:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

While on vacation with our family last week I gave frequent updates on the past year, and I realized something.

The past year wasn’t the worst. That kind of surprised me. In fact, a lot of great things happened. And then again, I certainly hit my fair share of set backs that cast a shadow over things—hence my surprise.

During this time last year, where did I expect to be in a year’s time? The answer: Well, not quite where I am right now. And now, where do I expect to be next year at this time?

I can live with my lack of progress because life is more than a long to-do list. I need to look at something bigger than my goals.

This isn’t a matter of painting a bulls-eye wherever my arrows land. Rather, I’m talking about the delicate balance of having goals and remembering the larger relational picture of life. Over the past year my daily quality of life has improved and my wife and I have found time to be together in midst of some pretty crazy schedules.

All in all, we’re doing fine, and that is something to be thankful for.

On the Christian end of things, I think I can get caught up in meeting all kinds of goals as well, craving certain spiritual milestones. You know, stuff like being free from a nagging sin, hearing God more clearly, or reading a certain amount of scripture. Christians usually think they don’t pray enough, and we’re usually moving somewhere between the extremes of despairing over our sin or excusing it.

I like the idea of aiming for Christian maturity, and I’ll speak about that more this week, but as far as goals go, I think it’s important to begin any discussion of them from the standpoint of what’s most important.

When I consider my goals as a Christian, I find myself balancing the desire to be more holy or spiritual, but not listing the goal over the relationship with God that will ultimately lead me to that level of holiness or spirituality. In other words, working toward the goals can overshadow the means by which we attain them—namely through intimacy with Christ.

It can be frustrating to struggle with sin or to find that you’re not quite as far along in your Christian walk as you’d like, but we don’t move forward by setting a goal and then working on it without the relationship with Christ in place. I’m learning that the best way forward is not always what seems to be the most direct…

This week I’m posting on a series of books that proved particularly life-changing for myself. They are ordered according to the chronology of my own experiences with them, and I am focusing in particular on the ones that still come to mind in my day-to-day life. I’ll begin with A Celebration of Discipline.

I ran into Richard Foster’s classic A Celebration of Discipline while in college. I dabbled with it a little bit while I was dating my soon-to-be wife and mentioned to her that I thought I could benefit from a little more discipline in my life.

Heck. OK, I was totally smitten by her and really needed some help keeping it together during our long-distance relationship. Fresh out of my teen years I craved discipline, a deeper spirituality, and fellowship with God. She bought me Foster’s book for my birthday.

I eagerly dove into Foster’s book and discovered a God I could delight in while denying myself. Foster showed me a way to pursue Christ without straying into performance Christianity or legalism.

At a time in my life when I soon left my friends from college, struggled to adjust to life back at home, and set the course for the rest of my life through seminary and beyond, I took great comfort in the practices of Christianity as described by Foster. Those years of my life were certainly turbulent and very emotional, but Foster provided a series of anchors.

Many Christians today know more about business gurus and other secular trends than Christian tradition, and that makes me terribly sad. In addition, many churches want to learn from the best of the business world, organizing their churches according to the top wisdom of this world.

While I see the logic in that, I’d much rather belong to a church that’s a bit more disorganized and a lot more plugged in to the disciplines that have stood the test of time for good reason rather than whatever tops the bestseller list for a few weeks before being sent to the bargain bin or the pulping factory. Richard Foster is one author who can help the church today cultivate the inner life with God’s Holy Spirit that we need.