Plans

Today I was feeling rather aimless (I only have one final tomorrow) and at one point found myself consciously thinking, "What can I do for God today?" Normally I'd have been pleased with how I was thinking about God more and more frequently, but I realized that I was thinking about Him out of habit, not unlike the way a business owner would think of a partnership: in terms of what I could being to the table, and (perhaps subconsciously) what I could get in return. I realized that we should be so close in our relationship to God that we spontaneously do things for His glory out of love, not because we systematically set out to from the beginning. I've been re-reading Desiring God recently and I think the inspiration came from that. As Piper writes, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him." Our goal as Christians is to maximize God's glory by maximizing the joy and fulfillment we find in Him, not in anything He gives. In our other relationships, we aren't nice to the other person out of any sense of "ought"-ness; it's (hopefully) because we care about them and want what's best for them.

After further reflection, I realized that I've still largely been letting my own plans set the direction of my life; part of my plans is carrying out God's plans. This might have shaken me not long ago, but I'm getting used to finding hiccups in my relationship with God like this; it would be more cause for worry if I didn't have these realizations a few times a year! Bringing it out in the open shows how ridiculous it is; God says "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9) We shouldn't simply incorporate God's plans into ours, or deny our plans for God's "higher calling"; we should be be so close to God that there is no difference between our plans and His! Jesus described how close He was to His Father: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." (John 5:19) I picture a kid playing "follow the leader" behind his dad, imitating whatever he does. The fan just blew my Bible to Ephesians 5:1, where Paul tells us to be "imitators of God". When you say you're a "follower of Christ", just how literally did you mean it? Because the answer is apparently "not enough".

If I'm sounding preachy, know that 99% of my preaching is directed at myself, because I need it the most. I just hope it gets you thinking about what it means to be a Christian.