Fathered by God - An evening with John Eldredge

Like a roaring lion...

“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same sort of suffering.” 1 Peter 5:8-9

The scriptures tell us over and over that we live in a world that is thwart with warfare. That war is being fought for and over our hearts.

There is a great line in the movie Constantine where the detective John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is explaining to Angela that there is more going on than meets the eye regarding the death of her sister. Angela responds to this by saying "Well, this has been real educational, but, I don't believe in the devil." John then makes one of the most powerful statements in the movie, "You should. He believes in you."

Whether we like it or not we are born into a world that is at war. A war between Heaven and hell. And we are right in the middle of it.

Do you live your life as if you are?

Unanswered questions

The other evening I was reading a book by Ken Gire titled Life as We Would Want It…Life as We Are Given It. A particular quote in the book stood out to me.

“A German poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote to a young man in 1903:

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart…try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Letters to a young poet, trans. Stephen Mitchell (New York: Vintage, 1986)”

As I thought about the quote I realized that God never asked us to live our life with confidence and certainty. He wants us to live it with a reckless faith. A faith that stretches us in the moments of doubt and weariness. How often do we find ourselves in the middle of our life exactly where we want to be? Not often enough for my liking. Life is full of questions and many of them go unanswered. Mostly because we don’t stop to ask the important ones of God, nor stop to hear His answers.

Life gives us countless opportunities that test our resolve and constitution. What God offers us in these times is a strength that surpasses understanding and explanation…His strength. A strength that we can rest in if we will yield our desire for control of our lives. How beautiful it would be to rest in that place forever. Living out questions with reckless faith. It leaves us wide open for God to show up and leave us speechless with His finger print on our life.

Rainer understood that life was worth living well and living questions.