Mere Reflections

What can we do to change the world?
We can toil and labor until we’re old.
We can work towards power, might and wealth,
to eat like kings, drink to our own health,
raise an army, conquer the land,
breed a family with descendants like sand.
We can pursue our passions, or notoriety,
or be the butterflies of society.
We can write to solve life’s mysteries,
or research and transcribe the histories,
or quest for knowledge; go to college,
squander our plunder, all our coinage.
But what we can do that will have the greatest effect
is actually the antithesis of what we’d expect.
Don’t worry, what you need will be provided,
Your life is not your own, not matter what you’ve decided.
The last be made first, the first be made less
In being a servant you will find your success.

I wrote this last summer on my back porch. By candlelight. Unfortunately, even the suburbs of Houston are not conducive to meditation on nature.

I tried to admire the beautiful moon
But the city lights distracted me
I tried to listen to the crickets chirp
But the road noise was overpowering
I tried to inhale a breath of fresh air
But I smelled only chemical waste
I tried to enjoy the midsummer night
But all I could feel was the haze

In other news, I am simultaneously ready for winter to be over and dreading the approach of summer. But life is good, because God is Good.

Btw… I forgot to sing the third verse… haha.

I don’t wanna go back but at the same time I do
I invest in lies but want to withdraw the truth
Give me one day one ticket one way back to you
‘Cause it’s the last few moments that we regret
And the second hand chases away things that we’ve said
And you’re left with the loud sound of silence in your head

Oh, I’m a bird that swims, I’m a fish that flies
I’m the very thing that I despise
A streak of grey in a greater light
The sun is setting on the current age but I can’t seem to turn the page
‘Cause it’s never “I’ll move on” but instead “I don’t know” is what I say

Can’t keep going I’m far off track
‘Cause I can’t bear to look forward, can’t bear to look back
Can’t move on I’m far behind because I can’t make up my mind

This life is a life of indecision… or isn’t it?
I run from a place and the next day I want to revisit it
So for a while I’ll be the one quite easy to find
‘Cause I’ll be waiting at the crossroads just trying to decide

third verse I forgot:
The door is open but I won’t go through
I debate it in my head but I know it’s the truth
That simply I don’t know what to do
There’s a perfect balance in between accepting change and the old routine
But how can I accept something when I’m too busy overthinking

And when I try to think of a way outside
Nothing comes to mind except for what You provide
Because You see all of me and who I’ll be
So help me to decide

Listen to the original, albeit 8th grade, full band version here.

Praise God for sanctification and maturity! Praise God that in my weakness and indecisiveness, He is still LORD! May I continually be humbled to submission to Christ and submission to the fact that I have so much more to learn and so much farther to go to be like Jesus.

On Christ the solid rock we stand.

-Riley

I wrote this the other day during Mark’s sermon about the love we should have as Christians. The rhyming scheme is very odd. ha.

-

love falls down from heaven

God gives, like rain,

his love to our withering hearts

-

love is added like leaven

God wants so completely

his love to rise in our hearts

-

love is poured into us

God has emptied us of ourselves

so that we may be his alone

-

love will never turn to dust

God’s love will never end

with his love we will never be alone

-Riley

Let me say first of all that this is a topic that has been floating around in the back of my mind lately. It surfaces when I’m not doing much or when I’m working on a graphic design project that doesn’t take much thought. Some of my best thinking comes that way…ha. But anyway, here’s the question: What do I think about the doctrine of election? I mean, (as Trey so eloquently said of me) I’m a universalist in that I want everybody to go to heaven, but not in that I believe everybody will go to heaven. More recently I’ve been of the thinking along the lines of this quote from the end of an article written by Shane Claiborne to non-Christians:

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

(Read the rest of this article here for an interesting point of view to consider from a very legit, if a little extreme, Christian.*) Not so much of the “It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you,” part, though it definitely pains me thinking about friends I have and other people who won’t be in heaven (all the better reason to live out Christ’s love and forgiveness), I’m guessing I won’t be concerned with much else than God. I’m more talking about the last sentence. I’m of the mindset that I should believe that God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world and pray that God will use me and every other Christian to help that be accomplished.

I was fairly conflicted with my line of thinking I’d been following in my mind and the doctrine of election that is so prevalent in the Christians that I know personally until I read a post the other day that made perfect sense to me. This is what John Piper posted about election, and it’s the best way I’ve heard it explained so far:

Is it a sin to dislike the doctrine of election?

It’s sin not to like the true doctrine of election. It’s sin not to like what God likes.

I want to say it like that because many people have conceptions of doctrines—all kinds of doctrines—that are inaccurate. And therefore their good hearts dislike them.

So you could say, “I dislike election,” and be a good person, because you don’t see election clearly. And what you’re disliking should be disliked. Or you may be a person who is starting to see it clearly and your old self, which is bad, is rising up and not liking what ought to be liked.

So I don’t know whether this person should be chastised or not. The principle would be, “To the degree that you see biblical truth clearly, you should like it.”

Hell is a biblical truth. So when I say, “You should like hell,” what I mean is that you should like it the way God does.

God, it says, “is not willing that any should perish.” God “does not delight in the death of the wicked.” God “afflicts us, but not from his heart” (Lamentations 3). So there is in God himself a willing that hell be and a liking that it exists in that big picture. And yet he grieves over sending anybody there.

So the word “like” is just a little bit difficult here, because you’re going to have to do double perspectives again.

If God ordains that Jerusalem be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, should we like that? My answer is both yes and no. We should not like women boiling their children, but we should approve of God’s decision that it happen.

And so there’s a double perspective in which the things that you see in the small lens should be disliked, whereas what you see in the bigger lens of how God runs the world should be liked.

So there you have it! While I may not appreciate that people go to hell, I should appreciate the place hell has in God’s plan. Though I’m definitely still not saying I’m a Calvinist in regards to this debate as a whole. I feel like that’s too simple of putting it. I believe there is a tension between the two sides and I believe that John Piper pegged that tension very well in that post.

(I feel like I didn’t write this post as well as I could have, so please feel free to call me out on anything that is unclear.)

__________________________________________

*Though from what I’ve read of his work, he would greatly appreciate me saying I thought he is a little extreme, because he believes that if everyone agrees with him he’s doing something wrong, but that’s another subject I can post later. If you are looking for a book that is challenging/a different perspective, try Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. Though I don’t agree with everything he says, he poses very interesting points.

C.S. Lewis’s Weight of Glory sermon/speech/essay continues to be in my estimation the best work he ever produced. At least half, if not more, of the things I quote/reference from Lewis are contained in this very short piece. If you haven’t read it, you need to. Here is a taste, perhaps the most quoted paragraph of anything he ever said or wrote:

Indeed, if we consider the
unblushing promises of reward and the
staggering nature of the rewards promised
in the Gospels, it would seem that Our
Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but
too weak. We are half-hearted creatures,
fooling about with drink and sex and
ambition when infinite joy is offered us,
like an ignorant child who wants to go on
making mud pies in a slum because he
cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily
pleased.

Reposted from mah blog

It’s so simple! It’s so beautiful! It’s so unfathomably gracious!

So loving, undeserved, and the largest, most Amazing process we can/will ever be blessed to be a part of!

It makes perfect sense!

God provided for us a way that we can escape from the dismal failures that our lives are without Him!

We, though our fleshly selves are broken, messed up failures, have been given the opportunity to become perfect saints of God who are no longer slaves to our terrible intrinsic nature!

We can be made new people, NEW PEOPLE!

We still mess up, we still make mistakes, but the mistakes aren’t our own mistakes, but the mistakes of our old natures that we will one day be purged of completely!

Yes, you read that correctly! We aren’t judged based on our old natures, but on the NEW natures that God has created us by. Natures that know no sin!

Not only did you do this when nothing was making you, Lord, you laid your own life down to complete the process! Your love is Strong! Stronger than the anything else the universe will even know.

So.

Yes, so.

So then I should be SO THANKFUL for this completely undeserved grace God has given that I should love nothing less than to, and be completely unsatisfied unless I use ALL of my resources, time, money, love, life, opportunities, and everything else that I have been given (that pales in comparison to this awe-inspiring amount of grace that I have been granted), for the continual worship and adoration and thanksgiving to the One who allowed me to be part of such a beautiful process!

Because how could I not be THAT thankful for such an undeserved, unearned gift?

It is all so perfect.

It all makes so much sense.

May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the Cross!

May I see it like the first time, standing as a sinner lost!

Undone by mercy and left speechless, Watching wide-eyed at the cost.

May I never lose the wonder, the wonder of the cross!

May I always be in wonder at the amazing, awesome things you done for Your undeserving Church, Lord.

Amen.

This is a song/poem that my brother Jeremy wrote a long time ago, when he was probably around fourteen or fifteen. The third verse is my addition.

Softly, oh so softly
The rain is falling down
Slowly, oh so slowly
The teardrops touch the ground
Quietly, so quietly
The trees are whispering now
They speak a strange and ancient tongue
They’re singing “Glory to the Lamb”

Louder, and still louder
More voices join the song
The whistling wind—a violin
The rivers sing along
But all at once the music stops
A silence sweet and long
Until the rolling thunder crashes
Singing “Glory to the Lamb”
—–
And all the earth awaits and groans
The day of Resurrection
Our souls alike yearn for the day
When we shall reach perfection
For on that Day we’ll see His Face
To which we’ve been conformed
We’ll join the rest of God’s creation
Singing “Glory to the Lamb”