Immortality or edification?
Imagine you are faced with a choice: Attend a wedding or attend a funeral. I know, it isn't every day that we have to choose between attending a wedding and a funeral, so I don't think anyone would have a ready answer to such a question! After all, every situation is different.
I hope you won't be too incredulous when I tell you I was faced with that very choice this morning. No kidding! Same day, same time, members of the same church if you can believe it.
Before you start shaking your heads in absolute bewilderment, let me offer the best explanation I can in such a small space. The wedding was for a young man in our church who has not really been attending recently (most likely been attending his bride's church). The funeral was for a widow in our church who was taken by cancer just this last week. Her family planned the funeral and, not being members of our church, obviously couldn't have known about the wedding...
That behind us, I still was faced with a most interesting choice. I had reason to want to attend the funeral--I often get frustrated by the lack of young people at funerals--yet I didn't know them nearly as well as the folks in the wedding. I ended up going the wedding and, looking back, I think that was probably the best course of action.
There is one question, though, I don't think I have quite answered in my own mind. Is there really an unwillingness to attend funerals in our society and does it reflect a disinterest in acknowledging ourselves to be the finite creatures we are? The human mind is so deceiving in its opinion and view of itself. Isn't it amazing how things tend to be all about us and what is going on in our lives? Isn't it amazing how we warp our priorities according to what will seem to extend the self and make ourselves somewhat "immortal?"
For clarification, I am thinking in the context of what I have seen in myself and my motives for writing. I know how strong the temptation is for me to write just for the sake of seeing my name in print or getting the feeling that I am creating a part of myself which will last beyond death. Am I the only one that faces this? I brought it up to a friend last night and he concluded that one of the best motives for writing is to write for the edification of the reader. I'm not going to say that edification has never been my motive. I simply know how easy it is, even as I desire to see God glorified in my work, to feel a hope that I will get a little piece of it for myself!
Being a new blogger, a few days ago, I was checking things out and found the feature which allows you to see all of the latest blogs created on this program.
The list ended at about 500, and it was still within the last couple minutes.
It was a good way of realizing just how small I am and how virtually non-existent one little blog can be in relation to the whole. No, this blog is just one speck in the cosmos and will only be edifying to others in direct proportion to God's blessing upon it.
I hope you won't be too incredulous when I tell you I was faced with that very choice this morning. No kidding! Same day, same time, members of the same church if you can believe it.
Before you start shaking your heads in absolute bewilderment, let me offer the best explanation I can in such a small space. The wedding was for a young man in our church who has not really been attending recently (most likely been attending his bride's church). The funeral was for a widow in our church who was taken by cancer just this last week. Her family planned the funeral and, not being members of our church, obviously couldn't have known about the wedding...
That behind us, I still was faced with a most interesting choice. I had reason to want to attend the funeral--I often get frustrated by the lack of young people at funerals--yet I didn't know them nearly as well as the folks in the wedding. I ended up going the wedding and, looking back, I think that was probably the best course of action.
There is one question, though, I don't think I have quite answered in my own mind. Is there really an unwillingness to attend funerals in our society and does it reflect a disinterest in acknowledging ourselves to be the finite creatures we are? The human mind is so deceiving in its opinion and view of itself. Isn't it amazing how things tend to be all about us and what is going on in our lives? Isn't it amazing how we warp our priorities according to what will seem to extend the self and make ourselves somewhat "immortal?"
For clarification, I am thinking in the context of what I have seen in myself and my motives for writing. I know how strong the temptation is for me to write just for the sake of seeing my name in print or getting the feeling that I am creating a part of myself which will last beyond death. Am I the only one that faces this? I brought it up to a friend last night and he concluded that one of the best motives for writing is to write for the edification of the reader. I'm not going to say that edification has never been my motive. I simply know how easy it is, even as I desire to see God glorified in my work, to feel a hope that I will get a little piece of it for myself!
Being a new blogger, a few days ago, I was checking things out and found the feature which allows you to see all of the latest blogs created on this program.
The list ended at about 500, and it was still within the last couple minutes.
It was a good way of realizing just how small I am and how virtually non-existent one little blog can be in relation to the whole. No, this blog is just one speck in the cosmos and will only be edifying to others in direct proportion to God's blessing upon it.
posted by Mark at 4:23 PM
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