Vancouver Island, Canada 2009: Siauw Ling appreciates a nice, colorful garden here and there. Imagine daily subjecting these grounds to the whims of cattle, or elephants, or undisciplined and unsupervised children, only to re-gussy the landscape for the next day’s admirers? Nonsense!? Preposterous!? Absurd!? Yes, but that’s exactly what the entire world does routinely; and now, that silliness has even seeped into the lives of disciples in this rare and precious ministry of the truth.

From Trent Ling:

Trent Ling shares matters that should be part of the conduct of disciples of Jesus.  For a brief explanation of such postings, please see Conduct in God’s Household.

“If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker.”  Galatians 2:18.

Dogs chase their own tails.  Round and round they go.  And though we may find that humorous, people often prove to be worse than our canine friends in the folly department.  No laughing matter, people (even disciples of Jesus) often spend their entire spiritual lives digging holes, filling them in again, digging holes, filling them in again, digging holes, filling…

This letter does not aim to address the infinite foolishness of the world, as God has certainly stacked the deck against the lost.  Rather, this letter targets the lives of actual disciples of Jesus who must beat Fido in a game of living the Bible.

In this very ministry of real disciples, our people, among other things, break and then fix, dirty and then clean, sprawl and then organize, ruin and then rebuild, forget and then relearn, resist and then retry.  The endless dig-and-fill loop resounds as the most somber of drums.  And yet, many of our overly busy disciples seemingly consider it all just part of living the Bible.  More directly and sharply, the Holy Spirit calls it proving yourself to be a lawbreaker!

I address not wears, tears, and sensible maintenance (e.g., cleaning dinner dishes or changing the oil in the Honda).  I refer to spiritual deficits and transgressions (e.g., carelessness, senselessness, disorder, laziness, shallowness, and pride) swallowing lives in Christ on the front end, and then re-directing the remainder of those lives to be spent cleaning up after the sins that meanwhile continue flowing without much hopeful sign of acknowledgment, intervention, or repentance.

As a matter of conduct, disciples of Jesus should cease breaking, dirtying, sprawling, ruining, forgetting, and resisting, among other things.  They should loathe any and all spiritual shortcuts subsequently priced in years of more unnecessary rebuilding.  Upon repentance, the hours in the day will multiply, the time to live productive Scriptures will surface, the canine comparisons will cease, and our lives will no longer resemble long-mocked government make-work programs of dig and fill.

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