A Word to Live Into

I want to be interested. I think it is one way to live well. To be interested is to care, to learn.

I was in St. Louis earlier this month and went to the Saint Louis Art Museum. Among the things that caught my eye at the Museum was a painting of Halsey Cooley Ives.

Anders Leonard Zorn, Haley Cooley Ives, 1894-95, oil on canvas

Like me, you may not be familiar with him. What I learned was that he was the first director of the Museum. A well-known portrait artist, Anders Leonard Zorn, painted Ives in the mid 1890s. The painting shows Ives leaning forward at his desk in a pose that suggests he is curious: interested. Do you know someone like this? Someone who leans in and takes an interest in you? Someone open to new ideas and experiences?

Do you know the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in the Bible? (1) We learn some interesting things about him. He is an important official; in modern terms, he could be called the CFO of his country. He is also interested in God. He traveled over a thousand miles, from Ethiopia to Jerusalem, to worship God. His interest in God continues as he makes his way home. As he travels along, he reads Scripture.

Then something amazing happens. An angel of the Lord is sent to help him. The angel uses one of Jesus’s disciples, Philip, to speak to the Ethiopian. The angel leads Philip to the road where he will be and asks him to stay near his chariot. What we learn is that, even though the Ethiopian is interested in the words of the prophet Isaiah that he is reading, he doesn’t understand them. He needs Philip to explain it to him.  The Ethiopian quickly grasps the message upon Philip’s explanation and asks to be baptized.

What I find so powerful about this story is that even though the Ethiopian is interested in God, it seems that God is even more interested in him. Through his mercy, God helps him find just the right passage from the Prophet Isaiah to read that will speak to his situation. God also sent an angel to arrange for a divine encounter with this man. The Ethiopian is alone, a stranger in a strange land, yet God sends him a friend through Philip. Later, the historian Eusebius recorded that this Ethiopian went on to become an evangelist, telling others all he had learned. Just as Philip reached out to him, the Ethiopian would go on to reach out to others. I think we can learn a lot about what it means to be interested from the Ethiopian.

Our interest can lead us to love.

When we are interested, we care. We can lean in like Halsey Cooley Ives and take a genuine interest in people. As Paul told his friends in Philippi, “Each of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others.”

Our interests also reveal our hearts. The Ethiopian’s interest in God led him to worship and adore God. This is the great ongoing invitation of the Christian faith - we can delight in God. We can worship and adore God. John, the gospel writer, explains it this way: To know God is to love God, and to love God is to know God. (2)

Our interest can lead us to learn.

Your interest can be developed. When you are interested, you want to learn more. To be interested is to be open, receptive, and curious - you have a teachable spirit.

The Ethiopian had a teachable spirit. He traveled a great distance to be with God and learn more about God. He was like the Bereans. They were described as people who examined the Scripture with great eagerness.

One historic church leader describes his own conversion as a “conversion to teachableness.” He wrote: “God by a sudden conversion subdued and brought my mind to a teachable frame.” (3) To be teachable, you are interested: you are humble, open, receptive, and responsive.

Our interest can lead to connection.

The Ethiopian’s interest in God connected him to God and God’s interest in him. As we lean in and show interest in others, we connect with them. The connection happens in other ways as well. The Ethiopian earnestly wanted to learn more about God, but he needed someone to help him connect the dots.

The same is true for us. It is one thing to be interested and notice. It’s another thing to look long enough to see and understand. We learn from our experiences only through reflection. We need to connect our experience to our life and our understanding.

One of my former teachers said, “As Christians develop in faith, they become more teachable, not less.” Our interest leads to love, to learning, and to a deeper, life-transforming connection. It’s a process.

There is a legend about Saint Augustine. He was walking on the beach, thinking about the trinity, when he saw a young boy going back and forth between the ocean and the beach, filling a bucket with water and then dumping it into a hole in the sand. The boy said that he wanted to fit the ocean into the hole. Augustine is said to have laughed warmly, then said it was impossible. Then the boy, with wisdom beyond his years, said it was easier to fit the ocean into a hole than the mystery of God into your mind.

We can stay interested. We can keep going, keep exploring, keep learning. Every step is an arrival. (4)

Our interests form us.

What you focus your time and attention on shapes who you are.  It is vital to carefully curate your interests - your inputs. What you watch, listen to, and read shapes who you are. Who you spend time with shapes who you are. It’s important to consider whether the things you are focusing on are helping you become the person you want to be. “Choose better inputs,” writes James Clear, “Get better outputs.”

How to live into the word interested…

1. To be interested involves being fully present in the moment. It involves enjoying your life and all that it is. What is sparking your interest?

2. Take a few moments and make a note of your inputs. What are you taking in (books, podcasts, TV shows, movies, people - who are you following on social media, who is influencing you)? Are your inputs helping you be the person you want to be?

3. Is there something or someone you want to be more interested in? How might you make that happen?

4. What if you start each day interested in God? Begin with the psalmist: "This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it." Let the gladness of being with God go with you throughout the day.

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1. See Acts 8: 26-39

2. John 4:7-8

3. John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms

4. “every step an arrival” is a phrase from Denise Levertov’s poem, Overland to the Islands