A Life Shaped and Re-shaped by Prayer

Friday, Week 2 - Philippians 2: 19-24: Seeking Christ’s Way

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. All of them are seeking their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But Timothy’s worth you know, how like a son with a father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me; and I trust in the Lord that I will also come soon.

In the midst of this report of how he is sending his co-worker Timothy as his emissary, Paul makes this appeal for his readers to, “seek not their own interests, but those of Jesus Christ.”  This is another spiritual discipline, to seek the interests of Christ.  How does one do this?  What are Christ’s interests?

I think it best not to attempt to answer that question; for this is a question not to be answered by the writer, but lived by the reader.  The poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) once wrote,

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

What does God want for your life?  Of the many and varied interests of Christ, which of them are you being called to attend to this day?   These are questions to be lived by you, not answered by me or someone else.  In your work today, in your relationships, in your care of your own self and the lives of others, in your allocation of time, in your moments of connected-joy or isolated-sorrow bring the question of Christ’s interests to mind and live the question. 

Also know that “the question” itself may be phrased in various ways: What is Christ up to and where am I being called to join in?  Is this a time for boldness or meekness?  Should I speak up or remain quiet?  Do I make a decision for the sake of tomorrow or for today? Does this fall under Christ’s gentle invitation to “Do not worry nor be anxious,” or his more urgent call to “Be salt and let your light shine!”    The point is to live the question; over time it will shape and re-shape us.

O God, lighten our path.  Reveal to us the way in which you would have us live, and then give us the courage and the strength to live into what you have revealed.  Amen.

PS: If you are a person who would like more concrete data to draw from in your own seeking to understand “Christ’s interests,” here are some references drawn from just one of the four Gospels:  Luke 4:16-19; 6:26-42, 9:23-27, 10:25-27, 11:1-4, 12:22-34, 14:25-33, 16:19-31, 18:1-8, 21:1-4, 22:14-19, 24:36-49 .