I saw a tweet ... I don't look at tweets very often, nor tweet myself much (you can get me on MordecaiTherapy for when I do), but this from MattChandler74 caught my eye:
"Chesterton: Christianity established order, to give room for good things to run wild"
And that hit home: God brings order so good things can run wild. He gave us a playing field and the rules of play, so we can find joy in the freedom of structure. And when we break the rules of the game we run foul of ourselves, others, and of course, God.
The same principle is seen in nature; the inviolate rules of physics, the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, chemistry. God made it all, and through the order he establishes, nature is free to run wild (all puns intended). But we break the rules, we strip-mine the earth, pollute with excess waste, do mountain top removal, exploit the resources, put garbage in orbit, even change the climate of the planet! And so the natural wildness, the wildness that is proper and in harmony with the order, is distorted and corrupted. Just like Satan whose only ability is to corrupt what is good, so we take the ordered wildness of God's universe and steadily distort what was once beautiful.
No wonder we still long for beauty; we've changed our surroundings so much that there's little beauty left to revel in.
And the church. We've even done this to the church! We've suppressed the natural wildness of God's order. Church is about Jesus, community, and mission -- or so it should be: that's the order that enables us to run wild. And what do we do? We take the order and make it the everything. We take the order and make it so impossibly rigid that all freedom to run wild is lost.
It's like playing the game with a cement ball on a mud field while dressed in fancy clothing, and with only a fraction of the players trying to do anything at all.
Pray for the space to run wild in the Spirit of God..
"Chesterton: Christianity established order, to give room for good things to run wild"
And that hit home: God brings order so good things can run wild. He gave us a playing field and the rules of play, so we can find joy in the freedom of structure. And when we break the rules of the game we run foul of ourselves, others, and of course, God.
The same principle is seen in nature; the inviolate rules of physics, the laws of gravity, thermodynamics, chemistry. God made it all, and through the order he establishes, nature is free to run wild (all puns intended). But we break the rules, we strip-mine the earth, pollute with excess waste, do mountain top removal, exploit the resources, put garbage in orbit, even change the climate of the planet! And so the natural wildness, the wildness that is proper and in harmony with the order, is distorted and corrupted. Just like Satan whose only ability is to corrupt what is good, so we take the ordered wildness of God's universe and steadily distort what was once beautiful.
No wonder we still long for beauty; we've changed our surroundings so much that there's little beauty left to revel in.
And the church. We've even done this to the church! We've suppressed the natural wildness of God's order. Church is about Jesus, community, and mission -- or so it should be: that's the order that enables us to run wild. And what do we do? We take the order and make it the everything. We take the order and make it so impossibly rigid that all freedom to run wild is lost.
It's like playing the game with a cement ball on a mud field while dressed in fancy clothing, and with only a fraction of the players trying to do anything at all.
Pray for the space to run wild in the Spirit of God..
Bigger version of the waterfall image here: http://ow.ly/4DlSP