My Thoughts Wander Toward Wonder

Well, I don’t recall any big excitement this week. We worked, ate, slept, watched TV and enjoyed each other’s company. And missed Wesley. The pictures here are from earlier weeks.

But I’m preaching this Sunday. In fact I’m re-preaching for our little group in Australia a message on the prodigal son that I preached a couple of years ago in Texas. That story speaks to my own fears and aspirations and I needed to think about it again and hear it again. I generally figure if I preach honestly to myself, someone else in the group will probably be struggling with the same issues and need to hear the same message. So Sunday morning I’ll re-tell that story to myself in front of about 20 people with whom I’m learning to love like God. I actually wrote out the sermon verbatim when I first preached it, and posted it here on this blog on the 29^th of August, 2005.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it means to be the prodigal and experience grace, be the dutiful, loveless, angry older brother and experience grace, and be the father and see the worth of both sons more clearly than they see it themselves, and extend grace. I want to be able to instinctively receive and extend grace, confident in the father’s assessment of my own and my brother’s worth, even when we act out of fear and pain.

Then a couple of days ago a dear friend, whom I greatly admire, wrote on NazNet, an internet discussion board, about how he has been shaped by me, Roland, and three famous, beloved Christian authors. It occurred to me that I only knew about that dear friend or Roland or those three particular authors because of NazNet. It occurred to me how deeply indebted I am to good, great, lovable, admirable people for extending grace to me like the father, and modeling Christ to me. It occurred to me what a glorious thing it is to be genuinely valued and admired and enjoyed by genuinely valuable, admirable, enjoyable people. Songs in the church that say things like: “though no one join me, still I will follow” may say something true about the rare, Daniel-in-the-lion’s-den kind of situation, but it’s not a good expression of what God intends for the ordinary life of the ordinary Christian. We are designed to exist in close community, loving extravagantly and being extravagantly loved. I think the offer to include someone in that kind of community – that kind of church – is Good News indeed. I think it appeals to the most primal spirit at the core of the most jaded, sophisticated, apparently self-satisfied on the one hand or despairing on the other hand in our post-modern world. We are made for something radically better than boredom and duty and superficiality and defensiveness. We are heirs of the Most High King. We are made for contagious love.