When secrets come up, there is the aspect of them that we’re on the outside of something important. There’s also something about finding “the secret” which portends to drive into the very essence of something. Consider how often we use this idea:
“What’s the secret to having a good marriage?”
“You have such a great way at responding to that person! What’s your secret?”
“If you buy my book, I’ll share with you the secret to my success in business.”
“The secret” in each of the above (and like situations) is the key to unlocking what each one is really about. The sermon series mentioned yesterday aims at exactly the same idea: what is the key to getting at being a Christian? I’d like to consider the following 3 thoughts 3 different people have shared with me in the last year:
THOUGHT 1: My philosophy professor
I took a class on the relationship between God + time this Spring. It was fantastic and terribly difficult. One day, as was pertinent, the professor stopped and said something I remember more than anything else we discussed, “The most important thing in your life is this: Friendship with God. Concern yourself with that and you’ll find yourself addressing everything else of importance.”
THOUGHT 2: My friend on the night before his wedding
We had gathered around the fire towards the end of the bachelor party the night before Sam (not his actual name) was to pack away bachelorhood forever. We kidnapped Sam from the rehearsal dinner (much to the bride’s dismay) and sped from the parking lot with him in the trunk. Though we stopped and let him out, he remained blindfolded until we arrived at the abandoned house by the river owned by his soon-to-be in-laws. There we put him through grueling tests symbolizing his journey towards marriage and the sort of man he’d need to be to lead his family. We got muddy. He was exhausted at the end and almost threw up a few times. His gauntlet ended with a fantastic prize he’ll treasure for life and we celebrated around the fire. On the ride home, he said, “That was perfect.”
As we sat there, the conversation moved from frivolity and jesting to the sharing of marital advice from the married. Sam then stood up and shared his hopes for the decades he and his family would have. In the middle, he said this, “Most of us grew up hearing that Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship. The people I’ve heard it the loudest from, though, are probably the worst friends to God. If that’s how they treat their friends, they are terrible friends.” He went on to talk about the sort of love he hoped to embody towards God and his wife. What he said sticks with me though and it raises a poignant question: If we treated our friends like we treat God, how long would we keep them? What sort of friend would we be?
THOUGHT 3: Eugene Peterson
Many of you know this name because of The Message, a stylistic rendering of the biblical text in contemporary language (though it’s not a translation - even the preface affirms this). Nonetheless, Peterson is a prolific and gifted writer. In a book of essays on the life of Jeremiah (“Run with the Horses”), he says this,
“A relationship with God is not something added on after we complete our basic growth, it is the essential core of that growth. Take that core out, and there is no humanity at all but only a husk, the appearance, but no the substance, of the human.”
The Secret to Life = Friendship with God
How good of a friend are you being to Him?
Think on these things.
No comments:
Post a Comment