I may well be the only one who gets this way....

      There are some posts people make on social media, some conversations heard amidst the reformed brethren, that make my heart sink. I only get this feeling once in a blue moon and I cannot for the life of me tell you what makes one theological comment or discussion bring it out, vs discussions that do not do so. If you have an answer to this, please let me know. I am sorry to be so obscure in this post...it's hard to be crystal clear when you can't put your finger on a thing.

It could be just what has been referred to as cage stage, that age of folk who are new to the reformed faith who go off half cocked and sound like they've invented the wheel themselves. It could be a unwise timing or lack of sensitivity in when such discussions are held. It could just be a flaw in me. It could be sin on my part.. Maybe I have some innate scale that gets one more straw of theological adamacy (not a real word)  about a doubtful disputation and I come tumbling down. Maybe it's being a GIRL. Maybe it's being older, and having seen my own days of unintentional smug and hoping I"m wrong and never was that way but highly suspecting it is so. EEK. If Calvin is right and pride is the root of all sin, well surely I was SMUG...probably still am and don't even know it. Lord deliver me from Smug! Ouch. 

This verse consoled me today...when the heart sank..." For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? ~ 1 Corinthians 4:7"

Don't get me wrong. I love theology. I think this "sense" I get is maybe when I feel we are losing sight of  Christ. Maybe it's just ME losing sight of the beauty of Christ? When we are speaking or hearing more of how the confession relates to xyz, with more passion and/or frequency than we are speaking of the beauty of Christ. This is why I love Samuel Rutherford so much. He had theology but he had more of Christ and his glory, his love, his compassion, his holiness trumped our "rightness" theologically. Our broken-ness seemed in his writings, to be miles more obvious than our head knowledge. Oh I am not for any sense of either or ..it isn't head knowledge OR heart knowledge. It isn't law work or heart work (to use the Scottish way of saying it) We have theology because we ARE broken.

I wonder if we have Christ because he loved us, and we have theology because we love him. We want to "get it right." We don't want to misrepresent God or his word and so we discuss and weigh, debate and sharpen iron. 

I have no answer to this heart sinking right now, that is, to why it happens, but I do have the antidote. When I feel this way, the answer is to read the word, to pray, to sing some psalms...and perhaps then to read some Rutherford and be reminded by him of the Love of Christ and his sufficiency and his holiness, and his beauty.  Oh may I be so Ravished with his Glory! Come quickly Lord Jesus!

It is the eve of the day, when most of the Christian world celebrates the incarnation. Some of us do not observe the church calendar, but we also rejoice in the incarnation on the Lord's. 

We all rejoice in the majestic words of Isaiah 6:9

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."