Reflect

This month has become one full of questions. For me personally, this is quite typical. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have a tendency to question everything happening around me, and I can only pray that one day God turns this into a redeeming quality and gift instead of a hindrance. However, this month I took the opportunity to step back and reconsider a variety of things that we do in our churches and in our lives as proclaiming Christians—everything from the youth groups our churches support and varying styles of discipleship, well-intended service organizations and outreach ministries, boundaries within relationships and how God intended us to live in relation to one another, prayer and spiritual warfare….the list goes on.

The world in which we live today demands that Christians know what they believe and what they stand for. It also demands that we consider our purpose and effectiveness in everything that we invest ourselves into, knowing that we will be representing the very Body of Christ in all that we do.

One of the things that I find myself investing in these past few months is this very newsletter and writing magazine. Over a year ago I asked my college minister for a way to get involved at this church, and for whatever God-ordained reason, the opportunity to practice my writing in the college newsletter presented itself. It’s been a rewarding experience so far and challenging, as any worthwhile investment should be, and has given me a sense of belonging and leadership in my new home-church that I’ve never known before. And I’m grateful for the opportunity to now usher in new writers to share the same experience!

However, another question I’ve been forced to grapple with recently is, what should be the purpose behind any piece of writing that is released to the congregation, or anywhere for that matter? Is it to gain an audience? To project our thoughts and frustrations onto a larger group? Or is it simply for the sake of writing, if even to write well?

I think the purpose for both the writer and the reader of this collection of reflective pieces can be understood from reading 1 Corinthians 13:8-12:

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

Love. Spiritual gifts should be exercised out of love. Knowledge should be pursued in love. Spiritual maturity is developed out of a loving, devoted heart. And the reflection of our Lord and Savior is glimpsed in a mature disciple of Jesus who is exercising all gifts given him out of a heart completely undivided in faithfulness to its Creator; “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” –Colossians 3:23.

As disciples, committed to the Lord in our love, in our gifts, and in our very manner of living, the goal of our writing must reflect that. Our writing should cause us to reflect on our faith, wrestle with the Lord (as did Israel—see Genesis 22:22-32), and work out our own salvation (Philippians 2:12). It should also engage, encourage, and equip the body of believers (Ephesians 4:12).

This is what mature faith is made of. It is reflective faith, as seen in the 1 Corinthians passage above. It is faith that exercises all things out of a loving heart.

Reflective writing…reflecting on faith…reflecting our Creator.