Dimly Lit

He has told you, O man, what is good;   and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness,   and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

There are a couple of things that I was told on a regular basis as I was growing up.

1. I can be/do anything if I just put my mind to it.
2. God gave each of us certain gifts and talents and if we are not using them we are not glorifying Him.

I have now spent nearly half my life struggling to figure out what gifts God has given me and how I can use them. I have also spent many of those years struggling on the edge of depression because I feel like I haven’t been able to grasp what it is I’m supposed to be doing with my life.

There is a part of me that knows I’m not supposed to think like this, but I really want to believe that God has given each of us something special to do – and of course the thing He has for me is big! I’m supposed to be doing something important for Him. People were supposed to look at me and say; “now that is a man God is using!” (Yes, that would be my incredible pride and egoism speaking!)

Now I find myself at nearly 38 years old still struggling with what do with my life. Still often feeling like a little boy even though I have a family of my own. I’m often discouraged and feel like a failure. I feel like I must not have worked hard enough, or, I got skipped when God was handing out the talents.

The reality, I am hopefully beginning to see, is both more and less. God wants more of me than I can begin to imagine. But it is not through the things that I accomplish. He wants me and is using me in ways I can’t see. As I am faithful to care for my family and raise my children. As I love my wife. As I mow my yard and help my neighbors move. As I sweep or clean or make sure the car payment is on time. As I do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before Him.

Perhaps it is in the mundane day to day lives we lead where God meets us most fully, for it is there that we learn kindness and justice and humility. In the book Souls on Fire Elie Wiesel tells the Hasidic parable of Eizik, a poor but faithful Jew from Cracow who finds a treasure hidden under his own stove after traveling and searching for it elsewhere.

Could it be that my story is similar? There is treasure is to be found in my own home, under my own stove. God’s presence and grace is to be found in the midst of the everyday. If I look might I find treasures under the stove, around the corner in the nooks and crannies of my everyday life?

Yes, that title is taken from Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivores Dilemma. I haven’t read it yet, though I have certainly heard of it. You see, if I read it, I might feel an increased need to make changes in how and what my family eats and, quite frankly I don’t want to make the effort!

Now Denis Haack has gone and written a fantastic post that, just very briefly, looks at the costs of current dairy and meat production practice. The costs are not financial, but they are great.

“I do want to argue, however, that Christians take creation seriously. And that includes treating our fellow creatures with the dignity and care that is intrinsic to their natures as part of the gloriously interconnected world that God called into existence. Though ruined by brokenness it need not include mistreating fellow creatures because of greed.”

Please read the whole thing here.

I’ve signed up for the Twitter feed of the ESV’s verse of the day. It’s nice to see it pop up on my screen at work and, for at least a moment refocuses my attention on Christ.

Today, the verse has stuck with me and banged around inside my head and heart. The verse for today is Psalm 32:8 -

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

What the heck does that mean? That’s what I want so desperately, instruction on the way I should go, but…what does it really look like?

So I pulled up the entire Psalm - it’s fairly short so I’m just going to put the whole thing here:

32:1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up [2] as by the heat of summer. Selah

5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

6 Therefore let everyone who is godly
offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
they shall not reach him.
7 You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me from trouble;
you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9 Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,
which must be curbed with bit and bridle,
or it will not stay near you.

10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked,
but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

A very cursory reading of this seems to indicate that the speaker changes between verses 7 and 8. For the first 7 verses the speaker is acknowledging his sin and his need for forgiveness and redemption. He exhorts his fellow man to do the same and offer prayers to God that they might be surrounded with ’shouts of deliverance’.

Then, at least it seems to me, the tone changes. Now the speaker is offering instruction and counsel. This, to me seems like it is God’s response saying ‘Look, I can forgive you and I am a hiding place, but let’s not stop there. Listen to me, do not be stubborn like horse or a mule, but follow where I lead.’

So with all of that, my question is the same it has been for years and years. How do we know when it is God that seems to be leading us in the way we should go as opposed to my own selfish, egotistical will that is trying to make itself sound like God?

I struggle with the idea of ‘calling’ as related to a career. Does God ‘call’ certain people to certain careers? Is being instructed and taught in the way we should go at least partly referring to what we should do to make a living in the day to day of this life? Or is it referring following Jesus with all of our heart, mind and strength no matter how we earn a living? How specific is God’s instruction?

I know I certainly feel more like the mule without understanding who is being dragged along with my haunches dug in. I want to understand. I want to be glad in the Lord and rejoice. I want to believe, Lord help my unbelief.

My toddler has a board book based loosely on Ecclesiastes 3, “A Time for Everything“. One page says that there is a time to be quiet, while the next page states; “and a time to be very, very NOISY!” I couldn’t help but think of this as I read Al Hsu’s post, Deliver Us from Me-Ville on quiet time and loud time. Yes, it is a good example of my current intellectual level that reading smart, engaging blog posts immediately brings to mind a toddler’s board book!

On the other hand, Hsu is talking about what sounds like a very good book called Deliver Us from Me-Ville by David Zimmerman. Some day, after I’ve caught up on all of my board books (I’m so far behind), I will need to check this one out. One of the things that catches Hsu’s attention is the line:

By privileging solitude - ‘quiet time’ - over fellowship as a means of
identifying God at work, we privilege our own instincts over the
instincts of others.

Wow. That’s really good. While personal, individual time with God is certainly good, even necessary (see Exhibit A - Jesus), the danger is that it tends to focus our relationship with God only on ourselves. We become individualistic Christians and our faith runs the risk of becoming a subjective experience that seeks to, as Hsu puts it, “benefit our own preconceived ideas.”

As an avowed extrovert, it is good to be reminded occasionally that it is possible to find God in community as well as alone. I tend to look toward some mystic and monastic types and think that if only I could have a contemplative life like that, I would really be able to know God. I forget Bonhoeffer’s warning:

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

and T.S. Eliots:

What life have you, if you have not life together?
There is not life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of GOD.

There is indeed a time to be quiet as well as a time to be very, very noisy. Both are valuable, and both can be in praise of and in relationship with God.