Sometimes I do that
church girl thing where I sing lyrics and raise my hands and swear I realllllly
mean what I'm singing when the band is playing songs like
You're
all I want, You're all I need, You're everything, everything...
You
are the source of life, I can't be left behind, no one else will do...
In
Christ alone, my hope is found...
You
are the only one I need, I bow all of me at your feet...
And I go home, and I
get on Pinterest and I start looking at pictures of glamorous models wearing
flowy, oversized shirts with print leggings and $200 boots. I get on SteepandCheap and I think my Awesome
Quotient would definitely improve if I bought Columbia and Marmot (even though
I probably spend -.3% of my year hiking).
I click away without buying anything, thinking I've won an
antimaterialism victory and should probably be given a badge of honor.
I hang out with my
small group, and I really hope that they think I'm well-read and well-spoken
and spiritually mature. Sometimes I toss
in a C.S. Lewis reference to seal the deal.
I try not to mention allllllll the wonderful things I'm involved in
because, well, THAT wouldn't be humble.
Prone
to wander, Lord I feel it.
As humans, we're born
with hearts that wander. We're
hungry. We want stuff. I don't just mean stuff, as in the latest and
greatest iThing. I mean we want to be
thought of as important. We want to
succeed. We want our kids to behave in
public so people don't know we struggle with disciplining them with consistency
at home. We want husbands who earn
"enough" or have a sense of style, or work out or are "good
enough" for our _______________ (parents, college reunions, coworkers'
Christmas parties, etc.).
Here's
my heart, Lord, take and seal it.
So I resisted the urge
to buy the Black Diamond rock climbing harness (that I might use once a
year). Yay wallet. You've lived to see another day of not being
emptied by woeful materialistic impulse.
But as soon as I think that's my victory, I've tricked myself into
thinking the symptom is the problem.
Spending money on stuff isn't the evil to be avoided here.
See, the thing is, I
live under the legacy of Babel.
We are a species of
intellect and spirit and ambition, and those things require an object. I mean, when's the last time you heard about
milk cows protesting the unfair advantage that organic cows have and fighting for
equal grazing rights? Or about a grizzly
bear carefully removing the meat from the salmon so he could stuff it and post
it on the mantle in his cave to show off to his bear buddies. It just doesn't happen.
This isn't something
that emerged with social media. James,
the first New Testament book written, by the guy whose name we used for the
book even says
"What
causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war
within you? You desire and do not have,
so you murder. You covet and cannot
obtain, so you fight and quarrel."
We are passionate
people, and rightly so. We are sensory
and relational and spiritual and dynamic.
We are chasers and supporters and builders. But to what end? We have the capability of pouring out heart,
soul and paint on a canvas to communicate something that authors try
desperately their whole lives to say. We
start clubs, form bands, rally behind organizations. But to what end?
This is the legacy of
Babel - the appetite of the human heart for glory, the chasing after the
wind.
Augustine
said "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless
until it rests in you."
Lewis said "It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong,
but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex
and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants
to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by
the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
The trouble, see, is not the appetite itself, but the
object we set before it. The people of Babel were content with setting the
whole of their desire on raising a tower to make themselves famous. The failure of Babel to choose something
worthy of their affection became their downfall. Mortar and stone crumble to ruin. Cars are wrecked into twisted, mangled heaps
of metal. Even the finest paintings set
under lock and key can be stolen or destroyed in a fire. To willfully ignore the finitude of what is tangible is to
consciously choose a life of settling.
When I set my heart on dance or Instagram or literacy,
I will be disappointed, for the object of my passions is exhaustible and
finite. When I set my heart on the One
who is the all-powerful, glorious, wholly incomprehensible Creator, Sustainer,
Rescuer of the world, there will never be a moment that will be wasted, not a
second of regret. Your passions are only
as grand as the object they pursue.
So, dear heart, who loves to desire and pursue and
create, how exhaustible is the object of your affections? Do you honestly think you can do better than
a wild, passionate God who rages over injustice yet dispels fear? One who sees that the finch is fed and the
rainbow always appears with its promise in ROY G. BIV order? One who knows what you want, but gives what
you need? This One only could captivate
our hearts for an eternity.
Little Miss Sunshine
