We've all got it in us - that drive to want more, that yearning to try to accumulate that which is most important to us day by day. The drive isn't necessarily a bad thing - in fact it's great to want more humility, more patience, more gentleness, more love, more self-control - but all too often my "wants" are of a less godly nature. I tend to want more respect, more control, more comfort, more pleasure, more things that allow me to pretend that my will is more important than God's. Which is why I needed to hear the wise words of two of Matthias Media's minizines this week.
If you've never dipped a toe into a minizine, please let me encourage you to do so. They are - as the name suggests - mini magazines, each containing three articles related to a single topic. You can read each one in under an hour and they are a great way to get yourself thinking seriously about some of the big issues we face in our Christian life.
The first minizine that grabbed my attention is entitled, Totally Depraved. Not the cheeriest of titles I will admit but a chance to dip into what must be one of the most side-lined doctrines of the Christian faith. Most of us acknowledge we're sinners but few of us take the time to ponder the depths of our sin or spend sufficient time preparing for our daily battle against the enemy. In 15 pages, Totally Depraved encourages us all to take seriously our fallen nature but doing so produces no self-absorbed guilt-trip... it's the path to preparedness in spiritual warfare, compassion in relationships, wisdom in society, faithfulness in evangelism, humility in parenting and praise in our relationship with the Lord. The words drip with the encouragement needed to help us all want less sin, desire more purity and crave greater perseverance. And there's even a spot of John Owen thrown in for those who love the Puritans.
But my reading didn't stop there:
Minizine number two this week was, The Secret of Contentment and what a helpful moment of reorientation this is for those of us enmeshed in a culture of self-fulfilment centred on amassing wealth, education, status and experience. This is no call to austerity but a wonderful reminder of the great riches we have in Christ and a call to live in light of God's generosity not the world's lies that we are lacking what we need. It's a useful though-provoker, posing questions about what we really want - a beach holiday or investment in gospel growth? - and a clarion call to long to live differently from the world around us by embodying contentment and generosity at every turn.
Such minizines are no quick fixes to the waywardness of the human heart but they are a great spur to help us want what God wants for every single one of us: to ever more reflect the character of Jesus.
So why not pick up a minizine today? They're even 20% off on our website. Go on ... you know you want to!
Helen Thorne is Director of Training and Resources at Biblical Counselling UK. She formerly worked with the London City Mission and has written Hope in an Anxious World, Purity Is Possible, Walking with Domestic Abuse Sufferers and 5 Things to Pray for Your City. She attends Dundonald Church in Raynes Park, London.