Theological Journal - January 4

January 4

A “rule of life” is a way of life ordered to maximize our experience of God and facilitate our growth toward maturity in faith. Or in the words of the answer to the first question of The Westminster Shorter Catechism about the main goal of human life: “to glorify and enjoy God forever.”

If we cannot honestly say that we are experiencing and progressing toward that goal, our lives are not shaped or ordered to that end.

Yesterday I asked you to try and identify some the “rules” that give shape to your life. That was in order for you to have a sense of the influence they have in the character of our experience. And to get an idea of the kinds of things we might want to change to change our experience.

But what might it mean to “glorify” and “enjoy” God forever? Let me suggest two simple images.

-to glorify God is to reflect something of him to others and the world we live in, like a mirror
-to enjoy God is to live in the awareness that our lives are not about us but what they are about God has requested us to play our part; like a team

I’ll not labor those images anymore here (though there is much more that could and should be said about each). Let them play with your mind and heart (or come up with other images that better resonate with you). Ask yourself how you or if you reflect God in your life. Or whether you sense yourself responding to God’s invitation to live the way you do or not. The answers you come up with are initial grist for the mill of reflecting on a rule for your life. If you find you can’t answer them satisfactorily, that too is an important learning.

The bottom line here is that there is no form or formula, no one-size-fits-all pattern for developing an effective and faithful rule for life. Much depends on a number of variables and their interactions that form the uniqueness of your experience of God. And that uniqueness is a function of individuality (not individualism!) and community about which I say more anon.

I’ll not be posting on Sundays to observe a sabbath rest of my own but will resume this series on Monday.