One of my ongoing pursuits this past year has been a deeper understanding of how to live spiritually as a Christian in a physical world. I do not want to compartmentalize my spirituality into a daily or weekly ritual. But my current question is (see the entry Taking the Lead-Jazzy's story-Oct.1'06) what is my part in this journey? How can I be more spiritual as I live in the physical?
How much of being spiritual is the part when I am still, reflective, devotional, and meditating on God’s Word in a private, personal worship time? And what does that look like when a car ahead of me in carpool straddles the two carpool lanes and clogs up the traffic flow!?! Or when my children all take turns getting a virus, just as my copay increases and my part-time income decreases!
While I can see my ability to handle these (minor) challenges with grace and patience grow as I devote myself to seeking a godly, eternal perspective on life, the disparity between the spiritual depths I reach when I am engaged in a heart-to-heart with my Maker and the pettiness at which I can get caught up in any given day is disturbing to me. It is this awareness of my inner spiritual poverty, however, that keeps me on this quest.
This week, a conversation about the movie trilogy Lord of the Rings prompted an insight about this very issue, at least at a symbolic level. In this story by Tolkien, the heroes are engaged in a battle of good versus evil that will determine the fate of Middle Earth. The battle is both spiritual and physical.
Spiritually, the heroes must overcome their own vulnerability to evil, their mistrust of team members (the fellowship), the pain of betrayal, fear of failure, and the temptation to despair in the light of overwhelming obstacles. Physically, they must endure many forms of suffering, and they will all very literally engage in more than one hand-to-hand combat, to-the-death fight. Blood will be spilt, and no one will be spared bodily harm. Not even the main hero, Frodo.
Evil, in the form of Orcs, goblins, and Uruk-hai, is ruthlessly brutal and singularly focused on the annihilation of all forms of life: trees, humans, hobbits, elves. The Uruk-hai, especially, are everything I might imagine a demonic force to look like in a physical form. Truly the stuff of nightmares! I think if we could see our spiritual enemy for who he really is- how utterly bent on our destruction and how abominably wicked he and his demonic horde are—it would look a lot like how evil is portrayed in this trilogy.
Although the battles are fought with real human (and elf and dwarf) effort, even to the death, the victories that are won are supernatural—connected to the faith and hope and love of the heroes in the face of staggering odds.
Through this analogy, I perceive another ray of light in my journey to learn the balance between my human effort and God’s amazing power and sovereignty to work in me:
On this earth, my life here plays out in the physical realm of circumstances, but the battles are lost or won in my heart where I choose either faith or fear, love or anger, rest or stress, hope or despair. These choices are my part in the journey. The outcomes of the external conflicts are His.
…and the quest continues…
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