It has been two weeks since my last post, which is a little less often than I try to write. This longer-than-normal gap came about due to some increased personal "busy-ness" in my life. This morning I awoke thinking about the fact that when one has more things [than normal] to do in a given time, priorities are explicitly or implicitly assigned so that the most important and/or favorite things get accomplished in the available time. Items of lesser importance might be put off or canceled or not even thought of to begin with.
Now, I'm not making a commentary about the importance of my blog (or it's readers, if there are any) to me. I did wake up thinking something like, "Gee, it's been a while since I wrote anything." Right on the heels of that thought, it occurred to me that life's pressures can be very revealing as what we consider to be important becomes more and more apparent. If my Christian life is something that I do rather than who I am, does it not follow that it might be subject to priority too? To a watching world, it might then appear that, when I'm under pressure, my mask slips, i.e I forget to act like a Christian.
Praise be to the Lord, that Christianity is Christ, and even when life hands to me more plates than I can balance, the character traits that typify a genuine Christian life (such as patience, gentleness, and self-control) will still be present if I am letting Jesus live his life in me, because Jesus is the Christian life. That is why in the Bible, those traits are called the fruit of the Spirit.
I used to know a man who said, "Trouble doesn't build character, it reveals it." Even if there is no trouble or pressure ("Life's good!"), our life should be that of Christ in us, rather than our highest-priority effort to "be Christian."
The Christian life isn't difficult--it is impossible. If we don't know that, we will try to do things ourselves. Faith is not necessary when we think we can do it ourselves. Faith comes along when we realize that we cannot do it on our own.Joseph Garlingen
One might well say, "What's the difference in a believer and a non-believer doing the same things? What makes the believer's life 'Christ living in him'?" Faith in God's Word--Jesus, the trusting of one's life to Him, makes the difference. So, with these thoughts in mind, may I repeat my quote of two weeks ago, from Douglas Rhymes, who said,
If our faith is not relevant to our daily life in the world and in the parish, then it is no use; and if we cannot be Christians in our work, in the neighborhood, in our political decisions, then we had better stop being Christians. A piety reserved for Sundays is no message for this age.
As in all ages, Christ in you is the message the world needs.
