"Here is my point. The cure for the fear of failure is not success. It's failure. The cure for the fear of rejection is not acceptance. It's rejection. You've got to be exposed to small quantities of whatever you're afraid of. That's how you build up immunity. . . One of the greatest things that could happen to you is for your fear to become reality. Then you would discover that it's not the end of the world. Your fear is worse than the actual thing you're afraid of." -Mark Batterson, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day
I love this because it disables fear. It takes power away from our circumstances and gives it back to God. Even if every single one of my greatest fears came true, God is still bigger than all of that, He'll still hold me fast, He'll still have a direction for me to walk and a Kingdom for me to build and live in. He will still be faithful, satisfying, world-defying. Surely, if we as Christians saw the big picture, that the Lord establishes our steps (Prov. 16:9), that He can get us where He wants us to go, even when we fail, our present circumstances would not affect us as severely as they do.
"Think of every opportunity as God's gift to you. What you do with those opportunities is your gift to God. I'm absolutely convinced that our greatest regrets in life will be missed opportunities." -Mark Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day
Hmm. I think I would rather seize opportunities and fail than never take the risk. What opportunities are available to me right now? And what does God want to do in those?
(In this column, I'll find some quotes from someone who lived long ago who held views rarely heard of in our current time and culture that I think are worthy of remembrance and application.)
G.K. Chesterton was an English writer during the early 1900s. Check out his biography here.
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." - A Short History of England, Ch.10
"The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right." - ILN 10-28-22
"Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative." - Chapter 2, Heretics, 1905
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around." - Orthodoxy, 1908
"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him." - ILN, 1/14/11
"The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man." - Chapter 19, What I Saw In America, 1922
"There are those who hate Christianity and call their hatred an all-embracing love for all religions." - ILN, 1/13/06
(We all know that things are not how they should be, in the world nor in our own hearts. But we would be foolish to avoid or ignore these things, for they speak of our true condition at the time. When we allow the truth of God to come up against these raw, messed-up situations, that is where healing begins. In this column, I'll write about a situation like this from my own life.
I wrote this on my laptop last Saturday:
Why I (Sometimes) Don’t Like to Eat
• Due to how stressed I am, I often feel sick after I eat.
• I often end up eating alone, which isn’t fun.
• I don’t know how to cook good food.
• I don’t like to buy a variety of ingredients because they often end up going bad before I can eat them.
• If I don’t plan enough time to eat, I often end up buying something on the way, which costs more money.
I need to bring my eating into the Kingdom of God. But how?
(Usually when I'm worried, anxious, depressed, or in some other way "out of it", it's because I've lost sight of the big picture in life; making insignificant things way more important than they should be, and forgetting or trivializing God things. In this column, I'm going to give a glimpse of this "big picture".)
I heard this song a couple weeks ago in my World Music class, and it completely floored me. It is a song from Peru, written in Quechua (a dominant local language). This song is unique, though, in that it is the earliest known polyphony (a musical composition written for many voices to be sung together) from Latin America.
The song itself reads almost like a psalm from the Bible. It was found in the cathedral in Lima, Peru and had been used in worship practices at some earlier time. The lyrics are honest and give glory to God.
Though the style of the composition is very European (which makes sense since the region was invaded and taken over by the Spanish), my professor said that, though the author/composer is unknown, it was very likely written by a native Peruvian rather than a Spaniard. Apparently, the enculturation process was very quick and effective.
This got me thinking. The Spanish came over and crushed the kingdoms they found in Latin America, and in their place, they built their own kingdom. But even through all of that turmoil and cultural destruction, God still built His Kingdom in the midst of that, getting the gospel to new, unreached peoples. And someone got it and wrote this song. And even now that Spain no longer has governmental influence in this country, the gospel continues to flourish.
Here's the song. The church in the video is the cathedral in Lima where this piece was found. (English translation below.)
English Translation:
The bliss of Heaven,
I will worship you a thousandfold,
revered fruit of a mature tree,
long awaited by your people,
protection of spiritual strength,
heed my call.
To escape from the sins of the devil
help me with your strength,
so that I your child,
this orphan of yours,
will have existence and life everlasting.
Bring me fortune.
Increase my store of gold and silver,
being well provisioned, it will be stored up.
There will be great food harvests.
Defend me from famine.
Let me rest well here.
For my salvation.
May there be glory for the Lord
and for his Son likewise
and also for the Holy Ghost;
may there by glory for all eternity;
for the life of all sustenance
may there be delight. Amen.
---
(Side Note: I read Exodus 19 & 20 (The Ten Commandments) out loud with this song playing in the background. It gave me chills! *Spirit Fingers*)
(This column is meant to foster a spirit of thankfulness.)
I'm thankful for the hope God has given me for my future, that I will be provided for and continue to grow relationally.
I'm thankful for the fact that I have food to eat today.
I'm thankful for an apartment that actually has a working heater.
I'm thankful for my family of believers and my ever-growing closeness with them.
I'm thankful for the fact that God continues to give me strength and power to get through tough daily trials.
I'm thankful for the fruit that I already see coming from stepping out to love people more.
And I'm thankful for how hard it is, which reminds me that I'm actually working hard at it and taking risks; building up relational muscle, as it were.
(In this column, I'll type or scan in something that I heard or thought of that I found important enough to write down recently. Since I write on whatever I have on hand, expect some variety here.)
(In this column, I'll take excerpts from my daily readings that stand out to me and post them here, probably with some of my commentary.)
"A common but futile strategy for achieving joy is trying to eliminate things that hurt: get rid of pain by numbing the nerve ends, get rid of insecurity by eliminating risks, get rid of disappointment by depersonalizing your relationships. And then try to lighten the boredom of such a life by buying joy in the form of vacations and entertainment." -Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction
Ouch. Must keep taking risks and investing more personally in my relationships. I need to overcome my insecurity with my new identity in Christ and trust that God will preserve me through disappointment.
God has brought me this far. He will see me through to the end.
