Mature Faith

Two of our enlightened elders came and spoke with us today about their path of faith, answering the same questions as our other speakers:

• What does "Jesus Loves Me" mean to you?
• How does your faith impact your life?
• What's the hardest thing about being a Christian?
• If you could only tell someone ONE thing about your faith, what would it be?

Their insights into how faith and its impacts were so, so important (and can I take this moment to remind you that THIS is one of the big reasons why it's important to be part of a church? Spending time with those who are your own age is great, but they rarely have the same depth of experience and insight as someone who's had more than double your lifetime to glean knowledge.) Some of their highlights:

• Your vocation can change throughout your life. It's OK to mourn the loss of one stage, but don't let looking back keep you from seeing new, and equally satisfying, opportunities to share God's love.
• You NEVER have all the answers- and it can still be exciting to look for new insights when you're 80.
• Pouring yourself into others is emotional, and it SHOULD be emotional. Life isn't meant to be lived as though nothing touches you.
• Mold your life around who God has made you to be, using every bit of those talents to further His kingdom. You don't have to be a pastor to teach others about what love really means!

Lots of talking today about what we heard, but also about how it doesn't necessarily get easier with age (though you do have more experiences to pull from when making decisions and reflections). An excerpt about how things might be harder follows: (but first note, that this is written as a Senior Demon's advice to a younger tempter, discussing how to best lure the "patient" into the clutches of Hell)

 They, of course, tend to regard death as the prime evil and survival as the greatest good. But that is because we have taught them to do so. Do not let us be infected by our own propaganda. I know it seems strange that your chief aim at the moment should be the very same thing for which the patient's lover and his mother are praying- namely his bodily safety. But so it is; you should be guarding him like the apple of your eye. If he dies now, you lose him. If he survives the war, there is always hope. The Enemy [God] has guarded him from you through the first great wave of temptations. But, if only he can be kept alive, you have time itself for your ally. The long, dull monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather. You see, it is so hard for these creatures to persevere. The routine of adversity, the gradual decay of youthful loves and youthful hopes, the quiet despair (hardly felt as pain) of ever overcoming the chronic temptations with which we have again and again defeated them, the drabness which we create in their lives and the inarticulate resentment with which we teach them to respond to it-- all this provides admirable opportunities of wearing out a soul by attrition. If, on the other hand, the middle years prove prosperous, our position is even stronger. Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in it,' while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of being really at home in earth, which is just what we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and old.

 - The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, ch. 28

(seriously, you MUST read this book!)

Other than that, we wrote numerous cards to our older children in India, and then... we partied! Thanks to all of you who helped with the cards and who stayed for a good time!

5 Minutes of God Time: O Come, O Come Emmanuel by The Piano Guys