So, I didn't follow through on the commitment expressed in my last post. Running again crowded out my devotion to first things. Or, running became my first thing again. Our problem as humans is not that we're amoral, we're not. It's that we each choose what's most important to us and often those things are in conflict. We war over our little kingdoms, what we each treasure. Our lives are after something, we are teleological, purpose driven, whether we are aware of what we are pursuing or not. The primary problem with each of us is that it is not naturally, and will never be unless divine intervention is involved, the God of the universe first and foremost. We do not love and serve him, trust and obey him. WE decide what we want. We love and serve ourselves, trust and obey our judgement as to what we think is worth pursuing, loving, and acquiring. Or, to speak in biblical terms, we are tempted to the knowledge of good and evil, being little judges of reality instead of humble, receptive, believing benefactors of a good father's counsel and judgement. When one takes this stance, it leaves one open to all the pleasures of the world. Anything can capture the devotion or fancy of our hearts, and if we like it or think it is desirable, we will treasure it, pursue it, love and serve it. It will in turn control our hearts affections, our imaginations, our time, our money, what we read, set our moral judgement as to what we think is good and bad, how we dress, and how we view ourselves. The wonder of a good thing, like running, can become a primary pursuit for us, instead of being what it was intended to be, a pointer to a good God who is far more glorious and wonderful. The little glories or beauties, are meant to point us to THE glory, THE beauty. In short, they are reflected glories, showing God's goodness, meant to be signposts, and they all point straight up. Our problem however is we fall in love with the sign. Our lives become disordered around wrong priorities, often good things in and of themselves, when some reflected glory captures our hearts affection. In a word, we are disordered worshipers. We worship and serve the wrong things, or THINGS to be more precise, instead of the living God. We take on ourselves the authority and position to judge what we think is best (right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and worthy of our devotion or worth not pursuing or valuing) instead of humbly submitting to God's good counsel to us as a loving father. We function correctly when we are enabled to love God first and foremost. When we love God first and foremost in our lives, moment by moment trusting his counsel and walking in his ways, WE become the biggest signs pointing to God's glory. We reflect his glory. We actually look like him in his character. We "bear his image" to use biblical language. This is our motive for obedience. The difficulty however is we live in a world that screams at us to desire other things, to serve other, lesser glories. We can be deceived that what we desire, or what the thing promises to give us, is worth all, is life in fact. We become deceived in thinking that the good life is found in______. Fill in the blank. Orgasm, drunkenness, affirmation of another, possession of another, the admiration of others, money and the world we can buy for ourselves with it, security...the list could literally include everything and anything. We live for anything because we have thrust off God's counsel and instead taken the position of god in judging what is good and evil, and we frankly don't have the perspective, wisdom, or ability to make that judgement. The devil called into question God's character and tempted Eve to vanity and pride in taking on God's position and authority for herself. As a fallen worshiper (her true identity, and mine and yours), she didn't cease to worship, she just switched allegiance from God to herself, and looked to the creation for satisfaction of her desires. We are wired for pleasure, to enjoy beauty, to work, to create. We do not have the wisdom however to know how to do it well or keep all of those things in proper perspective, because we have thrown off our moral anchor, cast off our confidence in God's counsel and have taken on the position of God instead of heeding his counsel. Jesus purchased back for us the ability to change all this, enabling us in his grace to be remade if we will step down off our pedestals, cease to look to the creation as the source of all pleasure and life, and instead heed His counsel, the counsel of the father as the one who has the perspective on how to properly live life (what is good and bad, right and wrong, etc...) and keep in step with his spirit, doing what pleases him and not ourselves, then we can know a new life. Then we can properly live in the world, knowing our true identity as reordered worshipers, properly handling life and things, using them for God's purposes instead of our own, and live fully human, properly oriented in the universe to self, God, and the creation.

All of that is to say that running took over again as a first thing instead of a created thing. It's so subtle the way the glory of a created thing can take over our hearts devotion and affections. It can be so subtle, just the simple picking up of a magazine, or the brief visit to a running store, or the bumping into an old friend who was from some former circle I moved in. The real problem is that my heart is fickle, willing and ready to serve anything besides the god of the universe. We get deceived by what the created thing promises to give us, believing life is found in the fulfillment of the desire, and throw off restraint and go after it whole hog, or head over heels. Here is the source of anxiety and fear, for if your loved thing is threatened, guess what emotions you'll experience? Solomon had the resources to examine all of creation, to do everything I could ever dream of, in the search for life. In the end, wasted and empty, he declares the sum of the matter: "Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgement, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. Interesting. GOD determines what is good and evil, not us. We should live life in light of what HE says is good and evil and not in what WE think is good and evil. We should stop looking for life in all the wrong places and listen to him. Oh, and I found this yesterday, a good reminder: "For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." Ouch. Hard to hear for someone who has been into exercise for most of his life. Yet, life giving, reorienting counsel as well, and if heeded, restores balance to one's life. In the end that is what is being talked about I think, balance. Really, it's about being alive or being dead. Alive to what is most important, fully human as one lives rightly related to self, God, the world, and the enemy, or dead, disoriented, unbalanced, wrongly related to self, God, the world, and the devil. God, protect me from my wayward heart, and the lies of the enemy that whispers in my ear that this world can satisfy my deepest desires, or that the fulfillment of those desires can be met with what the world has to offer. Yes, they may be met, but life is not found there. Life is only found in humbling myself, repenting of trying to be god, and worshiping God as God, and walking in his ways. Help me to remember it, and live it.