“I live before the Audience of One. Before others I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.” It is in this way that Os Guinness believes we as Christians should live our lives: before an Audience of One. That Audience (as the capital letters may have already revealed) is God.
I believe that any dedicated Christian that reads the above quotation would certainly want to achieve the state of faith and calling that it takes to renounce all but God in such a bold and committed fashion. However, whether we know it or not (or are just too ashamed to admit it) all of us unconsciously live our lives for many different audiences. God is often not one of them. If He is, He is mixed in with the crowd of other voices that fill our daily lives.
As college students, a myriad of opinions and audiences surround us on every side, perhaps even more than those in different walks of life. Academic pressure from our professors and our parents, pressure from our peers to be ‘cool’ and ‘fun’, spiritual pressure from our pastors and mentors, and, though less often emphasized, that quiet, constant pressure we put on ourselves to ‘measure up’ to whatever standard we’ve created for ourselves. All of these audiences and pressures, voices both loud and soft, meaningful and perhaps not so meaningful, are what God calls us to give up, so that we may instead pursue His Audience and His Audience alone.
I believe that any dedicated Christian that reads the above quotation would certainly want to achieve the state of faith and calling that it takes to renounce all but God in such a bold and committed fashion. However, whether we know it or not (or are just too ashamed to admit it) all of us unconsciously live our lives for many different audiences. God is often not one of them. If He is, He is mixed in with the crowd of other voices that fill our daily lives.
As college students, a myriad of opinions and audiences surround us on every side, perhaps even more than those in different walks of life. Academic pressure from our professors and our parents, pressure from our peers to be ‘cool’ and ‘fun’, spiritual pressure from our pastors and mentors, and, though less often emphasized, that quiet, constant pressure we put on ourselves to ‘measure up’ to whatever standard we’ve created for ourselves. All of these audiences and pressures, voices both loud and soft, meaningful and perhaps not so meaningful, are what God calls us to give up, so that we may instead pursue His Audience and His Audience alone.
This is by no means an easy task. I do not believe that we can simply fill our ears with beeswax and hum along merrily by ourselves, tuning out whatever others may have to say to us or about us and look at God alone. However, living for the Audience of One calls us to set up a filter between how we are pressured and how we live. Left to our own, no such filter exists. We act as Newtonion products of interrelational physics – two or three audiences pressure us to live one way or other, and in the end we will give in to the pressure which outweighs the others. We are “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching”, as Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians, without a dominant or guiding voice that calls above the wind and waves and guides us back home. In the life of a Christian, this role of a guide, one that supersedes all others, is the role that God should occupy in our lives. However, while all Christians would like to claim that this is true in their own lives, very seldom do we live it out in a meaningful way.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,” This verse, found in the third chapter of Colossians, communicates the heart of what I think Os Guinness describes in his book. We live in the world of men, it is true, amongst millions of other human beings and their varying opinions, pressured this way and that by even those who are very near and dear to us. However, we do not live for any of them. We do not live for our professors, for our friends, for our parents or for anyone else on the face of planet Earth. We do, however, live for Almighty God who reigns on high, and as Christians, perhaps it’s about time we began to realize the call that Paul outlined for us in Colossians, the same call that Os Guinness describes so thoroughly in Rising to the Call.
So while I think it is incredibly important to listen to those wise and loving people that God places in our lives, we should do so with a filter set in place, in prayer and with the discernment God gives us as His children. We are called to live for Him, and not for men. In the waves and wind that is the world, some waves may end up steering us in the right direction, but in the end, it’s the Northern Star that helps us reach our final destination.
“I live before the Audience of One. Before others I have nothing to prove, nothing to gain, nothing to lose.”
I only pray I live my life in such a way that I can learn to say these words without fear and without shame, by the grace of God.
Final thoughts:
If we live for an Audience of One, is there any allowance for checks or accountability from other Christians to help us discerns what God is calling us to do in specific situations?
What if we do not know how to live for God alone in a specific circumstance?
If we live for an Audience of One, is there any allowance for checks or accountability from other Christians to help us discerns what God is calling us to do in specific situations?
What if we do not know how to live for God alone in a specific circumstance?
NOTE: Sorry I turned this in so late! I wrote the entire thing and edited it, and then completely forgot to actually, oh, you know, post it on time. Sorry again!
No comments:
Post a Comment