I have read that the great composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, wrote the phrase soli deo gloria (Latin for "to God alone be the glory"), or its abbreviation, "S.D.G.", at the bottom of his music. This was Bach's way of keeping himself from thinking too highly of himself. Now I've never actually seen one of Bach's manuscripts, so I'm relying on his biographers to be truthful, but even if it's just a story, it's a wonderful idea!

I'm sure I'm not alone in having wrestled with Paul's command in Colossians 3.17:

"And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."

Whatever I do? All things? Wow! That's a hefty request! And it's only made worse when we read Paul's own words in 1 Corinthians 9.23:

"And I do all things for the sake of the gospel, that I may become a fellow partaker of it."

Just when we want to think that Paul is giving us a standard that we can never be expected to reach, we see him claim to have reached it!

How then do we do all things in Jesus' name? How do we do all things with thanksgiving? How do we do all things for the sake of the gospel? What does all this mean? I would love to be able to live up to this word, but I don't always know how. It's easy to see how to do this when I'm working with church-related activities: when I sing, when I lead prayer, when I write this column. But what about the rest of my week? What about immediately after I've closed my Bible and said "amen" to my prayers? What about when I'm trying to explain to my students the importance of Homer or Goethe? What about when I'm drowning in literary theory and criticism trying to put together a thesis?

One of the pieces I read on Bach mentions that he wrote "S.D.G." both on his sacred and on his secular works. Even if the music itself was not designed for the service of God, Bach devoted it to God anyway. Here was Bach, doing all his music, secular as well as sacred, for the glory of God! How did he do it?

This reminds me of one the more frightening passages of scripture I can think of: Zechariah 7.1-7. In this passage, the Israelites have returned from captivity back to the promised land. While they were in Babylon, they instituted a yearly fast to implore God to restore them to their land. Now that they had returned, they wanted to know whether they should continue to celebrate the fasts. God's answer is horrific:

"When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? And when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?"

What I see in these words is God's rebuke for all the times we take on rituals in order to gain God's mercy when we haven't been devoting our daily activities to God. It's not enough to make sure that our fasting, worship, prayers, etc. are done for God--we should be doing all of our eating and drinking, sleeping, bathing, everything we do, all for God. If our eating and drinking are not for God, why should we expect our fasts to gain us any favor?

My school starts back this week, and with this new beginning will come a host of new distractions, concerns, pressures, ambitions, you name it. And when I get caught up in all this, I fall back into a dangerous attitude: that it all depends on me. Why do I teach? To pay my bills. Why am I in school? To get my credentials. You get the picture. And this isn't peculiar to school: Why do any of us go to work? To pay our bills. Why do we do so many of the things we do? To make sure we can provide for ourselves.

But this attitude is blatantly unbiblical! It's something we've been taught by our culture: we have to be self-reliant, self-sufficient. We have to provide for our basic needs. But this negates the biblical truth that God is our provider! Notice what God tells Abram in their first encounter:

And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing. (Gen. 12.2)

Notice who will accomplish this? Not Abram--God will do it! And we see this later when Abram and Sarai decide that God must want Abram to lie with Hagar in order to achieve the promise: God did not want to fulfill this promise the human way; God wanted to do it Himself! Note that whenever God makes a promise to Abraham, God promises to be the one who brings it to fulfillment. Note also that God does this same thing to Isaac (Gen. 26.3-4 and 24) and to Jacob (Gen. 28.13-15).

Now, lest we think that this applies only to the three Patriarchs, let us remember Paul's comments in Galatians: Abraham was justified simply because he believed God when God had made a promise to him (Gen. 15.6). Those of us who likewise believe God's promises are Abraham's true children (Gal. 3.6-9). And which promises do we believe in? How about these: that if we believe Jesus, then we also believe God (Jn. 12.44). And if we believe Jesus, then we also believe in these words:

"...do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? ...your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." (from Mt. 6.25-34)

If we take Jesus at His word, then we need not worry about how we're going to pay our bills, buy our food and clothing, make our way in the world. God continues to promise that God will provide for us. The birds and flowers do no work: they just live, and God provides for them! [I have had to live off of this promise, and I know from experience that God really does provide, even when there is no visible means for me to provide for myself--think of the manna God provided the Israelites in the wilderness.] So then, what is our work for? It is not to make our ends meet, nor is to further ourselves in the world. Our work is rather a way in which God works out our salvation: it is a means to encounter Christ in the messiness of the real world, where the hurt is, where God desires to be. It is a means to the gospel of Christ.

So my exercise for us this week (and hopefully for the whole semester), is to do all things soli deo gloria. In fact, I intend to repeat these words to myself: in the shower, while I dress, before I leave the house, before I get out of the car, before I go into the classroom, before I start my assignments, every chance I get to recommit myself to God's work, at school or at home. Maybe I'll write them on cards and leave them at home, at school, with my books, wherever I will see them easily.

I will not rely on my schoolwork, or a degree, or any of my own efforts to get me ahead in the world. I will instead rely on God, the Provider, who has promised that if we believe His promises, He will make us fruitful. I will do all things with thankfulness that God has given me a paycheck to make ends meet, and that once my degree is finished, God will continue to provide for me. I will also be thankful that God uses my work to show me what God is doing and to bring me into contact with those who need God's love in their lives. I will go to school--no, I will do all things for the sake of the gospel of Christ, in whatever form that may take.

Care to join me?

S.D.G.! Amen.

steve