted. But in Don’t Waste Your Life John Piper wants us to see that even the gift of salvation and eternal life can be wasted, like a piggy bank kept on a shelf, occasionally dusted but never added to, sometimes admired but never filled. Like the couple (p 46) who retired early in order to cruise in their boat, play softball and collect shells – we can have a wonderful gift and yet still squander it.

Polishing the Petoskey Stone

Lee Carter provided this poem to accompany yesterday's post:

Polishing the Petoskey Stone

Petoskey Stone (Hexagonaria) – a petrified colony coral 350 million years old, found on beaches in Michigan


My friend says, “Spit on it, and rub
the surface. See the pattern?”
In its hammock of lines I lift the pebble
the color of a rain cloud, cradle it
a thousand miles. Holding

the steering wheel in one hand, the grey
oval curved to my other palm, we move,
a ripple across the map to Kansas, while
I rub its softness in ellipses
Against a rough shore of denim and wool.

The second day it starts
to shine like glycerine soap. As I buff it
smooth, the print rises to the surface –
the silk stone honeycombed with
eyes opening from a long sleep

between lashes of fine spines. Born
eons ago in a warm sea over
Michigan, buried in a long, restless
dream, now the old coral wakes
to the waves of cloth.

Luci Shaw, from Polishing the Petoskey Stone, Selected Poems, Regent College Publishing (Vancouver, BC), 2003, p.8

Don't Waste Your Life - Pt 1

Beginnings

Have you ever thought back over your life with a sense of regret or remorse? Ever wished with all your heart that you had made different choices or walked a different path? Maybe you find it difficult not to think about what might have been if only you had had a different background or different talents. Do you think “I could have done so much more, or done so much better, if only …?”

It’s interesting that I was asked to put together some thoughts about Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper, because there was a time in my life when I was convinced that I had wasted it – and that I would never be able to make up for it. That’s the awful thing about time past – like sand running through your hand, it’s gone, for you can’t hold it and you can’t get it back.

Life didn’t turn out the way I expected when I graduated from university in the early 80s. I looked for work – any work – but for many months could find nothing. In the end I got mad. I was angry with the world, angry with the economy, angry with myself (“what’s wrong with me?”) and most of all angry with God. So I found a job in Canada, bought a one-way ticket and left for the other side of the world.

For two and a half years I travelled the world, looking for a meaningful life, looking for love and looking for God. The problem was I took myself along, and I was still hurt and angry. I hadn’t wanted to waste my life – I’d wanted to do something worthwhile for God – but here I was trying to fix things and it seemed like I was being punished.

Whilst overseas I got involved with a group which seemed to be Christian and which appealed to my desire to do something worthwhile with my life. I worked for them for over a year, but eventually cut ties with them. The longer I stayed with them, the more confused I became about who God was, and how I should live for him. It all seemed to be about what I did – but I always seemed to always make a hash of things and couldn’t bear the burden of guilt any longer.

In God’s great kindness and mercy he rescued me from the bonds of legalism, bonds that tied my worth and my salvation to my efforts. But it took many painful years. And although I eventually came to understand and depend upon the wonder of grace, and the saving work of Jesus on the cross, there are still days when I am tempted to ask God why – why did I have to go through that? What use could those wasted years be?

To be honest, once I had got about halfway through reading Don’t Waste Your Life I had to put it away for a time and come back to it later. Even now – many years later – it’s difficult for me avoid the old legalistic thought patterns. I begin to think again that I’m not getting things right, that I’m not useful enough, that I’m wasting time. And I wonder what possible use those wasted past years could be. But, if you will share the journey with me, I’d like to tell you a few things I have discovered about God over the last ten years or so, and how reading Don’t Waste Your Life has helped me to think them through on a deeper level.

Meet this month's contributor - Lee Carter

This month's contributor is Lee Carter. We thought before we heard her thoughts on this month's book Don't Waste Your Life, we'd do a short interview so we can 'get to know' her a little first!

How did you come to faith in Christ?

I’m a PK (preacher’s kid), so I grew up in a Christian home. When I was very young my Dad was a Methodist minister in country South Australia, and some of my earliest memories are of going to church and Sunday School every week. I grew up never doubting that God existed – I was always certain he was there. As I grew older however, I began to equate being Christian with being well-behaved and doing the right thing. As a teenager, I became anxious about my standing before God, uncertain of what he was like, and didn’t understand how he could love me if I kept letting him down. Even though I made a commitment in my late teens at a Leighton Ford crusade, an enduring uncertainty about God’s grace and how it applied to me, continued into my early thirties. Then – in his great mercy – God helped me to understand more clearly what he was really like, and how his overflowing love had saved me through the Lord Jesus.

What do you love most about reading?

Reading feeds my soul and my brain. I’m a profoundly introverted person by nature – I live a lot of my life in my head – so for me the outward interactions of everyday life require a lot of energy. I love people, but sooner or later they wear me out, and I need to go and recharge. Because it’s an inward activity, reading is one thing that recharges my energy supplies. Reading widens my horizons and stretches my ideas and, importantly, it is a primary way in which I learn to know and love God more.

What is your favourite novel?

How long is a piece of string? As a child I progressed from Petunia (Roger Duvoisin) and Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren) to Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five series. Later came Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery), whom I adored. I read all the Anne books, and then as a teenager, almost everything Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer ever wrote. But then in my mid-teens I was introduced to Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) and To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). Although very different, these two novels gave me a deeper love for literature itself – the art of good writing. Through them I experienced, on a completely different level, the power of the written word to teach life lessons through story telling.

What book has helped you the most in growing in your knowledge of God?

Too hard! I’ll have to cheat and nominate two books, one each from two Christian teachers who have had a hugely positive influence on my knowledge of God.

The first is by Jerry Bridges – Transforming Grace: Living Confidently in God’s Unfailing Love. The Lord used this book to work a miracle of grace in my understanding of who he is, what he is like and how he regards me. It moved me out of the trap of legalism and into the freedom of grace. I read it over and over until I ‘got it’, and although it took years to undo a lifetime of wrong ideas about God, it was the catalyst for this transformation to begin.

The second is The Invisible Hand: Do All Things Really Work for Good? by RC Sproul, a well-known Reformed theologian. In this book RC Sproul combines his training in theology, philosophy and logic, and his love of God and Scripture to produce a book which examines God’s providence in the lives of those who love him. Sproul examines the sometimes bewildering, even devastating things which have afflicted God’s people from biblical times until now. He does this in the context of God’s sovereignty, and asks big questions like ‘if God is sovereign, is there such a thing as chance?’ and ‘can God’s sovereignty and human free will coexist?’ His rigorous logic – with a bit of Latin thrown in – makes my brain hurt, but the gift of this book for me is a sure foundation for belief in a loving, sovereign God who is “our fortress, our shield, and our very great reward”.