The Week in Words

My Facebook friends list is littered with seminarians, my blogroll full of homemakers raising children for the glory of God. Missional believers from all over have started in-house non-profits, have worked in church-based soup kitchens, have adopted orphans from overseas and stateside.

I can be tempted to feel inadequate, so secular.

I don’t have a noble religious calling. I have an ordinary sort of calling.

I’m a dietitian.

Sure, others have secular callings. The missional manuals encourage those to start a sacred mission either within or in addition to their secular work.

The prospect exhausts me. It’s enough I can do to just be a good dietitian. I want to serve the people at my workplace, but there’s only so much I can do and still do my job.

Matt’s comments (found here) help me put things in perspective:

“One additional word on skill: If you show love by being the first to order the pizza, or drive the van, or do whatever to serve people, but aren’t good at what you do, everything will fall flat. You have to be good at what you do. Good intentions are not enough…

If we want to glorify God in our workplaces, we need to learn from the best thinkers in our fields, whether they are Christians or not. And, this creates a better testimony to the gospel.”

God does not demand that I set aside my job or set aside my field in order to be a witness for Him in the workplace. In fact, He asks just the opposite.

To glorify God in my workplace is to be the best dietitian I can be. To glorify God in my workplace is to love my coworkers by doing my job well, to love my residents by caring for their nutritional needs in the best possible way.

Yes, it is not enough that I merely be a good dietitian–I must still share the gospel, must still demonstrate love in my interactions. But being the best possible dietitian is a primary means by which I can be a testimony in my workplace.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

From Grace Livingston Hill’s The Gold Shoe (published in 1930):

Then, one day, there arrived a delivery car from one of the big florist’s establishments in the city…

“Mercy!” said Hesba, “what a waste!”

“A waste?” said Marget starting back sharply from her first sweet breath of them with a hurt look in her eyes.

“Yes, sending all these here, with just us two. Not even a party or a funeral! Mercy! Do you know what those yellow roses cost, those with the yard long stems? I priced them the other day, just for curiosity, and they are seventeen dollars a dozen! Just think of that! I say that’s wicked! Think of the heathen!”

“The heathen?” said Margret puzzled. “What about the heathen?”

“Why, think what that might do for them!”

“What would it do for them?” asked Marget burying her face in the mass of lilacs, and wishing she might keep it there awhile and not listen to the grilling of Hesba’s questions.

“What would it do? Why feed them, and send them to school, and put decent clothes on their back, and teach them to be respectable citizens in the world.”

“Is that all?” asked Marget with her eyes half closed, looking at the flowers dreamily.

“All? What more do you want?” asked Hesba indignantly. “Isn’t that about all one needs in life?”

“I was thinking that you might be saying it would send the knowledge of the Lord Jesus to them,” said Marget, lifting a stately lily and gazing into its golden heart.

“Oh, that! Of course, that goes too. But they have to live you know. They have to have food and clothes.”

“You think that comes first?” said Marget…

It’s a story that’s been going back at least a century–well meaning religious folk interested in social justice.

Caring for the poor. Providing food and clothes and education.

Upset with the extravagance of comfortable lives.

Nothing wrong with that.

Every Christian should be interested in caring for the poor. Every Christian should consider providing food and clothing and education. Every Christian should consider whether they are using their money wisely or squandering it on comfort.

But Marget and Hesba illustrate two completely different views of wealth and ministry.

While Hesba rages at the extravagance of a gift of costly flowers, Marget fully enjoys the gift she has been given.

While Hesba concerns herself with the physical needs of people, Marget recognizes their greatest need-their need for Christ Himself.

About 15 years ago, Charles Sheldon’s then 100 year old book In His Steps reawakened the question “What would Jesus do?”

Christians and non-Christians alike asked themselves what Jesus would do and sought to follow in the steps of the man from Galilee-the man who was famous for healing, teaching, and serving.

In more recent years, the church has turned more and more towards social justice issues–and much of it appropriately. They have heard the call of Christ to lay down their lives for others. And this is good.

But self-denial is not the gospel.

Even should we follow Christ to the cross for the sake of others,
our eulogies might still proclaim “What a waste!”

Our deaths would profit the world nothing–except that by our dying we proclaim Christ crucified and resurrected.

My crucifixion cannot save the world. My death to self cannot save the world. My giving up flowers and food so that others can have food and education cannot save the world.

I cannot merely follow in His steps in that I give of myself as He gave of Himself.
To do so would only be a waste.

In order for my following to not be wasted, I must give Him just as He gave Himself.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Generally, my Week in Words posts include musings on something I’ve read in the past week. They’re often a sort of personal essay based on the theme found within the quotes.

This week, I’m bucking the trend with a little teaser:

“…The West was built on two pillars: Athens and Jerusalem. By Athens I mean classical civilization, the civilization of Greece and pre-Christian Rome. By Jerusalem I mean Judaism and Christianity. Of these two, Jerusalem is more important.

The Athens we know and love is not Athens as it really was, but rather Athens as seen through the eyes of Jerusalem.

~Dinesh D’Souza, What’s So Great About Christianity?

I’d been a week without books since my books were due on the skydiving weekend (and I didn’t have time to BOTH skydive and get library books from Lincoln.)

So I took a trip into Lincoln to take care of a number of errands. I’d already done my necessary shopping, I’d dropped off some stuff for my niece and spent some time with my sister-in-law, I’d visited with my little sister a bit. Now I had only to visit the library before I had to get back into town for Anna’s party at 7.

I’d be cutting it close, I knew, rolling into the library at 4:15 when I had to drive an hour and a half to be back to Columbus in time for the party.

I’ve never done a full-restocking library trip in less than an hour and a half before.

But I was confident that I could do it. I would do it.

I checked my phone for the time and saw that Anna had texted asking what time we intended to get back into Columbus. I told her seven.

“You do realize the party’s at 6?”

She wasn’t kidding. I checked.

I now had fifteen minutes in which to do my library visit.

I ran like a madwoman, picking up adult books while my little sis grabbed the next fifty children’s picture books and 25 CDs for me. I checked out 115 books after a fifteen minute dash through the library.

Needless to say, I didn’t really spend a lot of time learning about what I was checking out. I picked up Dinesh D’Souza’s defense of Christianity against today’s New Atheists because it was available, not because I was particularly interested in it (or even had any idea what was found within.)

Reading the back cover after I got home didn’t grab me either, but I started reading anyway.

The first few chapters, which outlined the New Atheism’s present assault on Christianity, were interesting, but not phenomenal. But this quote, found in chapter 5, has piqued my interest for more.

“The Athens we know and love is not Athens as it really was, but rather Athens as seen through the eyes of Jerusalem.”

What does the real Athens look like? I wonder.

How has Christianity shaped our view of Athens? I want to know.

Tell me more, I beg the author. And I read on.

I’ll have to let you know what I find out–but I wonder, has this piqued your interest too?

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Jared Wilson’s post about relationships arrested me:

“I’m sure there’s a few people who really do only want someone who loves Jesus and will compromise on the rest. But the reason why the vast majority of the people who say this are lying liars is because I’ve watched these same young people date nonChristians, get into unhealthy sexual relationships, basically live like God ain’t watching, and/or ignore the young people in their relational spheres who actually love Jesus.

In fact, I notice that the young men and women who do just love Jesus tend to stay single quite a while. “

Why is this? Why do young men and women who do “just love Jesus” tend to stay single for so long?

Why doesn’t anybody seem to see what I see in so many of my wonderful single Christian girl friends?

Why do so many great, godly women get passed over in the dating/marriage field?

A semi-related article I also read this week talked about another dilemma in the Christian romance scene:

“TKC student Catherine Ratcliffe says I Kissed Dating Goodbye shows well that “sexual purity is important,” but it also led many of her classmates to “think we should never hang out unless we want to marry. In the 1990s, casual dating was the culprit. [Now] Christian couples will rush into relationships, saying, ‘we intend to marry,’ because they think they are not allowed to date unless they intend to marry.”

Pressure, pressure, pressure. Ratcliffe says, “If girls do get asked out they think, ‘We have to make this work. I might not get asked out for another 10 years.'” The “if” is big: Christian student after student in four states generalized to me: “Women don’t get asked out.”…”

I think this assessment is pretty accurate.

While I certainly am not all for casual dating (with casual intimacy assumed), I think one can go too far in the opposite direction. In fact, I think many have gone too far in the opposite direction by thinking they shouldn’t date anyone unless they already know they’re going to marry that someone.

These things frustrate me for personal reasons, yes, but my frustration is not just for me. I get frustrated when I see so many wonderful godly young women (I say young women because that’s my sphere, not that this doesn’t happen to men) marginalized when it comes to dating and marriage.

But I am so very glad that God does not marginalize the single person.

“Neither marriage nor children is a fundamental marker of being blessed of God in the new covenant, as all spiritual blessings come through Christ (Eph 1:3). Nor are marriage and procreation necessary to maintain one’s covenantal inheritance, for those in Christ have an imperishable inheritance in heaven….

…One’s singleness can be a powerful testimony to the sufficiency of Christ for all things…”

~Barry Danylak, Redeeming Singleness

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

I can’t be entirely certain that I’m quoting “Letters to Juliet” accurately, but over the course of the movie, the protagonist asks her older companion (who is looking for her lost love): “What is your heart telling you?”

It’s a theme echoed in a dozens of Hollywood films, in chick flicks, and in daytime television. “What does your heart say?”

And with it there’s the implicit command: “You should do as your heart demands.”

But is the heart a sage such that we should strain our ears to hear its every thought? Is the heart a guru such that we should follow its every instruction?

Jon Bloom spoke of the issue in an article he wrote for Desiring God:

“Princess Diana once said, ‘Only do what your heart tells you.’

This is a creed believed by millions. It’s a statement of faith in one of the great pop cultural myths of the Western world. It’s a gospel proclaimed in many of our stories, movies, and songs.

It states that your heart is a compass inside of you that will point you to your own true north if you can just see it clearly. Your heart is a true guide that will lead you to happiness if you can just tune into it. We are lost, and our heart will save us.

This sounds so simple and liberating. It’s tempting to believe.

Until you consider that your heart has sociopathic tendencies.”

Jon goes on to say:

“If our hearts are compasses, they are like Jack Sparrow’s.”

No, our hearts are not future-seeing, altruistic sages. They are self-seeking, antisocial slavers.

No, our hearts are not wise guides or powerful gurus. They are forever oscillating needles, unsure of true north or even of their own desires.

But if the heart is such a faulty sage, such a misleading guide, what is the purpose of the heart?

May I suggest that the heart’s purpose is not first to speak, but to hear; not to lead, but to be led?

May I suggest that the heart’s purpose–indeed our purpose–is not to be consumed with itself or to follow after itself, but to be consumed with another, lost in another?

We taste this in the sublimity of early love, when self’s considerations (even eating and sleeping) lose precedence to the exaltation of the beloved.

But this is only a foretaste of a much greater reality–the reality that I posit is part of our divine purpose in life.

To be lost in worship of the One who is so far greater than our hearts that our hearts must bow to His every whim.

David Brooks of The New York Times says:

“The purpose in life is not to find yourself. It’s to lose yourself.”
HT: Justin Buzzard

But while Brooks talks of losing oneself in “tasks”, in general, I would argue that our purpose is not to be lost in “tasks” but in One Sacred Task.

Our heart’s purpose is to be lost glorying in Christ.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.