Why are you here right now? Why are you on this earth? For that matter, why am I here too?
Sunday School Answer: Because God put us here.
True, but not the whole answer.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it quite nicely:
1. What is the chief end of man?
Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
We are here to bring glory to God. To point to Him and say, "That's my God. He is incredible beyond all imagining, powerful beyond any other strength, and the only Holy One, Who is faithful to His people."
I listened to a podcast on devotions a while ago in which the speaker (I can't remember who it was) made a lot of excellent points and suggestions about how devotions are supposed to work in our lives. One in particular stuck with me.
The first thing we should be looking for when we read the Bible is how this passage reveals God.
Not what it says about Israel. Not what it says about faith. Not how it applies to us.
How it reveals God.
I forget that this life is about God. I'm not here to be happy or successful or anything self-serving. I'm not even here to serve the people around me. I'm here to serve my God and no one else.
Yes, that means serving other people. Maybe it means happiness or success. But those things are not of first importance. God put me right here, right now to serve Him and glorify Him.
Maybe that means giving up my comfort zone. Maybe that means praying for someone who has hurt me. Maybe that means working faithfully when I want to stop.
Whatever it means for me, for you, for everyone, it all comes down to why we're here.
To glorify our God.
-Kira
There's nothing quite like a book that makes you take a good hard look at yourself. Crazy Love is one of those books.
I mentioned Crazy Love a few weeks ago in a different post before I had finished reading it. Now that I'm done, I had to review it because I absolutely loved it.
Francis Chan's Crazy Love is about how incredibly out of this world God's love for us is. It comes through in His every action - from salvation to the creation of caterpillars. Our sin left us with no claim to His love, but He poured it over us anyway. By the bucket full. When we stop and actually try to fathom for a moment the depth of this love, we are left with no other reaction than to pour out our lives in service to Christ.
We have no reason to fear death, no reason to conform to this world, no reason to worry or stress or be caught up with ourselves. This life is about God, even though we're the ones living it. Chan makes that incredibly clear in his book.
Crazy Love is not overly eloquent or complicated. While I usually enjoy finer language in a book, Chan made his point simple and I appreciate that in this case. Rather than detracting from the book, the simplicity of the writing allowed me to focus on the message and how it applies to me.
It took me awhile to reach the point spiritually where I can see the benefit of conviction when I first feel it, rather than wanting to run in the other direction, toward complacency. It has led to a deeper appreciation of books like Crazy Love and how God uses them in my life. Francis Chan is not shy about saying that the church as a whole is not following God completely. But he doesn't just leave it there. In "A Conversation With Francis Chan" at the end of the book, Chan stresses that he's not attacking the church. Rather, he loves the church and wants to urge her to follow Christ's calling.
"I'm not coming up with anything new. I'm calling people to go back to the way it was. I'm not bashing the church. I'm loving it." (Crazy Love, pg 180)
Over all, Crazy Love was a convicting and, more importantly, encouraging read. It has led me to examine my own life and walk with God and to spend more time focusing on Him.
-Kira
So I've been reading a lot about death the last couple days. Not intentionally. It's just happened to come up in a couple books I'm working through this week.
This has resulted in my thinking about death. And the time before death. And how that time should be spent. You know, now that I think about it, this reminds me of one of my semi-recent posts: Borrowed Time.
Anyway, back to today. Let me start by giving you a sampling of what I've been reading and then tell you what's running through my very scattered brain.
The first book is Meditations by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. No, I didn't just pick it up because the cover looks cool - it's for school. To be honest though, I don't totally dread reading it. Aurelius isn't all that boring.
Meditations is a book of personal thoughts, resolutions, and observations of the world from the worldview of a Stoic philosopher/emperor shortly after the time of Jesus. Aurelius' goal was to live a virtuous and moral life. Here are his thoughts on death:
Death: something like birth, a natural mystery, elements that split and recombine.
Not an embarrassing thing. Not an offense to reason, or our nature.
(Meditations, Book 4)
People who are excited by posthumous fame forget that the people who remember them will soon die too. And those after them in turn. Until their memory, passed from one to another like a candle flame, gutters and goes out.
But suppose that those who remembered you were immortal and your memory undying. What good would it do you? And I don't just mean when you're dead, but in your own lifetime. What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a little more comfortable?
(Meditations, Book 4)
Those two excerpts basically cover Aurelius' views on death as told in his Meditations. According to him, death is not something to be feared and there is absolutely no use in trying to get people to remember you and your fame.
The second book I've been reading this week that brought up the subject of death when I least expected it is Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I'm not very far into it yet, but his perspective on death and "posthumous fame" still gave me pause.
In about fifty years (give or take a couple of decades), no one will remember you. Everyone you know will be dead. Certainly no one will care what job you had, what car you drove, what school you attended, or what clothes you wore. This can be terrifying or reassuring, or maybe a mix of both.
(Crazy Love, ch 2)
That's pretty straightforward. The chapter containing these sentences is about how everything and every time is about God - including the miniscule piece of eternity that our lives occupy.
Reading these books at the same time has left me thinking a lot about death, as I mentioned before. But it hasn't been depressing. In fact, the result of all my meditation on death has been that I've been thinking about life a lot. Particularly my life. It may be an easy question, but who is my life supposed to glorify?
Now, Aurelius was not a Christian. In fact, even though his book is full of virtues and morals, he heavily persecuted the Christians. It was a crime not to worship Caesar and guess who the Christians didn't worship? His answer is that your life isn't really meant to glorify anyone. You go about your business, try to do the right things, and eventually die.
Francis Chan on the other hand is a pastor. He is so passionate about his faith. So his answer is that our lives are supposed to glorify God - even though they are incredibly short in light of eternity. He uses the illustration of all of us being extras in a movie about God to make his point.
We have only our two-fifths-of-a-second-long scene to live. I don't know about you, but I want my two-fifths of a second to be about my making much of God. First Corinthians 10:31 says, "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." That is what each of our two-fifths of a second is about.
(Crazy Love, ch 2)
Question: Who is my life supposed to glorify?
Answer: God.
Harder Question: Who does my life glorify?
Harder Answer: Usually me.
It's not natural to instantly give God the glory or to act in every little thing in a way that honors Him. But that's what we've got to strive to do. God is too great and wonderful for us to make this about us! Even Aurelius realized that fame and glory don't actually do us any good. So if they're not going to help us out anyway, we may as well make our lives about God, right?
But that's not how it's supposed to work either. We don't just glorify God because our glory won't last. Our lives should be lived as a response to everything He's done for us. For me, that includes salvation, putting me in the beautiful mountains of Virginia, piecing together my family so that I understand His picture of adoption, letting me be homeschooled, and tons and tons of other stuff. What does it mean for you?
When I think about all the stuff God has given me in my life that I don't deserve, it makes me want to live for Him. Yes, I still mess up. All. The. Time. But His grace means I can try again. I don't have to stay down.
I'm going to leave you with a quote from Francis Chan, because he said it well.
The point of your life is to point to Him. Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His. It is His movie, His world, His gift.
(Crazy Love, ch 2)
-Kira
