Category: theology and philosophy

practice resurrection

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

.
.

Practice resurrection.

(snippets from Wendell Berry’s 1973 poem, “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”from The Country of Marriage)

I’ve been meaning to read more of Wendell Berry and summer seems like a good time to “get around to it.” The vibrant green leaves and the smell of blooming peonies seem a fitting backdrop to his poetry. I map my runs to intentionally include the rowdy peony bushes on S. 3rd Street. I always “stretch” long enough to fill my lungs with peony air before putting my race face on again.

The smell of peony makes me sad for people who don’t lean over to breathe in their beauty.

And that’s why Wendell Berry’s advice to, “practice resurrection” is nestling nicely somewhere deep in my soul. We are so forgetful. We live like we don’t know we’re resurrected. We live like we’re not sure how this day will end. We live like Christ’s resurrection was too long ago to rearrange my daily toil. We live like all the wonder in the wind moving through the trees is something not everyone has the time to admire.

We live like we’ve forgotten how to practice resurrection.

We were dead in our trespasses and sins. Dead. Gone. Lost. Limp. Lifeless. Stuck. Trapped. Suffocated. Dead.

There’s no way to make that sound nice or easy. But if that were the end, I would have a hard time getting you to stop and smell the peonies.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

(Ephesians 2:4-10 ESV)

But, God…

What a beautiful interjection!
What an altogether unexpected and undeserved display of mercy!
What glorious gratitude is birthed when life displaces death!

This is our resurrection. We are made alive together with Christ. We are raised up from the grave to sit with Him, to search out the immeasurable riches of His grace, to seek all the beauty of His face reflected in the glory of creation. This is our resurrection.

Practice resurrection today, friends.
Practice resurrection and do not forget.
Practice resurrection because, in Christ, life has displaced death.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

to wait and to hope

It’s like finding the door to secret garden or discovering a hidden cave or tapping on the right rock in an Indiana Jones movie.

No matter how many times my pride tries to convince me otherwise, studying the Word never gets old. Sure, I have my seasons where the words look like black text on a white page and little more. But, go ahead and tell a child that there is no cave or secret garden or hidden passage while they are inside it and see what kind of response you get. Laughter seems most fitting. This is the joy of the Scripture – to be inside a mystery that never grows old.

As I was reading Psalm 130, I crawled inside this mystery and stared out in wonder. The urgency leaps from the misery and clings to the Lord’s forgiveness as the only hope against His righteous standard. My thoughts drifted toward Spanish again and the word, “esperar.” It means both “to wait” and “to hope” and, though I don’t know the original text, the interchange in verses 5-8 makes all kinds of sense.

1,2 Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD!
O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3,4 If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.
5,6 I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen for the morning,
more than watchmen for the morning.
7,8 O Israel, hope in the LORD!
For with the LORD there is steadfast love,
and with him is plentiful redemption.
And he will redeem Israel
from all his iniquities.
(Psalm 130 ESV)

Our waiting is hoping and our hoping is waiting. And it all rests on the Lord – the waiting and the hoping – not on our willpower to do it. The Psalmist makes certain we understand the intensity of his waiting. I’m sure watchmen assume the highest form of vigilance, filled with the gravest kind of hope. Twice the Psalmist says his soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning. How closely a watchman must hope for the dawn to break the darkness, for the sun to shed its light on the sky. Even more than a person whose purpose it is to wait and hope – he waits even more than him. What great expectation!

What a rush of beauty, to wait and hope in the One who offers steadfast love and plentiful redemption! Redeemed, restored, renewed… and we find these things in abundance!

Fo what else could we hope, my friends?
For what else should we wait?

go ahead, dive in to the mystery and

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

heaven’s my home, anyhow

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
(Philippians 3:20-21 ESV)

I used to think heaven was a far-off, mysteriously cloudy place with a full orchestra on loop. I understood my “heavenly citizenship” to mean I had a ticket to get into some gloriously holy, underwhelming theme park where all the rides would be safe and all the fun would be clean.

Man, was I ever wrong.

No, I don’t believe that heaven is full of unholy and unsafe rollercoasters with unruly people. Rather, I realized that my knowledge of heaven was incomplete because I believed an incomplete description. It’s hard work to find out what the Bible says about heaven, true. But, it’s work that allows us to live like the Gospel is invaluable. What we think about heaven and eternity completely informs what we think about today, what we think about life, and what we think about the message of the Gospel.

When we share the Gospel like this, “Believe in Jesus because otherwise you’ll go to hell!” we are not doing justice to the message. If you were a sought-after artist, it would be like telling someone you would paint a masterpiece and then only covering a corner of the canvas with paint. Is it a part of what will be the bigger masterpiece? Yes. But would someone admire that little corner of the masterpiece as he would the whole? No. They would call it incomplete (actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the art community would seize the unfinished and project meaning anyway). I would call it incomplete.

And this is what I think we do with heaven. It’s that place somewhere that I’ll be someday because I believe that Jesus died for my sins, according to the Scriptures – because I believe that Jesus took on all the messes that ever were and ever will be and stood in the place of their consequence. But, why?

Because of Christ’s work on the cross, we are brought into right relationship. This is what eternity is about. This is what heaven is about: right relationship that I do not deserve. And it’s not as mysterious as we’ve been content to think. A more robust view of heaven and eternity means a life blooming with gratitude and joy. When we have eyes to see God’s plans for heaven, we have a heart to reach out and pull others in to gaze at the wild beauty.

Randy Alcorn says, “If you lack a passion for heaven, I can almost guarantee it’s because you have a deficient and distorted theology of heaven (or you’re making choices that conflict with heaven’s agenda). An accurate and biblically energized view of heaven will bring a new spiritual passion to your life.”

Heaven is not an escape from this earth. It’s not where we will finally run where no evil can find us. Heaven is God’s idea of complete restoration – a peace between God and man and all of creation that hasn’t happened since the Garden of Eden. This gives perspective to our momentary troubles, but it also brings a passion to live absolutely abandoned for God’s purposes.

This song, “Heaven’s My Home” is another among the many that focus on a distant land, another home, a forever refuge. Featured in the film, “Secret Life of Bees,” this song captures some of the reasons why we hope for something beyond right now. The brokenness we see and feel in this world is unsettling. That little piece of eternity set in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) is uncomfortable thinking this is all there is. But, I hope we are not content with simple descriptions of harps and clouds and mystery. I hope we dive into the Word and trust that the Lord knows best what eternity is made of… and that He might want us to know a thing or two.

Sam & Ruby Live- “Heaven’s My Home” from sammy b on Vimeo.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

the importance of being productive

It’s no secret: I’m poor at math. I don’t get very jazzed about number crunching. If I can be suckered into an equation, it’s nearly always a story problem (such as this one). So, when I take on the topic of productivity, allow me to sketch abstractly what could be made a very reliable algorithm (by someone else).

As I process (again) all the questions my high school counselor asked me as a senior – about career and vocation and calling – it seems like I might have moved little from my simplistic 18-year-old goals. In response to the question, “Where will you be in 10 years?” I wrote a paper as a junior. I imagined myself in the middle of Africa, married to a doctor named Mr. Bergenfeld, and answering to “Auntie” from the 405 children at the local orphanage. Yes, I’m sure I wrote 405 – I was ornery like that.

I spent my college years throwing my willingness at wonderful things and learning like my face pressed to fire hydrants. Even as I met with several mentors, it seemed that “my heart” was pointing me in the direction of missions and jungles and poverty and the simple life.   This kind of calling seemed exciting, noble even. Me and everyone else on my campus dreamed of making big things happen and being in the thick of it when they do. I wanted dirt on my elbows and a cardboard box to call home. I didn’t want to be stuck in an office talking about change and waiting on red tape and bureaucracies. I wanted in.
All in.

That’s what we all said in college. Maybe a few people sheepishly said how most really felt, “I don’t want anything to do with cardboard or 405 orphans. I’ll support whoever does, but give me the office and the red tape. It’ll all work out fine.”

Everyone has their own values that make up their vocational pursuits, but for me, I envisioned myself serving others – doing something in the trenches, rubbing shoulders with folks who have real messes that I could help mend. I envisioned my passionate pursuit of Christ leading me into a simple lifestyle and most likely missionary work overseas. I envisioned purpose coming from 405 orphan children who called me, “Auntie.” I envisioned living in a remote area and tackling daily needs like washing laundry in the river.

Well, here I am almost 10 years out of high school and I’m taking stock on some of those simplistic 18-year-old goals. And here’s a bit of what I found (this is where the mathematician can offer to co-write a book with me on this).

The question of calling and vocation is not as simple as what you’re most passionate about or even what you do best. The question of calling is understanding who God is and then figuring out how you can be most productive in giving Him glory.

We are called – each of us – to know God and to be most productive in giving Him glory.

And this is where I got really confused. I was figuring out my “calling equation” based on the lives of some of my heroes + what I thought was the ultimate act of service + my willingness to spill out joy wherever I went. I thought it could look a lot of ways, but it certainly looked like me being willing to do anything – even hard things outside my gifts and passions.

The problem was that, as I grew to know God better, I started to feel like I wasn’t the most productive. I was doing everything required and meeting the expectations at my jobs, but I always had this itch to read books and talk philosophy and wrestle with the lyrics of songs and dialogue about the cultural implications of our increasingly secular secondary institutions. I wasn’t really ever with dirt on my elbows in the trenches, though I got as close as I could wherever I went. I did always end up creating newsletters and forming committees and counseling colleagues and developing countless proposals for new programs.

There was a knot forming in my gut and I’ve only now just named it: I’m not using my gifts.

Can I survive anywhere? Yes.
Will God allow me the joy that overflows in any situation/vocation/career? Yes.
Do I bring the same amount of glory to God, regardless of vocation? No.

We cannot be “above” or “below” a vocation – we can only be more or less productive. I know of many God-fearing executives or administrators who are not most productive for God’s glory in their position. They were “promoted” to that status because of their work ethic as employee or teacher – because that’s where they were most productive. I also know of high-powered executives who think they can easily translate their business sense into the trenches kind of work, but they become less productive in the process.

At the end of the day, I can give you a physical number to prove my productivity. I can give you students registered, emails sent, orders completed, papers folded, printer crises averted, and invoices sent. I’m strictly talking tangibles (I hope I will always be productive with the conversations and the laughter and the little ways to shine light in dark places).

But, the question is not, “Am I productive with whatever is before me – with energy and joy and a servant heart?” The question is, “As I know God better, am I being most productive in giving Him glory?”

Maybe the reason we keep getting tripped up on this productivity thing is that we don’t hold our vocations to a higher standard. We think we’re off the hook if we’re not “called” into a position at a church.

But, we are all called. Luther said,

“Monastic vows rest on the false assumption that there is a special calling, a vocation, to which superior Christians are invited to observe the counsels of perfection while ordinary Christians fulfil only the commands; but there simply is no special religious vocation since the call of God comes to each at the common tasks.”

We are all called to know God, find out what pleases Him, and delight to please Him together with the Body of Christ. This is not ministry, it’s life. As we walk out our calling, we’ll find that what pleases Him is excellence. Some of us will be excellent at Excel documents and some of us will be excellent at growing bananas and some of us will be excellent at conversation.

I think (mathematician, will you check my work on this?), that if the Body of Christ resolves to know God, find out what please Him and delights to please Him together, we will end up divinely appointed in every vocation, with a productivity that would shock the most lucrative corporation.

This is the importance of being productive.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

serious about sin | serious about joy

I’ve been accused of being too serious.

Does that surprise you, friends of the blog-o-sphere, with all my stories of falling down and loving laughter and chasing raindrops? Does it surprise you that people think I’m too serious?

I’ve learned that not everyone likes to read books stuffed full of long syllabled words and very few people want to ask if those long syllabled words would ever change my plans for the day. And I get it. Sometimes, I forget that “taking a genuine interest in the welfare of others” means doing things that matter little to me because they matter much to someone else. Sometimes, I act like the child who once told me, “Please stop doing anything that you like.” Sometimes, I find myself in a self-righteous wrestling match because I think, “Shouldn’t we all be serious about the things of God (even if it means strings of long syllables)?”

And then I think about the children who came to Jesus. They probably had a hard time pronouncing their Rs and words that started with C. Their understanding of love and grace and kindness didn’t come from a study of thick textbooks.

I imagine they did have a certain seriousness about them, but not the self-righteous and learned kind.

I’ve seen this seriousness play across children’s faces in the most solemn moments, when the line between right and wrong is being drawn on their hearts and in their heads for the first time. I can hear the nervous claims coming out from wide eyes,

“She took it from me and I yelled at her.”
“But Mommy said to never go in there…”
“Why doesn’t the man have food?”
“I hit my brother.”
“Laney took a cookie.”

You can hear them, can’t you? The confessions and questions come out slowly and with those little eyebrows arching high to scrunch the forehead.

There is a seriousness about children when it comes to sin that I think wears off as we age. We get comfortable with the idea that we fail and we get tired of the wide-eyed confessions.

But there is something very sad about being cavalier with our sin, an emptiness apathy and disregard can’t replace. Have you ever stuck around after a child does mini-battle with the questions/confessions above? Do you see what happens?

Freedom.

When they recognize how serious it is to sin, they are freed to be truly joyful. There is nothing hidden. Their (or human) failure is exposed and there is nothing left to rationalize – just space to revel in the gratitude that they are forgiven, accepted, invited, loved.

I’m currently reading both Leviticus and Galatians and the contrast is captivating.

We serve a serious God. Sin is not a Sunday School lesson. The hoops the Israelites had to jump through on account of their sin were certainly not neatly wrapped up in a 20 minute moral lesson. The rules and regulations set up a healthy fear of the Lord and a distaste for anything that divided their relationship with Him. Sin is serious. I cannot imagine living in that time. I mean, I’ve tried imagining it and I nearly always end up pleading with the Lord to be a little more understanding. But, the Lord keeps reminding my heart, “Sin is serious.”

Then, I flip to Galatians and just want to dance. If I have the right (serious) view of sin, my salvation is like dancing with the cast of Fiddler on the Roof as they sing, “To Life, to life, l’chaim!”

I am free. Free!

How is it that children get this – that we got this as kids – and adults don’t?

If sin is serious, then so is JOY.

We were brought OUT of serious darkness and INTO serious light.
Why is it so hard to understand that a frivolous position on the former means a frivolous position on the latter?

It’s true, I can be too serious sometimes and I’m rightly called out when I’m trying to puff myself up. But, brothers and sisters, can we agree to build up the Body of Christ by being serious about sin so we can be serious about joy?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

is theology unmixable?

I just read this article yesterday, “Why Theology and Youth Ministry Seldom Mix” and now I’m wondering what we would say Theology does mix with? Or does the study of God always hang out in its own category – in the same coffee shop where people who study God hang out?

Is the solution to our watered down youth programs more theology? Is theology something we can add in to the recipe of various ministries where some have enough, others too much, and others not enough?

Maybe theology is about living. Doesn’t it make sense that the more we study God the more we know what pleases Him and the more we delight to do it? So, our ministry (whether formal or otherwise) is not about balancing out the messy games with the exegesis of Romans. Ministry is just about inviting others into our study of God – finding out what pleases Him and delighting to do it together.

I once tried to come up with a word for this: viviology.
I know it doesn’t make sense and thank goodness I don’t work at Webster’s. But, as I read through Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas several years ago, I struggled to come up with a way to describe the kind of life Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived. He was so serious about theology. I mean, brilliance ran in the guy’s family so he would have excelled in whatever field he chose to pursue. The interesting piece is not that Bonhoeffer was brilliant as a theologian, but that he was brilliant as a mentor, friend, and pastor.

To Bonhoeffer, theology wasn’t something that he worked in to a lesson plan. Theology happened when he played soccer and wrote letters and read for hours. Theology happened when he was in prison and when he struggled through sin and when conviction led him to take a stand against injustice. Theology wasn’t an additive.

Theology – the truest kind, I think – is always mixed. In fact, it’s mixed so much that it can’t be pulled apart from all the pieces of life it connects. Ministry is about drawing others into a study of God so that we know what pleases Him and are delighted to do it together.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

no other shelter

I will run and not grow weary
I will walk and not grow faint
You will be my shelter
protection from the rain
and when the waters rise,
I’ll stand and sing Your name
(from Hallelujah by Preson Philips)

This morning, the Lord calls out to me, “Take shelter. But take shelter in Me alone.”

I nod my head in gratitude for the shelter God offers and then duck under the closest, flimsiest umbrella. I recognize the beauty and mystery and grace of a covering that shields from the (often self-inflicted) storm, but then stand anchored beneath my own shoddy shelter. Christ promises shelter, but He doesn’t promise it apart from Him. He is the shelter. No other covering will do.

Why do we so often cling to the promises of the Bible, ask the Lord to be faithful, demand He come through in our time of need without understanding where all those promises are revealed: under His shelter.

Ray LaMontagne (brilliant musician) aches out his song, “Shelter,” and every phrase sings broken. He sets up a desperate need for shelter in the midst of terrible relational storm and then presents his best offering: one another. It’s beautiful and my heart hurts for it to be true so Ray can find some resolve. But, in the end he stands under his own (beautifully written) flimsy umbrella, convincing himself that it is enough.

Adam and Eve, exposed by their sin and separated from the perfect relationship they had enjoyed with the Father, scrambled to find something to cover them – to protect them from the shame they’d brought on themselves.

They forgot who made them. In an instant, they forgot who loved them, walked with them, and cared for their every need. They ran from their provider and rigged up their own covering.

They ran from the only One who could shelter them, hold them, love them through the shame and provide a covering that would satisfy.

For Adam and Eve, God did something they couldn’t have imagined – shed blood. The only adequate covering for their sin and shame came by way of sacrifice. This animal sacrifice was to point to the ultimate covering – Christ Himself – who would be the sacrifice that establishes our permanent shelter under the eternal roof of God our Father.

We reside underneath the covering the Lord built by way of His son, Christ. Christ is our shelter. All that is promised in Scripture is discovered, experienced, and enjoyed under this shelter. There is no other.

Why, then, do we remain obstinate? Why do we run about, scrambling to find the kind of shelter that won’t tumble in the storm?

The Psalmist writes in Psalms 103:2,

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Our short-term memory sends us searching outside the Shelter. We forget the benefit of His protection and provision and we venture out into the storm with our arms covering our faces.

With Christ as our shelter, our arms are free to raise. We don’t need to worry about being exposed or weak, for we are under His shelter – covered by His protection. We are free to make ourselves most vulnerable in praise to our Deliverer who is our covering.

under His shelter I will
let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

more than life itself

“Jesus was not passionate about suffering – He wasn’t gifted in death by crucifixion. Jesus was passionate about the will of His Father.”

I know – we’re not all good at the same things. Some of us are painters and others of us are mathematicians; some are poets and others are scientists; some are silly and some are serious. I’ve heard about “personality profiles” and “strengths tests” and I get it. We are all made differently and we do different things well, some exceptionally.

But, when Brad Buser said the above at Perspectives on Sunday, it was like the last puzzle piece fell into place to create the picture of my uneasiness about the way we “find God’s will for our lives.” It’s pretty simple, really.

We start here.

We say, “Self, what do you like to do? What are you good at?”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, hours before the appointed hour of his death, Christ said, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.
Not as I will, Lord, but as you will.

I used to love Frederich Buechner’s quote, “The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Now, I think it’s simpler.

The place God calls you is to be about Him.
It means treasuring the Lord more than my closest friend, choosing the Lord above my family, loving the Lord with an intimacy the earth cannot touch.

It means wanting the will of the Father more than life itself.

And there’s a tension in my bones that says making such a bold (albeit shaky) declaration in my soul must mean 20 years with a tribe who has never heard the Gospel.

I must go, now, toward a love that’s more than life itself. I must shake off everything that so easily entangles and run the race with one prize in mind.

I want so desperately to believe my calling is to be about Him.
Not as I will, Lord, but as You will. 

Posted on by Caroline 0

lessons in location

“Caroline Nichols.”

The voice on the other end of the line came from another world and there was no greeting when she picked up the phone – just my first and last name in a way that also said, “finally.”

It had been too long.

Then there was a kind of rustling somewhere in my soul.
“Why am I not there?” it seemed to say.

A swell of confused discontent crashed tidal waves on my stateside resolve as Ana shared stories of trial and triumph in the everyday working out of her faith. God is transforming her life, making her new. And I am not there.

___

The Lord hid my computer cord in the desk drawer this past week, I’m sure, because He knew I needed some unplugged space to breathe. He’s been teaching me lessons in location.  After living in five states and another country, I know about location. I know what distance does to relationships and how important it is to look someone in the eye. I know about airports and unfamiliar city streets and walking into a church where no one knows my name. I know a little about location and what it does to the soul when you make roots and rip them out.

Somewhere in the unplugged breathing space this week, my question of location – being there or here or somewhere else – became quite irrelevant. Because my question implies that location is about me. “Why am I not there?” places all the significance and purpose on my location. And how foolish; how prideful! God, who laid the foundation of the earth and decorated the heavens, is not confined by our human understanding of location or our physical presence in any certain place.

He is always here and always there and never hidden out of reach.
He is forever present.
His location is always and everywhere. 

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They will perish, but you will remain;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away,
but you are the same, and your years have no end.
The children of your servants shall dwell secure;
their offspring shall be established before you.
(Psalm 102:25-28 ESV)

Isn’t that beautiful? God is never lost amidst the far reaches of His creation. He is always at home everywhere and our home is in Him. 

There is fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord (Psalm 16:11) and the Lord is present everywhere! Now my physical location becomes a detail in God’s greater story. I may be present in Iowa and far from Tegucigalpa right now, but God resides in His people – He makes a home in us.

___

So, when I hear her voice from the other side of the world; when I think about all the places I am not, I breathe deep and trust that God is. My heart wants only to join with Him, wherever I am, to make known the message of His grace.

This is home; this is the always location.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

as if they were madmen and fools

Tim Challies, by way of his blog, introduced me to some of Richard Sibbes‘ writing. Here is an excerpt that I can’t seem to shake (keep in mind this language is circa 1600).

It has been an old imputation to charge distraction upon men of the greatest wisdom and sobriety. John the Baptist was accused of having a devil, and Christ to be beside Himself and the Apostles to be full of new wine, and Paul to be mad. The reason is because as religion is a mystical and spiritual thing, so the tenets of it seem paradoxes to carnal men; as first, that a Christian is the only freeman, and other men are slaves; that he is the only rich man, though never so poor in the world; that he is the only beautiful man, though outwardly never so deformed; that he is the only happy man in the midst of all his miseries. Now these things though true seem strange to natural men, and therefore when they see men earnest against sin, or making conscience of sin, they wonder at this commotion for trifles. But these men go on in a course of their own and make that the measure of all; those that are below them are profane, and those that are above them are indiscreet. By fanciful affections, they create idols, and then cry down spiritual things as folly. They have principles of their own, to love themselves and to love others only for themselves, and to hold on the strongest side and by no means expose themselves to danger.

But when men begin to be religious, they deny all their own aims, and that makes their course seem madness to the world, and therefore they labor to breed an ill opinion of them, as if they were madmen and fools.

These words breathe the paradox that drives people crazy – that we [Christians] are freemen, though we seem slaves; that we are rich, though we seem poor; that we are beautiful, though we appear deformed; that we are happy, though we live in misery.

Why can the world not understand this divine reconciling? Because they “go on in a course of their own and make that the measure of all” and “have principles of their own,” all this mystical business seems inconsequential and silly. Their standard leaves no room for “others first” and “sacrifice,” unless it might benefit in the end.

“But when…”

Aren’t these great words?

With all the world charting their course in the same selfish direction, a boat changing direction will get the attention of the entire fleet. Sibbes uses “religious men” here in the same way we might use “true believer” or “follower of Jesus Christ” to designate the different standard a Christian uses to measure his life. Everything he/she was pursuing previous (and the value of those things) shifts immediately and joyfully to an object that makes no sense to the world. To set a course for an unseen destination with immaterial results sounds like bad business and poor planning.

It sounds like madness.

 We should not be surprised when the world misunderstands our obsession with eternity or our talk of the “Kingdom coming” or our less-than-five-figure aspirations. We should not be surprised, even, if the world manipulates our words to sound crazy and our gatherings to look strange.

We are the skin, living in these paradoxes every day. We deny our own aims and ask Christ to reveal His standard, that we might set our course to run against traffic [or completely solo] toward Him. We set our course and it looks like foolishness.

Our neighbors have dreamed up a reason why we are so generous, our co-workers have decided our cheer is fake, our boss is sure we are working hard just for the promotion, our estranged brother still doesn’t believe we want to see him just “because.”

The world may say our course is madness – that our aims our full of folly – but our reward is not won from the world. As we fix our eyes on Christ, the Author and Perfector of our faith, He will give us the same joy he possessed as He endured the cross.

What madness Christ must have possessed to have his face set so squarely toward Jerusalem? What foolishness must have surrounded Him as he humbly entered the city on a donkey? What absolute insanity he must have endured while claiming Himself King while on the cross?

Though the world count us as madmen and fools, God allows another miracle as He transforms our hearts to serve even those who consider us crazy. Christ asked the Father to “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” in the midst of His misery. At the height of His public shame, His love and compassion for those who considered him crazy only grew.

May our hearts swell with love for those who consider us as madmen and fools.

May we
let LOVE fly like cRaZy
when it makes no sense at all to the world,
because it makes perfect sense in light of the Cross.

Posted on by Caroline 6