It's Time

Winter, in Australia, should usually be written about in the context of quotation marks.  It's not as if I am a stronger person for surviving particularly difficult winters in the Midwest of the United States, but I hold back smirks when some of my neighbors complain about the 'freezing cold' of the South Australian 'winter' season.  Take today, for instance, the twenty-first of July - in essence, the very middle of 'winter.'  The sun is shining; it's a beautiful 18 degrees C. which is the equivalent of 64.4 degrees F. according to my online temperature translator.  I translate that as an amazingly gorgeous day.

And yet, I sit in my office typing with cold fingers, stocking cap affixed tightly to my head, sweatshirt and coat warming my body.  I can't seem to warm up and even the body fat that I've accumulated in the 'winter' seems to have no insulation properties.  Thus, I suffer from both the cold and being seasonably overweight.  I'm not going to find the ideal height to body fat translator for that one.

A few days ago, my eldest daughter, Elsa, after returning home from a trip to Cambodia with a team called Grow Ministries, wondered how cold I was.  Recently, our furnace had gone out in the house (we'd been without heat for a week) and I had stooped to using Greta's hot water bottle in the shape of a fuzzy blue bear, filling it with boiling water and placing it on the inside of my pocketed sweatshirt.  This is how the conversation went.

Elsa:  Dad, are you really that cold?
Me:  Yes, Elsa.  You've had the benefit of spending ten days in the tropics.  I, on the other hand, am freezing my hands off.
Elsa:  Getting weak in your old age?
Me:  So much better to hear from someone who shares the name of the Ice Queen.
Elsa:  (rolls her eyes.)  So what are you doing?
Me:  I'm warming my hands up.  (holding up the hot water bottle between my hands)
Elsa:  Oh, I see, did you fill the other one up and put it in your sweatshirt?
Me:  (looking down)  Uh, no, Elsa.  That's not a hot water bottle.  That's my stomach.  Thanks for noticing.
Elsa:  I didn't mean that... um...what I meant to say was...

It's time.

Time to once again go through the pain of hand to hand mortal combat with my shrinking metabolism which has withered with age.  The tire gaining tread around my middle needs wearing, but I know that with the tending comes effort and sweat and finding extra time in 'winter' when I'd rather be sitting on the sofa reading books and munching on tortilla chips.

As I reflect on the weight I've gained and the extra pressure I'm putting on joints, not to mention that I'm significantly slower running around the track, I also see the metaphor approaching me rapidly.

It's time to shed the extra weight of comfort that I have in my faith life.  It's time to start exercising my faith and putting it through the spiritual paces.  I've been trying to think of any biblical person who had a comfortable faith.  Moses. No.  David.  Not so much.  Esther.  Talk about a crisis of faith.  Prophets?  Give me a break.  And yet my own fallback position in life is to pray for comfort and ease.  Thus, both the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth need to be adjusted.

Last week, I was having coffee with a friend, and as we sat in the foyer of the shop ruminating about faith, life and other matters, the question of spiritual growth came up and in the midst of conversation, I tried to think back about the last time I did my devotions that did not involve preparing a sermon.  When was the last time I read the Bible with the lenses of spiritual training?  What has the Bible come to mean to me?

This week, in our fourth week on the Luther's Solas (Grace alone, faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, scripture alone and glory of God alone), I tried to think of the perfect metaphor for what the written word of God is.  So often, we look at the Bible and have been trained to see it as a map, or a guidebook or at its worst, a self-help tome.  But the written word, which contains the living Word - Jesus Christ - is...

A forge.

It is the consuming fire which burns us alive and burns within us with purifying force the power for living a life worthy of Christ's name.  With all forges, the heat is increased by the bellows which push more and more air into the flame stoking it to consume and melt the hardest of substances.  But this forge needs more than one person, someone to pump the bellows, which is why we must continue to be in dialogue with others with regards to how we read and see the scriptures, or we will fall into the trap of, what William Willimon, Bishop of the Methodist Church says is, 'a dangerous, individualistic, personal reading of scriptures that uses only personal experience and ideas to validate their own opinions and ideas.'

This week, find another person to discuss with you this Bible verse from Hebrews 4:12 - For the word of God is alive and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Answer these questions together:

1.  Why does the author of Hebrews worry more about the sharpness of the word, rather than a description of the tool?

2.  What is the difference between soul and spirit?  Why does the word need to separate them/

3.  What are the thoughts and attitudes that are judged by the word of truth in the written scriptures.

Put yourselves through some spiritual training.

It's time.