Friday, February 23, 2007

Interest and Time: A Challenge

You never know when life will capture a person. You never know when an interest will capture a life. Our existence has so much opportunity, so much potential, and we, beings possessing creative minds, if nothing else have met the prerequisites for participation in the interests of life. There is so much to be interested in that I am fascinated to imagine having one single interest so strong and powerful in my life that I devote my entire life to it. When speaking of devotion, I only desire to have one single devotion to God. God is not an interest, but worthy of lifelong devotion. But is there an interest capable of capturing my attention for a lifetime? Time and my obituary will tell.

A truly life-capturing interest must have the depth to humble and enthrall me through all the phases and maturing that life requires. A lifelong interest must surprise and intrigue. It must contribute to my quality of life. It must consol me when I am in need of consolation, and distract me when I am in need of distraction. This interest, if it is to consume my life, must refine the aspects of my being, otherwise it is not worth my time here on earth.

Generally speaking, art is this absorption for me—but what specific focus is still unknown to me. In fact, I am at a loss to know if my primary fascination is as an artist or as a scholar of art history and theory. My interest is still too vague and broad to affirm just one period, style, medium, subject, artist, philosopher, or theory. Merely choosing a topic of art to be captured by is a shallow way to go about a life long interest. An interest of such strength must be developed over time. The interest must be specific enough to cultivate a mastery over the subject, but vast enough to infect every day of your life—even a day spent in the DMV with ecru walls, waiting for a license renewal. The interest must infect you on all levels.

My challenge to both me and you is to get infected with an interest worthy of your being. You are a creature of dualistic nature. Both your body and your mind are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26). Your time, your attention, your mental, emotional, and physical resources are precious beyond what you can comprehend. So when you decide to use your existence in a certain way, weigh in your choice. If you believe that Christ has atoned for your sin, and you hope to spend eternity in the presence of God, then consider the next statement: How you spend your life will influence your sanctification as a holy creature of eternity. God has given you gifts to use. If you decide to not utilize your gifts in this life, then you chose to put their sanctifying power for your life on hold, but you are not turning down your gifts. Eventually someday, in some world, either this finite one or the eternal one to come, you are going to use your gifts for God’s glory, because He will use your existence to glorify His. He is worthy of our glory.

Imagine that you are a potentially infinite being in terms of time—That is to say, that you have a beginning, that when God created you, but you are created to be an eternal being. Consequently, with regard to temporality alone, you are potentially infinite. I am not using the label potentially infinite here in the new age sense, meaning that you are god who doesn’t realize it yet. That is not my meaning here. I am speaking of time not capacity in your case. You are, in fact, a potentially infinite being. Now, where you spend your eternity is uncertain to me. You can choose to spend it with or without God. However, whether you spend eternity near to God or not, you will pass from this life only knowing maybe 80 years of life and existence, that is, if you are blessed with longevity. 80 years out of an infinite number is next to nothing at all. 80 years is inconsequential; it is blown from my imagining mind when I place it mentally next to my concept of infinity. What do I make of this?

Transition with me: maybe you are a freshman in college pursuing a business degree with all the tenacity of pursuing a leprous skunk because you “haven’t found yourself” yet. Maybe you are out of college—maybe out of grad school, and you still haven’t discovered something in this life that attaches to your heart, mind, and body moving you beyond wild day dreaming, and bringing you to a point of action. Maybe you are 73 and you realize that you have never been so seized by an interest that you sleep soundly every night knowing why God has created you, a human in this finite world, and not an animal or an angel in the transcendent world instead. None of these scenarios, if they be similar to your own, should upset you too greatly. Whenever you die, either at age 80 or at eight months (in which case you would probably not be reading this blog right now) you will hardly have begun to know yourself and understand your specific existence and purpose as God does.

You are an infinite being with regards to time, but now in a temporal world. What is your purpose, your lifelong pursuit, your one capturing interest? You will only know the answer for certain on the other side of this life. Perhaps it will be billions of years into eternity before you have “found yourself.” (If there be standard earthly concepts of time in heaven, and I doubt there will be.) You will not yet understand who God has created you to be exactly when you die. Angels are old creatures who never die, but do they still learn? They do, because God is the only omnipotent and actually infinite being. Why shouldn’t they progress in their knowledge of themselves? It is very certain that they do grow in maturity and knowledge, and I believe we will continue to do the same.

Howard Hughes described himself as an aviator, and the apostle Paul called himself a servant of Christ. Will they think the same thing 40 trillion years into eternity? I think the latter man will. Nelson Mandela was quoted for saying, “Your destiny is to manifest God’s glory.” This truth is pertinent both now and forever. But what about now—specifically? Find your interest! Pursue it, lose yourself in it, and find comfort in understanding it as the reason why you were born a human, a man or woman, in this era. Let your lifelong fascination seize your heart. But don’t confuse it with your eternal identity. Our life is not for ourselves—God has His reasons.

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