Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Making a Map

If I hadn't already renamed my blog, I decided last week, I'd name it "Making a Map," after this lovely quote from the book I just finished: 

"The central reality for Christians is the personal, unalterable, persevering commitment that God makes to us. Perseverance is not the result of our determination, it is the result of God's faithfulness. We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God is righteous. Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own; finding the meaning of our lives not by probing our moods and motives and morals but by believing in God's will and purposes; making a map of the faithfulness of God, not charting the rise and fall of our enthusiasms. It is out of such a reality that we acquire perseverance."
(Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 128-129)

Oh, how thankful I am for this reality and my growing understanding of it. It's not about me. It doesn't depend on me. And that is good news!

In the end, I think that's what I'm trying to do when I sit down to write here in this space: I'm making a map. I write to deliberately shift my attention from my success or (more often) failures at righteousness to the perfect righteousness of Christ. I write to rein in my moods and motives and subject them to God's truth and ways. In order to steady my steps amid the rise and fall of my enthusiasms, I am making a map of His faithfulness.

Related:
New Name, Same Great Taste
Let the Gospel Rule
Who Gets the Last Word?
Learning Perspective from Paul

1 comment:

Danielle said...

That book sounds interesting and I love this part of the quote: "Christian discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own."