Finding True Reward

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 21-23.

Opening Thought: (I see reward in the title of today’s devotion…) There is a struggle in my brain between altruism, and selfish desire and egotism. Biblically, it certainly depicts a reward for our following of the faith. Through the different stages of the biblical development we see different depictions. Sometime the reward is in this life. Sometimes it is in the kingdom to come, and other times it is just God’s general favour. But should the idea of reward even come into the picture. Should we not be good and faithful even if there was no reward at the end, for the mere fact that to do good and to be faithful is what we ought to do. I’m not sure where today’s devotional is going to take us, but we will find out.

The devotional begins with: 
Ecclesiastes 2:10-11

“Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.”

Second Thought: My predictions to where today’s devotional was going to go was way off. Can’t be right all the time!

Nick’s over all theme to his ministry is overcoming the odds with God. At least that is how I would frame it. This reading certainly drove this home as Nick opens by citing the talent of Helen Keller, who lost her hearing and sight due to illness before she was two years of age, yet became an author, speaker and social activist. A common figure to mention if you want to think about overcoming the odds. Nick too would fall under this category, riddled with a signification challenges from birth, but rising to the occasion. In looking at Keller, Nick quotes her saying “happiness comes through ‘fidelity to a worthy purpose.’” True enough. Nick adds that apart of his understanding is being faithful to your gifts. God certainly offers everyone unique gifts. Thus, the synopsis would be, if your burdened, rise to the occasion, be faithful to God by being faithful to a worthy cause and your gifts which God has given to you. That little synopsis could likely fuel sermons for a lifetime alone. So, the reward come down to living a good life, with a good cause? More thoughts to come.  

Continual Work: There is more to this story than just the uplifting message of living a decent and happy life – dedicated to good works and faithful living. Knowing the story of the Preacher, is to know a man who had everything. King Solomon had means to satiate the indulgences of every noble gratification and every hedonistic whim. Solomon also did the legitimate pleasures of life, i.e., hard work, even good works. Yet, in the wide wording of Ecclesiastes we see that Solomon found all pleasure and all the rewards, ultimately in vanity. It all was vanity. As we approach the eternal, we start to approach a sobering truth to ourselves, that we are totally dependent on God, our works, even the most noble are a dim specks to the glorious supernova of the Creator, thus our efforts are trivial. This can be the foundation of an existential crisis for sure, though I do not see it needing to be. If the Infinite births the finite, then the finite, (though our actions are limited to our form and assuming our actions can align with God’s will), will have infinite purpose. Thus, offering our faithfulness to a worthy cause and to our gifts is deciding to position the Infinite/God into our finite reality. We are bridging the gap. And, isn’t that one of the key realities of the Gospel, that Christ is bridging the gap between us and God, narrowing that schism. It seems like the wider world, especially, in the areas that are blanketed in consumerism, tries to paint a picture of self-indulgence as the solution to finding meaning and reward in your life. We fill the space of God and a Godly love with stuff, experiences and trinkets, when there are so much more rewarding things in life then what we can do and have.    

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I want to look for the balance, it is always wonderful to get a good feeling or even a reward for a job well done, but I want the work to be the reward too, I want the mere dedication to a Godly love and labor to carry me forward. I will continue to reflect on this today.

Scripture time: Ecclesiastes 2

The nihilistic tones of Ecclesiastes are wonderful. It calls you into that sobering reality of death. No matter if you are a wise man or a fool, we all hold the same fate. It brings into question everything we value, everything we think we know, and carries our minds and hearts to a big looming, why? So, you may then ponder, and I often position this toward myself, why do I find this so wonderful? Well I enjoy where the ‘why’ leaves me. In the enlightening fact of the temporariness of the world, all that remain is a faith in something that is not temporary. Even if I cannot fully understand what that mean. At least for me, it renders me to my reality of an utter dependability on God, because without God, it is all meaningless. So we are left with a choice, fall into the endless existential crisis of temporal finitude, or make the best of the situation we are in, enjoy the simple things, the good works, the hard work, try to live right by God, by our neighbor, and in the end dive into the faith that there is meaning in the Source of it all.   

Prayer Time: God, sheesh, why my head always feel lighter when dancing on the edge of oblivion I will never know? But in my wrestling with the reality of the Lord, I wrestle with myself, seeing my reality as hobbling on a crutch. I want my crutch to be one of faith, dedication and love – not of frivolity and self-indulgence: even if the line can blur. Thanks for walking this messy road with me Lord, keep still my heart so I can continue to feel your gifts. Amen.  

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close: SOREN KIERKEGAARD, "Rotation of Crops," Either/Or

And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.