Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for... All these people [Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead they were looking for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. - Hebrews 11:1, 13-16
Last week I received an offer from Ultimo TAFE Fashion Design Studio to study their diploma course. It is like a distant dream that I dare not entertain - one of those 'illegal' thoughts we tell ourselves to push down and ignore - except it kept on pushing upwards into my consciousness and now it is a reality. Nineteen years of pushing can have that effect. When I was finishing school I had a vague idea to study fashion design but the conventional world around me - which I swallowed - steered me into a more academic pursuit. Also I had the unspoken erroneous belief from the church I grew up in that the Christians in God's inner circle were missionaries. I knew myself well enough to realise I wouldn't cut it serving in Africa, and having survivor guilt for not being poor myself, I threw myself into social justice and a career in the non-government sector - perhaps hoping that God would approve of that. Except every new position felt like a stepping stone to something more fulfilling, a better match for my skills and interests. I enjoyed my studies and enjoy aspects of my work; I've achieved a lot of good things and honed many skills in my career, but I never have found a job I can say I really love.
Back in 1993 fashion design did not seem like an option; I was scared that it would steer me away from God. In high school I did not have creative people around me with the wisdom to show me how I can authentically serve God with my gifts and abilities whatever they happen to be. That God likes fashion too. I mean, just look at the myriad variety of flowers he put on this earth. Aesthetic beauty for its own sake is a value God invented!
Now I am on the edge of the cliff of possibility and my loved ones are saying "jump!" and I am terrified. I am about to indulge my passion, possibly even my Element, and it is testing the sense of security I have in God: that I'm OK, acceptable, that he will keep using me to spread his love and faith around. But I realise that what this means is that a corner of me (actually, probably a rather large chunk if I'm really honest) still believes I can earn God's approval. Yes yes, I am an evangelical protestant, I know that it is only by believing in Jesus Christ's death and resurrection that I get a 100% guaranteed free pass into Heaven. But I'd like a crown. I want accolades, honourary inner circle missionary status, for God and I to be close.
God just wants me to enjoy him, to know his love for me, and I get stuck on wanting brownie points.
But the absolutely beautiful, lovely thing about God is that he is using a renaissance in my life to bring me into a fuller understanding of his acceptance and intimate love for me. I am already in his inner circle, as is every Christian person. Doing fashion design changes nothing. I even have an inkling that being more authentically engaged in doing something I love will make me a more effective worker for God's agenda too. Because with God, our serving has to start with freedom. I can't serve to gain anything. Christ has already given it all to me freely. We only serve God when our motivation is a pouring out of thankfulness for the wonderful ways in which he loves us. Any other motivation is empty, only serving an inner drivenness for some notion of success that never satisfies.
Which brings me to the passage. The Fathers of Israel knew about stepping into the unknown. Particularly Abraham; God gave him a promise of land and a great nation of people that would come from him. Then asked him to leave his comfort zone of home and family and be led by God. Their family empire consisted of one son only by the time they died and they remained nomads in another's land. Why did Abraham or the other ancients not give up? Faith. Their motivation for obeying the tasks God had set for them and persisting in relationship with him was an expectation that they would receive good things that God had promised. On their death bed they did not renounce God for not having yet received his promises. Because, as the passage of Hebrews explains, they knew that God's promises of land and nation were more than temporal. They had the right focus, and it was long distance. They served out of thankful faith in what was to come.
The example of Abraham is also a reminder to me of what my focus in life needs to be. No matter what I do, enjoy, achieve in this life, I am looking forward to the realisation of God's promise in the next life. This one is temporal, the one to come will last forever.
I love my life; there are so many good things in it, so many opportunities to explore and things to discover. So much beauty, so much to be fascinated by. Everything good and lovely points to the source of beauty - God - and yet is only a shadow of the gloriously fabulous life, land and citizenship we will enjoy with unfettered access to God in Heaven. So when I am enjoying life, pursuing my passions and talents, when I am captivated by beauty, let its purpose be as a prompt, reminding me that this is only a shadow of the joyous life which awaits. When I enter it, God will welcome me with open arms and embrace me. In that moment I will finally be complete, satisfied, fulfilled. In that moment I will know rapture and jubilation for the first time, like I've never experienced them, as I take my very first breath of perfection.
And let this focus, this joyful anticipation of receiving all God has promised, motivate me to desire God more and more, to open more of my heart to him and know and enjoy him more. And let not any temporal success steer me from this focus, but out of thankfullness let me use every situation I find myself in to serve the One who blessed me with it. Amen.
