Vingt-mille lieues

I hesitate to claim to have any silberne Kugeln to defeat sin, but various factors have combined this week suddenly. My conclusion is this: I have been listless and going nowhere since last summer because I tried to take a holiday from holiness. I thought it would be fine to take a few weeks off just trying to keep out of trouble and be a good boy, and never stopped. For the whole year, my aim has to be a pretty ornament for Jesus, so I have got nowhere. We are to be tools, purposive and determined to get a grip on life. It hit my yesterday night that the whole year’s focus on 1 John hugs and smiles has been unbalanced, and I need to get back to Titus. Leadership is a scary idea, that we can seize the situation around us and shape it; take charge of ourselves instead of limply flopping on others; to whatever extent is our calling get back involved in the lives of the people I love around me. If I did this, perhaps keeping a drive for knowing God more closely would be easier, because it would be going somewhere.

I have never lost my focus on growth and discipleship, but what are we growing towards? If you want a catch-phrase, it’s this: become a tool, not a decoration. Press on so as to take part in something, not just to quietly reduce the ticklist of wrongdoing. I’ll be reading Titus more this week, because this is a new decision I want to keep hold of in terms of momentum. May God in his wisdom, with the whole counsel of scripture, keep nudging our target in discipleship towards his goals by growing in us a desire to be active recipients of the church and peg for a serious maturity. He has been leading us here, and will grow us in Titus-vigour as much as he will lead us into 1 John-deep love.