Coffee Shop Revelation #1

One day in Scotland I decided to spend alone in Edinburgh. And God decided to change my life, first via C.S. Lewis in the middle of Costa Coffee on Princes Street. I sat for a few hours and finished The Screwtape Letters, doing some major soul-searching and longing for the truth. The book is written from the perspective of Screwtape, a devil on Satan's side, who is writing letters of advice to his nephew, Wormwood, also a devil, who is in charge of luring back a young man who is on the side of God, "The Enemy." It's totally full of hard truths. The parts I found the most convicting were about complacency and the way we spend time. Uncle Screwtape writes to Wormwood,

"Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition, but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."

As I grow older, experience more and gain more responsibility, I feel the weight of complacency, the desire for fall-backs, and "there's always tomorrow to be like Christ" looming in my heart. I don't act as Christ because I fear. But every time I choose comfort over Christ, I justify my actions more and more easily. James writes us,

"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and nor a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing."

We have to be careful not to be mistaken. It is not about doing, doing, doing...we cannot be every part of the body of Christ, and He doesn't even want for us to be on the run all the time. But it IS all about being.

I remember a prayer that a friend prayed for Kendra and I before we left for Honduras. He said something to the effect of, "Let them know that it is not about what they do there, but abiding in you and being filled with you. Let them humbly sit at your feet and listen and learn and be transformed into your image."

And that is it! Going as Jesus goes, moving as He moves, praying as He prays. Trusting Christ, abiding in Christ, means hearing and following His lead, allowing yourself to be moved by His Spirit and acting as He would when moved, instead of making excuses to remain comfortable.

Stopping to talk with an old friend, knowing it'll be uncomfortable, but knowing also that there is light living in us. Forgiving someone totally in the wrong. Giving out of poverty. Helping at home even when we are used to spending our time as we please. Loving the dirtiest, meanest and most vulgar people because God first loved us. Habits are formed, and we are either made or broken by choosing to act on what we know is true or not. Even Satan believes in Christ, and shudders. The difference between Him and those who love Christ is in the way they live and what they wrap their lives around.

I've been convicted by (but hugely struggling with) the fact that every moment we live holds a decision to actively pursue Christ and to love Him and people or to remain comfortable and unchanged. God is the one who moves, but we have the freedom to allow Him.

Mostly, the willingness to grab ahold of the present is hard for me. As a futuristic thinker, I am constantly looking forward, making plans. Screwtape writes to Wormwood,

"The humans live in time, but our Enemy (God) destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity...He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present--either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure."

I never felt preoccupation with the future as a bad thing, and of course it is okay to look forward to things in this life, but when Jesus says "Don't worry about tomorrow," I thinks it's not just a call not to worry, but not to waste time in thinking too much about it. Screwtape writes,

"In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays...Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the Future. Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead...He (God)does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do."

"If he (the human) is..praying for the virtues wherewith to meet them, and meanwhile concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable and should be attacked at once."

This was all foreign to me, but struck me as undeniably true. While we need and are encouraged to make some plans, we can't be consumed by them. To live actively in the present is freedom. To act in courage is freedom. Let's do away with complacency, fixing our minds on God above and His eternity, but also the people who are right in front of us, in our houses, walking down the street, a letter away. It is not the easy way, but it is glorifying to God and a joy for us.