• I’ve been off-and-on working through James K. A. Smith’s “Desiring the Kingdom,” in which he makes the case that we are shaped more by what we love than by what we believe. So he says our primary way of “intending” the world is through what we desire, rather than through what we find logically consistent or compelling.
• This would mean, among other things, that the person who fancies him or herself a rationalist may actually be someone who loves order (not so much truth). The artist may be someone who loves the emotional satisfaction of self-expression (rather than beauty). More positively, imagine what Smith’s thesis means if what we love is Jesus Christ. Or similarly, imagine if we loved the word of God only because we loved God himself, then imagine how that would shape our doctrine, our rational expression of God.
• I think he steals a bit from Pascal, the philosopher and mathematician of the 1600s who praised those who simply love God and love good, and need no other compass in life. Pascal liked simple people. Yet he was an eminently rational man (as Smith) and once said to the more intellectually-inclined, “we must show that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must show it to be lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.” I love that phrase: “…to make good men hope it is true.” Meditate on that.
• All this was in the back of my mind as I was reading 1st Kings and came to verse 3 of chapter 3: “Solomon loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father….” Thus commence some of the best years of Solomon’s life, including the famous prayer for wisdom to rule (rather than riches) and the building of the Temple. But I was equally struck when I came to chapter 11, verse 1: “Now Solomon loved many foreign wives….” Here is a new love. And that love would change what Solomon worshiped, and initiate the decline and rupture of the Kingdom. We are shaped by what we love.
• True enough, but let me turn this sharply in a different direction. What does God love? The Psalmist says he is merciful, gracious, kind, and loving toward all he has made (Ps 145 passim), and the zenith of all he has made is you, the object of his redeeming love and grace. If Smith’s thesis can be extended to God himself (which given the imago Dei would make sense), then we are inclined to believe that the Lord’s conduct toward us is motivated by his profound love for us.
• Well, Romans 8:28 — you already knew this, in a sense. And yet we may not fully appreciate how thoroughly, how persistently, God is working all things in our lives driven by an uncomplicated, all-powerful love. God, as John said, is love. What he desires is our good because he desires us, he loves us. Remember this. Remember this in hardship, especially. But good times or bad, remember it.
– Pastor Eric