Daily Lesson for July 10, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Psalm 16 verse 11:

 You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;

Not very long ago Victoria Osteen, the wife of the famous preacher Joel Osteen, told the people in their congregation to "do good for your own [selves]", and "do good because God wants you to be happy" because "that's what makes God happy."

A lot of Christians, including a lot of my pastor friends, took her to task for that.  They said Vistoria Osteen's statements were basically a part of a whole religion of narcissism that makes personal pleasure the barometer for faithfulness -- a seemingly rather costless discipleship.

I get the criticism; but I have to say that when I heard what Victoria Osteen said something inside of what she was saying actually resonated with me in my own and my own experience.

Often when I am approached by someone who is seeking to know what to do with their lives, there is so often a kind of guilt in their questioning.  Say they want to do something vocationally, but they feel guilty about it because it is not the path of St. Francis-like renunciation; it is not the way of the cross.

Well, I have got to tell you, I actually know very few who have died on the cross.  And I am convinced that some went to the cross, not out of faithfulness, but out of a martyrdom complex rooted in a faith of works rather than grace.

I say, instead of thinking the way always leads us to set our faces toward Golgatha, the way is actually the path of our own heart -- sometimes that leads to Golgotha, but usually it leads to more pleasant places.  Regardless, it is always a path that, however hard, ends in life and in the fullness of joy.

No one should feel guilty about that.

Howard Thurman, the great black mystic and mentor of Martin Luther King, Jr., used to tell his students, "Do not ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come to life.  Because what the world needs is people who are fully alive."

I read that and I think, wow the one who inspired the martyr Dr. King sure sounds like Victoria Osteen . . .