I think that the entirety of our lives is a journey of discovery. We are yearning to discover the truth of ourselves, why we exist, who we are, etc.
These questions will inevitably lead us to actions and thoughts that will impact where we spend our eternity. Not that we could ever earn our way to heaven. We can’t; it’s simply impossible. If we could, then Jesus would have died for nothing.
(quick side note and thought provoker)
If Jesus isn’t the only Way to God and to Heaven, then that means he died for nothing. This makes God a sadistic child abusing Father, and this makes Jesus a gullible fool. So either Jesus and what he did is the only way to a heaven bound eternity, or this is all for nothing.
Ok that’s the food for thought for the day. Let’s get back to the topic at hand. Living well. What does it mean, what does it look like, what does it actually mean to live well.
Well let’s take a look at Mark 12:28. The Greatest Commandment. The lawyers and the smartest men of that day would walk up to Jesus and ask him, “What is the greatest commandment?”. Let me translate into modern terms. The people who were supposed to know the ins and outs of what it meant to live correctly in that day, were asking Jesus, “HOW DO YOU WANT US TO DO THIS LIFE THING”
The humorous part is I find myself asking Him the same thing. Despite how much I think I have something figured out-inevitably I don’t.
Jesus will then respond to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
If you are subscribed to my blog, you know that I bang on and on about love and intimacy and what not. But I think that because we are so lost as to what it looks like to love well, there is no way that we can live well. 1 Corinthians 13 says, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
And now take that and apply this love principle to the way that the God-man tells us to live. He tells us to love the Father with all of our feelings and desires, all of who we are, all of what we think and how we think, and with our actions and words that display the deepest parts of us on a subconscious level.
One of the things that I’ve continually thought about on the Race is running it well. Living it well. Finishing it well so I can live the rest of my life well. Not that the rest of my life is hanging on the next few months, but I’m sure that it would help.
And so there’s this principle. This idea. Of living life to the fullest; learning from mistakes, and enjoying every moment as the gift that it is. Taking every breathe as if I don’t deserve it; because, well, I don’t. But it’s been given to me. Enough to type this blog. Enough to miss my friends at home. Enough to know I miss my small annoying puppy. Enough to know when all I want is the comfort of a loved one. Enough to know that I will strive every day to be the best man that I can be.
I think I got it. Somewhat. I think that to live well we should understand the concepts of love, and intimacy, and the exclusivity and the totality of God. We must begin to grasp that grace and mercy simply have no place in a world of fallen sinners, and yet it all makes sense to the God that gives it, suffered for it, died for it, and then walked out of a grave over it. To live well means to fear God. And even inside of that there are even more questions, no? I mean, do we cower before the Lord of the Universe who has done no wrong, and therefore cannot understand wrong because it goes against the very nature of His existence and who He is. Do we run to Him like a Father with arms outstretched when we are bruised and broken and bloody? Do we thank Him and laugh with Him like the Friend and Counselor? So there has to be a balance right? We fear God to live well. We fear the Being that existed before time and spoke the Universe into being. We should indeed run to Him like a child runs to the Father; with adoration and respect and attentiveness.
To live well is to fear God. And the fear of God is the recognition of his perfection, his understanding of us because He became one of us-because he had to suffer, in order that he might bear the weight of our failures. And because we should be in awe of this God, we accept love and grace and live freely. All the while knowing that we walk, talk, and breathe in mercy.
I truly believe that to live well we must fear God. And to fear God properly we should understand how much He loves us. And I think that to understand that we must understand who He is. And to understand that we must begin to grasp the concepts of love and intimacy.
And I sit here on a cold and rainy night in South Africa, clanging away at the keyboard trying to put some words on the screen, I’m beginning to get it. Ever so slightly my brain is actually grasping the little strings on the end of these big idea’s. Maybe the most beautiful, and clarifying thing to ever happen to me was discovering just the tip of what it means to live well. Maybe it’s the cold air pressing against the glass, the lighting illuminating the bricks outside, or the fresh stormy air that clears the dust out of my lungs. It could just be that I’m rambling, it’s about one in the morning and I’ve had far too much espresso.
Or something like that.
Live well people. Live Well.
