FriarTucker
  • Home
  • Book
  • Sermons
  • Blog
  • Consulting
  • Teaching & Speaking
    • Capital University
  • Articles
Social Networks:

Friar's Reflections

Come here for weekly reflections on life in the church through various lenses. This is where you'll find me in some of my most immediate reactions to things we face. It's not all beautiful, but it's authentic.

Email me your thoughts!

submission

3/31/2014

0 Comments

 
When you complete a thesis for graduate work, your first submission is a strange duck. It is in now way a draft. In fact, it ought to be, it must be, your very best work. But unless you're a grammatical genius and immaculate thinker, you turn it in with the expectation that your advisor and reader(s) will ask for revisions. More data. Fixed errors. Clarify connections. Submission, in this sense, is not final. Though I just turned in my thesis on April 1st, it will not be done, with complete revisions and binding, until the middle of May.  

Submission to God is, actually, quite similar. 

When we submit ourselves to God and God's Kingdom, this is never the final draft.  We are constantly in a state of revision.  As Colossians says, Christ is "reconciling all things to Himself," and so we are in a constant process of reconciliation.

But our approach to God should never be a rough draft.  

Through baptism, God justifies sinners, no matter the content, quality, or count of the sins. But after that, when we begin to (in the words of Deuteronomy) "choose life," we ought not be turning in ourselves with incomplete sentences, comma splices, poor research, and inconsistent citations. When we submit ourselves to God, it ought to be, it must be, our best effort, not to earn our salvation, for that is done upon the cross of Christ and given in our baptism. But it must be our best effort because we are living a borrowed life in the image of the Resurrected God. 

Yet, we know we will constantly fall short, so of course, we must expect revisions of our submissions. We can't expect to turn ourselves over once for all. Only one person did that, and we remember that act weekly at the Eucharist table. We must be constantly submitting, dying daily, accepting the revisions the Holy Spirit lays on our hearts and turning in new work that seeks to embrace life in the Kingdom, that this world might reflect the will of heaven.  

So, as I await (hopefully, patiently) the edits suggested by my committee, I'm also expecting God to constantly work at revisions in my life. This is transformation for kingdom life. This is sanctification, not for personal glory, but for inhabiting the image of God. 

Submission is a big deal, but it is not final. Revisions are on the way. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Simultaneously a sinner and a saint. 

    Archives

    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly