To Love the World In the beginning, God ordained life on earth and saw that it was good. Why shouldnt we do the same? by Cameron Lawrence Here is a hard saying: If you love your life, you will lose it. And what’s harder is the corollary: Hate your life, and you will keep it forever. Each morning I rise. I leave in a small black car, driving toward the sun. In the evening, I return, the day’s warm glow falling behind, the car’s tires hot as they come to rest on the pavement of my garage. I do what men have always done—what many women also do, to be sure. I leave my family to labor, and bring back what will sustain us. I’m thankful for my job, but the truth is, mostly, I go for the coming back. I come back to the love of my wife and three daughters; to our friends and family—at meal times, bed times, party times, and even painful times. It’s the return that makes the leaving worthwhile. I love my life in this world. I love this world. And there’s the problem. Or maybe not. Perhaps it all depends. It was Jesus who first said those words about loving and hating life, and for centuries now, Christians have wrestled with how to live them. There were those who saw the excesses of a culture too full with earthly bounty, a people too enamored with the works of their hands to truly follow Jesus. These men and women fled civilization for the wilderness, where they could devote themselves entirely to prayer, and to the task of defeating sinful passions. They left to become like the Lord Himself. I understand the ascetic impulse—the draw of retreat into an outlying place. I see the appeal of stripping away outer distraction, getting down to the elemental experience of God’s presence; of dying to the world for the sake of Him who called my name. But is it truly necessary? I confess that my own impulse is more often in the other direction: I look around—at people, nature, all God has blessed our hands to make and cultivate—and I want more. I see on this earth, not a life bereft of riches but one in which, despite all hardships and evil, there exists a voracious beauty, a profound generosity that some days I feel could swallow me whole. In my better, more perceptive moments, it is nearly too much to bear. How could Jesus possibly mean those words? Or, for that matter, how could His follower John, one of my beloved heroes, say, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15)? I want to shout across the chasm of time, “Is there not middle ground?” And in the still moments, when I’m alone and His mercy is heavy upon me, I want to kneel beneath its weight and whisper, “Lord, how can I not love Your world? How can I not say ‘thank You?” Maybe that’s the difference, in the end: a heart that gives thanks. Perhaps love for the world is wrong only when it becomes an end in itself—when I forget that the good gifts I’ve received were given in love for the sake of love. They were provided as a means of grace for the nurture of my heart, soul, and body, so that I might be drawn to God and, by knowing Him, partake of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4; 2 Cor. 3:18). When the world came into existence, God looked over the work of His hands and saw that it was good. And when His image in humankind had become so distorted that it no longer resembled Him, He loved the world enough to become one of us and restore what had been lost. Christ came to redeem the world, and that redemption began over 2,000 years ago in a Bethlehem stable. It continued as He, who was God, set foot upon the earth, was immersed in a river, ate fish and broke bread, walked on the sea, turned water into wine, and laid healing hands on the people, bringing life to the dead. There may be corruption in this world, but what I love is the goodness of God evident all around me—how He is working to redeem the fallen. I love this world because in it I feel the pleasure and blessing of my heavenly Father as I live and move and have my being. I offer thanks that He loved enough to give me life: for the blessing of a roof over my head and food in the refrigerator; for the smiles of three small girls after rush-hour traffic, and a wife to laugh with into the dark of evening; for the sound of wind moving through trees; for the charred crust of a Neapolitan pizza, the bursting tomatoes, the mozzarella cheese; for body surfing in the Pacific’s cool water, the strength of waves sent from the deep; for the sun setting over a canyon; for riding a motorcycle through the desert after a rain; for the grace of early morning, when the world is still quiet, where to walk in the crisp dawn is itself a prayer; for the brine of fresh oysters dressed with lemon juice and horseradish; for the beauty of the human form, bent and arced and leaping in a dance; for the sound of a strummed guitar, and a melody floating in from the other room; for my father’s laugh, my mother’s voice, my sisters’ company; for waking up today and the hope of seeing tomorrow; for these and so many other things—for this world, my home. I give thanks. Copyright 2014 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Mar 2014 12:28:45 +0000
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