A few weeks ago, I realised I didn’t really know how to enjoy the physical world any more.
Over the past few weeks, God has spoken through his word to our church, urging us to lift our eyes from our present circumstances and priorities to seek Him and His priorities. As we heard about the Israelites trying to use the ark of God like a lucky charm, we saw that we can't expect God to bend to our will, but instead we need to bend to His will (1 Samuel 4). We’ve been reminded that whatever happens to us in this life, God will win in the end (1 Samuel 25-31). And we’ve been shown these past 3 weeks in Mark’s gospel that Jesus is the compassionate God who wants to know us and rescue us from our sin.
It’s a spectacular vision, it’s so liberating to take my eyes off myself and to live for my Maker. I want to know God, I want to follow Christ and seek his forgiveness and eternal life, both for myself and for those around me. I want to have this eternal vision, this God-focussed mindset.
But how do I relate to this world here and now? What is the a place for Christians to enjoy the gifts God has given us? Two competing thoughts come to mind, which I’ll express as a verse from a song I love singing at church, and a passage from 1 Timothy:
The things of earth I leave behind
To live in worship of my king
His is the right to rule my life
Mine is the joy to live for him.
(From This Life I Live by Emu Music).
“For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,”
(1 Timothy 4:4)
So what should we do with the things of earth? Should we “leave them behind” or “receive them with thanksgiving”?
More often than not, our default is to make too much of created things and ignore our Creator. We might give a token prayer of thanks to “Christianize” our enjoyment of creation but really the only difference from the pagan world around us is that we say grace before enjoying our sourdough, craft beer and beef brisket sliders.
But is it possible to be so focussed on spiritual things that we make too little of created things? Is there something not quite right about feeling a tinge of guilt every time we enjoy ourselves without it being an overtly Christian activity? Are we not receiving God’s good gifts with thanksgiving at that point?
I’m still working it, but I’ve come to some resolution, largely helped by the opening chapters of a book that seeks to answer this very tension. “The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts” by Joe Rigney, draws deeply from the likes of C S Lewis and Jonathan Edwards.
Here’s the list of what Rigney has had to say so far:
God made us to be creatures, and He likes what He made - it was "very good” (Genesis 1:31).
We aren’t a soul trapped inside a body, we are a unity of body and soul - being embodied is part of what it means to be human.
As embodied creatures we are finite beings. So God doesn’t expect us to love Him infinitely, even though He is infinitely deserving of love. But He does expect us to love Him with all of ourselves - to love him fully and love him first (Matt 22:37).
When a full and supreme love for God meets one of God’s gifts, those gifts are received with glad reception, enjoyment and thanksgiving. Enjoying God’s gifts as gifts from God brings glory to God and fills God’s purpose for humanity, as we live our lives in relationship with Him and imaging Him to the universe.
So leaving behind the things of earth doesn’t mean moving to a monastery and living on stale bread for the rest of our lives. It means we ought to stop living for created things, but instead living for and loving the God who made them. And as we love God, we receive God’s good earthly gifts to us with thanksgiving, enjoying them as gifts from God, which is in itself an act of worship.
“Every enjoyment has the capacity to be a “tiny theophany,” a touch from God’s finger.” (Joe Rigney, “The Things of Earth”, p 70 )
So, go and enjoy God’s good gifts to his glory!
In Christ,
Andy Williams