His Kingdom, not this world

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. -- Matthew 6:25-34

Some thoughts, questions, musings in no particular order of relevance or clarity...
(Warning: this is probably one of my most incoherent posts ever.)

* First of all, gorgeous. This is gorgeous, and I find myself wondering if our Lord actually spoke in such beautiful poetry while He walked as a human on this earth. It's recently become a common errant thought of mine while reading the Gospels to wonder how the story got recorded. I'm always a little disappointed for some reason when I read on the introduction page of a Gospel account that it was written in the 50s or 60s. (That's a time span of possible authorship almost as long as my life at present! And it means that possibly a period of time as long my lifetime passed between Jesus's resurrection and when the account of His life and His teaching were actually written down.) Then, I read on that same page that  some scholars date it in the 80s or 90s, and I think how close that is getting to the Gospel being written an entire century after Christ's birth! How trustworthy would something be written about me in the year 2087? As I was born before Facebook timeline and have not backdated it, perhaps there will be no accurate story of my birth aside from a date on file from a birth certificate... but I'm getting off topic. My point is, the accounts of Jesus's life were written quite a while after the events described in them happened. Also, there's how as well as when. I have the vaguest memory of watching a video, probably from A&E or something like that, when I was in Confirmation class that was about how the Gospels were written and about how one of the Gospels (Mark, I think?) was a source text for the others and how scholars think there's another Gospel that Mark and the others were patterned after that we don't have... etc., etc... I don't know what I'm talking about here, so don't take any of that to heart; the point of even sharing that vague bit of memory is that I know that there exist a lot of opinions about the authorship and dates of these books. I could go read a lot about it if I really wanted to. Perhaps I will eventually, but they would just give me more accurate academic information. They wouldn't begin to answer the little musing questions I have as I wonder about Jesus and whether the poetry of this passage came from His mouth and was preserved all those years until Matthew wrote it down (or copied from a source or whatever happened...). And I wonder about Matthew writing down Jesus's genealogy and whether Joseph sat down with him and showed him his family tree for him to do so and if Mary herself shared with Luke the detail about how she "treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart" of Jesus's birth and if she didn't tell him, how Luke came to write that down. I'm really meandering now, so I'll wrap it up... I just wonder how the story (which I believe to be truth and not fiction or legend) came to be told and written down as it is so long after everything happened.


* I wonder a lot about planning and practicality. These are both virtues that I uphold, at least in the sense that I don't want to get myself in a bind. I don't plan down to the moments and minute details, but I like paths, sketches, general ideas of where we're going and how to get there. I especially like life/career plans. I'm often a mite (or more than that) judgmental of people who make "leaps of faith" when their leaps of faith involve things like quitting their job or moving or having families or whatever without being "prepared" for it. I always have this little judgmental suspicion that such things are overuse of the idea that "God will provide." Sure, He'll provide, I agree, but something in my self-reliant and stuck-up heart doesn't seem to agree that He provides houses and finances and jobs just because we change our minds or want something different. I get frustrated when I think of equating Abraham going to a place that he did not know on faith with me deciding to quit my job because I want to do something different, even if I feel "called" to do something different. Now, I will admit fully that these thoughts are self-righteous and judgmental when applied to other people, and I know I have no right to think them; in truth, I believe they reveal more about my heart than the hearts that I am wrongly judging. I'm just admitting to thinking them because they betray something about my attitude toward God and His provision versus practicality. I don't think it's up to God to take care of my physical needs; I think it's mine. I might not say that, but my thoughts show that I do. Even now, as I read this passage about God taking better care of me than the lilies of the field and the birds of the air (Did I mention this passage is gorgeous?), I don't think I'm sure about not worrying about taking care of basic needs or about doing my job well. Even now as I am questioning whether my current job is the best way to live the life I've been given, even now as I am reading the Gospel and wanting more than anything to leave my nets IMMEDIATELY and follow Jesus, I feel myself thinking "I could never do that." And I want to say it's not because I don't believe that God provides but because I don't know how to be sure that what I'm following is God and not a whim. How do I know, in some fantasy where I quit my job to follow Jesus, that doing that would actually be following Jesus and not just using Jesus as an excuse to quit and expecting Him, with selfish entitlement, to take care of me in that decision? And how do I know now that I'm sticking to my job because I haven't been told not to? I could just be ignoring the call to follow. How do I know? To me, the language of following Christ and stepping out in faith and trusting Him to provide is really mixed up in our Christian subculture. I'm unsure of when it's used Scripturally and by the Spirit and when it is just Christian vernacular for doing what you want and expecting God to do the rest. It's all just really confusing to me if you can't tell. 


* Currently, I am not worrying about (literal) tomorrow. (As best as I can force myself not to!) Normally, Sunday is crunch-time to finish lesson plans and make sure everything is perfect. Sundays after breaks are usually even more so since I never get as much done during breaks as I hope to. This break, I have worked a minimal (for me) amount, and I have a sketch for tomorrow, but there are definitely some holes in it. I don't know what I'm doing second period, for instance, and I haven't fleshed out what I'm doing fifth, and, on top of that, I am well aware that my "unannounced" observation could happen any time in the next three weeks, and the lessons that I do have planned for tomorrow are up to my usual standard but are not by any means observation-proofed. And what have I done since I got home from Parkway today? Sat in my screened in porch with a book, my Bible, and my computer. Sweet Spring Break. But it's what I want to be life. I live my life in a tizzy, rushing toward want I want to achieve, being a Christian in thought and theory only. I want to be a Christ follower in every action, and I am starting to get the picture, that that means I am going to have to be full of Christ to be a Christ follower and that that doesn't come from one Sunday morning a week, casual Bible study, and just thinking I'm a Christian. Christ is an after thought in my day. Honestly. He is a favorite topic of discussion for me, but my day is mine and a slave to the day's objectives. But do I even know what the Purpose is? Teacher friends, Understanding by Design comes to mind. You know what I mean, Seriously, though, to those not matriculated through schools of education in the past few years, what I mean by that comment is, like teaching that doesn't follow the Understanding by Design model and anchor every single lesson in the overall purpose and big idea of the unit and structure learning to prepare for the culminating assessment (which matches the overall purpose), I am not effective. I have a lot of little lessons, a lot of little daily goals, but they are not anchored in the main goal, the big picture. There is no connection, there is no flow, there is no design-- just daily islands of information.


* Slow down. Jason and I are a funny study in the differences between being thorough and being in a hurry. Jason is meticulous, planned out, detail-oriented... I am in a frenzy, trying to do everything as quickly as I can, usually costing myself more time in fixing the messes made along the way than it would have taken to have done it right the first time. (See Natalie in the kitchen for more illustration of this point.) I am yearning to go and sit on the side of the hill and listen to Jesus preach even as it passes dinner time, even as the disciples are saying, "Shouldn't they go home now?" I want to sit with Him as Mary did and not worry about the housework with Martha. I need to be filled. And I really dread going back to work and a schedule and hurrying because I know I need to be filled. And I am afraid of my working self.


* "And all these things will be added to you." Does this mean my lessons will turn out okay and my grading will get done if I just seek His Kingdom and His righteousness first? It always reminds me of the high school youth group demonstration of putting rice (the little stuff) in a jar and then failing in the attempt to stuff golf balls in on top of it but then succeeding at putting the golf balls (God) in first and letting the rice fill in around them. In real life, though, it doesn't always seem to work so nicely. And, besides, if it does, is that really sacrifice or reliance? I guess one of the things that my aforementioned skepticism about the popular modern Christian talk of trusting God to provide also comes from feeling like it cheapens the Kingdom of God somehow if we seek it first only to get what we wanted in the first place without worrying about it. But, you know what? Probably that's not how it works anyway. Probably if I were actually seeking the Kingdom of God, I wouldn't necessarily get everything else fulfilled that I tend to think is important. Probably they would cease to seem important in light of His Kingdom and His righteousness and be exposed for the idols they really are. But Paul had to make his tents sometime, so maybe there is a time to grade papers while still living in the light of the Kingdom of God?


* Last, what does it actually look like to seek His Kingdom and His righteousness? More than all this rambling, that's the next step and what matters. Now what?