Posted on 03/13/2006 12:32:45 PM PST by sionnsar
From Lent and Beyond, the next meditation in the collaborative Lenten series is Fools for Christ by Rick Harris of Stand Firm Alabama. As all of these meditations have been, so is this one well worth your time to read and ponder.
This is the fifteenth in a series of daily Lenten devotionals by a group of Anglican bloggers and friends. Today’s entry is by Rick Harris of the Stand Firm Alabama blog. You can read other entries in the series here.
Fools for Christ
“For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20.
We do not serve God by the strength of our hands. We do not serve God by the persuasiveness of our words. It is not what our own abilities can do, nor even what we actually accomplish.
We assuredly do not serve God by the force of our intellects. God does not call us to make sense. He calls us to be fools. God cannot use us if He has to compete with our own ideas of what should happen next. He cannot fill us with His Spirit if the territory is already occupied by our spirits. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.“ Pray that God may grant you a moment when you will finally throw up your hands, and turn to Him, and say, “I cannot fathom what I should do now—I haven’t the strength, I haven’t the power, I haven’t even any idea where to start.” Because it is then that Jesus says, “OK. Now you’re talking. I can work with this.” He can only use us when we come to realize that our most precious, heart-felt goals are useless vanities. Paul was right, of course. The kingdom of God absolutely does consist of power. It is just not our power.
We serve God from weakness, and not from strength. To a rational person, this is more than just counter-intuitive. It is utter nonsense. Only a fool would believe that. And no one wants to be a fool.
Indeed. We think ourselves the better judges of what the world needs. Sometimes we even dare diagnose what is wrong with the Body of Christ, and prescribe the medicine that we are sure will cure it. We say we believe that God has a plan, but then we act as if God needs our power to protect his plan from being thwarted. We are ever so willing to serve God by those efforts that we think He needs us to make, and so unwilling to do something that doesn‘t make sense. We may just as well say, “Anything, God. I’ll do anything You ask. Just don’t make me be a fool.” We won’t give up on using our own power. And so we usurp God’s sovereignty.
When Jesus comes in all His glory, and when He separates the sheep from the goats, which pen do you want to wind up in– the one with all the clever people, or the one with the fools?
God, in my haste to escape being a fool, I have become the greatest fool of all. Grant me mindfulness of who I am, and Who You are. When I am tempted to assert my own power, remind me that You are the Almighty One. Grant me a heart that worships and treasures Your absolute Sovereignty in my life. Make me recklessly, heedlessly, foolishly obedient to Your call. Cast out all those worthless idols in my life, Lord. Make me a disciple of Jesus Christ, and none other. Amen.
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–Rick Harris, O.P., is a novice in the Anglican Order of Preachers, a religious community within the Anglican Communion dedicated to St. Dominic. He is a layman and worships God at St. John’s Episcopal Church, Montgomery, Alabama, where he serves on the vestry and leads a men’s Bible study.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.
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