September 24, 2008
Décor
My friend Rick drools over the full set of Harvard Classics majestically sitting on my bookshelves. Gold lettering identifying the book’s contents gleams on the red spine of each pristine book – they’re pristine because they’ve never been read. Much to Rick’s chagrin, my interest in these particular books is strictly for décor. They just really look good on the shelf. Sometimes when I’ve grown weary of one particular element of Christian service the thought has crossed my mind to treat it like a trophy. I’d like to just set it on a shelf, admire it and polish it up once in awhile when I walk by.
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Gail;
-----Maybe my most significant, long running question has been regarding God’s will for an individual. It didn’t help that my first experience with really becoming active in my Christian faith was in my late teen years at a Pentecostal church. These people were very bent on God’s specific will for each one in Him, and you know how big and important everything seems to a teen. Everyone was into knowing precisely what he wanted them to be doing, wearing, eating, thinking. I remember one brother obsessing over what color God was expecting for the car he needed to buy.
-----It seemed to me that knowing God’s will for the moment to such specific detail would entail some sort of mystic connection to His mind. I never could understand exactly what communication channel He would open to serve our twisted up little psyches. Watching these folks be so certain about His specific will, yet stumble around through decisions running the gamete from simply frail to downright bad, led me to doubt there really was such a channel of communication.
-----Over the years I began to settle into my current thinking about a particular soul knowing God’s specific will. I think it is more like selecting from a buffet than it is passively sitting at a table prepared with whatever entree was cooked in the kitchen just for you. Using the opportunities God gives us, we are responsible for developing spiritual skills and attitudes conducive to service. Thus we receive from Him gifts. Life’s circumstances then bring us a variety of choices for application of those gifts. As long as we choose engagements harmonious with His nature and reasonably befitting our spiritual aptitudes, His will is served.
-----So I relate well to your Harvard Classic Collection. There have been lines of service that have run through my new life and now sit on the shelf only as décor. Situations change. Better skills develop in different areas. For whatever reason my life with the Lord has brought many of my past books to the shelf. They now serve at least as supportive and inspirational décor. Who knows, maybe I will cross a certain selection on the buffet that will call one of those books down off the shelf.
Love,
Steve Corey
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