Carpe Dealem – Shop at Big Lots? Okay, I’m as much for a bargain as the next person, but I admit this is silly. I included it because we all know people who will never own enough possessions to satisfy them. Their whole lives consist of siezing the next deal. Their joy is found in what they possess, never dreaming that their possessions own them. There but for the grace of God go I.

Carpe Diem – Seize the Day

car·pe di·em (kärp dm, -m, d-) interj. Used as an admonition to seize the
pleasures of the moment without concern for the future. n. Such an admonition.
[Latin : carpe, seize + diem, day.] (dictionary.com)

This entered pop culture when the movie Dead Poets Society came out in the 80s. Robin Williams’ character advised his students to make the most of every day, to sieze the days and make them their own. Live live to the fullest. Dare I say, Go for the gusto? Nah! If life really does end at death, if there is no eternal life, then this is very good advice… load up on the fun now because soon it’s all over! But in reality the constant pursuit of pleasure is unfulfilling and exhausting. I’ve tried it.

Coram Deo – before the face of God
If we believe that life IS eternal, then this is the only real choice. Who wants to stand before God and admit to having seized the deal or the day? In a place where the very streets are paved with gold, material possessions are pretty well irrelevant. Where time does not exist, what does a day mean? Well, after reading Don’t Waste Your Life, and while reading Pleasures Evermore, I’m convinced that a life of serving God is satisfying and rewarding on every level. But living coram deo…

Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His Presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held, it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day. This Flame of the Presence was the beating heart of the Levitical order. Without it all the appointments of the tabernacle were characters of some unknown language; they had no meaning for Israel or for us. The greatest fact of the tabernacle was that Jehovah was there; a Presence was waiting within the veil. Similarly the Presence of God is the central fact of Christianity. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His Presence. (The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer Chpt. 3)

to think of God waiting for me, eagerly wanting this to happen, and that in fact was the whole point of Jesus’ death! To say it’s a mystery to me is the understatement of the century. But how to do it? According to Matt Mason, knowing who God is, knowing His qualities, is an integral part of this. Knowing that the only thing of real value (as in Psalm 27) is the Lord. In the meantime, I think I’ll go listen to Matt’s sermon, Seeking the Face of God, on this again.

Imagine attending your office picnic with your husband. He spends the entire time ogling Mr. Smith’s secretary (who may have nice legs, but is a vicious gossip, has slept with just about all the men on the staff, and isn’t even smart.) He insists that you both sit with her at lunch, and then tells you that he’d really rather do the three-legged race with her than you, because he’d have a better chance of winning the ribbon. At the finish line when they win, she plants a big sloppy kiss all over him, in front of your coworkers, and he enjoys every minute of it. When you express your displeasure with this behavior, he is hurt and offended. Don’t you love him? Didn’t you want him to have a good time at the picnic? You’re the one who’s married to him – he’s going home with you after the picnic, not her. There’s no grounds for divorce in this; he didn’t commit adultery. As long as he stays married to you, what’s wrong with a little harmless fun?

I don’t know about you, but to me adultery is about a lot more than intercourse. This is unacceptable behavior in a spouse. Yet I am guilty of it myself.

The bible is rife with analogies of the church (Christians) being the bride of Christ. On many occasions I have been guilty of spiritual adultery; loving the world more than I love the Lord and taking Him for granted. In the book of Hosea, the adulterous wife even gave credit to her lovers for that which her husband provided – talk about adding insult to injury!

For she did not know that I gave her grain, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. (Hosea 2:8) And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, They are my rewards that my lovers have given me. And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. (Hosea 2:12)

Over and over again, God’s mercy calls me back.

Come and let us return to Jehovah. For He has torn, and He will heal us; He has stricken, and He will bind us up. After two days He will bring us to life; in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then we shall know, if we follow on to know Jehovah. His going out is prepared as the morning; and He shall come to us as the rain, as the latter and former rain to the earth. (Hosea 6:1-3)

It’s not a matter of behavior. Sinning and prayerlessness are not the problems. They are the symptoms of my lack of love for my Husband, the “lover of my soul.” From Charles Wesley’s classic hymn, “Jesus, Lover of My Soul”:

Thou, O Christ, art all I want,
more than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy name,
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace.

“Let us not be shocked by the suggestion that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ. There most certainly are. Abel was murdered, Joseph was sold into slavery, Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, Stephen was stoned to death, Paul was beheaded, and a noble army of martyrs was put to death by various painful methods all down the long centuries. And where the hostility did not lead to such violence (and mostly it did not and does not) the sons of this world nevertheless managed to make it tough for the children of God in a thousand cruel ways.” – A. W. Tozer

Judges 6-8:
A few qualities I’ve noticed about Gideon to this point:

• He was hardworking. (threshing wheat by hand)
• He was polite. (the angel makes a seemingly preposterous statement – that Gideon is a mighty man of valor – and Gideon politely asks why, if the Lord is with them why are they starving and oppressed. As opposed to that days variation on a snort and a Yeah, right.)
• He was generous. (Whether this person was a human or a messenger from God, Gideon brought him food with the expectation that it would be consumed. And food was scarce.)
• He had initiative. (Upon realizing that he had seen God’s angel face to face, he built an altar to God without being told to.)
• He was obedient. (When God told Gideon to take his father’s livestock without authorization to kill it, and destroy the altar his father had built to Baal, which was used not only by his family but by the rest of the community, Gideon did not ask God if he was going to protect him from his father and the rest of the town. He did what God told him to do. When God pared the army down to less than 1% of it’s original size, Gideon still attacked.)
• He was humble. (When the men of Ephraim – obviously the ancestors of the French – rebuked him for doing what they would or could not do for themselves, he was patient and humble in his response.)
• He kept his word. (He punished Succoth and Penuel as promised.)
• He loved his family. (He avenged the murder of his brothers.)
• He did not love glory. (He gave his son the opportunity to execute Zebah and Zalmunnah.)
• He was frail and fallible as the rest of us. (He made an ephod but should not have.) Wesley’s comments on that say it better than I could:
  

  Though Gideon was a good man, and did this with an honest mind, and a desire to set up religion in his own city and family; yet here seem to be many sins in it; Superstition and will – worship, worshipping God by a device of his own, which was expressly forbidden. Presumption, in wearing or causing other priests to wear this kind of ephod, which was peculiar to the high – priest. Transgression of a plain command, of worshipping God ordinarily but at one place, and one altar, Deu_12:5, Deu_12:11, Deu_12:14. Making a division among the people. Laying a stumbling – block, or an occasion of idolatry before that people, whom he knew to be too prone to it.

This is a story of God taking a ordinary guy and doing extraordinary things with him. What could he do with me if I stopped kicking at the goads and just proceeded as He tells me?