"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."
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(C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
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Far too easily pleased...
Yes.
That's it, isn't it?
Far too easily pleased.
It sure explains a whole lot.
It explains a lot about the way we are living. About the choices we make. And most of all, about our general willingness to accept this diminished role we find ourselves playing in the smaller story of our own making...a story devoid of any real adventure, danger, sacrifice, or ultimate importance.
It explains a lot about the way we are living. About the choices we make. And most of all, about our general willingness to accept this diminished role we find ourselves playing in the smaller story of our own making...a story devoid of any real adventure, danger, sacrifice, or ultimate importance.
Sure, we'd love to believe that we play out the days of our lives within the context of something great and terrible, something of universal and everlasting significance - a story so full of darkness and danger that we awake to each new sunrise with no assurance that we will live to see it set; and yet so equally full of promise for an ultimate prize of happiness of the kind that we have only encountered in our wildest dreams, if we have ever encountered it all.
Sure, we'd love to believe that is what we are doing here. What life is all about. What it means to be alive on planet Earth in the year 2010.
But when the actual days of our lives are, practically speaking, full of one "small" choice after another, is it any surprise that we find it impossible to really believe anything other than the seemingly inescapable fact that we are "small" characters playing "small" roles in an ultimately insignificant and "small" story??
It is our choices that belie our true beliefs.
You make a new acquaintance at church. He asks you if you golf. You say no, not really. He asks you if you do have any hobbies...and something inside you dies just a little with the tenor and the underlying implication of the question. What do you do squeeze a modicum of pleasure out of the weary days of your insignificant and purposeless life? There must be some meaningless little pasttime that you preoccupy yourself with? John Eldredge says that so many men today believe that they are here on earth just to kill time...and that this belief is killing them. One thing it is certainly killing is our attempt to believe in the Great Adventure of the Epic Story that God is telling.
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We simply cannot hold onto a vibrant belief in our own importance when we are filling our days with insignificant choices.
If you want to allow yourself to be drawn into the magic and mystery, if you want to live your days with your eyes firmly fixed on the Sacred Romance of the Larger Story, it will have to begin with a determination on your part not to undermine your own longings by the triviality of your daily choices. You may feel that we are asking the impossible. Perhaps we are. We simply know from personal experience that you can only live for so long as if "nothing of eternal significance needs doing this afternoon so I think I'll catch a nap, watch a football game, and then run to the store to buy a new shower curtain and a movie for this evening", before you lose all faith in the concept of your own significance.
If you want to allow yourself to be drawn into the magic and mystery, if you want to live your days with your eyes firmly fixed on the Sacred Romance of the Larger Story, it will have to begin with a determination on your part not to undermine your own longings by the triviality of your daily choices. You may feel that we are asking the impossible. Perhaps we are. We simply know from personal experience that you can only live for so long as if "nothing of eternal significance needs doing this afternoon so I think I'll catch a nap, watch a football game, and then run to the store to buy a new shower curtain and a movie for this evening", before you lose all faith in the concept of your own significance.
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What is God up to today?
Well, for one thing, He's saving the world from darkness, destruction, and eternal horrors without end.
Well, for one thing, He's saving the world from darkness, destruction, and eternal horrors without end.
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How are you planning on filling up your day? A run to Costco for some things you have convinced yourself that you need, but you really don't? A nap in the sun? An hour in front of the mirror? Some over-time hours to get that 0ver-time pay that is going to make your cozy little life just a little more secure?
He created us, His image-bearers, to only be fully alive and happy and fulfilled when we are battling alongside Him in this great task of restoring and rescuing this rebel planet, spending and being spent in a mighty work that will be celebrated for all time and beyond.
He created us, His image-bearers, to only be fully alive and happy and fulfilled when we are battling alongside Him in this great task of restoring and rescuing this rebel planet, spending and being spent in a mighty work that will be celebrated for all time and beyond.
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Can we continue to be satisfied with any other life?
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Don't look back. There is too much wasted time behind you. Behind us. Let's all commit to stop making choices that sabotage our desire for a larger role in the story.
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Don't look back. There is too much wasted time behind you. Behind us. Let's all commit to stop making choices that sabotage our desire for a larger role in the story.
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Live like it's true.
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Because it is.
Issuing a Call to Arms,
Derrick and David
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