Retro...

Retro Fitted

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

 

Retro is stylin these days.  It fits the taste of many forward thinkers by going backwards in time when decorating the space in which they live.  Orange and olive green are scattered throughout as funky doodle embellishes sophistication.  An era in time brought back to the forefront of décor could be the definition of retro.  Another definition could read…visiting cobwebbed areas of the mind in order to retrieve thoughts from the era in which they’d been filed within the memory banks. 

And thus it was.  I was shuffling papers one morning before church, and shifting down through the sands of time came a thought out of nowhere.  Front and center was this.  If Jesus came back, and I was doing what I was doing at any given moment, could I look Him in the eye without guilt or shame?  And, what would His eyes reflect as He looked directly back into mine at that moment?  As a young person, I pondered these things.  Thoughts like these kept my heart in check with a desire to live faith in action.  Through many ages and stages of development, I know I did not always live up to these intentions.

However, curious to me was that I’d formulated these thoughts in my early teens.  How do these thoughts about His second coming and the effects on my own behavior enter into the young at heart?  As I’ve parented many, and taught even more throughout the years, words in lecture form usually ring hollow.  Nobody explicitly teaches much, but His Word, heard daily, must have permeated the membranes of my heart.  Words alone could not convict unless they were His.  

Taking part in anything which is not of Him is never pleasant for those who know Him.  It’s empty.  Like a chocolate bunny, sin is hollow; chunks merely shatter because that which appeared solid, was not.  Hollowness and emptiness is all that is within.  Outer coverings make things look good, but in truth, it’s often just packaged to tempt.

Wisdom given when young was truth.  Truth is…He will come again. Truth is…I needed to be about my Father’s business.  Truth never rings hollow and it’s always stylin.  His Word is always in fashion and makes quite a statement at that.  It’s about as retro as you can get, and perhaps something worth looking into.

Colossians 3:1 reminds us how we have been raised…with Whom…in Whom.  It goes on to tell us how our hearts should be stylin on things from above.  “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above.” 

Psalm 25 brings further clarity.  “Guide me in Your truth.  Remember, O Lord, Your great mercy and love, for they are of old.  Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to Your love remember me.  My eyes are ever on the Lord.  To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in You I trust O my God.”  Amen.