Whenever I read blogs, my first question is always why someone thinks that their thoughts are worth my reading. So, I want to put out my purpose for this up front. It doesn't really matter to me whether or not anyone reads what I put here, because that's not my goal. I'm really just looking for a way to write down my thoughts about my life and Christ to hopefully work some things out in my mind and to document my journey of discipleship. Putting up a blog is a way to keep myself thinking and writing regularly and maybe even have a handful of people join me in my own exploration of the gospel.
The title is from Isaiah 50:7, where the servant says that he has set his "face like a flint" in the face of suffering. The servant at least in part finds his future fulfillment in Christ, "who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at teh right hand of the throne of God" (Heb 12:2). Likewise, Paul models himself after Christ, telling the Philippians that, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:13b-14).
For me, this is one of the key pictures of the Christian life: the disciple running a marathon, exhausting the resources God gives him yet constantly pressing forward, yearning for a heavenly reward. His face is the picture of determination, unflinching, its features unyielding in their comittment to the goal as if they were chiseled out of flint. It is the picture of distance running legend Emil Zatopek, pictured on the background, who was known as the "human locomotive" for his extraordinary will to push past the limits of human performance. That is my picture of discipleship, and I pray that when Jesus sees my life it looks spiritually like Zatopek did physically. I hope that it reminds him of his own life of complete abandon for God.
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