Chasing Wisdom: Choosing Stability in a Rootless Age

by Daniel Grothe

We move because we have not committed to a people in a particular place that is worth dying for and dying within.

Work is a blessing (1:28). Work is a gift. And work is intrinsic to the human creature because it is intrinsic to the Creator himself. God works, and it follows that because we are made in his image (Genesis 1:26–27), we work too.

MAYBE ONE OF THE LEAST GLAMOROUS THINGS you can do with your life is to stay in the same place with the same group of people—friends, a spouse, a handful of extended family, a local church community—for a really long time until you die. And while it is unglamorous, it may well be the most powerful thing you can do.

The church is not the place to get all your felt needs met. Jesus didn’t intend the church to be your spiritual clearinghouse of inspiration and self-fulfillment. The church is not like the posh Delta Sky Club lounge at the airport, feeding your spiritual hunger and giving you a place to put your feet up before another long week. The church is the crucible that makes us disciples, the furnace that burns away selfishness and self-preference and every notion of a life of self-fulfillment and forges a purity of faith that is an affront to a world intoxicated with the self.