grateful for Christ

A blade of grass in a field, backlit by the sun.

I took this photograph a few days ago on a camping trip in northern Idaho near the Coeur d’Alene River.  The thumbnail doesn’t do it much justice, but when enlarged (click on it), you can see the beautiful interplay of light and shadow on the grass.  As a very amateur photographer with a Kodak EasyShare Z760 point-and-shoot camera, nice results are far more often a matter of chance than skill.  Even still, sometimes the small effort of pointing the camera at an object at the right angle offers suprising results.  I consider this a fitting metaphor for how God deals with His sons and daughters in Christ.

Very often it seems that God gives us a general direction then sits back, orchestrating circumstances behind the scenes as we do what we can to fill in the blanks.  When we seek Him faithfully throughout such times, He guides our steps though we don’t perceive it.  If, because of a prideful assurance of our own assumptions, we fail to seek Him at times like these, we instantly wander away from our Lord and cannot return until we confess our wandering and turn away from our assumptions.  The moment we repent, our God leads us back onto the original path and sends us on our way.  Once we have been restored, we will never wander again from that course; God’s wisdom has been planted in our hearts.

Do not make the mistake of giving undue importance to your own efforts.  All God needs is for you to be faithful, not adequate.  Remember, it is in our weakness that God’s power is made perfect.  Why did Jesus always tell the lame to walk?  They were unable to walk, and to tell them to do so would have been unspeakably cruel unless His power was there to make possible what was for them impossible.  If you place the emphasis on your own effort or strength, you will fall into despair over your inadequacy and either reject God outright or unwittingly compromise with the evil one to find an easier way.  (Sadly, the vast majority of us have done just this in so many spheres of life that we are scarcely distinguishable from non-believers, except for a peculiar churchy jargon and a slightly more polished exterior.  Indeed, to many Christians, faithfulness is identified by ideology: conservatives are faithful, liberals are unfaithful–or vice versa.  Those who have been given wisdom understand that such mentalities come from a very low view of our high calling as sons and daughters of the Most High.)

Understand also, dear reader, that our direction itself must come from God.  Too many today have decided on a path for themselves and proceed to follow it while trying to seek God’s guidance on how to go about it.  They do not realize that their assumptions about what God is and is not interested in, rather than God Himself, have dictated their direction, and so to seek God’s guidance in that is like a child asking his parent how best to light himself on fire.  Therefore, we should tread carefully and understand that whatever path we think God has called us to may yet be misguided, and though God may be using it for His own purposes and working miracles, that is only because of His great power and ability to work out the weak, the evil, the misguided, and the inadequate for the good.

The way of life is truly a narrow road.  If your idea is the same as everybody else’s and it has not been learned through blood, sweat, and tears, be wary.  But in all things, trust in God’s goodness and seek His wisdom.  Praise God if He has brought you from preoccupation with shallow things into His throne room, where wisdom hangs on the walls like paintings and adorns the air itself.