“You are called into existence in order to
reflect and display the glory of God. To render visible God to the world...”
— John Piper paraphrasing Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)
There is great meaning for life
within our mortal existence, but it can only be seen through the kaleidoscope
of faith—and not simply of any faith, but of the redemptive faith of God in Jesus Christ.
Everything, literally everything,
hangs on the fact that everything is for God’s glory.
The very moment we encapsulate
that knowledge within our minds, absorbing it intentionally within our hearts,
we begin to open ourselves to vision well beyond our mortality. This life is
not simply about us.
This life and the life to come are
all about God.
When we come to entertain this
fact, to willingly surrender before it, God is able to show us there is purpose
in pain, frustration, hopelessness, and despair. There is even a purpose in our
sin. Everything we loathe about life has a Divine purpose and meaning, just as
everything we love about life has a Divine purpose and meaning. Even our
boredom has purpose.
Leading the Irresistible Life
Once we are on board with God’s
Divine purpose for life things that once made no sense begin to make sense.
Confusion gives way to curiosity. We assume wonder at the mysteries of God and
we hold that in tension with our wonder about the parts of our lives we cannot
accept.
In surrendering those parts of our
lives we cannot accept, we receive grace, which comes formed as an acceptance
beyond our understanding. Suddenly we have power to accept the unacceptable,
and we have no explanation for this. It is a miracle.
Leading this irresistible life,
which is a life solemnly surrendered for God’s glory, where we have learned to
habitually give over those things that break us (or threaten to), we know new
life. Actually, we have learned to live for the first time.
This is why this life is
irresistible. Once we have a taste of living for God’s glory, accepting our
purpose to live in Divine obedience as far as possible, and seeing the purpose
in the bewildering, God affirms us, and we know this irresistible life is the
only way.
This irresistible life climbs
above all manner of tumult and tragedy and finds an incomprehensible meaning—the
glory of God, which is a meaning we cannot even grasp—and the rights for hope
for sustaining the day are given. We are blessed!
The grace of God in this way can
be impossible to explain; just experienced, and experienced by faith.
***
Our sole purpose for living this life
is to exemplify, reveal, and magnify the glory of God. And such a God we have,
that the more broken we are the more glory we can bring to our King.
© 2012 S. J.
Wickham.
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