Transcend all my Striving

For my Bible credit this semester, I'm taking a class over living world religions. It's quite intriguing and I really enjoy it. I can only imagine how much I would enjoy it if it were held at anytime other than 7:30 in the morning, but still. Anyway, there's a lot of reading involved, and for class on Tuesday, we were assigned a reading over Sikhism. Honestly, I thought Sikhism was just an offshoot of Hinduism that somehow intermingled with Islam, and "tada!"... Sikhism. I thank the Lord he never put me in a position where I was trying to explain Sikhism to anyone, especially a Sikh, because I fear I would have been terribly offensive.

However, since I have not yet finished this reading, I still don't know much about Sikhs and what they believe. But apparently, "Sikh" means disciple. Disciple of the Supreme Being, and the gurus who wrote the Sikh scriptures. These gurus were teachers, but Sikhism has a really rich tradition of poetry. Which is cool. So from my understanding, the idea was that you don't need to worship an avatar or idol of the one Supreme God. This life force is all spirit and you truely worship it inwardly, not through rituals and sacrifices. The first Sikh guru, Guru Nanak, wrote this poem and it is part of the Adi Granath, a sacred Sikh text. And I think it's my new favorite poem. I'm sure it was originally in Sanskrit or something and probably sounded even more beautiful, but English doesn't do too bad here:

"If in this life I should live to eternity, nourished by nothing save air;
If I should dwell in the darkest of dungeons, sense never resting in sleep;
Yet must your glory transcend all my striving; no words can encompass the Name.
If I were slain and my body dismembered, pressed in a hand-mill and ground;
If I were burnt in a fire all-consuming, mingled with ashes and dust;
Yet must your glory transcend all my striving; no words can encompass the Name.
If as a bird I could soar to the heavens, a hundred such realms in my reach;
If I could change so that none might percieve me and live without food, without drink;
Yet must your glory transcend all my striving; no words can encompass the Name.
If I could read with the eye of intelligence paper of infinite weight;
If I could write with the winds everlasting, pens dipped in oceans of ink;
Yet must your glory transcend all my striving; no words can encompass the Name."

I was in church today and our speaker talked a lot about righteousness. How we were made righteous because of Christ. Christ is righteous. The only righteous one, and all that we are that is righteousness in God's eyes is really the righteousness of Christ. I just finished reading the book of Isaiah. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Like the smell in the lady's room that hasn't been cleaned in forever. Where you run in, do your business, wash your hands real good, and then run out- all in the 65 seconds that you are able to hold your breath. Yeah, nothing righteous about that.

My righteousness is His. My power is His. My love is His. My strengths are His. Every good thing that I possess is good because it is His. I forget this as I live my life, always striving. Usually for things that will bring me happiness. Granted, He's given me so much grace that the things He would desire to have me do often are the things that bring me happiness. But they often aren't, and at those times, I normally catch myself going my own way, and continue anyways. When I strive for my own glory though, it's never as glorious as I expect it to be. Like when you see advertisements for a grand fireworks show, and when you get there, the show last five minutes and all of the fireworks are the same color. Just not that glorious. Because I'm wandring off on my own way, forgetting that I have His power, His glory, His righteousness, rady and waiting for me when I decide to let Him lead. Nothing I could ever conjure up from myself could create something glorious. It's like the guru said. His glory must transcend all my striving.

The poem that I quoted earlier has a refrain, also by the Guru Nanak. One line of it says, "Only by grace can we learn of our Master." I feel like grace is all I ever write about anymore. But I can only write about the things He has given me, so I guess it's good. I guess I'm learning a lot.

Be blessed.