This post doesn't fit in any way in this blog, but I have no where else to post it, so I might as well publicize my thoughts to anyone who cares to read.
Today in church I got to thinking about something I sent in an e-mail. I said that I consider the best way to fulfill the first greatest command (love the Lord your God) by the second (love you neighbor). Now there are some serious caveats to this statement. Number one is that the love of God always is higher than the love of man, and that God-love informs every other love. In fact, without that higher love, no other love would exist; not only would it not have been created, but it cannot be sustained without the hand of God. In essence, we cannot love God by loving others if we do not love God. But if we do love God, we will love others. I mean truly love God.
Take the first logical step: church. If you are truly cherish that time with God in a corporate setting, you will most likely linger a while and share with the others you have just worshiped with. I however, was filled and inspired and changed this sunday...but I left close to immediately after the service. Already that inspiration is fading. This post is an attempt to find it again.
I felt nothing while we were practicing this morning (I'm the pianist for the church). I was wholly uninspired, and was considering leaving the church (as I will be graduating soon, and it's so complicated). I started the prelude music, and was captured by the original version of "Oh Love that Wilt not let me go." It is so true. The words and music resound in my soul in a way that little else does. And then I found "I Need Thee Every Hour." I used to sing/say "I need thee every minute" when I ran cross-country. Somehow an hour didn't seem descriptive enough.
Those two hymns spoke to me deeply. They humbled me, as they always do. I need Jesus and cannot stand on my own. At least, not in the way I would like to. I have been shown a better way of living, and cannot turn back on the Christian walk and into the darkness of self-centeredness I face without Christ. For me, I cannot think of others apart from my faith. I cannot truly love someone else if I do not recognize how small I am, and how needy I am. Conversely, I must recognize how needy others are, and how important they are as image-bearers of Christ.
Tim Jones, who I love dearly though I do not show it, gave a bit of his testimony today. It was deeply moving to me. He openly admitted his brokenness, and his obstinace and blindness to it. He did not even realize what kind of a man he was until he saw himself in his children. How do we see ourselves for who we really are, and not for who we think we are? Can we truly step inside another's shoes and look through their eyes, if even for a minute? Can we pretend to understand others when we cannot truly understand the impact that we have on the world? No assumptions must be made of ourselves or of others. Openness must be the end result of this line of query--for any conclusion must be that the world is a diverse place, and every moment is a chance for something different. Not that we should be on our guard every waking moment for a sin or mistake--that is folly and a miserable way of living. Instead, our action should be to stay alert and wakeful, lest we miss a moment to bless someone, to understand God, ourselves, or the world--not with tired and blind eyes, but with the eyes of the living Christ; with eyes that not only see, but inspire hope.
How? "I need thee every hour." We must ask; not demand. Paul, thank you for the sermon. I, like the little boy, like my chocolate. But there are greater things than the physical. And physical comfort must never take us away from the eternal. By leaving church today I took the easy way out. Truly you can fulfill the second command through the first, and perhaps even the first through the second. But the first command must not waver. Without grace we cannot stand. Without humility we become our entire existance. And when we fill our lives with nothing but ourselves--we are worse than dead. I am enjoying the season of easter--for I am dead in my sins: in myself. Only in removing myself from my life (in dying to myself) can I be risen from the dead and live--truly live. I have tasted moments of life, and am drunk with desire for true life, but wearied by everything I drag into it. When will I drop my burden and enter in? Truly, it is not up to me. I am not in control, no matter how much I'd like to be. I cannot run my own life anywhere but into the ground. "I need thee every minute." Remind me to let go of myself. Remind me to linger a while. Remind me why I am here. Remind me every moment is a gift.
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