Hunting Season

Growing up in Texas in some ways was like growing up in an issue of "Field and Stream." Not that I did much hunting myself—but I had a father, brother, uncles, grandfathers, and cousins who did regularly. I have multiple memories of the women waving goodbye as the guys donned their camo, loaded the pickup trucks, and sat out on hunting trips. Very manly.

Now, hunting is NOT what normally comes to mind when I read something by C.J. Mahaney. But since reading chapter 8 in his Humility book (my department at work is going through it together), I keep asking myself this question: Am I a good hunter?

I'm not talking about deer hunting, or squirrel hunting, or anything else involving forest animals or shotguns. I'm talking about grace hunting.

Am I a grace hunter? In other words, do I find joy in intentionally, actively seeking out evidences of God’s grace in other people?

Here’s something to consider: how much easier is it to be aware of people’s sin than of God’s grace in their lives? We usually notice when there are special, "spectacular" evidences of God’s grace, but it's easy to be oblivious to the little day-to-day outflows—instead picking up on various faults and foibles. But God is always working in His people, and His grace shows itself all the time. Thus the need for grace hunting—for intentionally finding and pointing out the Lord's work—the fruits of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, etc.—in others. Now, this undeniably will take work. Hunting is by definition an active, intentional activity. It takes awareness, alertness, deliberation, patience—and a desire to find what you're hunting

But grace hunting has to be worth the effort. Talk about encouragement. It spurs others on, helping them to be more aware of what God is doing, and builds up the body. It causes more glory and thankfulness to God to overflow. AND it develops humility in us. It changes our attitudes, replacing criticism toward others with love for them and gratitude to the Lord. And it draws us back to the cross again and again, acknowledging our own inherent sinfulness and the incredible transformation the Spirit has worked and is working in us as a result of what Christ has done.

In the end, it makes us able to honestly say to each other, as Paul did to the Corinthians (who admittedly were not a perfect group of believers!), "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus that in everything you were enriched in Him...so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:4-8).

So, my goal is to make the next few weeks my own experimental "hunting season." I want to develop more intentionality and awareness in hunting out the “little” ways God’s grace is on display in my roommates, coworkers, family, and friends. Should be interesting! I doubt I'll end up with a deer head to mount on the wall, but hopefully what I end up with will be a lot better.

Discarding Discontent

Occasionally I like to read Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening--not usually on the correct morning or evening, but, hey, it works.

This week I was particularly struck by Spurgeon’s comments (both the morning and evening for the particular day) about the account of David and his care for Jonathan's son Mephibosheth. (I don't remember the exact reference off the top of my head...it would be somewhere in 2 Samuel, I guess.) Because of his covenant with Jonathan, David hunted down Mephibosheth in order to show kindness to him; he even gave him a seat at his royal table. Spurgeon compared this to how the Lord takes us in and cares for us, treating us like royalty when in reality we're cripples not fit for His table. It's humbling...and makes me so grateful. Mephibosheth said to David something to the effect of, “Why would you give me this honor, when I’m nothing but a dead dog?” It was a profession of a humble, unworthy state. And Mephibosheth’s analogy is pretty fitting for us in a spiritual sense. Actually, we're worse than dogs. At least dogs respond with loyalty and gratitude to a little bit of kindness from their masters...we're showered with favor and blessings and still turn away and bite the hand that feeds us, so to speak. But the Lord keeps showing us grace, and honor, and blessing. What an incredible condescension!

I was feeling sort of off the day that I read these. Pretty soon I was able to identify the feeling as simple discontent. It was that unsettled, unmotivated feeling. I don't know exactly what sparked it, honestly. It didn't seem to be directly related to any specific thing I could put my finger on--but it was there nonetheless, that dull, vague “I don’t want to be here [in this time and this place and these circumstances and whatever else] right now” feeling. Anyway, the Lord was gracious to show me my sin pretty quickly--and reading what Spurgeon said reaffirmed it. I was reminded that wrong feelings are directly rooted in wrong thinking. And discontent is simply a feeling that results from me thinking VERY wrongly about two main things: (1) what I deserve and (2) what I have.

So in conjunction with reading Spurgeon, I was reminded, (1) that I deserve NOTHING...nothing but the wrath of God and His frown and separation from Him for eternity, and (2) instead, I have redemption, salvation, adoption, blessing, favor, all spiritual blessings in Christ, hope of heaven, a promise of glory, the presence of the Holy Spirit, love, peace, mercy, and so on...EVERYTHING.

There's nothing like realizing those things all over again to forcefully evict discontent and make me feel something like Mephibosheth did--grateful and undeserving.

Passion

Everyone is passionate about something, and those of us who know the Lord certainly have some common passions (the Lord, His Word, the gospel, etc.). But God also has given each of us a unique imprint of passions and interests and talents, all to be used for His glory...and our joy in that glory. A friend asked me earlier this week, “What are you passionate about so I can encourage you in those areas?” Great question! (Thanks, Jen.) Here’s a few I came up with (in no particular order):

I'm passionate about rightly studying and teaching the Word. (What I mean here is specifically right hermeneutics and teaching.) I come from a background where the Word wasn't taught well—and I grew up in the church! It’s so saddening to see what happens in churches like that. Moral lessons and motivational “10 steps to this or that” sermons don’t cause real, lasting life-change because they don’t (can’t!) effect real heart-change. I've been so saddened in the last few years when I've talked with old friends, or heard news of them...and seen the sadness, rebellion, depression, dissatisfaction, and immorality in their lives. And these are friends who have been in church and professing Christ for years. It makes me feel physically ill sometimes. I praise God for graciously showing me what His Word can do...how it has changed and keeps changing me. And that makes me want to really, deeply know the Word, and be able to articulate it—and live it out!—so others can experience that, too.

I also love theology. I love the deep cogitations of “old” writers, everyone from Augustine to the Puritans. And I like reading modern systematic theologies and theological journals. I have to be careful with this, actually, because I can easily get lost studying things like infralapsarianism or dispensationalism for hours!

I'm passionate about learning in general. I can pick up just about any book and devour it, whether it's about the Civil War or economics or Chinese mythology. I love websites like Wikipedia and howstuffworks.com. I just love how much there is in this world...sometimes I actually get frustrated because I wish I had more time to take it in—and more brain space to hold it! I adore museums, observatories, libraries...

I'm passionate about using writing as a conduit for truth. I absolutely love that the Lord gave us language, and how powerful written words can be. That's why I chose to study both Bible and Print Media in college—because I wanted so badly to see if the Lord could use my love for language and writing to serve Him.

I'm becoming increasingly passionate about showing love in small, tangible ways—like mailing a card, making a meal, baking some cookies, buying a little gift, or cleaning a house. There's just something so fun to me about showing kindness that way. I want to strive to do this more!

I love the outdoors, particularly hiking and stargazing (and retelling the Greek mythological “stories” behind the constellations). Unfortunately, this is an unfulfilled passion most often, thanks to my schedule. Seriously, though...if I had the time and money and could justify such a self-centered lifestyle, I think I'd spend all my time on mountain trails and under the stars.

What else? Baking, reading and writing poetry, classic literature, my family, my closest friends, good quotes, good conversations about the Lord...and the list goes on. These are just a few!

This isn’t just a fun “all about me” exercise, though. Actually, this quite challenging because I can see where the Lord has given me interests and passions—and how unintentional I often am about using them to serve Him, the One toward whom they were created to be oriented. I’m guilty of making that awful, very false “sacred/secular” dichotomy. Because I do that, I ignore the “secular” passions and don't consider how I can gear them toward serving the Lord. And I also can ignore the “sacred” when I forget that God really does gift each of us differently, for the purpose of building up His body—and so I forget to look for what passions and gifts He’s uniquely outfitted me with.

So here is what I have to ask myself: Which of my God-given passions do I need to develop more? How, specifically? Which have I not necessarily been viewing as opportunities to serve the Lord and others? How can I use those passions/interests for that purpose?

It’s a subject for some reflection, I think...and might be an interesting exercise for any of us.

One more...

I couldn't resist...

Poetry writing, an arduous task
Of mind-numbing phrasing and forcing of rhyme.
It will strain and bring pain to one’s overworked brain,
And most certainly cause mental illness in time.

Poetic Complaints

Yes, it's been an interesting week. I've been back in the poetry-writing saddle at work, trying to compose simple Bible-story poems for the children's curriculum I'm editing (www.generationsofgrace.com). On top of that, I've been reading Tennyson's Idylls of the King (at home, not at work!). The result is that I find myself once again very aware of meter...even thinking in it. Oy!

It's amazing what 2:30 does to the brain...or at least to my brain. In honor of that mind-numbing hour, two days ago I penned (um, "keyed"?) a little unrhymed iambic pentameter (a.k.a. "blank verse").

"2:30 p.m."

Disordered binders jut from crowded shelves
Above my desk, which hosts more of the same.
Each full of grammar and of spelling more
Disordered than the binders that they fill.
The bleak fluorescent lighting overhead
Gives off a dreary hum and dulls my brain.
I eye my coffee mug with some distaste--
It's cold--and, sighing, go back to my work,
Red pen in hand. It's days like this I think
A long vacation's really overdue.

And then yesterday I wrote this one, in honor (and I use that word loosely) of the 350-page dissertation that I'm editing as a side job right now. It's sort of taken over my life. Ugh.

"Hindsight"

If I'd known what it meant when I took on this huge dissertation,
If I'd looked in the future and seen my despair and frustration
And had known that one dollar per page would be scant compensation
For the toil and fatigue and "When will it be done?!" desperation
And had seen that my fate would be mental deterioration,
I can tell you this now: I'd at LEAST have expressed hesitation.
(But perhaps this is good for my ongoing sanctification?)

Sigh...if only the "real" poems, the ones for work, came out of my brain so extemporaneously. Oh, well. Maybe next week I'll compose some, um, positive, non-complaining lines.

Long Live the Wilderness...

Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my favorite poets, for numerous reasons, not the least of which is his amazingly creative use of language--and his ability to coin new words/phrases to express sights, sounds, etc. This poem, called "Inversnaid" (Inversnaid is a waterfall, I think in Ireland), is one of my recent favorites. First, it's an excellent example of Hopkins's incredible language skills. And, second, I love the image he paints here...probably because I'm a nature girl. Whenever I read this poem, I feel like I'm out on a hike, taking in the sight and smell and sound of this tumbling, wild, wet stream. : )

"Inversnaid"

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wilderness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wilderness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

An Incredible Portion

"The Lord is the portion of my inheritance" (Psa 16:5).

Satan once offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world. But Jesus has given us as believers far more than that. In Him, we have GOD HIMSELF. This world is a speck compared to the universe. And the universe is a speck compared to God, who is infinitely great and not even bound by time and space. What's anything in this world worth, then, compared with the greatness of having God Himself as our inheritance?

Contrast the inheritance/portion of the unbeliever and the believer:

"The wicked...men of the world, whose portion is in this life...They are satisfied with children, And leave their abundance to their babes." Their portion is tied to this life and is left behind when they die. BUT: "As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake" (Psa 17:13-15).

God Himself is our portion forever (Psa 73:25)--in heaven in the future, of course, but also right now ("You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living"; Psa 142:5).

I read this last night, from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening. It's "Morning, January 3." (Um, yes, I know it wasn't morning OR January 3...whatever...). This is long but worth reading.

Isaiah 49:8 “I will give thee for a covenant of the people.” Jesus Christ is himself the sum and substance of the covenant, and as one of its gifts. He is the property of every believer. Believer, canst thou estimate what thou hast gotten in Christ? “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Consider that word “God” and its infinity, and then meditate upon “perfect man” and all his beauty; for all that Christ, as God and man, ever had, or can have, is thine—out of pure free favour, passed over to thee to be thine entailed property forever. Our blessed Jesus, as God, is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. Will it not console you to know that all these great and glorious attributes are altogether yours? Has he power? That power is yours to support and strengthen you, to overcome your enemies, and to preserve you even to the end. Has he love? Well, there is not a drop of love in his heart which is not yours; you may dive into the immense ocean of his love, and you may say of it all, “It is mine.” Hath he justice? It may seem a stern attribute, but even that is yours, for he will by his justice see to it that all which is promised to you in the covenant of grace shall be most certainly secured to you.And all that he has as perfect man is yours. As a perfect man the Father’s delight was upon him. He stood accepted by the Most High. O believer, God’s acceptance of Christ is thine acceptance; for knowest thou not that the love which the Father set on a perfect Christ, he sets on thee now? For all that Christ did is thine. That perfect righteousness which Jesus wrought out, when through his stainless life he kept the law and made it honourable, is thine, and is imputed to thee. Christ is in the covenant.

Conviction for Clarity

In his autobiography, Grace Abounding, which I just finished recently, John Bunyan says this:

I could also have stepped into a style much higher than this in which I have here discoursed and could have adorned all things more than here I have seemed to do, but I dare not. God did not play in convicting of me, the devil did not play in tempting of me, neither did I play when I sunk as into a bottomless pit, when the pangs of hell caught hold upon me, wherefore I may not play in my relating of them, but be plain and simple and lay down the thing as it was.

Bunyan's words make an incredibly important point: when relating truth, using overly flowery language that hinders the clarity of the facts is a serious error. In short, we need to communicate directly and plainly. Figurative language is very helpful if it makes a truth more concrete or vivid--and it often does serve that purpose. But it is completely unhelpful, and ultimately purpose-defeating, if it bogs down or confuses an otherwise clear presentation of the facts.

John Bunyan was an extremely gifted communicator, and I love reading his books. His language is so alive...the word pictures he paints seem to come to life. (You can see that just from this one excerpt above, even.) And there's a reason for this: Bunyan's word pictures and figurative language are clear because they aren't forced or superimposed on what he's saying. He never mucked around in language; he employed it. He spoke figuratively, but he did it in such a way that the literal seemed even more literal. He spoke of things as he experienced them, not mysteriously or ambiguously, but colorfully, in words that expressed real experiences of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch...not just jumbled and half-formed notions.

I think maybe a reason for Bunyan's clarity was his immersion in Scripture. He breathed in the Bible like air and viewed all life through it. So he had an incredibly good foundation of clear truth. He saw all his own feelings and experiences as exactly what Scripture portrays. The heights, the depths, the fear of hell, and the joy of grace...all of his life played out exactly what the Word says. Bunyan didn't wallow through Scripture as though it were some hazy philosophical mishmash. He was convinced of its piercing clarity. He read it as clear. And so he could view and speak of life in Scripture's words...clearly.

Scripture is clear. God is not a mumbler. And so, if we're seeking to be like Him, then our speech ought to reflect His. We should, to the best of our abilities, communicate as God does...clearly and straightforwardly. Language is a tool to be employed, and it has many facets. Figures and pictures are a wonderful aspect, and Scripture is full of poetry, pun, metaphor, euphemism, parallelism, anthropomorphism, simile, metonymy, and so on. From a literary perspective, it's a masterpiece that includes numerous genres and devices. But we have to remember that every word is God-breathed truth and is meant to communicate, not to confuse. When a figure is used, it makes truth more vivid, not less so.

I guess what I'm being reminded of is simply that I should always seek to speak and write for the sake of "lay[ing] down the thing as it was," not for the mere sake of using language. Language is beautiful only so far as it accomplishes its purpose. This is challenging to me, a lover of language. I'm challenged to speak and write clearly. And that challenges me, then, to think clearly so I can speak and write clearly. And that challenges me to keep continually searching God's truths in Scripture so I can think clearly. I'm also encouraged to continue to love and explore language because it is so wonderful. Studying language--including grammar and vocabulary--helps us to better know and explain truth...more specifically, more precisely, more fully, with more nuance of meaning and more expression of reality.

I love that.

Anyway, just some thoughts...