This is my life

The following is from one of my favorite writers, Eugene Peterson, in his book A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. I love it when someone pens what I feel, believe and know to be true but haven't the words to say. Read on.....

Every day I put faith on the line. I have never seen God. In a world where nearly everything can be weighed, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen nor ear hard, whose will no one can probe. That's a risk.

Every day I put hope on the line. I don't know one thing about the future. I don't know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don't know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ's love. (Rom 8)

Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily - open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.

All this is hazardous work. I live on the edge of defeat all the time. I have never done any one of these things to my (or anyone else's) satisfaction. But the content of my life is God, not humanity. As Christians, we are not scavenging in the dark alleys of the world, poking in the garbage cans for a bare subsistence. We are traveling in the light, toward God who is rich in mercy and strong to save. It is Christ, not culture, that defines our lives...that shapes our days.