Consummation

What a word!  It has words in it, it brings other words to mind.  Consummation! 


As I was listening to a lecture from a Ligonier conference this morning, its speaker used the word.  Consummation.  It brought me back a few years ago when I made a temporal connection.  Remember the hymn The Church's One Foundation?  Well, there's a new arrangement to it now in post-modernity, but I remember it from our Lutheran Hymnal growing up.  I loved/love the original tune! Enjoy it here if you'd like.  There are more verses, but here are the first five:






The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.






She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.






The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.






Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!






’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.






She waits the consummation....isn't that the whole of our lives?  We are always waiting for something.  We wait in line at the store, we wait for our kids to get in the car, we wait for the news of our final grade, we await the arrival of our visitors.  Military soldiers and officers "hurry up and wait."  We wait until we can be a year older, drive a car, get married, go on vacation!  We may be content for hours, days, even years, but it comes to an end so bitterly.






As Christians, we wait very IMPAITIENTLY to get married to our young loves so we can....consummate our marriage!  We think that once we can consummate our marriages EVERYTHING will be hunky dory.  Well, it is for about 2 weeks, and then normal life sets in and we are running on high octane, but the fumes cannot sustain forever.  Then we wait for something else to change. 






You see our focus is off!  God does give us marriage as a foreshadow of what is to come, but it is only a foreshadow.  Israel thought everything was PERFECT in the promised land until....well, you see it was a foreshadow of Heaven!  We await the CONSUMMATION of our being with Christ y'all! (I went ahead and said it.)  When was the last time we thirsted for Heaven, namely Christ our Lord.  He is our Bridegroom and we are his Bride.  We have the most glorious life ahead if we look to Him through our troubled souls.  Seek the Kingdom and His righteousness.   I desire to wait for Him and His kingdom and  as I waited so "impatiently" for my love on our wedding night.






Coram Deo.

Insta-Culture

So my hubby and I were having a conversation about this Insta-Culture we live in.  Why do people struggle with getting stuff done?  Why are people so overly consumed with themselves that it hinders them from accomplishing their responsibilities, having problems discerning what to say "yes" and "no" to, being tossed into a seemingly real depression, having to know whats going on in "Suzy's" house, etc.  Well, the short answer is USUALLY self.  Self gratification, self centeredness, self UNcontrol, laziness, worship of others, and the summation of it all, self worship. 


Lets face it, we are addicts.  We are addicted to ideas, ideologies, people, pleasures, substances.  I'm sure I missed some.  I find myself fixed on the Savior one minute and on to myself the next.  John Piper is so right in that we have to FIGHT for Joy.  Joy in the finished work of Christ.  Joy in the journey of sanctification.  Joy in our sufferings as they are the working out of the fruits of the Spirit in us and our ultimate salvation.  Joy in the service of our callings, our choices, our responsibilities, our duties.


Back to Insta-culture.  Here's a thought.  A hundred years ago, heck, TWENTY years ago, we woke up, went to our "work," ate food a few times a day, read some books, or worked some more, chatted on the phone a few times a week to our best ones, watched a little idiot box with the fam (wrote letters if you lived in Downton?  Ok, I'll admit, I am a little addicted to Downton.  Shucks, we used to like Murder She Wrote.  Come on people!  Should have stuck with the hundred years ago....oh well.  I'll close the parentheses now.), and went to bed.  When we thought about someone, we wrote them a letter, or made a phone call that lasted 30 minutes at most because we had to get back to what we HAD to do.  Now, we wake up, look up what EVERYONE AROUND THE GLOBE is doing and then make breakfast (maybe), looking AGAIN at MEDIA, going to "work", taking a break, texting, checking MEDIA, driving home whist texting (if you're a rebel), ok this is starting to depress me.  Whatever.  You get my made up analogy.  Is there anytime for meditation, quiet, practicing something new, praying for people who come to mind, reading,  visiting your neighbor who just had surgery, asking someone over for dinner, mowing the lawn?  Well, sure there is, for some, but my point I suppose is dual.  1) You can usually get most of the things done that you are supposed to if you just steadily go about your day doing those things, and if not, no big deal.  You might leave the last dishes until the morning.  Or on a sick day, your house might end up looking like the aftermath of an atomic bomb.  It's ok!  Some days are made to "survive."  There is beauty in being humbled.   2) YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!  You need not please everyone, answer everyone who "knocks on your door", compare what Joe and Suzy do every weekend, worry about who "likes" your photo or post, or even who doesn't "like" your stuff.  There is not a conspiracy going around about you.  People don't talk about you all the time.  Let's face it, if they do, its probably not that healthy, and the world will still spin.  They are responsible for that.  NOT YOU or ME!  Let's focus people.  Stop reading this silly post.  :)


Ha ha.  Thanks for visiting my ridiculous blog.  Just joking.  I'm praying that God would help me to do what I've thought about. Peace out.  ;)


Corum Deo.

Whose Am I?

This is a hard for me.  I feel as though I'm a baby bird trying to poke my way out of this difficult shell.  But to the outsider, the shell is soft.  And he doesn't know how weak the baby bird is.  He wants to tear open the soft shell and do everything for the chick.  But he can't.  And that sums up life doesn't it?  Or motherhood.  Or something profound.  Or maybe not.  Welcome to my brain! (sigh)


I've struggled a lot finding myself lately.  Although this is not a completely foreign feeling.  We do this all our lives.  We are philoshopers.  We are thologians.  We are imperfect.  Yet, we are made in His image.  That makes us set apart from creation.  Set apart for His works.  (Eph 2:10)  But then we struggle.  And cry.  And fight.  And tell God we are nothing.  We try and convince Him that we fail all the time.  We listen to our feelings and the Father of Lies.  We beg Him to stop time.  To make the sun stand still.  We feel sorry for ourselves.  We stop reading His Word.  We tread the waters of life, thinking we are going to drown in the next moments.  We don't though.  He washes us to shore yet once again.  He is faithful.  We KNOW this, yet we refuse to live our lives as though we BELONG to him (still learning what that is).  Rather, we live as though we belong to our bodies.  We feed them organic food (I confess), exercise (sometimes) regularly, and muster up strength to get through the day, week, year, etc.  We use CAFFEINE to accomplish this at times.  (um, can I get an AMEN! God made it people!!)  Then we flop in our beds and dread the next morning when our kids wake us up too early because we watched too many episodes of Downton Abbey the night before.  This has not always been my life, no, it has just been a couple years for me. 


Where is the victorious life?!!  Where is carefree living?  Where is my hairbrush?  Oh wait, that's a song. 


So the philosopher in me wants to perfect and groom my life into this ideal package...which I keep changing.  Ironic, isn't it?  The theologian just got thrown out into the Pacific (guess Atlantic now) Ocean without her Bible or library.  Deep waters suck the life out of your body.  And all the while we MOAAANNNN and CRRYYYYY and weep.  We say, "God, where are YOU!!!!"  We live as though we are trying to figure out who we are in the deep waters.  Yet our God wants us to see that we are nothing.  We are imperfect girls, women, moms, daughters, wives, sisters.  We ALWAYS need forgiveness.  We need HIM.  He wants us to recognize to whom we belong.  And the answer for the Christian is "we belong to Christ."  What does that mean?  I have a lot of answers for that, but you and I need to cling to different verses at different times in our lives.  So Ill leave you to open your Bible and figure it out.  And yes, you can figure it out. 


Still trying to remind and train my mind to KNOW this and ask myself this everyday.  In the mean time, I'm resting.  Resting in Gods promise of Life, and of Care.  Because He loves me.  And He loves you too.  And while I'm all mushy, I love you too.  No really, I do.  :)