Behind my desk is a wall of words: 16 quotes or phrases that encourage me, each done in attractive typography.
One of them is from N. D. Wilson, a writer whose wordsmithing I appreciate, even if I think we would think differently about very much where church and faith are concerned:
heartbeats cannot be hoarded
Which is obvious enough. It comes from his book Death by Living, where his central conceit is that lives are for living. If you have to die from anything (and you do) then living is probably the way to go.
I find the idea helpful. For me, when I’m tempted to hold back, or to not act through fear, or most often to not try because failure seems possible, even likely, I try to remind myself that my heartbeats are not for hoarding. What is the point of having ideas and not trying to do something with them? What is the point of living a life of bland mundanity where you don’t even attempt anything?
Did Jesus not tell us he came to live life to full?
We do have to be careful to define this as he did—so we’re not talking about life needing to be high octane, or that our achievements should be of a particular kind or variety. Instead, we’re talking about attempting to do things for the Lord.
And again, we should recalibrate our expectations, away from extraordinary, towards ordinary faithfulness. Doing things should include enjoying our food, eating with friends, giving ourselves to our local church, and prayer. They should also, for some of us at least, include building things, constructing institutions or systems that mould us, and burning our lives away for the fuel of God’s glory.
The absolute worst thing, for the Christian, at the end of your life would be for it to have been middle-classed mundanity without zest and life. Try something radical. Eat with others—which is, I maintain, about as radical as it gets. Die to yourself. Die to your sin. Crush your idols. Try something grand and wonderful, like following Jesus through the door of the death of dreams and self. You might just find that after death comes life, and that you were never your own.
You might find this a strange post—perhaps it is—short and with one straightforward idea. As ever, blogging is not writing articles but thinking out loud: dear friend who gives me the time of day and engages with my ideas, try something today. Take a risk in God, engage a little bit of faith.
Perhaps you could tell a friend about Jesus. Perhaps you could pray for the thing you’re too scared to ask for. Perhaps you could open up to someone about your struggles and pain. Perhaps you could just sit and rest in the finished work of Christ (that never makes it into these lists, but its pretty radical).
Do you have to do anything? No. You really don’t. You could trundle through your life following Jesus and he will rescue you from death and sin and your self-centred desire for comfort; he will do so freely and gladly, just as he will for someone who risks it all.
But your heart is beating, and you can’t hoard those moments. Life is very short, you have few decades, and you won’t make much of a mark on the world. So live. Eat good food with others. Have as many kids as you’re able to and raise them well. Give yourself to your local church and community. Build something that will outlast you. Follow Jesus with everything you’ve got.
Photo by lucas Favre on Unsplash
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