Why I Struggle With 'Holiness'

When I hear the word 'holy' in relation to a person, I think dull, boring, judgemental, critical, holier-than-thou.  I  don't imagine I will have anything in common with them and I don't really want to get to know them.

 

When I hear the word 'holy' in relation to God, I think distant, separate, untouchable, wouldn't understand.  I picture the holiness of God as something that I would be scared to approach, for fear of my own undeniable and inherent unholiness.  Even though I know the Bible says we can approach God's throne boldly through Jesus, the idea of God's holiness still makes me feel uncomfortable.

 

But when I hear holiness like this, my thoughts change:

 

"Holiness is the most attractive quality, the most intense experience we ever get of sheer life - authentic, first-hand living, not life looked at and lived from a distance ... Holiness is a furnace that transforms the men and women who enter it.

 

Wow.

 

 

This view of holiness is interesting, beautiful, attractive, life-giving, transforming, inviting.

 

And this is what Jesus offers.  Holiness, a whole-life.  Aren't they the same thing?  Holiness is a full life, a real life, an exciting life, a transformed life.  And it is a life that is possible through Jesus.

"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

 

[John 10:10 MSG] 

 

This is the view of holiness I want. This is the kind of holiness I want in my life.

Pregnant

No, this is not an announcement.

 

I'm not pregnant, but I know a lot of people who are.  I seem to have reached that age where I am surrounded by families who are expecting.

 

And it's got me thinking about 'expecting' in general. 

 

Whilst it's good to look forward to things and to be expectant, sometimes we can end up looking forward to them so much that we forget to live in the moment.  We set up markers in our lives and eagerly anticipate them, imagining that our lives will be so much better when they arrive. 

 

When I graduate, when I get a job, when I get a better job, when I get a promotion, when I have more money, when I buy a house, when I find 'someone special', when I get engaged, when I get married, when I have children ...

 

The problem is, if we're always looking to the next marker, we don't live a full life right now.  We look to the things on the horizon and miss the things at our feet.

 

It's a bit like waiting for something you've ordered to be delivered.  You're told it will arrive between 12 and 6, so you wait in to make sure you don't miss it.  Every time the doorbell goes, you think it will be the delivery; every time a car or van slows down outside, you rush to the window.  You don't want to start anything or settle down to any job or task, because your mind is elsewhere.

 

And of course the delivery never arrives before 6.

 

And so we waste the whole day.  Never fully committing to anything else, never really starting or getting stuck in.

 

But Jesus says that He came to give us a full life, and not just when we die - a full life now:

"I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of."

 

[John 10:10 MSG]

Jesus doesn't want us to wait for something significant to happen before we start embracing this full life.  He wants us to enter into it now.  We can wait for the markers in our lives to arrive, but we can wait actively, preparing ourselves and making the most of the time.  Waiting is essential for growing us and developing us and disciplining us and teaching us.  It is as essential for us as it is for a pregnant mother waiting for her baby to develop.

 

Paul says in Romans, 

"That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy."

 

[Romans 8:25 MSG] 

 

The time we spend waiting is only wasted time if we waste it.