sometimes sage, sometimes silly
What do I mean by that? Well, I was talking to a good friend just now on the phone and the meaning of my blog title came out of my mouth without me even realizing it.
Rewind: We were conversing on the matter of grace and the fact that everything we receive, everything we are is a matter of God's grace. I was explaining the huge leap I made in my quest for self-worth when I found the verse in Romans 9 (cf Isaiah 29) saying the pot had no business asking the Potter why He made you this way. I realized that I had no right to question God about my appearance or anything else about how I was made. I came to terms with the fact that everything about me was how God had intended it and no matter how I perceived "me," God was pleased with what He had made. However, my friend and I also talked about the world's idea of beauty and worth versus God's idea, because honestly, there are people who have not even a semblance of earthly beauty or zero social, intellectual or technical skills and it seems like God has abandonded them or failed them in some way. It seems to me that all ugliness and ineptitude is a result of the fall. I'm thinking if there had never been sin, the perfection of Adam and Eve would be all that was known. Maybe I'm totally off base, but who knows? Maybe I'm just silly.
So, we come to the moment that hit me..."sometimes sage, sometimes silly" is humans with finite minds attempting to understand and explain the Infinite. We don't know anything that God hasn't revealed to us. When we speak from that revelation, our words are sage, wise, true. But when we speak from our own understanding and attempt to sound sage, we are nothing but silly. Paul encourages us in Colossians to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom as he says he and his fellow missionaries did with the power God worked through them. He warns us not to be deceived by clever-sounding, though worldly philosophies.
But, that's not all. I do want to be sage. I want to speak about God and the meaning of life with the wisdom of the revelation we have in Scripture. I also believe, though, that there are times when we don't have to be so dadgum serious and it's ok to just be silly. So, there you have it...that's me...Sometimes sage, sometimes silly.
3 comments:
Ugly and inept according to what scale of ugliness and ineptitude? God's? The world's? I think our "flaws" are vehicles by which others can attempt to fully realize the magnitude of God. The most smack-down ugly person can be simply the most beautiful person if the love of Christ flows out of them and we see that with our spiritual eyes rather than with our physical eyes. That person who realizes (and more importantly BELIEVES)their purpose here extends far beyond physical beauty shows others who may be using their physical eyes that their focus need not be on the temporal--as in temporal beauty--but on the eternal beauty that is to come when we are called home to be with Him. Our "imperfections" are perfect in the eyes of the one who made us in his image.
It is true that Christ shining through makes everyone and everything beautiful no matter what the world's standard of beauty. However, would there be a worldly standard of beauty vs. ugliness had it not been for the Fall? For that matter, there would be no such thing as imperfections. We would not need to look forward to a future time of shedding our mortal flesh in exchange for the immortal, nor would we long to see God in His beauty and perfection if it had not been for the sin that destroyed that perfect relationship man was intended to have with Him in the first place. Of course, we know if Adam and Even hadn't done it, one of us eventually would have sinned and God knew that all along, but the fact still remains that imperfections whether they be flaws in our physical bodies or in our character are all a result of the fact that we live in a fallen, sinful world. But aren't we glad that this is neither our home nor our final destination? Praise be to God who has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. :)
You go, Miss Colossians!!!
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