What I Write About

I write about the infinite number of intersections between every day life and the good news of the God who has come to get us.

Friday, November 07, 2008

Pressing On to Break the Cycle

So I was stuck in my head with all of that for a couple days. And then the Lord was good to meet me in the book of Hosea.

Right in the middle of some of the harshest and most condemning words in all of Scripture--God passing judgment on the nation of Israel--is this glorious little invitation to repentance in Hosea 6.

"Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear...like the spring rains watering the earth."

All of my life is essentially about responding to this invitation: "press on to know the Lord." By vocation and calling, my work is to essentially repeat that invitation to anyone and everyone that I can: God invites you to press on to knowing him.

I can stay stuck in my own head for days and days trying to figure out all my issues, all of everyone else's issues, and never get anywhere. Or I can press on to know the Lord. The difference is the subject matter. There is some value in self-critique and analysis, but eventually it becomes obsessive, narcissistic, and paralyzing. The law of diminishing returns is in full effect.

To press on to know the Lord, in contrast, is of infinite interest and creates in me both patient waiting and powerful and deliberate moving. It grows in value as I press into it, rather than diminishing in value.

So I'm trying to take heed of the advice of Proverbs: I listen to a wise and gentle rebuke--I consider what it might mean that I need to grow in patient listening to people. But then I must go. I must press on to know the Lord. If I stay here, in this endless loop of analysis, I will spin myself dizzy and get no where.

And there's simply too much that the Lord has given me to live into to remain bogged down here for too long.

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