I've been encouraged to write for sometime. It seems on the whole blogging is fairly encouraged for young writers. Practice and all that.
And I've largely held off from doing anything that really resembles it; that really resembles placing my work on a stage where people can see. Even as I write this I ironically don't intend to really tell anyone this exists.
It is my desire to become a great writer some day, or at least one who can buy fast food and fill his gas tank with the meager gains he collects from writing.
For a long time I'd been looking for something to make me whole, or at least feeling solid. Solid is a bit vague I suppose. What I mean is something that when I did it, I felt like I was having a joyful experience, something that when I woke up and rolled out of bed in the morning wouldn't feel like work but would feel like a relationship or an act of worship. I don't want to make this sound like I wanted to find an idol or something to worship, that's far from it,...and stupid. Plus there are already far to many things I value over God, one more would not be the answer I was looking for. I think I mean something like what a quote attributed to Eric Liddel expresses. Liddel was a Scottish Athlete who held himself out of his main event in the 1924 summer Olympics in Paris because it took place on the Sabbath. He felt the conviction that he shouldn't run and break the Sabbath just cause his race was on a Sunday. He ended up running other races and doing well. It's dramatized version Chariots of Fire (1981) won four Academy Awards. But the crazy thing about Liddel was he knew that God had gifted him and created him for a specific purpose. Liddel has been committed to becoming a missionary to China; it was his goal and purpose in life. However as his running progressed and took more time some questioned Liddel's sincerity and love of God. At one point in the move his sister Jennie confronts him and asks him where his love truly lies.
He responds by saying "I believe that God made me for a purpose (China). But he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
To not run would be to dishonor God and though it was not what his life would be inspired towards in it's totality he knew his relationship with God grew thick and tangible during his running.
Now I honestly confess I don't know "why I'm here." That's to say I don't know why God put me on this earth and I certainly don't have a rough draft of my life to follow telling me what cereal to eat in the morning and which pair of pants to wear to work. I especially don't have a slip of paper from God saying "Dear Jordan your life mission is _______. With love, God." I can sometimes fall into the trap of confusing the creator with the created; worshiping the thing, rather than the thing that made the thing. We take things and place their value in our lives above that of God. Sports, sex, career, family, honor, etc, many of which are good things, but not so good as God are placed in His chair. I imagine a huge high backed wooden chair with a rich finish and red satin seats. Upon it a chalupa from Taco Bell, a Coke, and a receipt to NFL Sunday ticket.
Everyone has their thing that they think at least on some level gives them "value." I really don't think that "value" exists outside of a relationship with Christ. I mean is I think that is what we were made for, knowing him and having relationship with him, and it is only in that relationship that life seems to take on meaning and depth, a brevity unparalleled previously. What I mean to do by bringing up the quote above is to say that life is rarely so scripted as the right pair of pants being presented to you and never so easy as to say as a choice, "Today I will choose to love God and obey his commands" any more than a two year old decides to be mature and gracious with his toys. It is possible but difficult and more often than not is trying both for the toddler, the parents, and the other kids around him. What I would like to walk away with each day is to say "God has created me to love him and have relationship with him, that might look a little different every day, and I will feel differently about it each day, but God has also made me ______ and when I do that I feel his pleasure."
A similar quote that bugged me for years was written by the converted Jew, Paul of Tarsus to Messianic Judaism, about 40 AD. It's taken from a letter he wrote to a group of followers in Philipi.
And I've largely held off from doing anything that really resembles it; that really resembles placing my work on a stage where people can see. Even as I write this I ironically don't intend to really tell anyone this exists.
It is my desire to become a great writer some day, or at least one who can buy fast food and fill his gas tank with the meager gains he collects from writing.
For a long time I'd been looking for something to make me whole, or at least feeling solid. Solid is a bit vague I suppose. What I mean is something that when I did it, I felt like I was having a joyful experience, something that when I woke up and rolled out of bed in the morning wouldn't feel like work but would feel like a relationship or an act of worship. I don't want to make this sound like I wanted to find an idol or something to worship, that's far from it,...and stupid. Plus there are already far to many things I value over God, one more would not be the answer I was looking for. I think I mean something like what a quote attributed to Eric Liddel expresses. Liddel was a Scottish Athlete who held himself out of his main event in the 1924 summer Olympics in Paris because it took place on the Sabbath. He felt the conviction that he shouldn't run and break the Sabbath just cause his race was on a Sunday. He ended up running other races and doing well. It's dramatized version Chariots of Fire (1981) won four Academy Awards. But the crazy thing about Liddel was he knew that God had gifted him and created him for a specific purpose. Liddel has been committed to becoming a missionary to China; it was his goal and purpose in life. However as his running progressed and took more time some questioned Liddel's sincerity and love of God. At one point in the move his sister Jennie confronts him and asks him where his love truly lies.
He responds by saying "I believe that God made me for a purpose (China). But he also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure."
To not run would be to dishonor God and though it was not what his life would be inspired towards in it's totality he knew his relationship with God grew thick and tangible during his running.
Now I honestly confess I don't know "why I'm here." That's to say I don't know why God put me on this earth and I certainly don't have a rough draft of my life to follow telling me what cereal to eat in the morning and which pair of pants to wear to work. I especially don't have a slip of paper from God saying "Dear Jordan your life mission is _______. With love, God." I can sometimes fall into the trap of confusing the creator with the created; worshiping the thing, rather than the thing that made the thing. We take things and place their value in our lives above that of God. Sports, sex, career, family, honor, etc, many of which are good things, but not so good as God are placed in His chair. I imagine a huge high backed wooden chair with a rich finish and red satin seats. Upon it a chalupa from Taco Bell, a Coke, and a receipt to NFL Sunday ticket.
Everyone has their thing that they think at least on some level gives them "value." I really don't think that "value" exists outside of a relationship with Christ. I mean is I think that is what we were made for, knowing him and having relationship with him, and it is only in that relationship that life seems to take on meaning and depth, a brevity unparalleled previously. What I mean to do by bringing up the quote above is to say that life is rarely so scripted as the right pair of pants being presented to you and never so easy as to say as a choice, "Today I will choose to love God and obey his commands" any more than a two year old decides to be mature and gracious with his toys. It is possible but difficult and more often than not is trying both for the toddler, the parents, and the other kids around him. What I would like to walk away with each day is to say "God has created me to love him and have relationship with him, that might look a little different every day, and I will feel differently about it each day, but God has also made me ______ and when I do that I feel his pleasure."
A similar quote that bugged me for years was written by the converted Jew, Paul of Tarsus to Messianic Judaism, about 40 AD. It's taken from a letter he wrote to a group of followers in Philipi.
11Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.
12I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.
13I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.
This bothered me the same way it bothered me the way Liddel seems to talk about running. This hadn't been my experience. I was jaded and a bit embittered towards God. I wasn't really happy about the way things panned out for me, but I suppose Paul wasn't either when he was getting beaten or stoned for his beliefs, but something got him up off the ground and back into the lives of and loving the people who stoned him.
All that said; I think this blog is about what I have been discovering about that something that makes life worth living it's about my running and my getting up after being beaten down. It's probably going to be about some of the times I didn't want to get up, and just about didn't. But I suppose that is enough for one day and a healthy start.
Comments
Post a Comment