The Invitation

Come...

Come to me...

Come away with me...

Can you hear the invitation?

God calls to us. The heavens are His handiwork showing forth His brilliance and power. The birds sing His praises. The mountains and the seas demonstrate His awesome strength. Creation is a canvas upon which He masterfully paints His attributes, wooing us to Himself.

Every day it pours forth speech. Night after night it whisperingly reminds us of the glory, beauty, creativity, and love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The eternally existent Triune God invites us to join with Him. They beckon us to come, sit at Their feet and learn from Them. We, like Mary, can choose the one needful thing. To sit with Them and listen—to commune with Them.

All too often, I hear other voices—pressing, strident voices—demanding my time and attention. The needs are so great! The pain and despair so loud! All too easily, my head turns away from my Master, my Lover, and I busy myself with the work. The needs are real and there is SO much work to be done. I hurry and scurry to get it all done; frustrated with those who don’t share my sense of urgency.

Paul heard the voices. He saw the needs. He worked hard for the Gospel. He also knew what it was to walk with the Spirit. It is through Paul’s example and letters that we learn most about the Holy Spirit. Paul was compelled by the love of God and filled and controlled by the Spirit. There were times when the Spirit led Paul away from ministry opportunities. Paul followed the Spirit into the desert.

Jesus too heard the voices. He knew the pressure of work and the expectations of men. Jesus showed us how to live in the midst of this. Very early in the morning, when it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. He often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Jesus could do nothing apart from the Father. The Son of God, emptied Himself and took on the very nature of a servant, was born, lived, and died, as one of us. He made a way—through His life, death, and resurrection—for us boldly approach the throne of grace. He showed us how a human life can be lived in union with the Father, and the Holy Spirit gives us all that we need for life and godliness.

This day, let us choose to heed the call. Let us answer the invitation of our Lover. Let us say, “I am my beloved’s and He is mine!” Let us join with Mary, and sit at the feet of our Jesus. Let us join with Paul and let the Spirit fill and control us, leading us wherever He will. Let us join with Jesus, and withdraw to a quiet place to spend time with the Father.

Creating or Consuming

Over the last few years, God has been slowly awakening me to my own creativity. It is hard for me to think of myself as a creative person. When I think of a creative person, I think of a great painters like Caravaggio, Cassat, or Monet. I think of poets and sculptors, great men and women.

Somewhere along the line, I believed the lie that creativity was for the professionals. "Our part is to appreciate. Theirs is to create." 

My children have been a big part of this renewal of my creative side. They create all the time. Lego. Songs. Dances. Paintings. They are not inhibited. They have not been told that they shouldn't create, or that their creations don't measure up. So, they create freely and expressively.

They create because we were all made to create. When we create, we image forth a part of the very nature of God. When we create, we participate in, and express, His creative work. He is the Creator and we are creators. 

I feel like there are cultural forces that work to turn me into a consumer rather than a creator. It takes virtually no effort to turn on the TV, or click through the web. I can read, watch, and consume the creativity of others so easily. It takes effort and work to create. But there is something deeper; something more nefarious. 

It is easier and safer for me to consume the creations of others than to risk creating something myself and putting it into the world to be critiqued and ridiculed by an increasingly caustic and cynical culture. We delight in judging and mocking the creations of others. We have art critics, film critics, and music critics. We have fashion police who professionally mock even the simple creativity of clothing choices. We have elevated criticism to an art form...an art that actually discourages art. 

I am reminded of the words of Theodore Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

I choose to embrace and express the creativity that God has given me. To rise above and expend the effort. To push down the fear of mockery and to put myself into my writing, my art. 

I choose to contribute...to create! 

What's the point?

This life is not the most comfortable, is it? Sometimes it is hard work just living! Sometimes it feels like life is a random mix of issues and experiences. It’s not that I’m complaining. I’m just reflecting on life under the sun. What do we gain from our work, from our sacrifice? What does the worker gain from his toil?

In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon asks it this way:

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

This passage comes immediately after the most quoted section of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon lists all the various seasons of life and activities under heaven. As he ponders all the things that come into our lives, some delightful, some painful and everything in between, he comes to the question of gain. He is essentially asking, “What do we get out of all this? What is the point?”

As he ruminates, he recognizes the sovereignty of God. He points out the God shaped hole in our hearts and the limitations of our understanding. He says that if this world is all there is, the best we can hope for is to eat, drink, and enjoy our work. Even the ability to enjoy our work is a gift from God. But Solomon pushes deeper into the mystery. There must be more!

He then returns to the mystery of God’s implacable sovereignty. We hear echoes of Psalm 115:3 as Solomon extols God and irresistible and unchangeable will. But the why question remains. Why does God do these things? Why does He fill our lives with pain as well as pleasure? Why is their war as well as peace, hate as well as love, weeping as well as laughter?

The key to understanding this passage is the very last sentence. “God does it so that men will revere him.”

Reverence is the only right response of a creature before their Creator. Therefore, God’s goal in all that He does under the sun is to restore the right relationship between us and Him. All the seasons and experiences of our life are a gift from Him to realign our hearts with His. God is freely and creatively doing whatever is best for us, whatever will form us more completely into the likeness of His Son. God measures out, into our lives, exactly what we need to renew our perspective and draw us into right relationship with Him.

What do we gain from our toil?  What is the pay off for slogging through the peaks and valleys of life? We gain an ever deepening relationship with God. We gain God Himself.