Worn Out for Jesus?

August 8, 2015

St. Paul must have been thinking of Hosea 6:3 when he penned Philippians 3:12. Hosea encouraged us to "press on to know the LORD," while Paul gives his own personal witness: "I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."

Any way we look at it, Paul is describing significant effort. His walk with Christ is not a stroll in a garden, but a strenuous engagement of the will that requires his complete attention and dedication. I spent the day from about 10:00 am till 5:30 pm cutting and stacking wood. It's that time of year, and Nate is working hard to get his winter's supply in. I had told him I would help whenever I could, so we headed for the woods. Actually, the field. A couple years ago, Gram's woodlot was logged and the tops left scattered about. There was quite a pile of them in the field before we get into the woods, and it was this pile Nate was determined to decimate today. We hacked our way through waist high goldenrod and got to work. He skidded the logs into place with his tractor, while I blocked them up. I hasten to add that this means he sat all day while I did the backbreaking work of hunching down over the logs with a chainsaw. Actually, he was up and down, chaining and unchaining the logs. We both worked hard. Tonight I am sore and tired. And thinking of St. Paul's words.

When was the last time I expended similar effort in order to know Christ better? Most of us tend to think of our Christian life as something easily entered and casually lived. The fact is, there is nothing casual about it. Our life in Christ was obtained through his suffering and death; the expenditure of a great deal of spiritual and physical energy. It cost him his life. Am I to then treat it as something I can stroll in or out of at will? Sad to say, I cannot remember the last time my walk with Christ left me wiped out and spiritually sore. What does this say about me, that I am willing to work hard physically to accomplish the task of getting the winter's wood in, but not willing to put myself out in any significant way to know Jesus better?

Although my ruminations are challenging tonight, I am grateful for the Scripture which commands my attention, for the day's work that wore me out, and for the ability to connect the two so that I might possibly live more faithfully tomorrow than I did today.