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Get your own, Free HomepageOne of the features these games usually have is the ability to choose your driving perspective. One button will let you see just over the front of the car at the road right in front of you. Another puts you looKing sort of from behind the car where you can see a bit more of the road. A third will let you see a "far and wide" perspective. That's the one I like the best: I can see my own car, I can see what's up ahead and what's happening with everyone around me...l can notice the scenery along the way and, with that perspective, I can respond better as I "drive."
We had designated today as the culmination of a "spiritual renewal" weekend. Well, "spiritual renewal" is really about changing to a "far and wide" perspective. To be renewed - refreshed, recharged and even a little improved - spiritually, we need to learn to see where we're at, to see what's up ahead, to know what's happening with others around us, to notice the scenery along the way and to respond better as we journey through this life!
Sometimes, when we start talking about spiritual renewal - or "spiritual" anything, for that matter - folks often think of "feelings." Renewal worship services - like revivals of old - often produce strong feelings...sometimes guilt and remorse, sometimes ecstasy. But, whenever we have those strong emotional experiences, we find that, once the event is over and the emotion wears off, so does the "renewal" and life is back to the same old patterns.
Although feelings and emotions certainly have an important role in our spirituality, its a mistake to base everything on how we "feel" at any given time. Let's be honest here: sometimes we're going to "feel" like...well, let's just say "really bad." In life - all through life - "really bad" happens. But "really bad" also, shall we say, passes.
Now I'm not suggesting that feelings don't matter or that we should always ignore how we feel, especially when those feelings may point to some illness or serious emotional problem. But my point is that spiritual renewal goes way beyond how we feel emotionally in the moment. To be renewed spiritually, we must allow the Holy Spirit to affect not only our emotions, but our attitudes, our thinking and our choices in life. If those things never change and grow, then spiritually we are only wasting away.
When Paul wrote, from a prison cell, to the people in the Philippian church, he wrote to encourage them in a time when they were facing both persecution from without and conflicts within. He wasn't in happy circumstances and neither were they. Yet, this whole letter, from which we heard a passage this morning, is known as "The Epistle of Joy" because, in spite of how they might be feeling, Paul was calling them to spiritual renewal.
In verses 4 - 7 of our reading this morning, we heard an encouragement to experience a renewal of our attitude. Our perspective. How we choose to look at things. Paul wrote, "Rejoice in the Lord always." He said to not be anxious but to lift up everything in our lives to God in prayer, always with - to use the old cliche' - an attitude of gratitude. The payoff, he explained, for choosing to go at life from a place of thanksgiving rather than despair was that such a perspective makes room for the peace of God in enter into us.
I got a great card from someone this week. It had this word on it ["nowhere"] and said, "It can be read "God is nowhere! OR God is now here!" Then it read, "Like everything else in my life of any significance, the way I see it always depends on how I look at it."
We can know an amazing, miraculous sense of peace, regardless of circumstances, when we take a "far and wide" perspective on life and choose an attitude of reliance on God rather than, as I told you last week, choosing to live from a constant place of fear. Life is too short for that! How do you want to spend this precious time? Think of it this way: "Fear today? Gone tomorrow!"
True spiritual renewal is about change in our attitudes and in our thinking: adjusting what we dwell on in our minds. Paul's encouragement was to think about things that are true, pure, lovely and admirable. Now this can be a little tricky. Sometimes folks take that to mean that, if you're really a Christian, you just sit around dreamily pondering religious symbols and sun beams and virgins and stuff like that!
Actually, Paul was trying to tell the people in the Philippian church not to be too insular. Even though they lived in a pagan world, they could still find many good and truthful and beautiful things in the world around them. They were not just to stay focused on themselves but to seek good in the world wherever it might be found.
The same is true of us. Even though we're Christians, we do not hold the monopoly on good and truthful and beautiful things in the world. There is a lot of knowledge and insight and inspiration to be found in a lot of places. The Bible is a wonderful and supremely important book for us. But its not the only place we're allowed to turn for growth and renewal. Paul's point is that we should fill ourselves with things that are truthful and life-affirming and worthwhile - not spend our time focused on things that poison the mind and oppress the spirit.
Whatever we fill our time and our lives with - whatever we take into our minds - is what will ultimately come forth from us when we're backed into a corner. Imagine a sponge lying on a counter top and you pour enough liquid onto it to saturate it. Up to a point the sponge can hold a certain amount of liquid inside itself. But press on that saturated sponge and what's inside comes pouring out.
The same is true of us. When we find ourselves under pressure, whatever we're full of...is exactly what will come pouring out. And if we're full of...something "really bad" - well, that can get ugly.
We need to seek to be uplifted and informed and enlightened and inspired in every way we can. And there are many, many ways to do that. The secret though is, as Christians, that we take all we absorb from the world and then filter it through what we have learned of Jesus Christ. Then, as we make our choices and as we act in the world, it will be Christ who is leading us as we respond to Christ's teachings. Ln Romans 12:2 we hear, "Do not conform...to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is...."
You see, spiritual renewal is not only about examining our attitude and the focus of our thinking. If we are to be truly renewed spiritually, then all that we learn from Christ must then affect our choices and the actions of our lives. Paul said -- as he had been trying to teach the people about Christ - "whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me...put it into practice."
We are who we are today because of the choices we made yesterday. Likewise, tomorrow will become the result of today's choices. Mary Crowley, successful businessperson and author, says this about choices: "We are free up to the point of choice, then the choice controls the chooser."
I read once that the Canadian Northlands experience only two seasons: winter and July. As the backroads begin to thaw, they become muddy and vehicles traveling through the backcountry leave deep ruts. The ground freezes hard during the winter months, and the highway ruts become a part of the traveling challenges. For vehicles entering this undeveloped area during the winter, there is a sign that reads, "Driver, please choose carefully which rut you drive in, because you'll be in it for the next 200 miles."
At some point in our spiritualjourney, we must come to a place where our attitude, our thiIlkin& and what we have learned intellectually begins to challenge and change our choices and actions. 1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put childish ways behind me." Not "childlike" but "childish." At some point, we need to "grow up" in God! Spiritual renewal means increased spiritual maturity.
I'm not saying all of this is easy, mind you. But we don't aspire to these things on our own. While time may make us less and less capable of physrcal growth and strength, time in relationship with Christ only increases our spintual capabilities! In 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, we read these wonderful, truthful words: "...do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal dory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Spiritual renewal is a renewal of our attitude, our thinking, our choices. Step by step, day by day, spiritual renewal is happening for us as we choose, in all things, to follow Jesus Christ. Amen.
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