Renouncing Nothings

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,  training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age … – Titus 2:11-12

What really matters?  Is it my job?  Sometimes I live like it is, but in two years or five years or, at most, seven years, if I live that long, I will retire.  Maybe it’s my investments which are supposed to help sustain me after I retire and, perhaps, even leave a bit of a legacy for the grandchildren.  I would like to do that, but there may come a time when the markets all crash and fiat currency loses its value.  The Bible reminds us that even gold and silver may become worthless when there is nothing available to be bought. 

Some people seem to live on the level where satisfying physical urges and seeking physical pleasures are their only concerns.  Some live on a slightly higher plane where they seek mental gratifications and have what Watchman Nee would call “soulish” fulfillment.  They revel in their superiority of learning, taste, and experience.  Apart from God, a person may convince himself that the visible and temporal is all that there is and make a determination to get all of it he can. 

God’s grace offers salvation for all, falling like rain over all the earth yet not all receive.  Lives that are too full of self and self-satisfaction have no room for grace.  Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Not the poor but the poor in spirit are blessed.  They make room for grace in the clay cup of their existence by pouring out some of their ambitions, passions, and desires that they might be filled instead with love, peace and joy.

Christians in an un-Christian world, someone, probably Lewis, used the image of agents behind enemy lines.  We are not, however, covert spies.  We are in uniform, and we are going to draw fire.  Our battle is not with the ungodly and the deceived but for them.  We were once all held captive.  Christ has set us all free, though some do not know it.  Those who do ought to fight the deception to enlighten those still in darkness.   We can’t fight a deception we embrace, or one that we envy and exalt.  We must reject the delusions, renew our minds and live for the truth.

Think It Θ-over

LORD, reveal to me the end of my life and the number of my days. Let me know how transitory I am. You, indeed, have made my days short in length, and my life span as nothing in Your sight. Yes, every mortal man is only a vapor. Selah. – Psalm 39:4-5

I have read and been told that no one really knows what Selah means. It may be a musical rest or some other notation. It’s rather like the old song “Diddy-Wa-Diddy” that I first heard Ry Cooder sing. As evidenced yesterday, my memory of stuff thirty or forty years ago may get colored, but here’s a rough approximation of it:

I went down to church
Put my hat on the seat,
A woman sat down next to me,
Said, “Daddy, you shore is sweet.”

It’s the diddy-wa-diddy,
The diddy-wa-diddy.
Won’t somebody tell me
What diddy-wa-diddy means.

I said, “Sister, I’ll soon be gone,
Just give that thing that you’re sittin’ on.
It’s my diddy-wa-diddy,
my diddy-wa-diddy.”
Won’t somebody tell me
What diddy-wa-diddy means.

I got myself throwed out of church
For talkin’ ‘bout the diddy-wa-diddy too much.
It’s the diddy-wa-diddy,
The diddy-wa-diddy.
Won’t somebody tell me
What diddy-wa-diddy means.


Selah may be like that, but, at least in the quoted passage, I think I know what it means: Think about it.

The last week has forced me to take a lot of actions and say a lot of things that I really did not want to do or say. I believe for the most part I was standing up for and doing the right thing, but it was more or less instinctive. Today, as I wait for further news, it is a good time to consider that all I see and all I appear to be is but a vapor compared to the reality of God. The world is always passing away, and we are only passing through. Before we get fired up over something and latch onto it like a pitbull, it would probably be wise to have a Selah moment.

There are things for which we must fight. Those critical things are likely far fewer and different than the host of things that tend to upset me. The culture isn’t much help. If a person were to watch television and listen to popular music, he might come to the conclusion that the source of all conflict, angst, and trouble is pretty much the diddy-wa-diddy. There is an amazing amount of drama and melodrama over the inane, misunderstood, and inconsequential.

Meditating on the end of our lives may seem morbid in way, but as Harry Callahan said, “A good man has to know his limitations”, the ultimate limit being, naturally, the end of this mortal existence. Materialism – the original vaporware.