todd nelson

Before you head off into this last weekend of October, which comes only four days before some of you start listening to Christmas music, here are three quick hitting things that I’ve read and been thinking about this week. Hope they are as hopeful and challenging to you as they have been for me.

Have a great weekend to even those who will be watching Hallmark Christmas movies this weekend…you know who you are!

#1

“He (John Wesley) never rested in the achievement of the moment. The very nature of the Christian life is progress. Perfection is not a static ‘having’ but a dynamic ‘going.’ Love is not ‘perfect’ in the sense of having reached its zenith, but in its quality as a dynamic relationship subject to infinite increase”

A Theology of Love by Mildred Bangs Wynkoop

The goal of perfection is a movable one until heaven is reached per Wynkoop. One definition of perfection, which comes out of the Wesleyan tradition, is being so filled with God’s love there is no room for anything else. While achievable in this life it however remains an aspiration regardless of where we stand. It works in a way that allows life to get better and better.

#2

Spiritual direction is basically the guidance one Christian offers another to help that person “grow up in every way … into Christ”

Soul Feast by Marjorie J. Thompson

While faith is always personal, it is never private. We need one another to come to faith. We really need one another to grow in faith. Whether that is a formal relationship with a spiritual guide or an informal relationship with a friend, opportunities abound to help and be helped to grow up with the goal being to be in every way like Christ. I’ve been wondering how we can discern our spiritual age? Where are we on the journey of faith? Maybe it would easier to identify a spiritual timeframe like infancy, terrible twos, teenager, adult, and even parent. The key is to continue growing through these parts of life with the ultimate end goal of not only being like Christ but helping others to do the same.

#3

Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.

Paul Graham

I have been thinking about the things that I do and the reason(s) I do them. That is why this Paul Graham quote stuck with me. Have my likes and dislikes become warped because of my desire to be successful, celebrated, and respected? Do I work on things because I feel others expect me to or that I will find favor? Perhaps the best way to see what comes from a true desire and like verses something that does not is how you feel before/during/after you are doing it? My guess is that a true like will be life giving while a warped like will suck the life out of us.