About a month ago I found myself sitting at a United Airlines baggage carousel mindlessly watching the bags go by as I waited for my luggage to appear. Standing beside me was Dave Husby, the Director of Covenant World Relief (CWR), an arm of the Evangelical Covenant Church, which serves the poorest of the poor and the marginalized around the world. We struck up a conversation about North Park University and the generous offering that was taken to support the relief efforts in Haiti and we chatted briefly about his upcoming trip to Ethiopia and his move from Japan to the United States.
I pulled my tattered bag off of the carousel, taking note of a new tear in the side and a now missing handle. Dave leaned over and picked up a two by three foot flat box and I asked him rather sarcastically if he'd gotten tired of damaged luggage and had now resorted to traveling the world with his belongings in cardboard instead. He laughed and then he said, "No, actually I'm moving slowly from Japan. One box at a time." As he picked up the box he said, "This is actually a coat rack." Together we laughed at the inefficiency of moving an entire household across the ocean one box at a time.
Funny as it may seem, this is how most of us move our lives forward, one small 2'x3' box at a time. In fits and starts we pack a few things and ship them forward all the while making do and longing for the day when the whole house is finally put together. I'm sure God is glad we are moving forward even if it is a box at a time, but I also imagine he would welcome a more efficient and complete move.
In 2 Peter 1:5-8 the author says, "Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love.
For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."
If we want to be effective and productive in our lives as followers of Jesus Christ we are to seek all of these qualities in increasing measure. These character qualities are meant to be added onto one another and are not to be shipped separately. In fact the phrase, "to add to" is a word whose root meaning is "to gather and supply everything needed for a choir" (chorigeo). These character traits are meant to work in harmony with one another and you and I must gather these "voices" together in our lives and supply them with the tune and we are to lead these character traits in a way that makes music.
We simply cannot ship these character traits separately or we will end up with a choir full of baritones with no sopranos and you can be sure that the listening world will hear our noise. We are not meant to grow in knowledge without brotherly kindness. Knowledge without kindness often destroys the one we want to inform. Our faith simply will not continue to grow as it should if we aren't pursuing perseverance. And our love will fall flat if we do not seek self-controlled lives because without self-control our gluttony will rob others of nourishment and that will never be loving.
As we continue the journey together I pray that we will be as efficient as possible in moving ourselves toward the goal of being whole and complete, conformed to the image of the One that we follow. This morning in chapel I invite you to join us as together we seek some practical moving tips from the Word of God, as we come to the Lord's Table to receive the power we need to get going, and as we offer to God our commitment to continue to move.
