Enemy of the Best

"Whenever right is made the guidance in the life, it will blunt the spiritual insight.  The great enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but the good which is not good enough.  The good is always the enemy of the best... Many of us do not go on spiritually because we prefer to choose what is right instead of relying on God to choose for us.  We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eye on God." (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

When left to myself I choose comfort over commitment everytime.  That is precisely the reason I cannot leave choices up to me--I must live the crucified life so that the choice is always up to Him.  Death to self does not mean an unfathomable void ethically or otherwise; instead, crucifixion means fullness and spiritual altitude--life on a higher plane than I would have chosen for myself otherwise.  In order to soar, we must first die.  

Highest Form of Living

There is a lot of bad news today and there has been for quite some time. While not minimizing tragedy, catastrophe, or heartache, perhaps it's appropriate to hear something positive for a change. Ready for some good news? Human beings possess a hint of the divine and that clue becomes clear in charitableness.

According to Corporation for National and Community Service data, senior volunteering hit a 10-year high in 2011, as more than twenty million older Americans donated nearly three billion hours of services valued at $67 billion. The data also indicates that one in three volunteers is age 55 or older; that the percentage of seniors volunteering increased from 25.1% in 2002 to 31.2% in 2011; and that 72.4% of older adults -- higher than the national average -- provided informal favors such as helping out a neighbor. Previous research has found that volunteering can have a positive effect on an older person's mental and physical health, with senior volunteers tending to report increased strength and energy levels, lower rates of depression, and fewer physical limitations.

I love that research shows what we've instinctively known to be true--serving is the highest form of living! And serving is tantamount to changing the world. As Anne Frank once said, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Second-Wave Responders

Harry Smith and Brian Williams of NBC news stated clearly to the nation tonight something that many of us have known for many years--when a crisis occurs, churches and Christian people respond compassionately and courageously. Call them 'second-wave responders' but there is nothing second-rate about the way Believers put their faith quickly into action, assisting the dying, the hurting, the confused. Be it a force 5 tornado, a terrorist bombing, or a fertilizer plant explosion, faithful Christ-followers demonstrate unmistakably that knowing Christ changes everything. These are difficult days, but there is bright hope for any situation because the Body of Christ will be there, caring tangibly and embodying the Lord's prayer--"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Photo: darkroom.baltimoresun.com

Something That Matters

"Tim Tebow is America's most famous unemployed athlete." Since his release from the New York Jests, the Heisman Trophy winner has been without a team. Most individuals would be devastated and perhaps even be bracing for ultimate disaster. But not Tebow.

Last week, during a speech at Lake Michigan College, the jilted quarterback said this about his future: "What I want to do with my life is impact lives. When a kid in a hospital is fighting for his life and I'm trying to win a football game, what really matters? This game isn't as important as a lot of us make it out to be. If I can give him a little bit of hope, I can do something that matters. That's what I want my legacy to be about. That's how I want to be remembered."

He may already be getting his wish. A published survey recently named him America's most influential athlete. Forbes explains Tebow's significance: "His clean living and public religious values make him a role model for many, even if they render him polarizing in some quarters."

Tebow commented on the survey: "That's a huge honor. I see it as a great responsibility to be a role model for future generations. That's something I care about more than winning football games. If I can take the game of football and can transcend football—go to hospitals and make kids smile—I'll be doing things that matter."

I applaude the young man's spiritual maturity and higher undertanding of what's important in life. And it makes me ask myself, "What lesser things do I allow to push their way into the spotlight of my life?" "What am I doing to advance the Kingdom of God?" Am I investing the best of me in something that matters for eternity?

Slow-Motion Crisis

According to an article in today's New York Times, a crisis of epic proportion lurks beneath a large portion of the country in the diminishing returns of the High Plains Aquifer, a waterlogged jumble of sand, clay and gravel that begins beneath Wyoming and South Dakota and stretches clear to the Texas Panhandle. The aquifer’s northern reaches still hold enough water in many places to last hundreds of years. But as one heads south, it is increasingly tapped out, drained by ever more intensive farming and, lately, by drought.

Vast stretches of Texas farmland lying over the aquifer no longer support irrigation. In west-central Kansas, up to a fifth of the irrigated farmland along a 100-mile swath of the aquifer has already gone dry. In many other places, there no longer is enough water to supply farmers’ peak needs during Kansas’ scorching summers. And when the groundwater runs out, it is gone for good. Refilling the aquifer would require hundreds, if not thousands, of years of rains.

This is in many ways a slow-motion crisis — decades in the making, imminent for some, years or decades away for others, hitting one farm but leaving an adjacent one untouched. But across the rolling plains and tarmac-flat farmland near the Kansas-Colorado border, the effects of depletion are evident everywhere. Highway bridges span arid stream beds. Most of the creeks and rivers that once veined the land have dried up as 60 years of pumping have pulled groundwater levels down by scores and even hundreds of feet.

The same may be said of spiritual drought--it is a slow-motion crisis. Born of long periods of neglect, we find ourselves bereft of any joy associated with our relationship with God. Prayer seems futile, Scripture falls flat, and worship is hollow. We never get to such a low place suddenly. Instead, what St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul" develops gradually, but the result is deadly.

How should we respond when we become aware of the low level of our spiritual state? Refuse the temptation of turning to resources that tell about God, and accept no substitutes for seeking God himself. The remedy for spiritual drought is nothing less than a person--a personal encounter with Christ. When everything is stripped away and you find yourself clinging desperately to Christ like Jacob did the wrestling angel, then you will experience the torrent of spiritual desire and satisfaction rising. When He is everything and when He is enough, the spirituals clouds will form laden with life-giving droplets that will fall as refreshing rain upon your soul. In short, the remedy for spiritual decline is nothing less than a relentless return to God Himself.