Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Mixed Metaphors
Sorry, but what I'm going to be talking about today is actually stuff I was thinking about on Sunday. There wasn't much in Romans eight of the Screwtape letters today that really provoked a lot of thought. Although...there was one chunk in Romans that had me a bit puzzled, but maybe I'll write about that at the end.
Anyway, I've been talking about not being result oriented and problems with the way I set goals as a Christian quite a bit this year, and I suspect that in rethinking the issue I've rather gone from one extreme to the other. That is, instead of always setting goals and focusing on achieving them (rather than appreciating the value of the process of achieving them), I've started to simply not set any goals at all, except for a very vague and totally uninternalized goal of "being more like Christ."
So on Sunday I heard another version of the race metaphor. Basically life is a marathon, and the ultimate goal is glorifying God. That goal is kilometres and kilometres away, and the track is difficult, but luckily there are checkpoints along the way. Working towards a checkpoint helps to motivate us to continue, and it also helps to keep us on the right track. For example, you'll be able to tell after a while if you're getting farther from the checkpoint instead of closer. But the key thing is that we don't give up or stop at any checkpoint. Yes it's encouraging and beneficial to know that checkpoints are there and that you've reached so many, but you can only finish the race by always moving onto the next checkpoint until you reach the end!
Like so many of the things that strike me, this is incredibly simple. It's not earth shattering, but it's definitely something I've been overlooking in my zeal to avoid being result oriented.
Another example that kind of got integrated into the race metaphor was the lamp metaphor, with a slight twist. Instead of us, the runners being the lamp, God is the lamp. So I guess you can think of us as running in the dark. Most of the time we haven't a clue where to go or whether we're going in the right direction, but God is like a lamp or flashlight that we can carry with us. It doesn't give us a clear view all the way to the finish line, or even necessarily to the checkpoint which we know we have to reach, but it gives us enough light to see a couple of steps ahead of us. All we have to do is take those few steps and have faith that the light will keep shining for the next steps and the next.
A rather strange mix of metaphors, but it really helped to clear some things that had gotten muddled up in my mind.
Oh, and before I go, the passage from Romans chapter 8 that confused me. It was Romans 8:29-30, and it talked a lot about how God foreknew and predestined people to be "conformed to the likeness of the son"; and how those he predestined, he called; those he called, he justified; and those he justified, he glorified. It's really just the word "predestined" that throws me. I'm guessing this is one of the points people use in the free will versus predestination argument? I've always tried to work out a compromise in my head, leaning more to the free will side, but this passage seems to slant the argument heavily to predestination. And that shift opens up the proverbial can of worms for me...I wish I had the original Greek word with me, along with a dictionary to provide all the different possible translations. I think it'd at least give me a good start to figuring this out.
Sorry, but what I'm going to be talking about today is actually stuff I was thinking about on Sunday. There wasn't much in Romans eight of the Screwtape letters today that really provoked a lot of thought. Although...there was one chunk in Romans that had me a bit puzzled, but maybe I'll write about that at the end.
Anyway, I've been talking about not being result oriented and problems with the way I set goals as a Christian quite a bit this year, and I suspect that in rethinking the issue I've rather gone from one extreme to the other. That is, instead of always setting goals and focusing on achieving them (rather than appreciating the value of the process of achieving them), I've started to simply not set any goals at all, except for a very vague and totally uninternalized goal of "being more like Christ."
So on Sunday I heard another version of the race metaphor. Basically life is a marathon, and the ultimate goal is glorifying God. That goal is kilometres and kilometres away, and the track is difficult, but luckily there are checkpoints along the way. Working towards a checkpoint helps to motivate us to continue, and it also helps to keep us on the right track. For example, you'll be able to tell after a while if you're getting farther from the checkpoint instead of closer. But the key thing is that we don't give up or stop at any checkpoint. Yes it's encouraging and beneficial to know that checkpoints are there and that you've reached so many, but you can only finish the race by always moving onto the next checkpoint until you reach the end!
Like so many of the things that strike me, this is incredibly simple. It's not earth shattering, but it's definitely something I've been overlooking in my zeal to avoid being result oriented.
Another example that kind of got integrated into the race metaphor was the lamp metaphor, with a slight twist. Instead of us, the runners being the lamp, God is the lamp. So I guess you can think of us as running in the dark. Most of the time we haven't a clue where to go or whether we're going in the right direction, but God is like a lamp or flashlight that we can carry with us. It doesn't give us a clear view all the way to the finish line, or even necessarily to the checkpoint which we know we have to reach, but it gives us enough light to see a couple of steps ahead of us. All we have to do is take those few steps and have faith that the light will keep shining for the next steps and the next.
A rather strange mix of metaphors, but it really helped to clear some things that had gotten muddled up in my mind.
Oh, and before I go, the passage from Romans chapter 8 that confused me. It was Romans 8:29-30, and it talked a lot about how God foreknew and predestined people to be "conformed to the likeness of the son"; and how those he predestined, he called; those he called, he justified; and those he justified, he glorified. It's really just the word "predestined" that throws me. I'm guessing this is one of the points people use in the free will versus predestination argument? I've always tried to work out a compromise in my head, leaning more to the free will side, but this passage seems to slant the argument heavily to predestination. And that shift opens up the proverbial can of worms for me...I wish I had the original Greek word with me, along with a dictionary to provide all the different possible translations. I think it'd at least give me a good start to figuring this out.
