Friday, April 11, 2008

Reason, and Chapter Two

There is just no way to reason about playing 6 hours of games when I should be studying.

What is it about a vast expanse of free time that screams "Go, play!", when I know I should be studying? ...Okay, maybe it's a stupid question.

How about, Why do I choose what's bad for me, even when I know what's best? The time I wasted last night is time I wasted in the full knowledge that there was and is something more valuable I could be spending my free evening doing. And I don't just mean studying, either.

See, something I did do yesterday was read through the second chapter of Don't Waste Your Life. The further I get, the happier I am I decided to pick it up again. The chapter, titled Breakthrough: the Beauty of Christ, My Joy, is very much applicable. I'm not a student of literature, and my encounters with literary study have been few, especially since coming to university. I consider this a shame. However, Piper's criticism of scholarly treatments of literary text resonated with me. In several courses I've been encouraged to apply my interpretation of a particular reading, to override the author's intentions with my own vision for what their piece meant. But, in so doing, we start to muddy things! As Piper states, "If there is only one life to live in this world, and if it is not to be wasted, nothing seemed more important to me than finding out what God really meant in the Bible, since he inspired men to write it. If that was up for grabs, then no one could tell which life is worthy and which life is wasted." (p. 24) His point being, by deciding to interpret and apply the text as you see fit, the reader robs the text of the author's intended meaning. If we understand the author of the bible to be God, who is Love, Truth, Justice, Wisdom, and Strength, among other things, then would it not make sense to seek with every fiber of our being to discover the meaning of his words?

The rest of the chapter Piper spends explaining how he continued to learn The Obvious and seek objective meaning from the bible... and of course, the answer to The Meaning Of Life. Now, reading this nearly two years after becoming a Christian, his words are far less shocking to me, though no less potent: God's intent is to display his glory, and our purpose is to glorify him by delighting in him. To be truthful, though I'd of course heard this over and again for the last almost-two years, Piper's explanation of this truth is one of the most eloquent I've read, and easily one of the most comprehensible! I, like Piper, have been wrestling for the last few months with, as Piper puts it, "what is right, and what is inevitable" (p. 31) (emphasis mine). What is right is that we glorify God, and what is inevitable is that we seek our own happiness. As someone who's dealt with a lot emotionally for the last 3 years, it would of course be a natural response to seek happiness. What I have honestly struggled with is that glorifying God and my happiness have seemed two entirely different things!

Some fundamental part of me (the part that bears the thumbprint of my maker, no doubt, as well as the Holy Spirit) has always recognized this as a problem, a glitch in my understanding. I laughed a little ruefully when I read further, "Compounding the problem was that many who seemed to emphasize the glory of God in their thinking did not seem to be enjoying him much. And many who seemed to enjoy God most were defective in their thinking about his glory." (p. 31) In some ways, to me, desiring God seemed... undesirable. Icky. Between watching fellow Christians fling bible verses heedlessly at Atheists and skeptics, the arguments between denominations, and the constant struggle between my real self vs. my ideal self, my own faith had begun to leave a bad taste in my mouth. So, Piper's revelation that glorifying God and being happy are one and the same was something of a revelation for me as well, one that has challenged me to take my study of God's message to us much more seriously. "God created me - and you - to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion - namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. Enjoying and displaying are both crucial. If we try to display the excellence of God without joy in it, we will display a shell of hypocrisy and create scorn or legalism..." (ibid.) (Emphasis mine - this definitely home)

Piper explains further on what exactly is meant by 'glorify', and I have to say, although I probably understood this word on some level, the cultured part of my mind always flinched when I heard it (much like words like, 'evangelize', and 'religious') - it seemed narcissistic. But, why SHOULD he get all the glory? Being Love, Truth, Justice, Wisdom, and Strength (as I mentioned before) has a lot to do with this. To be honest, it's still something I'm wrapping my head around. Piper offers the helpful metaphor that glorifying God is like magnifying God, in that if you magnify God as a telescope magnifies planets and stars, you are making something that is unfathomably large appear very clearly. Our lives are meant to show God more clearly - this is done by enjoying him. Again, part of me thinks this is amazing, and part of me thinks this outrageous.


I think what twisted the knife through my little heart, though, was a section on love that bears the title, "Does Being Loved Mean Being Made Much Of?"

Why yes, John, I believe it does.

Oh, shoot, is that wrong? This, unfortunately, is a belief I've held so close to me that I'm having a hard time escaping it. It became painfully obvious during my last relationship, but I have little doubt it has existed much, much longer than I'll ever recall. I still suffer from extreme self-interest - I will admit it. The fact that this blog exists is in part a testimony to that. The fact that my computer is full of pictures of myself is another. Pipers words are the smack upside the head that I have sorely needed for so very long: "Love is doing what is best for someone. But making self the object of our highest affections is not best for us. It is, in fact, a lethal distraction. We were made to see and savor God - and savoring him, to be supremely satisfied, and thus spread in all the world the worth of his presence. Not to show people the all-satisfying God is not to love them. To make them feel good about themselves when they were made to feel good about seeing God is like taking someone to the Alps and locking them in a room full of mirrors." (p. 33)

As I sit and write, and consider how this post started and where it is ending, something seems painfully clear to me. When asking myself how I can continue to fritter away useful time on worthless things, I normally cite a lack of motivation. But in so doing, I'm exempting myself from the more obvious issue - I can't even choose what is best for myself.

Sorry for another epically long post, it was probably as hard to write as it is for you all to read. I promise I'll post more cat pictures to make up for it!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have so many thoughts on your blog post, and I have so many things that I identify with you on (like playing games and wasting time, lately, when I should be sleeping or doing work. Except it's more like playing for 3 hours instead of 6 hours. except I've probably done it many more times).

Anyhoo, welcome to John Piper! Whoo hoo!

I want to try and give you a call tomorrow to chat and say Hi! Hopefully you won't be working at the Tea Room place or unreachable or something.

But I will say this for now - the way I see it, and I've been heavily influenced by listening to John Piper this semester, is that God loves us when He tells us to be wrapped up in giving Him glory because:

1) God knows that He's really that great/wonderful

2) He also knows that we will truly love it when we're glorifying/worshiping Him (i.e. it's delightful and good for us)

And related to #1 - the truth is, He really is that great!

So that's why it's good and right to be all about making much of God instead of making much of ourselves. I think.

Also, I will say that I believe God doesn't make much of us, in the sense of pretending that we're all that great in comparison to Himself, but He does love us by valuing us, caring for us, AND (this is crucial) by delighting in us. I think true loves requires two things: #1 genuinely caring for the other person's best interests (usually ahead of your own); #2 taking pleasure or delighting in that person

Erin said...

Your second point is essentially what I understood in my head while trying to write everything down, but I guess I didn't get it out clearly enough! Which is okay.

I totally agree, and I think that makes the most sense of anything I've heard to date (as I already mentioned).

Thanks for the awesome response, Paulman!

I'm kind of busy today (wedding shower/studying) but you can always try... if you call around 5 or 6 PM your time you're almost guaranteed to get ahold of me. :)