Fullness

Colossians continues to bless me (see yesterday's post...)

This morning's words, taken from The Message paraphrase, are marching orders worth following, plain and simple -- from Colossians 2:6-10 ~

My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You're deeply rooted in him. You're well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.

Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything.

So often people will ask, in the form of a greeting, "How's it going?" Rather than list off the various tasks that lay ahead of me for the day or the week, how great it would be if I just said, "Fully living."

Sure, that's pretty random. But when we camp on that concept, that reality, of fullness, it makes sense. Warren Wiersbe, the Bible commentator, says "fullness" is "the sum total of all that God is, all of His being and attributes." The great gift is that we share in this fullness, in a reliable, permanent way. One commentator translated verse 10 in this way:

And you are in Him, having been completely filled full with the present result that you are in a state of fullness.

THAT is good news. THAT is permanence of the best kind. Camp on that today and look at your life through that lens. Everything shifts into proper perspective.

Looking Back

This morning I started some devotional reading in Colossians. I have great affection for this small little letter (only 4 chapters) in the New Testament, for many reasons. First of all, chapter one contains the first sizable passage I memorized. At twenty years old, I went on a 4-day bike trip in the Sierras, and during that time we had Colossians 1:15-20 taped to the handlebar bags at the front:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

After 4 days of hanging my sorry head over those bars (riding 250 miles, often up very steep grades), I got it right. And it was life-changing... because these particular words are transformative. In repeating them over and over, I got the biggest thoughts about Jesus drilled in deep. And best of all... they remained.

Over the years I'd come to that passage over and over. Sometimes I would walk students through it to help them start wrapping their brains around the deity of Christ. Or I would linger over it myself -- especially that opening line. The Phillips paraphrase is poetry itself:

Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God...

Other times I have prayed these verses over friends or students:

And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father...

In my first year after college, I memorized this passage from the opening of chapter three:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

I'll never forget the feeling in my chest when those words, handwritten on a beat-up index card on my desk, caught the eye of my boss. I was working as an editor and writer at a scientific research firm with a bunch of PhD's who were respectful but not terribly interested in a green college grad. "Hmm... what's that?" he asked. "Oh, just something I'm... memorizing," I mumbled. "Hmm. Interesting." I saw his eyes follow the words. Who knows what he thought.

But in my reading this morning, what I am reminded of most is my visit to Colossae in May 2005. We had visited so many remarkable sites already on our trip - we were touring key sites related to the Apostle Paul: Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), Antioch, Antalya, Ankara, Laodicea... and we were heading to Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens... I'd seen so many remarkable places directly out of the Bible. I was having the time of my life!

Given my own history with the Book of Colossians then, my heart welled up with excitement even more. We stopped first that day at Laodicea, where we saw actual ancient water pipes caked with lime deposits, and we were told that the water was very hard and distasteful there. It was so full of particulates that it was neither cold nor refreshing. This gave completely new meaning to the letter to the Church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:15-16...

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

We hopped back into the bus, and headed to Colossae. Picture my face nearly pressed against the window as we approached... then imagine my dismay when we saw the dusty and unremarkable little hill pictured in the photo above.

It was nothing.


Colossae was nothing more than a beat-up sign. We climbed up over the steps you see in the picture at the top and walked along the flat area. With our shoes we could easily find pieces of broken pottery. This was clearly an archaeological goldmine.

Instead, it was just sitting there. The tour guide went on to tell us that the country of Turkey, a secular Islamic state, had absolutely no interest in excavating an ancient Christian site like Colossae. Not only that, but it was very reluctant to give permits for others to dig there. (Read a little more about it here.)

I was heartbroken. With my bare hands I wanted to start digging. We piled back in the bus and drove on through the Lycus Valley. I really couldn't shake the image of that rich trove of knowledge, buried under centuries of soil and rock.

But later I realized that perhaps that is a great reminder of life for each of us. When it comes down to it, over the long haul we won't be remembered for anything we build or any material items we leave behind. On this earth, we too will merely end up as a forgotten pile of dirt! (Sorry, I don't want to sound so bleak. Keep reading...)

What we will be remembered for are the lives we have invested in, which then in turn pour into others. That is how the faith spread throughout the Roman Empire and the rest of the world. It flowed through Epaphras (see 1:7) and Paul in Colossae, and his words to them later spurred them on as a church to ongoing fruit and labor.

If all of my efforts are spent in building markers and material wealth, it will all come to nothing... I'll just be a neglected hill with a beat-up sign :) But if I focus my energies on people and their deeper lives, the potential is great joy beyond words. As Paul says in Colossians 1:6

All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth.

That is our purpose. So as it says at the end of chapter one:

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

Amen and amen.

Shhhhhh.......

Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there will be nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words ... never really speaking to others.

... Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), Life Together [1954], tr. Daniel W. Bloesch & James H. Burtness, Fortress Press, 2004, p. 98

What keeps you from hearing God -- in other words, what is noisy in your daily world?

Do you make room for silence in your life? How could that happen this week?

You'll never "have time" to do this. Just do it.

Pascal Rocks My World

I read a small section by him today. These two passages stood out:

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and consolation, a God who fills the souls and hearts of His own, a God who makes them feel their inward wretchedness and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost spirit, filling it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, rendering them incapable of any end other than Himself...

The God of Christians is a God who makes the soul perceive that He is her only good, that her only rest is in Him, her only joy in loving Him. (Blaise Pascal)

I am thankful that I grow in hunger for Him. As Pascal writes, He is my soul's only good...

I pray for the perseverance to seek after Him most and first, rather than the success of this world.

The fear of human opinion disables;
trusting in God protects you from that.
(Proverbs 29:25)

Living in the Present is Hard to Do

Hum today's title to the tune of "Breaking Up is Hard to Do..." :)

Sorry, that's really lame.

I am at such an intriguing period in my life. I have always lived in the context of a full schedule with a big pile of responsibilities, a ton of relationships to manage, and a long-range calendar.

But since November 08, during my sabbatical and now in this time of waiting and exploring in terms of "what's next?" in my calling and career, I am now living one day at a time. It is as if I was driving 65 mph on the freeway, and was somehow able to shift the car into reverse. After coming to a screeching halt with a lot of dust and noise, the car is slowly moving, creeking and crunching, in this new direction.

Today's reading in my Diary of Readings begins to touch on what this about-face feels like... it's written by some priest who died in 1751 named Jean Pierre de Caussade:

Let us then think only of the present and follow the order of God, let us leave the past to His mercy, the future to Providence, striving peaceably all the time and without anxiety, first of all for salvation; and for the rest, let us leave its success entirely to God, casting on His parental bosom all our vain anxieties….

This says to me that I cannot keep dwelling on "what if's"... I have to trust in God's plans, and not try to make things "work" or "succeed" on my own power.

Happy the persons who, in order to become more recollected in God and more disposed to prayer, are able to banish constantly all this waste of the spirit, retaining only what is in the strictest sense necessary for the present which so soon passes, and for the future which will not be what one imagines and perhaps will never come.

Quit wasting your time on worry and trying to change things you cannot change. Peel away the fluff and the junk that you fill your time with, and simplify. Be prepared for things to not turn out the way you expect them to - be open to God's imagination, which is far better than yours.

I looked up de Caussade's bio online, and it said he was a spiritual director for a community of nuns. This is the sort of advice he would give to them:

De Caussade's perennial advice was to welcome whatever was given in the present moment as flowing directly from God. Such abandonment to God is the heart of the spiritual life. And though we might not always get the things we want, we will have peace. Why? For God is peace, and we will always have God, who is our innermost being.

That just makes my head hurt trying to understand it. But I am thankful that the Spirit slowly peels back the layers of meaning in my soul. May it be so during this time of my life -- and always.