The Simple Life

I remember one time I had a temporary job with a company that laid asphalt. You know, that really dark tar stuff and they spread it all over the road and it make it all smooth and new again. Anyway, part of the job was pressure-washing the old asphalt to prepare it for the new layer. I remember doing that for hours on end, just wandering around on this asphalt pressure washing it, back and forth, back and forth. At first, in my typical anal fashion, I was worried about getting dirty or wet (you know me, Mr. Pretty Boy). But after a while, I didn't care. I allowed the water to soak through my shoes and into my socks, didn't flinch when dirt and mud splattered all over me. It became oddly therapeutic, and since the job was so mindless my thoughts were free to wander. I had some of my best "thinking days" out there on the asphalt. I imagine that working land might be similar. Just gettin' dirty and working the farm. I think there must be something really satisfying in that kind of simplicity.

I think that's what bothers me about living in this day and age - life has become too complicated for its own good. Or better, man has made it too complicated. We sit around aruging metaphysics or the meaning of life or pondering philsophy or building bigger and better companies and at the end of the day it's all just so we can sit back, lower ourselves into a vat of bubbling pride, and marvel at our own pathetic greatness. If there's one thing about humanity that I can't stand, it's how full of ourselves we are. I'm reminded constantly of 1 Corinthians 1:19-20:

For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

I love the wording of that phrase there: "the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." I can't imagine how frustrating it must be for God sometimes to sit up there in heaven and look down upon us. We really do think we know it all, and there are a lot of people in this world that have convinced themselves that just because they don't believe in something it doesn't exist. We've reduced truth to relativity and proclaimed the wisdom of mankind to be universal law. We neither need nor desire a God who holds the world in His hand and to whom all things are accountable because we've constructed a world that exists without Him. Or so we think.

One of the things that I love most about God is the fact that it's impossible to really have a relationship with Him without recognizing our own relative insignificance. There is an intense and gentle freedom to be found in the simple aknowledgement of my own depravity and helplessness. I love the fact that I'm just a guy splattered with mud and wearing wet socks who has no idea what he's doing - and yet the God of this universe sings over me and rejoices in my very existence. David rejoiced that God rescued him "because he delighted in me." God delights in us. Doesn't that just make you speechless?

The greatest obstacle to enjoying a relationship with God is our own pride. I have met many, many people over the last four years at this university who have this problem - including myself. I meet people every day who are convinced that God is sitting in their seat. I often try to put myself in God's seat without realizing it. Many times it's with full knowledge.

But sometimes I'm just standing there, with mud splattered on my face and wet socks, grinning childishly at my Father. I think that this, truly, is the meaning of life. It's not about money or fame or power or security or wisdom or know-how. It's about standing in a puddle and smiling up at my Father, who laughs with joy and rubs the dirt out of my wet hair with a towel. That is what I was created for, and that is how I want to live.