In the Tedium
Spent part of yesterday afternoon enjoying some time in a fabric store, looking for a pattern that would fit well with the teal print I had just purchased. Yet what caused me to marvel in gratitude was my company. For, as I perused the pattern books that were sprawled across the table, I was surrounded by friends who would never have voluntarily chosen to be there on their own: one, who admits that the closest she's come to sewing patterns was in using her drafting tools to sketch her own skirt; another, whose sewing teacher had berated her so much that she was turned off to it entirely; and two, who avoided the craft store for as long as they could with a trip to the nearby bookstore. To see them lounging around the table with me as I pored over photos of empire waists and cowl necklines meant a great deal, not only for their patience, but even more simply, for their presence.
How much God values that kind of undying loyalty though. He commands in Proverbs 3:3-4 that we are to 'let love and faithfulness never leave;' that we are to 'bind them around our neck, write them on the tablet of our heart,' and thus, will 'win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.' How much it pleases Him when, having the opportunity to walk away, yet we remain, even in the 'tedium' or costliness which would drive us away.
For He Himself pioneered and forever epitomizes that kind of unswerving endurance, not counting it too costly a task [Heb. 12:2] to come to us in our sinfulness, to enter our sphere and take on flesh (Ph. 2:8) for our sake see (Acts 3:26). We are forever changed by that kind of love, which willfully volunteered to insert Himself in the fallen circumstances which entrapped us. For Christ to have set aside His own desires, His own comfort and glory and honor; for Him to have intentionally taken on the ridicule and scorning and torture, the weight of guilt and shame rightfully ours, we can only behold with unutterable wonder the implication: that faithfulness is more highly concerned with obedience (Ps. 54:6; see also Gen. 22:10, 12) than the losses incurred.
And it is then, when we desire intently to honor the Father, that He empowers us to convey devotion as He has. For in Him alone is the power to 'love at all times' (Pro. 17:17); and from Him alone comes this longing to display, as He first did, that - even when it means 'swearing to our own hurt' - we will not change (Ps. 15:4).
"A faithful man will abound with blessings" (Proverbs 28:20).
How much God values that kind of undying loyalty though. He commands in Proverbs 3:3-4 that we are to 'let love and faithfulness never leave;' that we are to 'bind them around our neck, write them on the tablet of our heart,' and thus, will 'win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man.' How much it pleases Him when, having the opportunity to walk away, yet we remain, even in the 'tedium' or costliness which would drive us away.
For He Himself pioneered and forever epitomizes that kind of unswerving endurance, not counting it too costly a task [Heb. 12:2] to come to us in our sinfulness, to enter our sphere and take on flesh (Ph. 2:8) for our sake see (Acts 3:26). We are forever changed by that kind of love, which willfully volunteered to insert Himself in the fallen circumstances which entrapped us. For Christ to have set aside His own desires, His own comfort and glory and honor; for Him to have intentionally taken on the ridicule and scorning and torture, the weight of guilt and shame rightfully ours, we can only behold with unutterable wonder the implication: that faithfulness is more highly concerned with obedience (Ps. 54:6; see also Gen. 22:10, 12) than the losses incurred.
And it is then, when we desire intently to honor the Father, that He empowers us to convey devotion as He has. For in Him alone is the power to 'love at all times' (Pro. 17:17); and from Him alone comes this longing to display, as He first did, that - even when it means 'swearing to our own hurt' - we will not change (Ps. 15:4).
"A faithful man will abound with blessings" (Proverbs 28:20).
posted by Purple at 9:13 PM
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