(There is) a two-edged quality of Scripture- the capacity to intensify a passion for excellence with an indifference to human achievement. -Eugene Peterson, Running with Horses
There are so many double-edges to Scripture. Perhaps the "narrow way" is walking carefully down the center of the sword. Your foot slips one way and SLICE, you are taking pride in your own accomplishments...the glory-stealer. Your foot slips the other way, and SLICE, you don't care about the quality of your work...the sluggard.
I have children who teeter on either side, and as for myself, I battle to stay in the middle, though I drift precariously to the pride side, caring too much of others' opinions of me, and then the other, not attending well to the truly important things.
God's grace softens the razor-edges, but the more I care about how I live this faith-life, the more I feel the cut.
Sara Groves sings my heart in This Journey is My Own. Her aching, repetitive challenge in the bridge of the song is this: "Now I live and breathe for an audience of one."
To pour myself out with breathless devotion to a God who loves me beyond my greatest achievement and in spite of my basest failure...this is the God I worship.
And I will tell my children that each thing they do MATTERS, and how they do it MATTERS, because Who they do it for MATTERS, and all must be done for an audience of One.
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