A Truth Oft-Overlooked

Recently I began reading Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor (his son and daughter-in-law), and this section particularly struck me.  Hudson was still living in England, but understood the call to China, so he began preparing ambitiously.

Whatever it may have been in summer, toward the close of November when Hudson Taylor made it his home Drainside must have seemed dreary enough. To add to the changed conditions he was boarding himself, which meant that he bought his meagre supplies as he returned from the surgery and rarely sat down to a proper meal.  His walks were solitary, his evenings spent alone, and Sundays brought long hours of work in his district or among the crowds who frequented the Humber Dock.

Having now the twofold object in view [he recalled] of accustoming myself to endure hardness, and of economizing in order to help those among whom I was labouring in the Gospel, I soon found that I could live upon very mcuh less than I had previously thought possible.  Butter, milk and other luxuries I ceased to use, and found that by living mainly on oatmeal and rice, with occasional variations, a very small sum was sufficient for my needs.  In this way I had more than two-thirds of my income available for other purposes, and my experience was that the less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.

For God is no man's debtor, and here in his solitude Hudson Taylor was learning something of what He can be to the one who follows hard after Him.  In these days of easy-going Christianity, is it not well to remind ourselves that it really does cost to be a man or woman whom God can use?  One cannot obtain a Christlike character for nothing; one cannot do a Christlike work save at a great price.  "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be baptized with the baptism wherewith I am baptized?"

I know this is a long quotation, but it sums up far more than I could say.  This book was published in 1935, and Hudson Taylor arrived in China in 1854, but these words very well could be written to our American Christian culture—a culture of easy Christianity indeed.

What might it look like if the Body of Christ in the United States chose, each and every member part of the whole, to let her faith be costly?  How much more vibrantly might God's glory be reflected and how much more powerfully His kingdom furthered?

What if we let go of all our "rights" (so-called) for Christ?  What if?

Looking ahead

Transitions are confusing.
Friday, like most every other Friday this summer, I worked at the day camp and played with the kids.  This morning I went to church and had lunch with my dear friends there.  A few hours later, I was in a dorm room surrounded by boxes, a dresser, desk and bed, and empty white cinder-block walls.  Of course, my family was here and helped me move in, but it was weird going to dinner with a bunch of Trinity staff and RAs.  Somehow school and home tend to be separated in my mind.  The changes I've undergone in one necessarily affect the other, and I discuss happenings at school with friends from home and vice versa.  But they are still quite distinct, and for whatever reason it was odd jumping so rapidly from my summertime routine to living at school again.
It helps that school itself doesn't start until August 25, and while it's a little strange that the dorm is so quiet, I like it.  I'm not diving fully from one "life" to the other all at once.  There is little noise or chaos and I can face the relative jumble of my room and thoughts more easily (though I'll admit my room is looking pretty organized already).

I'm not sure what to expect from this year as a freshman-floor RA, and perhaps it's best that way.  I know I'm going to grow a lot, and I know I'm going to see God work in incredible ways.

Tomorrow we check-in the athletes: there are four in my suite.  I'm slightly nervous.  I feel young and not like one with authority or so much responsibility, and the real training hasn't started yet. But I'm sure it'll be fine.

Overall, I'm excited to see what God does this year.  If I had expectations, God would exceed them even while breaking them and proving me wrong.  Yet even without them I know God will bring me through difficulties, tears and pain, show me His overwhelming joy, beauty and love, and fill me with awe for His geatness.  It won't be that easy to see the purpose while it happens, but here at the outset I'm trusting Him.

Thus, I begin the first day of this new adventure praying God would bless the year ahead, keep me seeking Him constantly, and more than anything use me to bless others with His love.

¡gloria a Dios!

allison

Thoughts on Eternity and the Struggle Against Time

Perhaps it's a problem for humanity in general; perhaps it's just my culture, but we seem to struggle constantly with time.  More often than not we battle time: it seems there's rarely enough.  I know it's something I personally have difficulties juggling.

Have you ever stopped to think how odd that is?
I began thinking about it a week or two ago, and how perplexing it is that we should struggle so against basically the medium of our existence.

After all, we are born into time and thus come into the world with no prior experience; no knowledge of anything different.  And we grow up and live every day in the context of time, and eventually die in the context of time.  Odd that it should be so difficult.

Of course we know a technical meaning of time.  The planet spins and we have day and night.  It beats tireless circles round the sun and we have years.  But somehow I think time is more than just these natural movements, as though they are only markers for the passage of time, like the reading on a thermometer does not cause the temperature but merely proves it.  In the same way the cycles of day and night, fall and spring, winter and summer give meaning as markers.

And the cycles go on.  In Chicago, each winter we become re-acquainted with cold, and snow falls to grace a dead world.  Each summer the sun beats down, sometimes more gentle than others, and humidity rises and rain falls.  Each autumn turns summer's greens to brown, red and gold.  And of course every spring awakens the earth and brings forth life again—from one decade and generation to the next.
And still we fight the passing of time.

There's a verse in Ecclesiastes which says God "has set eternity in the hearts of men," and I've always considered it to mean solely our longing for something more; that humanity knows something is wrong and yearns for more.  C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity of our longing for another world as proof that such exists, his argument being that each human desire has a fulfilment.  Could it be that God literally set a sense of eternity in our hearts so time feels unnatural?

Maybe my imagination is just incapable, but I have a hard time imagining a world without any sort of time.  Perhaps time will still exist, but become mostly irrelevant relative to eternity.  Again, eternity is too large for my wee brain of earth to comprehend, but I have a few ideas of the implications.

But, not to inhibit your imagination, I'll let you consider the concept for yourself.  ;)