..una.vita.benedetta.. ..a.blessed.life..

I have been struck frequently lately by how easy it is for humans, in general, to adjust themselves to any new situation. In other words, how anything can feel normal if you live with it long enough. In many situations, this is helpful - scientific, even: homeostasis allows our cells to find balance - to get the correct amount of sodium or water or whatever they need. It prevents us from sickness and implosion.



But have you ever noticed how easy it is to fall into a bad kind of normal? Sin has that dulling effect on us, doesn't it? The same sin, the same laziness, the same not-so-good thing, either done to us or by us, done over and over and over again, can strangely mutate itself into becoming the accepted and even the praised.



I recently purchased The Hiding Place, one of my favorite books, from Goodwill. I read this book over and over again when I was younger. And I remembered again how striking it is when Corrie ten Boom, released from her concentration camp, is awestruck at seeing a hot bathtub, clean sheets, a simple tablescape ready for dinner. Simple comforts she had lived with all her life, yet post-Ravensbruck, they were extravagant.



Oprah recently talked with a homeless man who had been the subject of a social experiment - the "experimentors" randomly gave him $100,000, then followed him around to see if his life would change. Even in a nice hotel room, he preferred to sleep on the floor.



What has become normal to you? Are you living the abundant life Jesus died to give you? Have you let some subtlties creep into your life - is your sense of normal being altered into something sinful without you even noticing?

Recently, we got rid of our tv. For a lot of reasons. Tv always amazes me in that when you live without it (like at Cedarville, or with one fuzzy channel our first year of marriage) you can almost forget that it exists. Put it in your house, and you can easily spend hours after work, relaxing, flipping channels, blowing time on mindless entertainment. Without our tv for several weeks, its amazing what we've gotten done - we read and talk so much more. Watching three hours of tv every night became easily normal because we let it become so.

Think on this profound quote by C.S. Lewis:

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Jesus Christ did not call us to live our lives as placid and mindless people. We are called to be radical.

If your normal needs to change, make it happen.

You have a magnificent Lord to glorify and not a lot of life in which to do it.