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July 18, 2004
the view from the porch
It's Sunday night and this is my view from the porch. Kiddos are still playing in the park, the sun is beginning to sink over the horizon and if you stepped off the porch you could see our field of black-eyed susans...
After 6+ months, I have finally finished Schaeffer's True Spirituality. I've been re-reading those passages that I've underlined and marked, but I haven't gotten very far and am stuck on pg 23 (I may never finish with this book!). Schaeffer says:
"The death was central to the work of Christ and therefore it provoked conversation; the prophets spoke of it in the Old Testament, and Moses , Elijah and Christ conversed about it in the New. In the Christian life, it is just as central, and should it not provoke continuing thought, consideration, and conversation, and continuing prayer on our part? ... How much thought does the necessity of death by choice provoke, how much conversation? ... Is it not true that our thoughts, our prayers for ourselves, and those we love, and our conversations are almost entirely aimed at getting rid of the negative at any cost - rather than praying that the negatives might be faced in the proper attitude?"
Christ choose suffering so that we could be reconciled with God. There was value in Christ's suffering, and though He prayed that the cup would be passed from Him, He went to the cross by choice. We on the other hand do everything in our power to avoid, fix, and numb our suffering. We find no value in it. I don't know what it looks like to really "value" suffering. Is it rejoicing in our persecutions? Is it willing to risk being in relationship with God, ourselves, and others? Is it not being afraid of asking the hard questions? I'm not sure, but am struggling to figure it out.
Posted by Charity at July 18, 2004 09:38 PM
those are very challenging questions for me...thanks for posting them...definitely something to think about.
Posted by sarah at July 19, 2004 11:14 AM
"...Is it not true that our thoughts, our prayers for ourselves, and those we love, and our conversations are almost entirely aimed at getting rid of the negative at any cost - rather than praying that the negatives might be faced in the proper attitude?"
We were talking about this in our Bible study the other night, about how we mostly pray for God to take away the negative things, when really everything God brings into our lives, whether it is perceived as "good" or "bad" to us, is to make us more like him. Kelli likened it to a rock tumbler; God keeps putting in the grit and rocks and tumbling us around in it, until we become a beautiful creation. He loves us too much to leave us unpolished.
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