Monday, March 17, 2014
383 - What Are You Looking For?
Spirituality Column #383
March 18, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
Among the great metaphysical prescriptives attending the worldly aspirations of contemporary humanity, the simple, humble, heartfelt therapy of searching for Jesus Christ is rarely recommended.
Instead we assert: “I need to find myself.”
That’s what we think. Jesus can wait; first I need to find myself. But is there a more succinct statement of the ego-centric Baby Boomer aesthetic? A more apt credo of “Me Generation” self-absorption? A more deceptive distillation of modern man’s misdirected and ultimately empty search for life’s meaning? A more gobbledy-gook filled section of the book-selling industry?
No, “finding myself” is absolutely as pervasive a modern philosophical cornerstone – not to mention big business – as it is a devastatingly disruptive flaw in spiritual priorities. The marketplace of ideas, including best-seller lists, are full of secular self-help psycho-babble and self-actualizing personal-esteem literature. “I must find and love myself before I can love others” is how it often goes.
Here I’d like to interject a rebuttal, borrowing a song lyric Johnny Lee wrote in 1980: We are “looking for love in all the wrong places …”
Some years before 1980 – actually several centuries before – the German monk Thomas à Kempis compiled what is recognized as the second-best-selling book of all time behind the Bible. The book, from the early 1400s, is “The Imitation of Christ.”
“The Imitation,” like the Bible, has much to say about denying self and the superiority of seeking Jesus. The book is short and blessedly modernized in language and punctuation. Its message of faith in Christ is very accessible to the average reader.
Its message is also very hard, and very non-Baby-Boomerish. And for the committed Christian, it is very, very convicting. Thomas pulls no punches.
In the book’s second section, the eighth sub-title is “Loving Jesus above all things.” Thomas begins: “Blessed is he who appreciates what it is to love Jesus and who despises himself for the sake of Jesus. Give up all other love for His, since he wishes to be loved alone above all things.”
Granted, Thomas is a monk describing a monastic life. Few folks can relate to that. But “The Imitation” is a Christian classic because it so purely describes the primacy of Christ over all things, and in all things. I am to worship thee, not me.
Thomas continues, “If you seek Jesus in all things, surely you will find him. Likewise, if you seek yourself, you will find yourself – to your own ruin.”
One saves, the other dies. The grace is God’s, the choice is ours.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds that whoever loses his life for Jesus’s sake, will find it (Matthew 10:39).
March 18, 2014
Current in Carmel-Westfield-Noblesville-Fishers-Zionsville
What Are You Looking
For?
By Bob WaltersAmong the great metaphysical prescriptives attending the worldly aspirations of contemporary humanity, the simple, humble, heartfelt therapy of searching for Jesus Christ is rarely recommended.
Instead we assert: “I need to find myself.”
That’s what we think. Jesus can wait; first I need to find myself. But is there a more succinct statement of the ego-centric Baby Boomer aesthetic? A more apt credo of “Me Generation” self-absorption? A more deceptive distillation of modern man’s misdirected and ultimately empty search for life’s meaning? A more gobbledy-gook filled section of the book-selling industry?
No, “finding myself” is absolutely as pervasive a modern philosophical cornerstone – not to mention big business – as it is a devastatingly disruptive flaw in spiritual priorities. The marketplace of ideas, including best-seller lists, are full of secular self-help psycho-babble and self-actualizing personal-esteem literature. “I must find and love myself before I can love others” is how it often goes.
Here I’d like to interject a rebuttal, borrowing a song lyric Johnny Lee wrote in 1980: We are “looking for love in all the wrong places …”
Some years before 1980 – actually several centuries before – the German monk Thomas à Kempis compiled what is recognized as the second-best-selling book of all time behind the Bible. The book, from the early 1400s, is “The Imitation of Christ.”
“The Imitation,” like the Bible, has much to say about denying self and the superiority of seeking Jesus. The book is short and blessedly modernized in language and punctuation. Its message of faith in Christ is very accessible to the average reader.
Its message is also very hard, and very non-Baby-Boomerish. And for the committed Christian, it is very, very convicting. Thomas pulls no punches.
In the book’s second section, the eighth sub-title is “Loving Jesus above all things.” Thomas begins: “Blessed is he who appreciates what it is to love Jesus and who despises himself for the sake of Jesus. Give up all other love for His, since he wishes to be loved alone above all things.”
Granted, Thomas is a monk describing a monastic life. Few folks can relate to that. But “The Imitation” is a Christian classic because it so purely describes the primacy of Christ over all things, and in all things. I am to worship thee, not me.
Thomas continues, “If you seek Jesus in all things, surely you will find him. Likewise, if you seek yourself, you will find yourself – to your own ruin.”
We can
pursue perfect Jesus, or me, myself, and I – the trinity of sinful man.
One saves, the other dies. The grace is God’s, the choice is ours.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) reminds that whoever loses his life for Jesus’s sake, will find it (Matthew 10:39).
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