For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. - I Peter 2:19-21

Our calling is to mirror Christ. These words are addressed specifically to servants, but the context suggests that all Christians bear the same responsibility to properly submit when submission is due, making all of us servants in some sense. This ludicrous servitude is what we have been called to do. Just as our Creator, the highest authority in the universe, submitted Himself to the mocking of His creation, so we are to follow in His steps. Jesus showed the world His theology (i.e., His understanding of the Father) by submitting to scorn, beatings, and death, since His understanding of the Father caused Him to treasure the Father’s will. If we are to be faithful theologians, then we are called to show our hearts’ treasure by doing good and gladly enduring unjust suffering for it.

This is the highest calling.

‘Amongst many who sought to deter me, was one dear old Christian gentleman, whose crowning argument always was,- “The Cannibals! you will be eaten by Cannibals!”

At last I replied, “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honouring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” ‘

O that I would have such a heart, abandoned to the glory and Gospel of Christ!

Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation. -I Peter 2:2

“Peter writes to young churches; he has in view many who have only recently confessed their faith in Christ and been baptized. Some were no doubt senior citizens; they are nevertheless newborn in Christ. They must have an infant’s desperate desire for basic nourishment.”

O that we could learn to be childlike in our hunger for the deep things of God’s Word!

Much of the Bible (especially the Old Testament) was given to us in poetic form, for our benefit. These passages do not prescribe forms or styles, but show us that God’s people remember and communicate God’s character and works through poetry.

• 2. Because the Church has always done so.

This is careful ground to tread, but I cite the use of devotional poetry by the church not as a reason for but a validation of using poetry- Christians in nearly every age have found hope in the “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” of Scripture and of their brethren, whether past or contemporary.

• 3. Because poetry expresses what statements and exhortations cannot.

It is a common occurrence in Scripture for God’s people to break into poetry when tasting of the Divine. Adam, Jacob, Moses, Deborah and Barak, Hannah, David, Mary, Zechariah, Paul, John… these are a representation of humanity’s God-given desire to express joy, love, hope, and sadness through poetic utterance.

• 4. Because poetry gives us breadth of learning.

The poetry of others gives our understanding of God a breadth of language and imagery which is difficult to obtain solely through Scripture, because the historical and geographical distance between ourselves and Scripture is often difficult to overcome in a morning devotion intended for communion with Christ (though the Holy Spirit’s work of enlightening our hearts and minds is not to be underestimated!).

• 5. Because poetry gives us breadth in our prayer language.

The poetry of others gives our prayers to God the breadth of language and imagery which we long for, since we, as creatures of habit, tend to retreat to familiar words and phrases in our prayers.

• 6. Because poetry gives us breadth in our imagination.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!”

“You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.”

“You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.”

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

Why do we explore? Why do we have a fascination with the undiscovered, the unexplained, and the unexpected?

We have left Earth, we have cast our electronic eyes out into the unknown, we have harnessed the human genome, and yet, for any who take a walk in the woods or catch a brief sunset, the possibility for wonder does not end. The heavens do declare the glory of God. His presence is unavoidable, yet unfathomable.

And we want to know all about it. This is why

Humanity’s quest for knowledge is the God-given seed of the only truly fulfilling quest:

The search for knowledge of God’s creation is good and valid, but this other, spiritual pursuit will end in a far better place than we can now perceive.

William Wyler’s ‘The Big Country’ (1958) is a grand, majestic, and dare I say big movie about the little things that make good men good and bad men bad. The plot centers around the activities of Gregory Peck’s character James McKay, who has just arrived in cattle country from the east, where he was a the captain of an important merchant ship. The purpose of his coming is to marry his intended, Pat Terrill (Carol Baker), the daughter of the biggest rancher in the region, Major Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford). The Terrills have long had problems with the neighboring clan, the Hannasseys (lead by the somewhat elegant, somewhat disgusting Burl Ives, who won the Best Supporting Oscar for his performance as Rufus), and McKay quickly finds himself caught between the bickering clans while his fiancée begins doubting his masculinity because he won’t stand up and be a man when it counts, which, in the great big west, apparently means fighting anyone who calls him a wimp.

We in the audience are, of course, familiar with Peck’s quiet nobility, so it comes as no surprise when he secretly breaks the crazy horse which the Terrill’s foreman, Steve Leech (The Greatest and Most Nuanced Actor Ever) tried to get McKay to ride in front of his family-to-be and all the ranch hands, or when he accepts Leech’s challenge to fight in the middle of the night, hours after refusing, again, in front of everybody. As the two screen legends punch each other repeatedly in the quiet wee hours of the morning, the camera backs away to give us a view of the big country, and we realize that these are two very small men who throw very small punches.

Wyler keeps this perspective throughout the film; as the egos of the two clans’ heads and their respective problems grow, he pulls the camera back, and reveals how small they are in spite of themselves. When the two men finally meet, head to head, Winchester to six-shooter, in the bottom of a canyon, Wyler’s camera soaks in the results from several hundred feet above, emphasizing their insignificance and the futility of their tiny passions.

Yet there is another sort of smallness Wyler captures in Peck as the quiet McKay: the subtle strength it takes to act according to his conscience, the humility of accomplishing much without caring if anyone notices, and his submission to the gentleness of wisdom over the passions of treachery. In the end, it is not the pompous, self-endorsed Terrills or the bitter, wild Hannasseys who can hold their own when set against the backdrop of the sweeping plains and hills; it is McKay who, through his humble wisdom, proves to be a truly big man.

Have you ever thought about a clay water pot going through the furnace? It is put through the fire so that it can be a worthy vessel and be put to use doing the thing it was designed for. Imagine what would happen if that lump of clay decided not to go through the fire, remaining instead a soft lump of clay. Try putting water in a soft clay pot and see what happens. The water leaks out as the clay becomes soggy. But going through the fire proves the character of the pot whether it be genuine and true.

Isn’t it in the good times that suddenly God is on the back burner. Oh, He’s still there, but things are going so good that we just do our own thing. But when things are going rough, suddenly we are on our faces again seeking His face, and then things go smoothly again and we forget Him again…Yet we long for there to never be trials…O, give us peace all the time! But when do we grow the most, during trials or peace? When is our faith put to the test? When do we see God’s hand taking us through things?

Not to say we don’t feel blessed when things are going well, but that I wonder- why we are so apt to blame God or complain when things aren’t going as we please? Why do we expect everything to just be peachy and not to struggle on this earth?

I am the first to cry about what I am going through or how I am feeling, but who am I to scream against the storm when it is trying me as gold is tried? “My prayer is to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

A humbling notion, this! That our God, to whom we cannot give a gift worth paying back, considers our gifts to each other as a loan to Himself! Everything we have was made by God and given to us; what a weighty consideration is here put before us, that we can lend to God (and that with relative ease) as we give to the hungry and the needy and the neglected!

Be in awe of the awesome power we hold, by God’s grace alone, to choose to do evil, or to choose to do good.