From Duty to Delight

by Jim HollandIt is the end of March, and the temperature is thirty-four degrees as I stand on my back porch and look out over my yard, garden and various beds. It is a mess. The vineyard has yet to be pruned, and looks like the skeletal remains of some alien with too many legs. The asparagus bed has yet to be burned off, and brown, dead ferns lay in repose upon a smattering of weeds, looking very sad. If something doesn’t happen soon to my raspberries, I won’t be able to see them emerge from the ground for a month. I have never seen my yard and garden look this ragged this late into the spring. It is depressing.Yes, it is depressing, but I am not without hope. Already, my imagination is at work, figuring out how to beat back the weeds. The Tulip Magnolias are blooming, as well as the butter cuts and cocoas. The blueberries are ripe with bud and I can see hope.

I am also realistic; I know that for my place to live, thrive, flourish and be fruitful, there is much toil ahead. Yes—if there is to be fruit, there will be sacrifice and toil.

This morning, as I was taking my dog Jeb out and thinking of the mess before me, I thought to myself, “This is a lot like my life—just a mess.” Why that always shocks me when I admit it to myself is equally shocking. We just had a baptism at our church, and if you think about it, baptism is really a “failure’s convention.” It is an admission that, without Jesus, we have no hope of it getting any better. And the reason we have a Season of Lent is because it forces us to get honest with the mess that is our life.This season of Lent has been interesting for me. It has forced me to weed out my life, take stock of some things, and articulate how I believe that Jesus is going to be rooted deep within me. Here is what I mean. It is a good thing to give up things for Lent; these are daily and tangible reminders that good things can become too important. It also helps us remember, when we think about them, that though we give up these little daily comforts, Jesus gave up everything. It drives us back to the cross afresh to ponder the love that God has for me personally. But by itself, it can just be something like losing weight—a great benefit to our physical health, but not much help to us spiritually. I mean, everybody wants to be physically healthy—you don’t need Jesus to want that.What has struck me during this Season of Lent is how easily I settle for a kind of mechanical obedience to God. Here is what I mean. I read the Bible and pray, and usually when I don’t mess things up too badly, that is a win. But is that all it means to be a Christian? I was reading in Acts recently, and what has struck me afresh is that trying to be good is not really a sign of anything. In Acts 13, Paul is preaching to a crowd of God-fearing people and sarcastically says this: “…those same prophets are read every Sabbath in their meeting places.” The sarcasm is biting, because he is telling them that they read the same Scriptures he is preaching from, and yet they really miss the meaning of the Bible, which is not about you or your behavior; it is about what Jesus did. So, they have a mechanical obedience, but no transformation.Reading further in Acts, I noticed that what was a clear sign of the believing church was an actual experience of delight in God. "Things calmed down after that and the church had smooth sailing for a while. All over the country—Judea, Samaria, Galilee—the church grew. They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God. The Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them. They prospered wonderfully." (Acts 9:31, The Message) A few verses later after Peter healed a certain man the town of Lydda, we read this, “Everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him walking around and woke up to the fact that God was alive and active among them." (Acts 9:35, The Message)No one would assume his or her marriage was great if the service you rendered your spouse was a mere duty. No, deep in our DNA, we are all romantics. We want to experience service as delight and joy, do we not? We know when we are just going through the motions, and it doesn’t make for a happy marriage or life.This is true with a life of faith as well.  We can’t settle for a mechanical approach in a life with God. As Romans 8 says, “God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” That is a mystery, I know, but I want that. I want to be permeated with a “deep sense of reverence for God…prospering wonderfully.” I want to wake up every morning with an awareness that, “…God is alive and active among us.” I want to be alive to the presence of God and delight in that! Is that possible? I believe it is.Recently, I read something on a blog by Tim Keller called “Questions for Sleepy and Nominal Christians.” In his blog, he talks about mechanical obedience to God—going to church, reading the Bible, doing religious things, but not really having a sense of God’s holiness, our own sin, or the depth of his grace. He then sights some questions believers need to continually ask themselves and each other. They come from William Williams, who was a minister in the Welsh revivals. Let me give you a few of them:“How real has God been to your heart this week? How clear and vivid is your assurance and certainty of God’s forgiveness and fatherly love? To what degree is that real to you right now? Are you having any particular seasons of delight in God? Do you really sense his presence in your life; sense him giving you his love? Have you been finding Scripture to be alive and active? Instead of just being a book, do you feel like Scripture is coming after you?”Those are the kinds of questions I pray we will all ask ourselves, so that in time it will be evident that “God is active among us,” and duty will be transformed into delight!