Unfinished

Three weeks ago, I stumbled into a conversation with my last-period philosophers about the nature of teaching and why I choose to teach when I could make (and have made) way more money doing something else. One student asked me how much money it would take for me to leave teaching and return to research, and I told him honestly that it would take a lot - if not an infinite amount. Because I certainly don't teach for the money. I left it at that, that afternoon, and we got onto another topic, but I felt like I was hardly scratching the surface. Then, that very evening, not 3h later, I'm reading Colossians 3 in a discussion about work as worship (avad in Hebrew), and there it is. The fundamental underpinnings of my teaching philosophy.

23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Exactly one week later, as I'm driving in my car, something reminded me of another conversation I've always felt was left unfinished.

Three years ago, someone very dear to me asked why, as a Christian, I would want to be bound by rules, to be subservient to God, when I could be free to do as I please. And I don't feel I gave him a sufficient answer. I said something about the importance of the relationship, and to honor that relationship, to please our Creator, I do as He asks. Because a faith in God isn't about restrictions and rules - He gives us some because He's a loving Father who cares for His children and wants the best for them (the same way our parents would tell us not to touch the hot stove) - it's about Love. Following the rules doesn't achieve salvation, after all. Our mutual love with God does. And our response to His overwhelming love is our obedience to His commands - the greatest of which is love.

I choose to live within boundaries and there, paradoxically, is where I find my greatest freedom. Because living according to God's will and commands, I find, increasingly, affords us freedom from the broken trappings of this world. Instead of freedom to do whatever I like, I am free from so much more - and spared the heartache and want and separation and regret and ramifications that come with the freedom to do whatever I please. Sure, I can do anything I want. I choose not to. Sin enslaves us, not God's commands. God could have easily designed humans to be mindless drones that worship and serve Him at His control, but He instead gave us the freedom to choose Him and His ways, contrary to our very flesh and nature. Even if we are sloppy with it, how much more meaningful is our decision to love Him, then, when the option not to is on the table?

1 Peter 2:16: Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

In Exodus 21:5-6, the slave is given the choice between "freedom" or remaining in the service of a loving master. And in doing so, he is adopted into the family as an heir. Galatians 4:3-9 puts it into the context of Jesus.

So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now what you know God - or rather are known by God - how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?

And thus, my choice gives me an eternal inheritance far beyond worldly wealth.

Well. As time goes on, I feel strangely shy about trying to resume these conversations. I don't know why - it's admittedly silly for someone so prone to non sequitur! Instead, I feel some strange need to throw it all out into the universe, on a blog - I don't even know who reads it - partly for my own closure, partly to atone for having left them unfinished in the first place. But mostly, I suspect, for reasons I may never know.