sacrilegious? maybe

Yesterday while praying I felt God really convicting me about something. I continually find my thoughts operating within the realm of "the present age," my thoughts being squeezed and molded into the shape of this passing world. In this world, your rank, income, success, attractiveness, etc. is what counts; they're that which determine your worth. Now I obviously don't agree with that assessment. I don't put much stock on having fancy things--my car's a piece of junk, but as long as it runs, I could care less about how it looks--or in being successful in the world's eyes; my salary--or, rather, in my case, hourly wage--don't determine my worth as a person. I know all of this and acknowledge all of this, but the problem is that sometimes, in ways I can and cannot see, I allow this corrupt framework of thought to determine the way I see things and to determine my feelings. My focus shouldn't be, as it so often is, "how to get ahead" but "how to be who I am created to be"--namely, a flourishing human being who is advancing God's kingdom (the two go hand-in-glove). It's like what Paul says in Colossians 3: don't focus on the present age but on the age to come, the age that has broken into the present via Messiah's resurrection. My focus isn't to be on my kingdom and my desires and my dreams but on God's kingdom and his desires and his dream of a world reborn. My efforts ought not be focused on "getting ahead" but "getting complete," becoming a fully-flourishing human being, becoming through suffering, diligence, and patience (and, of course, the Spirit) the person I will be when I am glorified in that future day. My mind, as St. Paul says in Romans 12.1-2, needs to be renewed, and this renewing is something that I must do consciously and decisively each day, when I wake in the morning and when I go to bed at night. The present world encroaches all around me, and having lived in its clutches so long, I am easily deceived; but I must look at the world different, the world as is revealed through the scriptures and by God's Spirit, and I must allow my life--my priorities, my commitments, my thoughts and feelings and actions--to be shaped and molded around that. 

The above is out of my journal from yesterday, and it's not something I've forgotten. I continue to think about it, continue to meditate on it, continue to pray about it. And as I do this thinking, meditating, and praying, I don't do it along. There is the Spirit on one hand and Great Lakes Christmas Brew on the other: 

Sacrilegious? Maybe. But probably not. Beer has been a staple of the Christian diet since the birth of the early church (well, before beer, there was wine, but still). And lest we forget, the first building the Puritans built when they came to the New World was a brewery. All this talk about priorities reinforces one of mine: good beer. And Great Lakes Christmas Ale is part of that. Like I told my friend Destini, "After a couple beers, I really begin to be filled with the spirit." All joking aside, I thank God that he created such plants and such minds that beer could be discovered. I imagine that at the eschatological banquet, there will be all sorts of great beers to go around.