The Holy Life

Nothing nags like a memory. An idea that knocks on your heart and runs away, giggling. Let me claw at it a whole and see what I catch...

Something’s come back to me that I didn’t realise I’d lost. There was a moment when I said it out loud, locking my bike by the bridge at Southampton rail station on the way to college; and so the idea wasn’t lost completely. Thank God for that moment.

I said, ‘Lord, I want to know the secret to the holy life. I want to know how to make every moment extraordinary; not just to touch base occasionally, but make every moment sacred to you. To do everything with you.’

Holy is a strange word to us. Which is kind of appropriate, seeing as it means ‘other’. And I realise it sounds like a strange ambition; narcissistic to some. Or dangerous. Unfortunately, it’s what bubbled up out of my heart, and I can’t help it. I can’t change what I long for. Any more than I could change my taste in music if you told me it was rubbish and gave 10 good reasons why. It’s a reaction to the discovery of a wonderful reality – but more of that later.

So the feeling that ambushed me, that reminded me of my 6th form petition, came when my friend Goff said, ‘the love of the world and the love of Jesus are like scales on a balance; when one falls, the other rises.’

It sounds a bit negative, doesn’t it? It makes me think of wierdos on soap boxes, Ugandans screaming at traffic in downtown Kampala. Seriously...

But when I swill it round my mind, something else happens. There’s a bit of ‘wow’. My heart does a bit of a flutter. The word ‘holy’ pops into my head. And I start saying, under my breath, ‘Yes. I want that. Yes. Yes.’

I write in my journal, “we need to understand the world. We need to serve it, not just take what we can get and disappear. But we shouldn’t be enthralled by it. We shouldn’t want it. This will make us feel like Aliens, strangers... but Jesus ruins us for anything else.”

I think this is the heart of the matter. It’s not about the world being good or the world being bad. We should all know it’s both. But Jesus is utterly good. He’s holy. In fact, he’s more than that.
Most of the Bible is written in Hebrew, and in Hebrew you say something is very something by saying it twice: ‘pure gold’ in Hebrew is ‘gold gold’. But one thing in the Bible is too much for this turn of language to communicate, and it has to be said a third time. When Isaiah and John saw God the Father, the angels around when singing ‘Holy holy holy, Lord God almighty...’

What Goff said thrilled me because it promised me there was more – more to know of Jesus, more to love him, more to follow him in everything I do. Because he is so good, I can experience the unexpected and miraculous joy of saying ‘Jesus I am yours’. All the weight of my life falls off me. I don’t have to carry it anymore – I’ve given him control. I don’t have to worry about the future – he even controls that. I don’t have to constipate myself trying to be good – I’m his.

I think this is what it means to be a Christian. It’s weird how much of the time I don’t think like this. It’s really stupid. It’s no fun at all. We’re a funny lot, us Christians – we have the banquet of heaven before us but so often we choose to nibble ryvita. Yeeuch...