Loving God by Suria Scholtz
Travelling for 8 hours to the Northern Cape with an essential services certificate during lockdown stage 3, gave me lots of time to think. Music, hours of conversation, sleeping, more music and pit-stops at favourite garages and farm stalls along familiar roads, are all part of the joy. These essential stops for petrol, bathroom and coffee help stretch the legs as any journey always helps stretch the mind.
It made me ponder, among other things, the word essential, for what I consider to be critical or indispensable, is not necessarily going to make someone else’s list of vitally important items. Habits, family culture and convenience all cloud our judgment when a list of the necessities of life are compiled. For example, after two months, I considered the services of my hairdresser as essential as any as the ones on the government’s list. Other people felt the same about their dentists, a favourite cappuccino or other treat from a now closed shop, or buying cigarettes and wine.
While I am thankful that our Monday to Friday lives and routines are almost back to normal, I really do miss Saturday’s parkrun and Sunday’s church service. Which made me wonder about what God may consider to be the essentials of a Christian’s life in 2020. First, I considered 7 pointers, then 5, then 3 – to finally settle on 2 essentials: This week I want to talk about Loving God. Next time I would like to discuss Loving your Neighbour.
Love God
As Christians, our first duty and highest calling, is to love and worship God. In fact, we will only find peace and rest in this life, when we do this with all our heart and soul and strength and mind, or as the Messages says, ‘with all our passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence’!
I believe He is using these extraordinary days, teaching us to give Him glory on a hectic Monday morning when we have a one and a half hour’s dentist appointment, honour Him when He reveals the next step, worship Him when He provides a job, and adore Him when the time we have to renew a driver’s licence, is extended.
I firmly believe that 2020 is a strategic time in world history, a crossroads of some sorts, where God is speaking to us through the prophet Jeremiah, encouraging us to ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, calling us to walk in it, for only then will we find rest for our souls.[1] But what does God mean with the ancient paths?
I am going to try and explain by telling you about Lionel Poilane and the most famous bread shop in Paris. Here locals and tourists line up to buy large, heavy, round loaves of sourdough bread, all marked with a large letter P on top. Poilane’s bread is extraordinarily good because he has chosen to shun our technological age, opting rather for the old-fashioned ways. He bakes his bread in brick ovens over oak-wood fires using only the finest stone-ground wheat.
While bakery schools teach students to push a button that delivers 60 liters of water at 40 degrees Celcius, Poilane does the opposite. He intentionally installed a medieval system, teaching his students to navigate through the variables – the temperature of the day, the humidity, the quality of the flour, training his students to be intuitive and able to adjust. ‘Everything in this master baker’s process reflects his loathing for pointless automation and modern trappings’, one writer concluded after his visit to Poilane.[2]
Just as technology cannot improve on the baking of fine bread, technology cannot improve on spirituality. Zoom, Whatsapp, Youtube and the like, are only means to an end, helping us to stay connected whilst keeping our Christian community and fellowship strong as it is still not possible to congregate at the church building. Yet, this is no substitute for drawing closer to God, or growing in knowledge and understanding of God, or loving God, which only the inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting and study can bring about.
It is my prayer that we will use these crossroad days to establish greater intimacy with God, for the truth is that too many have left their first love. Some have even fallen so dramatically, that the Message speaks of a Lucifer fall! With no time to waste, let us renew our minds, back to the old ways of thinking and return to the works we did when we first knew God.[3]
[1] Jeremiah 6:12
[2] en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Lionel_Poilâne
[3] Revelations 2: 4,5 (AMP)
