A Rich and Satisfying Life?

I was spending some time tonight praying and, as I try to do regularly, I asked God if there was anything specific He wanted me to read in the Bible tonight. Now I'm not a huge fan of playing Bible Roulette (more often then not using this particular method to find your answers to life's question will land you in the genealogies leaving you more confused then when you started) but as I was praying and waiting to hear from God I absentmindedly flipped open my Bible to John 10. This is a passage that's come to mean a lot to me in the last year and as soon as I saw what I'd done, I knew God had spoken to me. As I read the passage, what stood out to me was verse 10 where Jesus says:

"The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life."

Wow. That's Jesus's purpose? I don't know about you, but before reading this tonight if you asked me what His purpose was I'd probably have said to come and die for our sins. And certainly that's true but, according to Jesus, it's not the whole truth.

I know the idea of having a rich and satisfying life is going to be a tough pill for a lot of people to swallow. For starters, there's a lot of rough stuff going on in the world today. How can we feel rich and satisfied in a world with so much evil? Is Jesus telling us to just stick our heads in the sand and ignore it all? Of course not. I believe He's telling us to recognize all of that bad stuff, that there is a thief, that there is evil and give it all to Him. NOT as an excuse to ignore it or do nothing about it but so that He can do something about it using us as his vessels. And whether He uses us a lot or a little to help in this world, it's clear to me that in the midst of it all He wants to blow us away with His joy, with His riches, with His blessings.

Of course, that's just part of our objection. Even ignoring the world around us there's our personal lives. Most of us have resigned ourselves to the idea that Hobbes was right when he wrote, "life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Or, to put a more modern spin on it, life sucks and then you die.

But that's not Jesus's opinion. And if you claim to believe the Bible, it shouldn't be yours either. Not by a long shot.

Sure life is tough and there's plenty to mourn in this world. Even Jesus is described as a man of sorrows in Isaiah. But while there is a time to mourn, a time for grief, a time for suffering, those things are clearly not intended to be the focal point of our life.

What Jesus is saying here is that life CAN be good. No, more than that, it can be AMAZING. Even when things are, by the world's standards, terrible, even in the midst of grief and evil, we can wake up every morning and expect God to blow us away. I can only imagine how many blessings I've missed because I simply did not believe what Jesus says here.

This isn't just a platitude. These aren't mere happy thoughts. This isn't a shot in the arm or an extra cup of coffee in the morning to get us through the day. And this is definitely not an excuse to ignore life; it's an invitation to embrace it. I believe God's challenge to me in leading me to this passage was to live like His promise of a rich and satisfying life is true, to live like He's the hero He promises to be. I want to pass on that same challenge to you. It's a step of faith but taking it can revolutionize everything.

And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making everything new!"
-Revelation 21:5

Summer Reading

Woo hoo! My summer vacation books showed up today! Annie and I are leaving next Friday for a couple of weeks of relaxation in the Carolinas. I'm the type of guy who likes to bring a bunch of books on a trip, not because I'm necessarily going to get to them all but because I never know what I'm going to be in the mood for at any given time. I also like to mix in several rereads. I love revisiting old stories and vacation is a great time to do so. Here's a few snippets of what I'll probably be reading over this year's vacation, starting with the new stuff first.

I'm really excited about this one. I have yet to see the HBO miniseries based on this book but I love David McCullough's writing. Adams is one of the more interesting founding fathers, but smothered between the giants of Washington and Jefferson, his presidency tends to be overlooked. I'm hoping this can help round out some of my knowledge of the early presidents


Epic is one of the few things by Eldredge I haven't read (though i have heard him do a live version of it). The basic idea is to present the Gospel as a story going back before the beginning of time, through the rebellion of Satan, to redemption on the cross and the promise of future victory.



Reading Philip K. Dick is an experience. I've never read another author quite as mind boggling as him. But it works and if you can accept the weirdness it's a blast. If you can't, best to stick to the toned down movies based on his stuff like Minority Report and Blade Runner.



I've never read anything by Brennan Manning before but I've heard enough about him to be excited about giving him a shot. His books all have very high marks on Amazon and I'm hoping he becomes another of the wonderful Christian writers I've discovered in the last year.



I've just finished reading Frank Herbert's original Dune series. This is his son's continuation/conclusion based on notes and outlines found after Herbert's death in 1986. I know there are lots of Dune fans who loathe what Brian Herbert has done by trying to finish his father's series but I'm optimistic.






I've been meaning to read the medieval mystics for a while now. I've heard great things about St. John of the Cross and this is probably his most famous book.





To be honest, I know almost nothing about this book. But it's a sci-fi classic and as a certified sci-fi nerd it qualifies as a major hole in my reading. Hopefully it's as good as the hype.






Rereads:

Shadowland by Peter Straub - Straub is probably my favorite living horror writer. I don't remember this very while but I enjoyed it the first time through. It's not as scary as his brilliant Ghost Story but it's a good book nonetheless.

L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy - The movie is better known but the book is a lot of fun too. They're pretty different from but this is one of those cases where both movie and book are equally good.

Miracles and The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis - These are two of Lewis's best books. It's been a while and God has taught me tons since I first read them. Hopefully I'll get even more out of them this time around

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury - This is my favorite Bradbury novel (unless you count The Illustrated Man as a novel). It's been a while so hopefully it holds up to my memory.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson - This is one of the great haunted house novels of all time. Over half a century later it's still very scary and a blast to read.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem - This is a brilliant and beautiful science fiction novel. I'm one of about five people who actually liked the George Clooney movie based on it. But the book is different enough where even if you hated the movie you'll want to give this one a shot.

Striving, Rest and the Beginning of Summer

For a while now I've been signed up on the intercessor's list for Ransomed Heart Ministries. About once or twice a week John Eldredge sends out an e-mail letting those of us on the list know how we can be praying for the ministry and joining in the spiritual battles surrounding what they're doing. Occasionally he'll also add in a few other thoughts on life and what God has been showing him. The letter he sent out tonight had a paragraph I wanted to share with you:

I hope you are well. And that you are making plans to get some rest and beauty this summer. Don’t let the pace of life sweep you on, and suddenly it’s August and you realize, “Gosh, we were going to take some needed time for our hearts but now it feels too late to plan anything.” Fight for joy. (You will nearly always have to fight for joy).

This is something God has been speaking to me a lot on lately. Life is so fast. Too fast really. And the temptation to strive hits us from just about every angle.

We in the church have gotten pretty good at recognizing it in the secular world. We recognize the emptiness in making materialism our highest goal. We've seen the emptiness of lives devoted to nothing but career, or self gain, or any of the other ways we try and replace God. We get the tragedy of all that and that's good. I don't want to discount that. But at the same time we've completely missed that same attitude within the church and in ourselves.

Legalism is a part of it, but I don't think that nearly begins to cover the whole picture of what's gone wrong. In fact, it's blinded us to similar problems in our own lives. We look at Christians who've given into legalism (the ones who don't dance, play cards, or even think of drinking a drop of liquor) and we thank God we've avoided the trap.

But the problem's still there and it's different in every one of us. For some it's trying to learn enough facts and theology. For others its giving enough time and money, supporting enough good causes, volunteering enough hours. For still others it's a watered down version of legalism where we just try not to sin too much. The list goes on and on.

I'm not deriding any of that stuff. Those are good things. But where's God in the middle of it? I know He's given plenty of lip service but tacking is name onto that stuff is way different than inviting Him to be a part of it. So often those things become another way to strive, to build, to try to make our lives worthwhile, to earn our salvation.

Meanwhile Jesus is outside the empty tomb waiting for us to fall into His arms.

You see, it's not that any of that stuff is bad. It's just that when we're doing it in our own strength it gets really ugly, really fast. It becomes about what we do. Our salvation becomes based on works, not on the cross.

I believe before we can do any of that stuff, before we can really learn theology, help the needy, give our money, be transformed from our sin, before any of that we need to fall into the arms of Jesus and know the transforming power of His love.

Summer is a great time to give this a try. In our culture it's traditionally a time of rest. At some point this summer most of us will be going on a trip, hanging out with friends for a barbecue, or just spending time enjoying the beautiful weather while it lasts. But like Eldredge says, it can be gone in a flash. We can miss it just as easily through our "good works" as the rest of the world does through secular striving.

I believe God has more for us. Not just in summer but all year round. Spend some time in these next few months falling into His arms and being transformed by His love. There's nothing we can do to earn what He wants to do in our lives. It's impossible and we make a mess of trying. He wants more for you. Are you willing to get out of His way?

Welcome: About This Blog

At the end of The Last Battle, the final volume of The Chronicles of Narnia, Aslan returns in Narnia's final hour. As the world ends, he opens a door that leads into a world, much like Narnia but bigger and better. Aslan's Country. Heaven. As the door shuts once and for all on Narnia Aslan calls to those who've followed him through the door, "Come further in! Come further up!"

They do. As they explore Aslan's country they find inside it yet another door. They go through it and discover another country on the other side, bigger and better than what they've just passed through. And so it continues. The further they go into Aslan's Country the better it becomes. There is no end to it and each time it seems to be as good as it could possibly be, it gets better still.

This passage is one of my favorites in any book I've read. Not just Narnia, any book. It's one of the most beautiful pictures of Heaven and the infinity of God that the human mind has ever come up with. That in itself is pretty neat but I believe we can take this a step further than the story. We need not wait until Aslan comes for us. I believe God calls us to this kind of adventure right now! When Jesus speaks about life, He certainly is making a promise for the future but no where do I find him saying we're out of luck for the hear and now. John 14:18 reads, "No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you." Aside from going deeper into the theology of all that, I can tell you from my personal journey that this is true. Jesus does offer healing. He does offer life. And it is available now, in this life!

For as great as that sounds (and is!) it can be tough. It requires us to regularly put aside all we've clung to in this world and embrace nothingness so God can give us everything. It demands we let go of all the neat stuff we've learned and take the mind of a child so we can learn from the Father. It invites us to take that first step out of the boat and walk on the water even (especially) when we know it's impossible. That's not easy. But it's worth it.

This blog will touch on a lot of different things. I have lots of different interests: reading, writing, history, politics, faith, music, sports, movies. I'll be posting on all of them at some point and I'm hopeful we can get some good discussion going on those and other topics. If you're interested in what I'm reading or have read recently check out the widgets on my sidebar. If you're passing through and you've got similar interests to what I'm talking about feel free to drop me a line at bendebono@gmail.com

More than anything I hope this blog can be a place for me and my readers to share the journey as we listen to the voice of the master calling us further up and further in.

The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.
-Aslan, The Last Battle