Off-island thoughts

I visited an elephant orphanage!

I'm heading back to the islands day after tomorrow. It's been a good and much-needed break. During this break I participated in a set of evaluation meetings, a conference, a retreat, and finally reached VACATION. Now, some vacations I travel and see things, but for this vacation I decided to just take it easy. So for the last while I've been hanging out at a guest house, visiting with people (workers on their way to or from something), watching movies, and reading. I like reading. Reading draws you into others' worlds and experiences, broadening perspectives and delighting the soul.

During this vacation, besides reading some novels for absolute relaxation, I've dived back into an old favorite, Desiring God, by John Piper. It's such a great read, I think instead of reading the rest of this post you should just go buy the book and explore its depths for yourself. But in case you don't have time for that or want to do a little book snacking, here are some quotes and thoughts of my own in response to them:

"Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need. Prayer humbles us as needy and exalts God as wealthy."
--  The more I pray, the more I realize just how incapable I am to do things on my own. All of life was created and is sustained by Him and it's utter arrogance to think that we can accomplish meaningful things apart from Him. Prayer doesn't just humble us, it humbles me.

"I know of no other way to triumph over sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God."
-- Me neither.

"The deepest and most enduring happiness is found only in God. Not from God, but in God. The happiness we find in God reaches its consummation when it is shared with others in the manifold ways of love. To the extent that we try to abandon the pursuit of our own pleasure, we fail to honor God and love people."
-- Tricky, eh? The real catch here is that in pursuing our own pleasure (God), it doesn't rescue us from suffering. Life's still hard. But it's harder when I'm not zealously seeking and delighting myself in the Father. Related to that is this quote: "The call of Christ is a call to live a life of sacrifice and loss and suffering-- a life that would be foolish to live if there were no resurrection from the dead." (side note: resurrection is a game changer.)

 "Knowledge about Him will not do. Work for Him will not do. We must have personal, vital fellowship with Him; otherwise, Christianity becomes a joyless burden."
-- Amen and amen! No matter what I may do, it's nothing if it does not flow out of a life abiding in Christ and delighting in Him.

So there you go. I've been playing this song by Rend Collective a lot lately. He's more than we can imagine!