Great Is Your Faithfulness

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:22-24

There are precious few better places in the world than Pennsylvania to witness the majesty of this time of year. And to many, what happens among the trees is simply a spectacle to behold, a lovely sight to enjoy. To others it is evidence of a natural phenomenon signaling death and life, resulting from a cessation of water to the leaf and a lack of chlorophyll to keep the leaf green.

And both these perspectives are true, but they are lacking true wonder. Donald Miller says in his book Blue Like Jazz, "I don't think there is any better worship than wonder." So what are we wondering at? The same things that we take for granted every day, the sun rising and setting, the oceans and all their life being contained and sustained, the mind-boggling myriads of stars and galaxies all being held in His hand; sometimes we think about these things, most times we don't, and even fewer times do we let them remind us of God's sovereignty over His creation. It still amazes me that this time every year in this part of the world, it gets a little colder, a little breezier, in exactly the same way that it has for centuries. I guess you could say I'm easily pleased, but I don't consider that to be a naive characteristic, in fact it is this "naivete" that balances out my otherwise cynical outlook.

But given the sovereignty of God exhibited in creation, am I willing (and able) to say "The Lord is my portion"? What does that mean? What does it look like to put our every fiber of being in the hands of the Lord? Well first of all, like Donald Miller shows, it means wondering at His incomprehensibility. There is mystery in what we believe, Paul admitted it, we shouldn't be afraid to either. That might seem ridiculous to outsiders, but they're not seeing the same stars we are. And from the outflow of wonder and love in our hearts to the God who does this is a life that characterizes His calling. By virtue of our position this means humility unbounded.

So what say you, theological student of reformed theology? Over the years we've gained an unprecedented reputation for criticism and judgmentalism. Is this not the antithesis to our calling and what we claim to rule our hearts??? To be fair, criticism is necessary and good; it is the building up of God's kingdom. But how we do that is the key. It is very easy to tear apart a book that a brother has written because you're interacting with mere words. Words you can distort, words you can misrepresent, words you can destroy and not feel the slightest ping of conscience in doing so. But what about the brother behind those words? What arrogance has seeped into our hearts that keeps us from recognizing Christ's child behind the ideas that do not conform to ours? Instead we retreat to the comforts of our studies and lambast perspectives that frighten us...the kind of behavior that would inspire someone to boycott a conference on a very prevalent phenomenon in the church today.

Have we lost the wonder? And if so, has that void been filled by a spiritual inferiority complex that requires us to protect our doctrine at all costs, even the unity of the Church? Again, I'm not saying (nor do I wish to even imply) that reformed scholastic criticism is unwarranted. Not being critical would be unfaithful to the Scriptures as well. But after each of our criticisms, if we can not praise God for the diversity of His Church and embrace our brother or sister who differs from us, the point has been missed and God has not been glorified. That in essence, is the key, is it not? "...do it all for the glory of God." In that statement is an implied "and not for your glory."

This, of course, does not simply apply to those of us in formal theological training. This notion applies to every one of us: husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, parents and children, friends. If you're not seeking to glorify God even in your disagreements, the glory that could be to God in the midst of it will be lost.

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning." Can we say the same of ourselves??

A sojourner