My dear husband, an accomplished pianist, gave me a wonderful Christmas gift. It is a book containing the sermons of another man who was an accomplished pianist: Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
The world knows Bonhoeffer as a key figure in the Nazi resistance movement, but he was more than that. He, like me, had been a teenager who lost a brother to Death. He, like my husband, loved music and teaching. But he, unlike my spouse and myself (thus far), died as a martyr. Bonhoeffer did not live to see his fortieth birthday.
I would like to call Bonhoeffer a saint in the loftiest sense of the term, but in my reading thus far I have been struck by the ordinariness of his days on earth. He was a regular guy, making a living doing what he loved and boldly speaking out against injustice. Perhaps we can call him an "ordinary saint" who had been touched by our extraordinary God, and he accomplished the will of God while he lived.
I'm about seven years older now than Bonhoeffer was when he died, and I am asking myself the question such men's lives can initiate in the heart: Am I doing what God wants me to do?
As we approach New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, it seems natural and almost de rigueur to reflect on the past and consider the future. It is our custom to dream and make lists of things to do in the new year.
May I ask us all to do something? Instead of the world's method of merging fantasy and ambition, let us engage some saintly activities in our quest to do something significant in 2013.
If we believe God is our Creator and Governor, then we would do well to seek His direction as to what we undertake in 2013. We see that Bonhoeffer was a man who sought God's direction, and who lived with significance as an ordinary saint. We can do the same.
First, we become ordinary saints in the biblical sense of the term: men and women who have chosen to live lives of holiness, modeled on the life of Jesus Christ and sustained by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We demonstrate simple, joyful obedience to the commands of God.
Second, we become men and women who are deeply in love with Jesus. Our love for Him is expressed through acts of devotion: prayer, giving of time and money, fasting, reading of the Scriptures, assemblies of public worship, acts of compassion, attention to the preached Word of God, and times of silent contemplation.
Third, we constantly ask for God's help. In these human frames it is easy for us to begin a discipline, then drop it (or allow it to be subsumed by other activities deemed more urgent). We need help to love as He loved. We need help to suffer as He suffered. We need help to remain on task and not become distracted from fully doing His will. We even need His help in order to pray aright!
God is Sovereign, and He may choose to give us individual directives for 2013 as He sees fit. But I pray that this post will be a small beginning for us, with greater things yet to come.
Some of us, and I include myself, have unfinished works from 2012. Let us ask for forgiveness and, if we have the opportunity and God's approval, continue working. Some of us have been working against God and He has, so to speak, taken our talent and given it to the man who has ten. Let us earnestly seek God's pardon, if there is opportunity, and appeal to the grace and mercy of God. We can do this: we have the evidence of King Hezekiah, a man whose post-judgement appeal caused God to relent.
Our God is gracious. He has some works to accomplish through us.
What does He want you to do?
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