Chris Howlett

How's Your Love Life?

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    I always thought the above quote was from Shakespeare. Just goes to show you what you can learn in a search engine! This sentence is from “Sonnet 43,” from a collection of 44 that Browning wrote, most likely for her husband Robert Browning. They were published in 1850. It is perhaps the most famous line of any English poem, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.” It is a deeply moving poem that draws you in to the depth and intensity of longing for someone, of desiring to share in a relationship of passion and love.

    In the world where we celebrate 72-day marriages, Kardashian style, our sense of the depths of love has diminished. Love seems to have been cheapened, and not only the romantic kind. The word love is thrown around as if it is easy and easy love is not going to be binding, it will not last because it is primarily based on emotion rather than commitment and connectedness.

   We may very well be in the midst of a love famine. A time when, as a people, our lives are left longing for deeper intimacy, more meaningful commitment, and more profound communion. Relationships today need an infusion of grace, a love overhaul.

    This is good news for people who are willing to put their trust in God. He specializes in relationships. The first relationship we can experience greater connection is our relationship with him. The Bible says the God is love, and that all love originates with him. Perhaps this is what we are lacking, because what passes for love in our culture is really closer to lust. Love is moving outside oneself to give oneself to the other. Lust is inward focussed, seeing only what I can get out of a relationship, not what I can give.

    Well, God sent Jesus into the world to reveal what love is and the life of love we can live when we put our faith in him, receive love from him and love him in return. This love makes all the difference. In the new series I will be teaching at Christ Church starting this week, titled Living the Love Life, we’ll explore what love is and how we can know this most vital and life-giving experience of love.

The School of Adversity

“There is no education like adversity.” – Benjamin Disraeli

    In human life it is impossible to avoid suffering. Siddhartha Gautama, the man who later became known as the Buddha, was raised in a highly privileged and protected environment as the son of a royal. When he was a young man he escaped the confines of the family compound where his every need had been met and every whim obeyed, and came face to face with real life. He witnessed poverty, death, and suffering. This was a shock to his system. He came to believe that human life, itself, consisted of suffering and that the only way out of this suffering was to basically cease being human.

    God saw our suffering and pain and decided the only way for humans to experience fulfilling lives was for him to send his only Son to enter into human suffering and redeem it for his purposes. The Buddha advises that we escape adversity. Jesus promises to suffer with us and speak meaning into adversity by suffering on behalf of a hurting and dying world. The resurrection of Jesus points to the defeat of suffering and the truth that human life is not defined by pain and death, but by love and life.   

    Sin is the cause of human suffering, but God uses suffering to shape and mold our character. He can turn pain into promise if we allow his healing presence to open our eyes to a bigger picture perspective about ourselves, life, and the world in which we live. The most inspirational stories I know are about people, with God’s help, who overcome the adversity they experience and live life far beyond the limits they initially believed their circumstances dictated.

    When you find yourself suffering, think of it as schooling and look for the life lessons and hope Jesus Christ brings because he has entered suffering for and with us.

Change Happens

“For what it’s worth it’s never too late, or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit. Start whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it.” - Benjamin Button, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

No one wants to change for the worst. I don’t think any drug addict started off thinking, “Gee, I’d really like to become physically dependent on this stuff to the point that I will abandon the people closest to me so I can get more of it.” No one begins a new school year saying, “Oh boy, I think I want to flunk all my classes and waste my teachers’ and my time and have to do this all over again!” I’ve never met a parent who said, “I can’t wait until my child gets old enough to fend for himself so I can ignore his needs and focus only on me.”

No one does that. But, all three scenarios, even as extreme as they are, occur every day. People don’t neglect their children, flunk out of school, and get addicted to drugs intentionally, but these are the possible results when we don’t pay attention to our habits.

Most of us won’t end up in any of the above nightmare scenarios, but we will miss the very best that God has planned for us when we neglect paying close attention to our habitual behaviors. We mostly set ourselves on autopilot and start heading in a direction. But when we arrive we discover it’s not exactly where we hoped we would be: the guy who experiences financial success but is so distant from his spouse that he hardly knows her at the end of the day; the mom whose life was totally consumed by kids, that when the last one leaves the nest, she doesn’t recognize the face sitting across the breakfast table; the college student who started school with a strong faith but never participated in a college ministry and graduates with little or no faith, wondering why life has lost much of its meaning.

Life has a kind of entropy about it. It tends to slowly breakdown over time, especially if we don’t keep a close check on our habits.

In order to experience the positive change that we desire and live the very best life we can, we must put energy into maintaining the very best habits and behaviors. Life has a way of passing us by if we don’t truthfully reflect on where we’re heading and make those little course corrections along the way. God has an amazing destination plotted out for us and he has called us to partner with him in living the amazing life he has planned! I will be sharing and exciting message this week at Christ Church, part of the Happy New You! series titled Changing for the Better. Change is inevitable, but I want to change in the direction of God’s very best life for me. See you in worship!

Forrest Gump on the Meaning of Life

 

“Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.” - Forrest Gump

I am a huge Forrest Gump fan. I was tremendously disappointed when Paramount sold Kings Island and they got rid of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant! Gump is a classic Christ figure in the film who redeems the lives of those with whom he interacts. Perhaps the biggest redemption story in the film is the redemption of Jenny, who plays a kind of anti-Forrest role through most of the film, living according to a very different set of standards, making tragically self-destructive decisions.

This quote comes from the end of the movie, when Forrest is speaking to Jenny at her grave site. She has died of AIDS related complications. He asks an age-old question: Is life following a predetermined course or is it arbitrary? Is there a great puppeteer in the sky pulling our strings or are we simply a random conglomeration of DNA muddling our way through a meaningless existence? I think Forrest is actually on to something. It’s neither. Not that his answer is fully intellectually or, for that matter, biblically satisfying, but he is moving in the right direction.

Life is neither predetermined nor random. God, through his Providential action is moving his good creation toward a purposeful climax and he calls people to join him in fulfilling his plan. However, because he created us in his image, he endowed us with free will and we are constantly participating with him in creating and recreating the world in which we live. God has a plan and his desire is that we join him in that plan. He wants us to live for his purpose and be blessed to participate in the renewal of the face of the earth. We are not random, but we are not robots, either.

This week, at Christ Church, I will continue the message series, Happy New You! with the message, Living On Purpose. God has a plan and purpose for your life. Following his plan always leads to greater sense of fulfillment, accomplishment, and peace. However, he will not force us to follow his plan. We’d be silly to miss it, though!!