genius?
What's your blog reading level? I am sort of embarrassed because it probably got this rating because I quote smart people . . .
Monday, November 12, 2007
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Welcome
- Ryan
- San Jose, CA, United States
- This blog is a chance for me to record my thoughts so that I might reflect, be challenged by others, and grow. I am married to Rebecca and have three kids, Ashlyn, Caleb, & Eli.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.
- 1 Timothy 4:16 (ESV)
- 1 Timothy 4:16 (ESV)
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7 comments:
You also use words like "yahdaw". I love that it's at a genius level...now I don't feel so hoity toity.
Ryan,
I've always been afraid to discover what my IQ is because I'm dreadfully afraid that it would come out dreadfully lower than I would ever dare predict. That being said, I'm frightened by this one as well.
How is the new job and life and all that? I'm up in Mount Hermon these days -- I doubt I'll ever truly leave this place.
Eric Garner
Eric -
That is a good place to never really leave. Adam said last night you are making that place better. And I believe wherever you are it is a better place than it was before you were there.
New church is hard. As I am sure you know better than I. This is only my third church change, and it is by far the hardest.
It is a dry season with God right now so that makes church awkward. I am pressing on in the direction of God's call on my life not really knowing where all this is going.
In many ways God has stripped away many of the things I use to find satisfaction in so that I may find more satisfaction in God. It is a stretching time.
God's best to you. I am sure you will score quite well as far as your blog readability.
Satisfaction... God keeps us constantly in between satisfaction and a relentless dissatisfaction, such that we may never truly rest. It is advertised, of course, that there is "true peace" in Christ, but yet also professed (admitted?) that we are ever incomplete until death, when reunited with Him who made us.
Could this endless restlessness be something else? Is there anything in likfe that truly satisfies, that lasts longer than a moment? Before the ready answer leaves your fingers, consider our relationship to nature: countless animals function perfectly consistently without need for change. It is our humanity that sets us apart from our animal cousins, that will lead us to the grave never resting.
If true satisfaction comes only from God - is it flawed logic to think that a degree of the opposite is also from the same source? As strategy?
~ Joe
I guess I wonder what "else" it could be that we long for.
If there is nothing on the other end of the longing, since nothing that truly satisfies, is it a "flaw" within humans that we long for more than what we experience in our everyday life?
And, while the animals have no need of change, their environments are disappearing and they slip into extinction because of us (the ones with this "flaw"). Could they "need" the change of restoration offered in Jesus? Acts 3:19-21 and Romans 8:19-30 talk about the restoration of "all things" and the "groaning" of creation and our hearts for that restoration.
I see dissatisfaction as the result of my brokenness, which God uses for my good to remind me of who I really am (Rom. 8:28-29).
Just some initial thoughts . . . what else stirs up for you?
You mention restoration... offered only through Jesus... but the Bible itself states (admits?) that pure contentment is available only through union with Christ. In death. So then in life, w may never be satisfied.
And that is what I learn, continue to learn, is that motion is the only thing that we want. We don't truly want happiness. Because when we have it; we leave it. We want motion. Drama. Change. Cycles.
I know this is cynical, but I reach for your response.
Aw, what I love about what you said about union with Christ. You are partially right, from a biblical perspective, that that union is only possible in death. However, we are offered a blessed life with God now, as much as we are willing to "die." The classic, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."
This at first seems like no life because we filter it through the homogeneity of Western Christianity that teaches us that Jesus is one particular person, and so it seems we end up as almost clones. What helped me is realizing that my question should not be "What Would Jesus Do?" but "What Would Jesus Do If He Were Me?" In others words, with my personality, gifts, body, relationships, experiences, etc . . . what would Jesus do if he was me?
So, as I begin to die to my opinions, preferences, tastes, and will I find that I am reborn as someone who is more Ryan than I ever dreamed possible. This life in Christ is not all that foreign, it is more home than I have ever known. This is true satisfaction now. Discovering this new reality. It is true joy. What I may feel I have lost (my life as I know it or want it) is so worth what I gain (my true life).
Yes, I will not have the full experience of what it means to be Ryan in this life, but the tastes of it that I have now are quite satisfying that I wait expectantly (could this be the beginning of "to live is Christ, to die is gain"?).
It has certainly been a journey. A difficult one. Jesus says it is only travelled by a few. There are times God's felt presence, and times of God's felt absence. I am learning how both are gifts that reveal the depths of God's goodness. It is hard for me to believe that at the core something/someone can be good (cynicism).
I wonder how the desire for motion might be connected to the rhythm expressed in the Scriptures about rest?
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