"At the time, buying ice cream in the student center just for pleasure didn't bother me, because the moral consequences of that action seemed so insignificant (18)."
For one reason or another that sentence just leaped off of the page at me. I think it was the word "seemed." The consequences "seemed so insignificant." "Seemed" implied to me that the consequences of buying ice cream for the enjoyment of it was not morally insignificant. But how could that be? Having read Desiring God before, I considered the big picture of the book: joy in God, in and through every other joy. With this in mind, I wrote in the margin of my book, "if we found pleasure in God through small things, they would cease to be morally insignificant."
How can we make seemingly inconsequential actions meaningful? For example how can I glorify God in taking out the trash? Well that one's easy, we conform to the character of God by doing the responsible thing and by not letting things pile up. But how do we glorify God in say, changing the radio station when we hear a song we don't like? Here, I might have to borrow an old phrase from a teacher's handbook : "Answers may vary." However, for me in that case the answer was, "Changing the station is an expression of our inherent search for beauty. Ultimately God is the source of all things beautiful, and that which is beautiful is so because He is."
But why? Why shouldn't certain moments have no moral significance? Certain things are just so minute as to not even merit thought. Why should these be anything other than morally inconsequential? There are probably several reasons but I will list two:
- To remember God. On a day to day basis, I spend hours without even giving a single thought to the Creator and Sustainer of whatever it is that I'm focusing my attention on instead of Him. Thinking through minute actions and basing them on the character of God, or my response to His character helps me to not only evaluate what I'm doing, but also worship God on a moment by moment basis.
- Glorifying God in everyday actions is commanded.
Prov 3:6: "In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
1 Cor 10:31: "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Col 3:17: "And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."So in summary, every decision or action, big or small, whether it be anything from changing the radio station to talking to a friend to starting your to-do list, connect what you do back to the character of God and glorify Him in everything.
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4 comments:
You think too much. Haha. Just kidding.
I have to comment on One of your 2 reasons. The first one, "Remembering God". In Respectable Sins, Jerry Bridges describes this as being Godly. When we go hours without the slightest thought of God, it's ungodly. So by finding pleasure in doing things like taking out the trash, It's Godly. If that makes the slightest sense. Just a thought.
Also... the thing you wrote in the margin of the book, something that the idea had never even passed my mind. Pretty sweet.
Hmmm. I happen to remember someone telling me a few weeks ago that they lost their gift for writing. That couldn't have been you could it? :)
Thanks for blogging--now I have something much more interesting to read than highschool vocabualry homework.
Keep up the good thoughts.
Good stuff, and very true.
And also, you seem well on your way to writing something significant of your own. John Piper, step aside! :)
Good thoughts man, and it's encouraging to see to you take action with what God's been teaching you with the blog. Reminds me of a Taste And See article I read about the necessity of both reading and writing of Christian literature. Keep it up.
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