Echoes Of the Goal:

As members of the human race, we're not exactly famous for our long attention span. I mean, I've never been anything BUT human, so obviously I can't bring a completely objective, outside-of-the-box perspective to this topic. But I know this: It's difficult for people to focus on any one thing for very long at all. We are distracted by everything, ranging from the weather, to our own day to day comings and goings. One burning passion or interest seems to succeed another as regularly as the changing seasons. I'm that way, at any rate. One week, I eat sleep and breathe Classical music- the next, all I want to do is write poetry. When this palls, along comes a new friendship, or a stack of books, or gardening, or Civil War re-enacting- you name it, it's happened. And all of my former hobbies and relationships melt away into the background, making way for the glory of the New.
But, in all this shifting morass of life, there's something which is never intended to change. Mind you- it does, more often than I like to admit- and yet, it is the anchor, the center of my existence, something which I am always brought face to face with again, and unable to wholly abandon, even in my foolish distractibility. This is my relationship to Jesus Christ. My only purpose in living on earth is to follow Him, to seek Him, to study, mimic, and absorb Him. It may seem, for a flashing moment, more exciting to read Shakespeare, or make quilts, or talk on the phone- or even to write this blog! :-) But there is no doubt that these are phases- passing interests- passing temptations. My goal, still, is Christ.
Back when I spent a lot of time studying Greek and Roman mythology, I learned this story. I've forgotten most of it, but here is how the important part goes:
'Once there was a beautiful girl, who was also a fleet runner. When it was time for her to be married, princes from every kingdom came to seek her hand. But, her father made one stipulation: the man she married, would have to be able to beat her in a footrace. Those who lost would be killed. Now, as it happened, the girl herself objected to being married, and had, as a gift from one of the goddesses, three beautiful golden apples. If any young man began to gain on her in the race, she would simply fling one of these apples along the track- and when he stopped to pick it up, she gained the necessary distance to defeat him. Countless young men tried to win the girl, and died in the attempt.'
Of course, there's more to the story- but, to me, this is most memorable.
Even as fiction, it's kind of astounding, isn't it? Here are all of these men, engaged in a life or death contest, focused on, as their prize, the deepest desire of their hearts- and yet faced with an unexpected and attractive novelty, they are unable to resist the urge to abandon the race in order to seek a useless, but shiny object which can bring them nothing but loss and death. I'd like to call the story improbable- and of course, it is, on many levels. But, it's true as well. True far too often in my own life. Fixed eagerly on Christ as my goal,(and He is not fleeing, but LEADING me!)running hard after His character and transforming power, my eye is caught by something gleaming at the edge of the path- and all of His love, all of His glorious beauty is forgotten in the sudden desire for THAT thing! Not even fear of punishment is enough to detain such an impulse if allowed to take possession of my heart. Ridiculous? Of course! And yet, it happens!
Why is it? What is the appeal in these 'lesser lights', in these dead baubles of cheap metal which enables them to momentarily overwhelm all of the burningly beautiful glory of heaven? I don't think I know the answer. The best I can figure is that, at least in my own life, I allow myself to have a faulty image of God, to form unrealistic expectations. Quite simply, there are desires, and heartaches, and struggles right now which it is no part of His plan to whisk out of my life. Even more- I have an inner, longing hunger for His kingdom, my true home, which is not meant to be truly satisfied here on earth. I stray from the path towards lies because they promise me a fulfillment which He has no intention of giving to me in this life. I demand that He protect me from pain and frustration- and he sends new trials. I convince myself that He will immediately crown my efforts to serve Him with success- instead, He allows temptation, and failure and dryness to come crowding in. My focus tends to be on the externals- how I am interacting with the world around me, what impression I'm making, what affirmation and support I'm receiving. But His perspective is eternal, and internal. He is ever so patiently striving to develop and strengthen in me new life of the sort which will one day thrive forever in His light. It is hard for me to see that, hard for me to not eye enviously any god promising a safe, climate-controlled year of plenty, to not querulously beg Him for 'a king to lead [me] and go out before [me] and fight [my] battles' (1 Samuel 8:20)- or even, to not pursue anything offering enough seeming beauty and excitement to stifle my 'dizzy heart-hungerings', the needs which only He can meet. The trash lying beside the path succeeds in drawing me aside from my goal, not because it is different, but because it is so deceptively like. It has no life of course. No real power or beauty or substance. But it is an echo of the beauty I'm pursing- a shadow of the glory I've been promised, but am weary of waiting for. It claims the ability to satisfy the love and longing which were previously driving me onward after Him. It is frequently so entirely innocent- so wholesome and appealing- no one will rebuke me if I embrace it. But it is empty , valuelesss, temporal air- and worse than that! Acting in such capacity, it is death, a potent spiritual poison! A moment of hesitation in my race- the faintest touch of laxness or laziness- and Satan is crying his wares from every side. Will I press on after Him, through the deadly weight of dryness and discouragement and distraction. Will I cry out to Him in the tangle of confusion? Will I '...[look] round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and [ask] why [I have] been forsaken, and still [obey]"? (C.S. Lewis)
The things I appropriate for myself bring no fulfillment. "The beauty or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things- the beauty, the memory of our own past- are a good image of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are NOT the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never visited." (C.S. Lewis)
Lord, give me discernment in how I use my time, and engage my emotions. Don't let me be 'spent in non-essentials'. Oswald Chambers wrote: "The greatest characteristic a Christian can exhibit is this completely unveiled openness before God, which allows that person's life to become a mirror for others... Beware of anything that would spot or tarnish that mirror in you. It is almost always something good that will stain it- something good, but not what is best."
It is so hard sometimes to differentiate what seems to be fun and healthy amusement from that which becomes a distraction and a stumbling block in my race. It is especially confusing to find the balance between devoting adequate time to human friendships and relationships, without giving them priority over my friendship with You. Let it be my firm commitment this semester to 'consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me- the task of testifying to the Gospel of God's grace... forgetting what is behind, and straining toward what is ahead, pressing on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.' (Acts 20:24, Phillipians 3:17) Help me to keep in mind the words of Susanna Wesley: "Take this rule; whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind; that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."
Lord, don't let me stop and listen to the faint and misleading reverbrations of this shouting triumph I'm seeking- draw me onward through my land of echoes, and shadows, and flickering lamps- this dark wasteland where I see only 'through a glass, darkly', until You are ready to bring me into to the unending splendour of Your light. Until then, don't let me settle for empty promises, or for anything less than my goal. In the overwhelming cacophany of praise which I will one day join, there will be no room, or memory for the wistful plea of echoes!