As some people like to accumulate various collectibles I like to gather quotes. I recently found one by Friedrich Nietzsche in a book written by Eugene Peterson. He said, “The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is…that there should be long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” Striking a homing cord in me this said what I’ve been motivated toward for the last twenty-something years. I’ve adopted the words “long obedience in the same direction” and use them in their abbreviated form--LOSD.

I believe many Christians are missing the essence of living and need to adapt their lives to the practicality of this truth. In another quote by G.K Chesterton, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” I agree. Let’s face it, with as many delights in the world to distract us, why would anyone want to take on the hard task of living ‘the inward way’ full time? There are so many images to explore and identities to be occupied with.

One writer said, “Christians today are influenced more by the culture they live in than by Christ and therefore they look more like the world than like Christ.” Even those that faithfully attend church are busier with their duties than attentive to developing a personal relationship with Christ. More people complain about not having enough time than ever before. The one prominent excuse I hear more than others, “I couldn’t get with God this week; I just didn’t have enough time.” Some have quit making the excuse as they simply feign a relationship that is anything but personal.

A rise in the need for counselors and emotional therapists is occurring because people don’t want to do the difficult thing; they want someone else to do it for them. Christ’s command to abide in His Word is not easy. Yet, I suspect it has never been easy but I also think it has never been harder than it is today. I can’t deny that I am concerned about the denial I see in the church…as if we could continue indefinitely like this and not bear the consequence… but I fear it just isn’t so and I wonder what it will take to get us on the path that quickens the dead and makes life worth living. I fear we are satiated with the world and I know my fears are not unfounded. The news is replete with exposures of the shallowness in today’s church. We need something to wake us out of our slumber. I wonder what it will take to awaken our true hunger for God and get us to move toward a LOSD.

Christ has provided everything for us and still we slumber and don’t receive. I think of the words in John one: “He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves.”

Another in John five: “These very tasks, as I go about completing them, confirm that the Father, in fact sent me. The Father who sent me, confirmed me. And you missed it. You never heard his voice, you never saw his appearance. There is nothing left in your memory of his Message because you do not take his Messenger seriously.” These are strong words and I fear they are as true for us today and they were for that generation.

A LOSD is the given lifestyle of the faithful. Abiding in the Word of Christ is a ‘first’ with them. “And the just shall live by faith” in my thinking could also be phrased, “And the just shall live on a long obedience in the same direction.” They shall not waver or turn to the side. They keep their hunger for God alive as they arrange for consistency. They strategize to help them renew their resolve and keep them in the Way. We can want to accomplish a difficult thing but without planning a way to keep us with it we just won’t do it.

I don’t believe people lack discipline as much as they lack the tending of desire. The desire for God is like a seed that has to be nurtured and fed like a baby. If we adopted a plan to feed desire like a new mother adopts a feeding schedule for her baby we could find our way to the straight path that leads to a worthwhile lifestyle.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book entitled “Run with the Horses” based on the life of Jeremiah, the prophet. In it he shows that Jeremiah was intensely serious about the people needing to develop a personal relationship with God; he was irate over the fact that they preferred an image without substance. “The outside is a lot easier to reform than the inside. Going to the right church and saying the right words is a lot easier than working out a life of justice and love among the people you work and live with. Showing up at church once a week and saying a hearty “amen” is a lot easier than engaging in a life of daily prayer and Scripture meditation that develops into concern for poverty and injustice, hunger and war. Are the people who do this deliberately trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their neighbors and fake God into blessing them? Some are, but for most I don’t think so. I don’t think they are trying to get by with anything. I think they have lived for so long on the basis of outward appearances that they have no feel for inward reality. I think they were so impressed with the success of the reform that they thought that was all there was to it. We live in a culture where image is everything and substance nothing. We live in a culture where a new beginning is far more attractive than a long follow-through. Images are important. Beginnings are important. But an image without substance is a lie. A beginning without a continuation is a lie.”

I see this difficult thing as an adventure to be pursued and not an inconvenience to be resented. G. K. Chesterton covered this idea when he said, “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” I think we need to reconsider the way we are living our lives on a daily basis. The Messenger is serious, the Message is serious and the King in His Kingdom is still waiting to be acknowledged and obeyed within. The desire is already present in seed form. Will we feed it consistently? Will we consider living a life that is worthwhile; a life that rightfully belongs to Christ?

Another Scripture comes to mind from Luke eighteen, “However, when the Son of Man returns will he find faith on the earth?” The Amplified versions reads, “…will He find persistence in faith on the earth?” And I will paraphrase, “When the Son of Man returns will He find you living on a long obedience in the same direction?”