I’ve spent a lot of mental and physical energy trying to grow grass - easier said than done.
Right now, we have bare spots popping up in our lawn. I’ve pondered that problem. I’ve taken a shovel and dug under and around those spots because I thought it might be grubs. I have not yet determined the source of the problem.
I’m good at growing weeds, but I’m not so good at growing grass.
When I share this challenge with others one of the first questions I receive is “Have you had your soil checked?” My soil checked? How do you check your soil? Who checks soil? What are they looking for? It’s dirt, right?
I’m coming to learn how important your soil is to growing grass. It can be too sandy, too acidic, not acidic enough, needing lime, etc. I’m learning that what you plant your grass in will have a huge impact on how it grows (or not).
We are all familiar with the parable Jesus taught about good soil (Matthew 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20; Luke 8:4-15). Your seed won’t grow on the path. It will struggle growing if choked out by weeds. If the soil is shallow, you’ll see little growth. But if the seed lands in the good soil, growth is inevitable.
We can’t make ourselves grow; that’s God’s work. But we are responsible for where we place ourselves and who we place ourselves with. We can decide where we place our seed.
I want to suggest and challenge us to place our seeds in the soil of obedience.
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Colossians 2:6-7
One of the interesting things about the book of Colossians is Paul’s emphasis on the challenge of false teachers, false philosophies, and deceit. He was very concerned that the Colossians had the right understanding of faith. What they believed mattered and he wanted to make sure they believed in Jesus Christ as Lord “as you were taught.” Paul recognized that false teachings lead away from Christ and undermine what it means to live for Him. Plus, if you no longer have faith in Christ as the Lord, Son of God, Messiah, then you no longer obey. Why would you? It’s easy to move from Christ as Lord to you as Lord.
What we believe matters. If that is undermined, if we allow false teachings to find a place in our lives, it is reflect in how we live. We don’t live for Him; we live for ourselves.
What we believe directly affects what we do.
If we believe in Christ as Lord and that we are His, we do what He tells us to do. We obey. We are planted in the soil of obedience.
Consider for a moment where that has led you. Consider what has happened when you sought to obey. I bet you grew. I bet it wasn’t easy. I bet you look back and are glad you did obey.
When we obey, we grow. (Growth doesn’t mean easy or only good feelings. Growth is often very hard.) When we obey, God puts us in places and with people where growth happens. It’s important to remember that this obedience in not simply into church or with Christians. The soil of obedience will take us into the lives of those in need, we’ll be challenged, we’ll have to trust in God’s help, we’ll be uncomfortable, and we even may experience rejection and persecution. But we’ll grow.
Live your life in Him, it says in Colossians. Rooted and built up in the faith. Abounding in thanksgiving. When we put ourselves in the soil of obedience, our foundation (roots) will grow and deepen. Our character, person will develop (be built up). We won’t remain the same. And proof that this growth is taking place will be the experience of abounding in thanksgiving.
A couple obedience questions:
1. Are you in God’s Word? This is the soil of obedience.
2. Are you encouraging others to grow in faith? This is the soil of obedience.
3. Are you giving your time and money to Him for His work? This is the soil of obedience.
4. Are you taking time to pray and listen to God? This is the soil of obedience.
5. Are you offering Him your job/career/future? This is the soil of obedience.
6. Are you abounding in thanksgiving? This is a sign you are in the soil of obedience.
7. Are you making decisions dependent on His direction? This is the soil of obedience.
8. Are you reaching out to those in need around you? This is the soil of obedience.
And on and on the list goes.
Obedience leads to growth. Obedience reflects what you believe.
If you look at how you live (what’s important, priorities, focus, use of time and money), what do you believe?
Are you growing? Apart from obedience, growth is stunted and even at times non-existent.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Complete Book of Discipleship - Hull
The following are excerpts from my readings over the sabbatical. The following excerpts come from Bill Hull’s book, The Complete Book of Discipleship. I hope these help you as you consider what it means to follow Jesus.
We don’t just amble our way into discipleship. We make a conscious decision to live by faith. We agree to join others who’ve committed to follow Jesus rather than try to lead Jesus. We fundamentally give up the right to run our own life. In other words, you can follow your heart, your dreams, your gifts, your personality profile, and seek the right fit. But all that’s inferior to following Jesus.
(119)
Saying no to self in order to say yes to God. The only righteous role of self-denial is to eliminate any obstacle that blocks saying yes to God. When my will conflicts with his will, self-denial makes following his will possible. Jesus wants me to deny myself the right to be in charge of my own life.
(121-122)
First we choose the life. We set aside any competing priorities and follow Jesus. Then he reveals our mission en route.
When we wait at the entrance to the path of obedience for full instructions before we start walking, we can never find our mission. That knowledge is found only en route.
By accepting non-discipleship Christianity, many people don’t have a mission. So they sit in the pew and wait. All those missions never completed – what a tragic loss to people’s lives, and how much poorer it has left the church and the society we live in.
(124-125)
Accompanying Mother Teresa, as we did, to these different activities
for the purpose of filming them – to the Home for the Dying, to the
lepers and the unwanted children, I found I went through three phases.
The first was the horror mixed with pity; the second, compassion, pure
and simple; and the third, reaching far beyond compassion, something
I had never experienced before – an awareness of these dying, and
derelict men and women, these lepers with stumps instead of hands,
these unwanted children, were not pitiable, repulsive or forlorn, but
rather dear and delightful; as it might be, friends of long standing,
brothers and sisters. How is it to be explained – the very heart and
mystery of the Christian faith? To soothe those battered old heads,
to grasp those poor stumps, to take in one’s arms those children
consigned to dust bins, because it is His head, as they are His stumps
and His children, of whom He said whosoever received one such
child in His name received me.
Malcolm Muggeridge (132-133)
I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are
turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into
something a little different from what it was before. And taking
your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your
life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a
Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature
that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with
itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with
God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one
kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and
knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at
each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C. S. Lewis (138)
Training, not trying: I think we should outlaw “trying.” Trying occurs when disciples try to reach a goal without the proper tools. Training, however, means that we commit to rearrange our lives around the practices of Jesus. We don’t try to practice spiritual disciplines: fasting, silence, solitude, chastity, sacrifice, study, and so forth. Instead, because Jesus practiced them, we train in spiritual disciplines. We’ve answered the call to follow him and to learn from him, so we want to live our life the way Jesus lived his. And over time, through a patient process, we allow the positive effects of discipline to change us.
(143)
. . . you can’t give yourself as a sacrifice and at the same time manage your image.
(144)
. . . Jesus led with weakness, failure, and rejection. He moved straight into everything that the human spirit naturally abhors. An attitude of willingness is the rite of passage to ministering as Jesus ministered, to following in his footsteps, to giving ourselves for others. As an associate of Mother Teresa once commented, “She is free to be nothing; therefore, God can use her for anything.”
(146)
Trust is key, because we only take in the truth we trust. And that trust has to do with the messenger as much as the message. When you trust someone to the point you become vulnerable, you’re giving that person permission to speak into your life. This is where transformation traction takes place.
(156)
Just as humility is Jesus’ primary character trait, it should be the foundation we build on as we seek to follow him and be formed into his image. Think of it this way: without humility, there’s no submission; without submission, relationships of trust can’t exist; without relationships of trust, we won’t make ourselves vulnerable; without vulnerability, no one can influence us; and without influence, we won’t change.
Submission means saying, “I choose to let others love me.”
(158-159)
In fact, the most pressing need in most local congregations is that we own the truth that all of us are ministers. It seems that most Christians believe they’re consumers. They see their faith and life in the community of their congregation as a way to receive benefits from Christ, a way to set some sore of “get into heaven” card that salvation provides. This leads to acceptance of non-discipleship Christianity.
(172)
Eugene Peterson put it bluntly when asked if the church can reform:
Hasn’t happened. I’m for always reforming, but to think that we can
get a church reformed is just silliness . . . We have a goal. We have a
mission. We’re going to save the world. We’re going to evangelize
everybody, and we’re going to do all this stuff and fill our churches.
This is wonderful. All the goals are right. But this is slow, slow
work; this is soul work, this bringing people into a life of obedience
and love and joy before God. And we get impatient and start
taking shortcuts and use any means available. We talk about
benefits. We manipulate people. We bully them. We use
language that is just incredibly impersonal – bullying language,
manipulative language.
(173)
The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual
inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good
intentions. God asks for the heart because he needs lives. It
is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in
concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity
of the human heart. Man’s power of action is less vague than
his power of intention. And an action has intrinsic meaning;
its value to the world is independent of what it means to the
person performing it. The giving of good to the helpless
child is meaningful regardless of whether or not the moral
intention is present. God asks for the heart, and we must
spell our answer in terms of deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (181)
We make a conscious decision to live by . . . (Jesus’) pattern of life: a life of submission, sacrifice, and obedience, built on a foundation of humility.
This part of the process both marks the starting line and represents the essence of discipleship. We make following Jesus our life’s goal and intent. Faith is following and following is faith. The first action requires creating time and space to train. We don’t try to become like Jesus; instead we make a commitment to train to become the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus would do.
Mission refers to God’s mystery that you only find yourself when you lose yourself in serving others. . . Perhaps the greatest sacrifice is giving up the right to run our own lives, putting to death the dream of creating our agenda and of being in control.
(191-192)
We don’t just amble our way into discipleship. We make a conscious decision to live by faith. We agree to join others who’ve committed to follow Jesus rather than try to lead Jesus. We fundamentally give up the right to run our own life. In other words, you can follow your heart, your dreams, your gifts, your personality profile, and seek the right fit. But all that’s inferior to following Jesus.
(119)
Saying no to self in order to say yes to God. The only righteous role of self-denial is to eliminate any obstacle that blocks saying yes to God. When my will conflicts with his will, self-denial makes following his will possible. Jesus wants me to deny myself the right to be in charge of my own life.
(121-122)
First we choose the life. We set aside any competing priorities and follow Jesus. Then he reveals our mission en route.
When we wait at the entrance to the path of obedience for full instructions before we start walking, we can never find our mission. That knowledge is found only en route.
By accepting non-discipleship Christianity, many people don’t have a mission. So they sit in the pew and wait. All those missions never completed – what a tragic loss to people’s lives, and how much poorer it has left the church and the society we live in.
(124-125)
Accompanying Mother Teresa, as we did, to these different activities
for the purpose of filming them – to the Home for the Dying, to the
lepers and the unwanted children, I found I went through three phases.
The first was the horror mixed with pity; the second, compassion, pure
and simple; and the third, reaching far beyond compassion, something
I had never experienced before – an awareness of these dying, and
derelict men and women, these lepers with stumps instead of hands,
these unwanted children, were not pitiable, repulsive or forlorn, but
rather dear and delightful; as it might be, friends of long standing,
brothers and sisters. How is it to be explained – the very heart and
mystery of the Christian faith? To soothe those battered old heads,
to grasp those poor stumps, to take in one’s arms those children
consigned to dust bins, because it is His head, as they are His stumps
and His children, of whom He said whosoever received one such
child in His name received me.
Malcolm Muggeridge (132-133)
I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are
turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into
something a little different from what it was before. And taking
your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your
life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a
Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature
that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with
itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with
God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one
kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and
knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror,
idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at
each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.
C. S. Lewis (138)
Training, not trying: I think we should outlaw “trying.” Trying occurs when disciples try to reach a goal without the proper tools. Training, however, means that we commit to rearrange our lives around the practices of Jesus. We don’t try to practice spiritual disciplines: fasting, silence, solitude, chastity, sacrifice, study, and so forth. Instead, because Jesus practiced them, we train in spiritual disciplines. We’ve answered the call to follow him and to learn from him, so we want to live our life the way Jesus lived his. And over time, through a patient process, we allow the positive effects of discipline to change us.
(143)
. . . you can’t give yourself as a sacrifice and at the same time manage your image.
(144)
. . . Jesus led with weakness, failure, and rejection. He moved straight into everything that the human spirit naturally abhors. An attitude of willingness is the rite of passage to ministering as Jesus ministered, to following in his footsteps, to giving ourselves for others. As an associate of Mother Teresa once commented, “She is free to be nothing; therefore, God can use her for anything.”
(146)
Trust is key, because we only take in the truth we trust. And that trust has to do with the messenger as much as the message. When you trust someone to the point you become vulnerable, you’re giving that person permission to speak into your life. This is where transformation traction takes place.
(156)
Just as humility is Jesus’ primary character trait, it should be the foundation we build on as we seek to follow him and be formed into his image. Think of it this way: without humility, there’s no submission; without submission, relationships of trust can’t exist; without relationships of trust, we won’t make ourselves vulnerable; without vulnerability, no one can influence us; and without influence, we won’t change.
Submission means saying, “I choose to let others love me.”
(158-159)
In fact, the most pressing need in most local congregations is that we own the truth that all of us are ministers. It seems that most Christians believe they’re consumers. They see their faith and life in the community of their congregation as a way to receive benefits from Christ, a way to set some sore of “get into heaven” card that salvation provides. This leads to acceptance of non-discipleship Christianity.
(172)
Eugene Peterson put it bluntly when asked if the church can reform:
Hasn’t happened. I’m for always reforming, but to think that we can
get a church reformed is just silliness . . . We have a goal. We have a
mission. We’re going to save the world. We’re going to evangelize
everybody, and we’re going to do all this stuff and fill our churches.
This is wonderful. All the goals are right. But this is slow, slow
work; this is soul work, this bringing people into a life of obedience
and love and joy before God. And we get impatient and start
taking shortcuts and use any means available. We talk about
benefits. We manipulate people. We bully them. We use
language that is just incredibly impersonal – bullying language,
manipulative language.
(173)
The world needs more than the secret holiness of individual
inwardness. It needs more than sacred sentiments and good
intentions. God asks for the heart because he needs lives. It
is by lives that the world will be redeemed, by lives that beat in
concordance with God, by deeds that outbeat the finite charity
of the human heart. Man’s power of action is less vague than
his power of intention. And an action has intrinsic meaning;
its value to the world is independent of what it means to the
person performing it. The giving of good to the helpless
child is meaningful regardless of whether or not the moral
intention is present. God asks for the heart, and we must
spell our answer in terms of deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (181)
We make a conscious decision to live by . . . (Jesus’) pattern of life: a life of submission, sacrifice, and obedience, built on a foundation of humility.
This part of the process both marks the starting line and represents the essence of discipleship. We make following Jesus our life’s goal and intent. Faith is following and following is faith. The first action requires creating time and space to train. We don’t try to become like Jesus; instead we make a commitment to train to become the kind of person who naturally does what Jesus would do.
Mission refers to God’s mystery that you only find yourself when you lose yourself in serving others. . . Perhaps the greatest sacrifice is giving up the right to run our own lives, putting to death the dream of creating our agenda and of being in control.
(191-192)
The Gift of Being Yourself - part 2
The following are excerpts from my readings over the sabbatical. They address the need we have to know ourselves. This may sound like a pursuit of self-absorption. Read on and see what you think. These excerpts come from David Benner’s book, The Gift of Being Yourself.
Focusing on sins leads to what Dallas Willard describes as the gospel of sin management – a resolve to avoid sin and strategies to deal with guilt when this inevitably proves unsuccessful. But Christian spiritual transformation is much more radical than sin avoidance.
(65)
Discovering our core sin tendencies is helpful because it lets us deal with our problems at their root. But even more than this, it is helpful because discovery of our core sin tendencies will inevitably fill us with such despair and hopelessness that we will have no option but to turn to God. Spiritual transformation does not result from fixing our problems. It results from turning to God in the midst of them and meeting God just as we are. Turning to God is the core of prayer. Turning to God in our sin and shame is the heart of spiritual transformation.
(67)
Everything that is false about us arises from the belief that our deepest happiness will come from living life our way, not God’s way.
(75)
Something else that we know from experience is how to hide and how to pretend. At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves. Initially it often takes the form of a simple lie – frequently a denial of having done something. But of more importance to the development of the false self is the discovery that our ability to hide isn’t limited to what we say or don’t say. We learn to pretend. We discover the art of repackaging our self.
In short, we learn how to present our self in the best possible light – a light designed to create a favorable impression and maintain our self-esteem.
While this might seem quite benign, the dark side of pretending is that what begins as a role becomes an identity. Initially the masks we adopt reflect how we want others to see us. Over time, however, they come to reflect how we want to see our self. But by this point we have thoroughly confused the mask and our actual experience. Our masks have become our reality, and we have become our lies. In short, we have lost authenticity and adopted an identity based on illusion. We have become a house of smoke and mirrors.
Nothing other than truth is strong enough to dispel illusion. And only the Spirit of Truth can save us from the consequence of having listened to the serpent rather than God.
(78-79)
The core of the lie that Adam and Eve believed was that they could be like God without God. But without God the most we can ever do is make ourselves into a god.
We are not God. We are not our own origin, nor are we our own
ultimate fulfillment. To claim to be so is a suicidal act that wounds
our faith relationship with the living God and replaces it with a
futile faith in a self that can never exist.
. . . what we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the lie. It is a lie because the autonomy that it promises is an illusion. We do not become free of God by a disregard of Divine will. Instead, by such disregard we forge the chains of our bondage.
What we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the false self.
The false self is the tragic result of trying to steal something from God that we did not have to steal. Had we dared to trust God’s goodness, we would have discovered that everything we could ever most deeply long for would be ours in God. Trying to gain more than the everything God offers, we end up with less than nothing. Rejecting God, we end up with a nest of lies and illusions. Displacing God, we become a god unto our self. We become a false self.
(79-80)
Basing identity on an illusion has profound consequences. Sensing its fundamental unreality, the false self wraps itself in experience – experiences of power, pleasure and honor. Intuiting that it is but a shadow, it seeks to convince itself of its reality by equating itself with what it does and achieves. Basil Pennington suggests that the core of the false self is the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do and what others think of me.
Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments. Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being, the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring. One person might cling to his possessions, accomplishments or space. Another may cling to her dreams, memories or friendships. Any of these things can be either a blessing or a curse. They are a blessing when they are held in open hands of gratitude. They become a curse when they are grasped in clenched fists of entitlement and viewed as “me” or “mine.”
(81)
We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.
Ultimately, attachments are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame and inadequacy that lie at the core of our false ways of being. Like Adam and Eve, our first response to our awareness of nakedness is to grab whatever is closest and quickly cover our nakedness. We hide behind the fig leaves of our false self. This is the way we package our self to escape painful awareness of our nakedness.
The problem with the false self is that it works. It helps us forget that we are naked. Before long, we are no longer aware of the underlying vulnerability and become comfortable once again.
But God wants something better than fig leaves for us. God wants us to be aware of our helplessness so we can know that we need Divine help. God’s deepest desire for us is to replace our fig leaves with garments of durability and beauty (Genesis 3:21). Yet we cling to our fig-leaf false self. We believe that we know how to take care of our needs better than God.
(82-83)
Touchiness dependably points us to false ways of being. And the more prickly a person you are, the more you are investing in the defense of a false self.
The things that bother us the most about others – our pet peeves – also point toward falsity in our own self.
(83-84)
Every moment of every day of our life God wanders in our inner garden, seeking our companionship. The reason God can’t find us is that we are hiding in the bushes of our false self.
Having first created a self in the image of our own making, we then set out to create the sort of god who might in fact create us. Such is the perversity of the false self.
Coming out of hiding is accepting God on God’s own terms. Doing so is the only route to truly being our unique self-in-Christ.
(88-89)
The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming. It is not something you need to construct through a process of self-improvement or deconstruct by means of psychological analysis. It is not an object to be grasped. Nor is it an archetype to be actualized. It is not even some inner, hidden part of you. Rather, it is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are – the unique face of God that has been set aside from eternity for you.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.
(91)
Jesus did not merely accept the identity that others offered him. Had he done so he would have, like us, been pulled in many different directions.
But he did not look to the expectations of others to understand who he was. Instead he looked to his relationship with God.
Jesus gave glory to God by being himself – deeply, truly, consistently. Thomas Merton says that “to be a saint means to be myself.” Sanctity is finding our hidden and true self in Christ and living out the life that flows from this self in surrender to the loving will and presence of our heavenly Father.
(95)
The way of the true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.
(98)
Too often we think of God’s call (or our vocation) solely in terms of what we do. People speak of being called to the ministry or feeling called to work in healthcare or teaching. However, while doing will always be involved, vocation is much more than our occupation. It is the face of Christ we are called from eternity to show to the world. It is who we are called to be.
(101)
The self is not God. But it is the place where we meet God. There can be no genuine spiritual transformation if we seek some external meeting place. God’s intended home is our heart, and it is meeting God in our depths that transform us from the inside out.
In Christian spiritual transformation, the self that embarks on the journey is not the self that arrives. The self that begins the spiritual journey is the self of our own creation, the self we thought ourselves to be. This is the self that dies on the journey. The self that arrives is the self that was loved into existence by Divine love. This is the person we were destined from eternity to become – the I that is hidden in the “I AM.”
(103)
Focusing on sins leads to what Dallas Willard describes as the gospel of sin management – a resolve to avoid sin and strategies to deal with guilt when this inevitably proves unsuccessful. But Christian spiritual transformation is much more radical than sin avoidance.
(65)
Discovering our core sin tendencies is helpful because it lets us deal with our problems at their root. But even more than this, it is helpful because discovery of our core sin tendencies will inevitably fill us with such despair and hopelessness that we will have no option but to turn to God. Spiritual transformation does not result from fixing our problems. It results from turning to God in the midst of them and meeting God just as we are. Turning to God is the core of prayer. Turning to God in our sin and shame is the heart of spiritual transformation.
(67)
Everything that is false about us arises from the belief that our deepest happiness will come from living life our way, not God’s way.
(75)
Something else that we know from experience is how to hide and how to pretend. At some point in childhood we all make the powerful discovery that we can manipulate the truth about ourselves. Initially it often takes the form of a simple lie – frequently a denial of having done something. But of more importance to the development of the false self is the discovery that our ability to hide isn’t limited to what we say or don’t say. We learn to pretend. We discover the art of repackaging our self.
In short, we learn how to present our self in the best possible light – a light designed to create a favorable impression and maintain our self-esteem.
While this might seem quite benign, the dark side of pretending is that what begins as a role becomes an identity. Initially the masks we adopt reflect how we want others to see us. Over time, however, they come to reflect how we want to see our self. But by this point we have thoroughly confused the mask and our actual experience. Our masks have become our reality, and we have become our lies. In short, we have lost authenticity and adopted an identity based on illusion. We have become a house of smoke and mirrors.
Nothing other than truth is strong enough to dispel illusion. And only the Spirit of Truth can save us from the consequence of having listened to the serpent rather than God.
(78-79)
The core of the lie that Adam and Eve believed was that they could be like God without God. But without God the most we can ever do is make ourselves into a god.
We are not God. We are not our own origin, nor are we our own
ultimate fulfillment. To claim to be so is a suicidal act that wounds
our faith relationship with the living God and replaces it with a
futile faith in a self that can never exist.
. . . what we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the lie. It is a lie because the autonomy that it promises is an illusion. We do not become free of God by a disregard of Divine will. Instead, by such disregard we forge the chains of our bondage.
What we get when we choose a way of being that is separate from God is the life of the false self.
The false self is the tragic result of trying to steal something from God that we did not have to steal. Had we dared to trust God’s goodness, we would have discovered that everything we could ever most deeply long for would be ours in God. Trying to gain more than the everything God offers, we end up with less than nothing. Rejecting God, we end up with a nest of lies and illusions. Displacing God, we become a god unto our self. We become a false self.
(79-80)
Basing identity on an illusion has profound consequences. Sensing its fundamental unreality, the false self wraps itself in experience – experiences of power, pleasure and honor. Intuiting that it is but a shadow, it seeks to convince itself of its reality by equating itself with what it does and achieves. Basil Pennington suggests that the core of the false self is the belief that my value depends on what I have, what I can do and what others think of me.
Because it is hollow at the core, the life of a false self is a life of excessive attachments. Seeking to avoid implosion and non-being, the false self grasps for anything that appears to have substance and then clings to these things with the tenacity of a drowning man clutching a life ring. One person might cling to his possessions, accomplishments or space. Another may cling to her dreams, memories or friendships. Any of these things can be either a blessing or a curse. They are a blessing when they are held in open hands of gratitude. They become a curse when they are grasped in clenched fists of entitlement and viewed as “me” or “mine.”
(81)
We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.
Ultimately, attachments are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame and inadequacy that lie at the core of our false ways of being. Like Adam and Eve, our first response to our awareness of nakedness is to grab whatever is closest and quickly cover our nakedness. We hide behind the fig leaves of our false self. This is the way we package our self to escape painful awareness of our nakedness.
The problem with the false self is that it works. It helps us forget that we are naked. Before long, we are no longer aware of the underlying vulnerability and become comfortable once again.
But God wants something better than fig leaves for us. God wants us to be aware of our helplessness so we can know that we need Divine help. God’s deepest desire for us is to replace our fig leaves with garments of durability and beauty (Genesis 3:21). Yet we cling to our fig-leaf false self. We believe that we know how to take care of our needs better than God.
(82-83)
Touchiness dependably points us to false ways of being. And the more prickly a person you are, the more you are investing in the defense of a false self.
The things that bother us the most about others – our pet peeves – also point toward falsity in our own self.
(83-84)
Every moment of every day of our life God wanders in our inner garden, seeking our companionship. The reason God can’t find us is that we are hiding in the bushes of our false self.
Having first created a self in the image of our own making, we then set out to create the sort of god who might in fact create us. Such is the perversity of the false self.
Coming out of hiding is accepting God on God’s own terms. Doing so is the only route to truly being our unique self-in-Christ.
(88-89)
The true self is who, in reality, you are and who you are becoming. It is not something you need to construct through a process of self-improvement or deconstruct by means of psychological analysis. It is not an object to be grasped. Nor is it an archetype to be actualized. It is not even some inner, hidden part of you. Rather, it is your total self as you were created by God and as you are being redeemed in Christ. It is the image of God that you are – the unique face of God that has been set aside from eternity for you.
We do not find our true self by seeking it. Rather, we find it by seeking God.
(91)
Jesus did not merely accept the identity that others offered him. Had he done so he would have, like us, been pulled in many different directions.
But he did not look to the expectations of others to understand who he was. Instead he looked to his relationship with God.
Jesus gave glory to God by being himself – deeply, truly, consistently. Thomas Merton says that “to be a saint means to be myself.” Sanctity is finding our hidden and true self in Christ and living out the life that flows from this self in surrender to the loving will and presence of our heavenly Father.
(95)
The way of the true self is always the way of humility. Pride and arrogance move us toward our false self, but humility and love allow us to live the truth of our being.
(98)
Too often we think of God’s call (or our vocation) solely in terms of what we do. People speak of being called to the ministry or feeling called to work in healthcare or teaching. However, while doing will always be involved, vocation is much more than our occupation. It is the face of Christ we are called from eternity to show to the world. It is who we are called to be.
(101)
The self is not God. But it is the place where we meet God. There can be no genuine spiritual transformation if we seek some external meeting place. God’s intended home is our heart, and it is meeting God in our depths that transform us from the inside out.
In Christian spiritual transformation, the self that embarks on the journey is not the self that arrives. The self that begins the spiritual journey is the self of our own creation, the self we thought ourselves to be. This is the self that dies on the journey. The self that arrives is the self that was loved into existence by Divine love. This is the person we were destined from eternity to become – the I that is hidden in the “I AM.”
(103)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Way We Pray - Skitguys.com
I've found a new video site worth checking out. It's skitguys.com. If you've seen Napoleon Dynamite, you'll appreciate this video. Even if you haven't, you still may enjoy this entertaining look at how we pray. It's called The Way We Pray.
The Gift of Being Yourself - Benner
The following are excerpts from my readings over the sabbatical. They address the need we have to know ourselves. This may sound like a pursuit of self-absorption. Read on and see what you think. These excerpts come from David Benner’s book, The Gift of Being Yourself.
It is a profound irony to write a book promoting self-discovery to people who are seeking to follow a self-sacrificing Christ. It might well make you fear that I have forgotten – or worse, failed to take seriously – Jesus paradoxical teaching that it is in losing our self that we truly find it (Matthew 10:39). As you read on I think you will see that I have done neither.
(13)
The goal of the spiritual journey is the transformation of self. As we shall see, this requires both knowing our self and God.
. . . identity is a challenge only for humans. A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of being. Nor does it face complicated decisions in the process of becoming. So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons and all other things. All give glory to God by being exactly what they are. . . Humans, however, encounter a more challenging existence. We think. We consider options. We decide. We act. We doubt. Simple being is tremendously difficult to achieve and fully authentic being is extremely rare.
Our true self-in-Christ is the only self that will support authenticity. It and it alone provides an identity that is eternal.
(14-15)
We should never be tempted to think that growth in Christ-likeness reduces our uniqueness . . . Paradoxically, as we become more and more like Christ we become more uniquely our own true self.
Identity is never simply a creation. It is always a discovery. True identity is always a gift of God.
(16)
“There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.”
John Calvin (20)
“A humble self-knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning.”
Thomas a Kempis (20)
Self-knowledge that is pursued apart from knowing our identity in relationship to God easily leads to self-inflation. . . Unless we spend as much time looking at God as we spend looking at our self, our knowing of our self will simply draw us further and further into an abyss of self-fixation.
(23)
Though we glibly talk about a personal relationship with God, many of us know God less well than we know our casual acquaintances. Too easily we have settled for knowing about God. Too easily our relationship with God is remarkably superficial. Is it any surprise, then, that we haven’t learned much about our self as a result of this encounter?
(31)
Many of the things we know about God we know objectively, accepting them as facts on the trusted testimony of Scriptures and the community of faith. These ground our more personal knowing, serving as an anchor in times of doubt and a frame of reference for making sense of our experience. This bedrock of beliefs will be elaborated by experience but never replaced by it. God’s intention is that we know Divine love by experiencing it. But even when our Divine Lover seems distant, we can hold confident to the hope of the steadfast nature of God’s love because of the testimony of Scriptures and the witness of others.
Transformational knowing of God comes from an intimate, personal knowing of Divine love. Because God is love, God can only be known through love. To know God is to love God, and to love God is to know God (I John 4:7-8). The Christian God is known only in devotion, not objective detachment.
(34-35)
What God longs for us to experience is intimate knowing that comes by means of an ongoing relationship.
(36)
What God wants is simply our presence, even if it feels like a waste of potentially productive time. That is what friends do together – they waste time with each other. Simply being together is enough without expecting to “get something” from the interaction. It should be no different with God.
(40)
Richard Rohr reminds us that “we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” This is the core of the spiritual journey – learning to discern the presence of God, to see what really is.
(42)
Genuine self-knowledge begins by looking at God and noticing how God is looking at us.
Divine love is absolutely unconditional, unlimited, and unimaginably extravagant.
In order for our knowing of God’s love to be truly transformational, it must become the basis of our identity. Our identity is who we experience ourselves to be – the I each of us carries within. An identity grounded in God would mean that when we think of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God.
Coming to know and trust God’s love is a lifelong process. Making this knowledge the foundation of our identity – or better, allowing our identity to be re-formed around this most basic fact of our existence – will also never happen instantly. Both lie at the core of the spiritual transformation that is the intended outcome of Christ-following.
Every time I dare to meet God in the vulnerability of my sin and shame, this knowing is strengthened. Every time I fall back into a self-improvement mode and try to bring God my best self, it is weakened. I only know Divine unconditional radical and reckless love for me when I dare to approach God just as I am. The more I have the courage to meet God in this place of weakness, the more I will know myself to be truly and deeply loved by God.
The God who is Divine love is known only in human community. Deep knowing of perfect love, just like deep knowing of ourselves, demands that we be in relationships of spiritual friendship. No one should ever expect to make the journey alone. And the knowing of self and God described in these pages depends on being accompanied by others on our journey into the heart of God.
(49-52)
Genuinely transformational knowing of self always involves encountering and embracing previously unwelcomed parts of self.
(52)
Self-acceptance and self-knowing are deeply interconnected. To truly know something about yourself, you must accept it. Even things about yourself that you most deeply want to change must first be accepted – even embraced. Self-transformation is always preceded by self-acceptance. And the self that you must accept is the self that you actually truly are – before you start self-improvement projects!
Until we are willing to accept the unpleasant truths of our existence, we rationalize or deny responsibility for our behavior.
If God loves and accepts you as a sinner, how can you do less? You can never be other than who you are until you are willing to embrace the reality of who you are. Only then can you truly become who you are most deeply called to be.
(56-57)
Crucifixion should be directed toward our sin nature. And we must first accept it as our nature, not simply human nature.
(58)
Prayer is meeting God in the darkness and solitude of that secret place. Nothing less than such an encounter with God in the depths of our soul will provide access to the deep knowing of both God and self that is our true home.
What makes this encounter possible is looking at God looking back at us.
(59-60)
Most of us are quite willing to embrace reality when it fits with how we see ourselves and the world, and when it is not overly unpleasant. However, when our life experiences confront us with things about ourselves that we are unwilling to accept, we call on psychological defense mechanisms to help maintain a sense of safety and stability. While these unconscious strategies help with short-term coping, they block long-term growth. This is because they distort reality. Ultimately, their function is to protect us from unpleasant truth.
The human capacity for self-deception is astounding. (Jeremiah 17:9)
(62)
To see God as God is – not as who we want God to be – requires that we see our self as we actually are. For the same cloud of illusions obscures our view of both God and ourselves.
(63)
Some Christians base their identity on being a sinner. I think they have it wrong – or only half right. You are not simply a sinner; you are a deeply loved sinner. And there is all the difference in the world between the two.
(64)
It is a profound irony to write a book promoting self-discovery to people who are seeking to follow a self-sacrificing Christ. It might well make you fear that I have forgotten – or worse, failed to take seriously – Jesus paradoxical teaching that it is in losing our self that we truly find it (Matthew 10:39). As you read on I think you will see that I have done neither.
(13)
The goal of the spiritual journey is the transformation of self. As we shall see, this requires both knowing our self and God.
. . . identity is a challenge only for humans. A tulip knows exactly what it is. It is never tempted by false ways of being. Nor does it face complicated decisions in the process of becoming. So it is with dogs, rocks, trees, stars, amoebas, electrons and all other things. All give glory to God by being exactly what they are. . . Humans, however, encounter a more challenging existence. We think. We consider options. We decide. We act. We doubt. Simple being is tremendously difficult to achieve and fully authentic being is extremely rare.
Our true self-in-Christ is the only self that will support authenticity. It and it alone provides an identity that is eternal.
(14-15)
We should never be tempted to think that growth in Christ-likeness reduces our uniqueness . . . Paradoxically, as we become more and more like Christ we become more uniquely our own true self.
Identity is never simply a creation. It is always a discovery. True identity is always a gift of God.
(16)
“There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.”
John Calvin (20)
“A humble self-knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning.”
Thomas a Kempis (20)
Self-knowledge that is pursued apart from knowing our identity in relationship to God easily leads to self-inflation. . . Unless we spend as much time looking at God as we spend looking at our self, our knowing of our self will simply draw us further and further into an abyss of self-fixation.
(23)
Though we glibly talk about a personal relationship with God, many of us know God less well than we know our casual acquaintances. Too easily we have settled for knowing about God. Too easily our relationship with God is remarkably superficial. Is it any surprise, then, that we haven’t learned much about our self as a result of this encounter?
(31)
Many of the things we know about God we know objectively, accepting them as facts on the trusted testimony of Scriptures and the community of faith. These ground our more personal knowing, serving as an anchor in times of doubt and a frame of reference for making sense of our experience. This bedrock of beliefs will be elaborated by experience but never replaced by it. God’s intention is that we know Divine love by experiencing it. But even when our Divine Lover seems distant, we can hold confident to the hope of the steadfast nature of God’s love because of the testimony of Scriptures and the witness of others.
Transformational knowing of God comes from an intimate, personal knowing of Divine love. Because God is love, God can only be known through love. To know God is to love God, and to love God is to know God (I John 4:7-8). The Christian God is known only in devotion, not objective detachment.
(34-35)
What God longs for us to experience is intimate knowing that comes by means of an ongoing relationship.
(36)
What God wants is simply our presence, even if it feels like a waste of potentially productive time. That is what friends do together – they waste time with each other. Simply being together is enough without expecting to “get something” from the interaction. It should be no different with God.
(40)
Richard Rohr reminds us that “we cannot attain the presence of God. We’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.” This is the core of the spiritual journey – learning to discern the presence of God, to see what really is.
(42)
Genuine self-knowledge begins by looking at God and noticing how God is looking at us.
Divine love is absolutely unconditional, unlimited, and unimaginably extravagant.
In order for our knowing of God’s love to be truly transformational, it must become the basis of our identity. Our identity is who we experience ourselves to be – the I each of us carries within. An identity grounded in God would mean that when we think of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God.
Coming to know and trust God’s love is a lifelong process. Making this knowledge the foundation of our identity – or better, allowing our identity to be re-formed around this most basic fact of our existence – will also never happen instantly. Both lie at the core of the spiritual transformation that is the intended outcome of Christ-following.
Every time I dare to meet God in the vulnerability of my sin and shame, this knowing is strengthened. Every time I fall back into a self-improvement mode and try to bring God my best self, it is weakened. I only know Divine unconditional radical and reckless love for me when I dare to approach God just as I am. The more I have the courage to meet God in this place of weakness, the more I will know myself to be truly and deeply loved by God.
The God who is Divine love is known only in human community. Deep knowing of perfect love, just like deep knowing of ourselves, demands that we be in relationships of spiritual friendship. No one should ever expect to make the journey alone. And the knowing of self and God described in these pages depends on being accompanied by others on our journey into the heart of God.
(49-52)
Genuinely transformational knowing of self always involves encountering and embracing previously unwelcomed parts of self.
(52)
Self-acceptance and self-knowing are deeply interconnected. To truly know something about yourself, you must accept it. Even things about yourself that you most deeply want to change must first be accepted – even embraced. Self-transformation is always preceded by self-acceptance. And the self that you must accept is the self that you actually truly are – before you start self-improvement projects!
Until we are willing to accept the unpleasant truths of our existence, we rationalize or deny responsibility for our behavior.
If God loves and accepts you as a sinner, how can you do less? You can never be other than who you are until you are willing to embrace the reality of who you are. Only then can you truly become who you are most deeply called to be.
(56-57)
Crucifixion should be directed toward our sin nature. And we must first accept it as our nature, not simply human nature.
(58)
Prayer is meeting God in the darkness and solitude of that secret place. Nothing less than such an encounter with God in the depths of our soul will provide access to the deep knowing of both God and self that is our true home.
What makes this encounter possible is looking at God looking back at us.
(59-60)
Most of us are quite willing to embrace reality when it fits with how we see ourselves and the world, and when it is not overly unpleasant. However, when our life experiences confront us with things about ourselves that we are unwilling to accept, we call on psychological defense mechanisms to help maintain a sense of safety and stability. While these unconscious strategies help with short-term coping, they block long-term growth. This is because they distort reality. Ultimately, their function is to protect us from unpleasant truth.
The human capacity for self-deception is astounding. (Jeremiah 17:9)
(62)
To see God as God is – not as who we want God to be – requires that we see our self as we actually are. For the same cloud of illusions obscures our view of both God and ourselves.
(63)
Some Christians base their identity on being a sinner. I think they have it wrong – or only half right. You are not simply a sinner; you are a deeply loved sinner. And there is all the difference in the world between the two.
(64)
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Be a Hope-Bringer
Here’s one of the questions I am really wrestling with: How do I care for the least of these? I believe God defines this group broadly. It would include physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. These needs are all around us if we are willing to enter into people’s lives. I get that and still have a long ways to go in living into that, but where I am specifically struggling has to do with the physical needs question.
I look around my life here in Charlevoix, MI, and don’t see a whole lot of physical needs. We have our share of food pantries and resale shops. There are definitely people struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol. And there are some that are definitely struggling paying their bills. But there is a difference between physical needs here and the physical needs there - there being in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and in some locations in Central and South America and Asia.
I went to Kenya and experienced some things I will never forget.
I saw kids living on the streets – no Moms or Dads - kids as young as my son. He’s 5.
I had a young girl offer me her baby. She wanted me to take it.
I had a young man ask me to take him off the street. He’d been there over 8 years.
I walked through a couple slums and saw kids playing in the filth and stench.
I heard Sabina’s story – a young girl who was gang-raped and became pregnant.
I heard Cindy’s story – a mother of two who chose to give her boys to an orphanage because she was dying of AIDS.
I encountered suffering. I saw things that didn’t make sense at all. Where is God? How could he possibly allow these horrific things to take place? I was emotionally and spiritually overwhelmed and some of that continues. I haven’t been completely dulled and numbed by being home – away from this. But some numbing and dulling has taken place. It makes it easier, but I definitely don’t think it’s better.
We just can’t ignore these needs and call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. We just can’t.
God hasn’t called you or me to fix these problems. We can’t. But he does call us to be part of the solution. In fact, solution is the wrong word. It’s compassion. When we see the truth of what some people experience in this world, we can’t just turn away. It’s like the Levite and the priest who saw the man alongside the road and passed by. We can’t pass by.
“Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Bob Pierce
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges. Read that sentence again and this time read it through the lens of your Biblical knowledge. Remember the stories of men and women who acted on God’s behalf. Think Moses, Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Peter, etc.
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges.
Too often, we do.
“What can I do about the AIDS pandemic?” “How can I help the orphans who are thousands of miles away from me?” “What can I possibly do about injustice?” “I don’t know how to help people still in slavery around this world.”
Those are outstanding questions. They are worth asking. But where we get paralyzed is when we ask them on our own. We think we can actually answer each of these questions for ourselves. But we can’t. We don’t know. We may be tempted to send a check to some reputable organization that helps some of these people in need, but as much as that might calm our conscience for a while, it does not address these questions appropriately, because it continues to address them on our own. We do something. We feel better. We can go back to our normal lives. I did my act of charity – God is now happy with me – I get extra credit.
Here is what I’m learning. Only God can answer those questions for me. The problem is I haven’t been asking. The problem is I’ve gotten caught up on my life and my routine and my plans and my agendas and so I’ve stopped asking – I’ve stopped caring.
When we get so lost in ourselves, we lose perspective don’t we? All of a sudden the color of my car really matters. If my sports team isn’t doing well, I am emotionally affected. I find myself caring a ton what others think of me even though I don’t really respect them. I want what I want and I deserve it. Whoa. How did I get to this place? A place where selfishness reigns and I actually believe others exist to serve me? Sin. That’s what it is. That’s what keeps bringing me to this place. I am separated from God. I no longer rest in his arms. I live for me, by my power, with me as the focus of my worship. No wonder I don’t care about those who suffer. I don’t even think about them – there is no space to because I’m filled up with me.
You cannot serve two masters. You just can’t.
If sins reigns, it reigns in my perspective of others, God, and me. I see God as my holy Santa Claus, people as my servants, and me as the King. Now I know we have trouble thinking we’d ever say this out loud, but it is definitely how I sometimes live.
What could the poor people of the world who just want my money – what could they possibly do for me? They just want stuff from me. If my perspective is sin, I can see absolutely no reason how they fit into my plans. They are completely off my radar screen. I won’t even ask the questions above. Why would I? They have nothing to do with me. They just get in the way of my plans – keep me from fulfilling my wants.
Back to God’s true part in my life. When he’s king, I’m not. When he’s king, then I began to realize that life in his kingdom is very different than life in mine. If I look to him as king, then the questions above become priority and the questions above are looked at through the eyes of humility. I can’t answer them. I am not in control. It is not up to me to figure this out, because I know I can’t. If I really see people the way God does, then I will long for them to experience his love and I will remember that Jesus says that when we care for those in need, we see Jesus. No, that’s not a typo. Jesus is in disguise among the people in need. Poor people. Hungry people. Broken people. Oppressed people. Discarded people. Displaced people. Unwanted people. His people. He’s there. And boy do we need to find him. Boy do I need to find him.
It’s an interesting theological question. Jesus is everywhere, right? Jesus is always with us. But yet, in this interesting text in Matthew 25, we see Jesus say he is there among the hungry, sick, naked, prisoners in a unique yet real way. When we care for the least of these, we meet Jesus.
And what is maybe the most challenging part of this call is what it does for us. We need to care for the least of these because of what Jesus does when we meet him in this way. He transforms us.
When we sit in our comfortable homes, leading our comfortable lives, Jesus is definitely there with us. But because of our unwillingness to step into the messiness of this world, we are not transformed in the ways God desires to transform us but more than likely are being “conformed to the pattern of this world.” (Rom. 12:2)
Mother Teresa said something that just haunts me.
“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
The decisions I make to live the lifestyle I live leads to children dying? Is that really true? Because I choose to live the way I live and not give the way I’m called, children die? Isn’t that a little over the top? Is it?
Worth pondering for a moment. Worth even asking God if this is true. Worth not reading on and just ignoring what she said. Worth really engaging with God if it is true a child could live if I would give. Ask him.
If it was your child who was hungry or being abused or alone, what would you want people to do who had the power to do something? How would you feel if you knew that across the ocean lived a bunch of people, even those who claimed to follow the same Jesus as you do, who spend more on cosmetics and garbage bags than on helping brothers and sisters in Christ in need? Really, how would you feel?
We can do something. What we can’t do is nothing. Indifference is sin.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The worst sin towards fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King Jr.
When is the last time you asked God for help in knowing how to care for the least of these? Now before you start the progression of beating yourself up because you haven’t for a long time, pray now. Instead of letting a voice inside of your head that is not God’s take you down the path of guilt and shame, let God’s voice direct your path which is always toward hope – not only hope for you to live into this call, but hope for those who have begun to lose hope.
You can bring hope. And that is exactly the role God has called every single one of us to embrace – bringing hope. Being a hope bringer.
You see, when you come into the presence of God, he will change you. He doesn’t want acts of charity to alleviate guilt. That is self-centered. He wants hearts that so reflect his that compassion pours out when we see people – especially when we see people who suffer, who experience injustice, who have lost hope. As C.S. Lewis said, we are called to become little Christs – people who have been so influenced by our time with Him, that we speak, act, think, and love like him.
If we’re not seeing Jesus, we’re not becoming like him. We are not transformed by intellectual efforts, by having the right thoughts, or by living by our self-determined lists. We are transformed when we live in his presence. When we let him touch our lives, change our hearts, as we follow him. Then we’ll end up where we need to be and we’ll become who he longs for us to become.
As we bring hope, we find hope. As we see joy, we experience it. As we love, we are loved. As we give, we receive. It is the irony of the gospel. It is the way of Jesus.
It’s funny how much I want to tell you what to do. In fact, I actually see it as part of my own defense mechanism for not doing anything myself. At least I told you what to do. I’ll give some suggestions at the end, but I’m not telling you what to do. God will. Talk to him. Let him speak through the passions and experiences of your life. There are people in need who you have been designed to help. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where and when. I know he does. Let’s ask.
One thing I believe we all need to do is become more aware. We need to look for information and help in understanding the truths of what is taking place around the world and in our communities. We need to ask questions and pursue accurate information. And I hope more than anything else, it leads us to face-to-face encounters with people in need, so we can see Jesus and hear what he wants to tell us. And so he can break our hearts. Heart-breaking is good and necessary because our hearts have become calloused and hardened. Only Jesus can soften our heart, so we need to go where he does this work.
Go to www.who.int. (World Health Organization) Click on health topics – pick one that grabs your attention. Each of them has a statistics page. Read. Click on countries. Pick one that grabs your attention. Read. Then pray for this issue – pray for the people affected – pray for the people trying to help – listen to the Holy Spirit’s nudgings (or not). Is he asking you to do more here? Keep clicking. Keep asking. Keep praying.
Do a web search on an issue that peaks your interest. Instead of shopping or checking out the latest scores, take fifteen minutes and seek out information on poverty, malnutrition, AIDS, water challenges, slavery, needs of children, the sex trade industry, orphans, etc. It isn’t entertaining, that’s for sure, but it is a much better use of this vast resource of information. Go to www.one.org and help make poverty history.
Often it is awareness that is the key to helping us know how to act. It is awareness that helps us be more in tune to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. It is often when we are confronted with suffering, we realize we can’t just turn away. We must act.
I look around my life here in Charlevoix, MI, and don’t see a whole lot of physical needs. We have our share of food pantries and resale shops. There are definitely people struggling with addictions to drugs and alcohol. And there are some that are definitely struggling paying their bills. But there is a difference between physical needs here and the physical needs there - there being in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and in some locations in Central and South America and Asia.
I went to Kenya and experienced some things I will never forget.
I saw kids living on the streets – no Moms or Dads - kids as young as my son. He’s 5.
I had a young girl offer me her baby. She wanted me to take it.
I had a young man ask me to take him off the street. He’d been there over 8 years.
I walked through a couple slums and saw kids playing in the filth and stench.
I heard Sabina’s story – a young girl who was gang-raped and became pregnant.
I heard Cindy’s story – a mother of two who chose to give her boys to an orphanage because she was dying of AIDS.
I encountered suffering. I saw things that didn’t make sense at all. Where is God? How could he possibly allow these horrific things to take place? I was emotionally and spiritually overwhelmed and some of that continues. I haven’t been completely dulled and numbed by being home – away from this. But some numbing and dulling has taken place. It makes it easier, but I definitely don’t think it’s better.
We just can’t ignore these needs and call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. We just can’t.
God hasn’t called you or me to fix these problems. We can’t. But he does call us to be part of the solution. In fact, solution is the wrong word. It’s compassion. When we see the truth of what some people experience in this world, we can’t just turn away. It’s like the Levite and the priest who saw the man alongside the road and passed by. We can’t pass by.
“Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything.” Bob Pierce
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges. Read that sentence again and this time read it through the lens of your Biblical knowledge. Remember the stories of men and women who acted on God’s behalf. Think Moses, Joshua, David, Nehemiah, Peter, etc.
We cannot get paralyzed by the immensity of the challenges.
Too often, we do.
“What can I do about the AIDS pandemic?” “How can I help the orphans who are thousands of miles away from me?” “What can I possibly do about injustice?” “I don’t know how to help people still in slavery around this world.”
Those are outstanding questions. They are worth asking. But where we get paralyzed is when we ask them on our own. We think we can actually answer each of these questions for ourselves. But we can’t. We don’t know. We may be tempted to send a check to some reputable organization that helps some of these people in need, but as much as that might calm our conscience for a while, it does not address these questions appropriately, because it continues to address them on our own. We do something. We feel better. We can go back to our normal lives. I did my act of charity – God is now happy with me – I get extra credit.
Here is what I’m learning. Only God can answer those questions for me. The problem is I haven’t been asking. The problem is I’ve gotten caught up on my life and my routine and my plans and my agendas and so I’ve stopped asking – I’ve stopped caring.
When we get so lost in ourselves, we lose perspective don’t we? All of a sudden the color of my car really matters. If my sports team isn’t doing well, I am emotionally affected. I find myself caring a ton what others think of me even though I don’t really respect them. I want what I want and I deserve it. Whoa. How did I get to this place? A place where selfishness reigns and I actually believe others exist to serve me? Sin. That’s what it is. That’s what keeps bringing me to this place. I am separated from God. I no longer rest in his arms. I live for me, by my power, with me as the focus of my worship. No wonder I don’t care about those who suffer. I don’t even think about them – there is no space to because I’m filled up with me.
You cannot serve two masters. You just can’t.
If sins reigns, it reigns in my perspective of others, God, and me. I see God as my holy Santa Claus, people as my servants, and me as the King. Now I know we have trouble thinking we’d ever say this out loud, but it is definitely how I sometimes live.
What could the poor people of the world who just want my money – what could they possibly do for me? They just want stuff from me. If my perspective is sin, I can see absolutely no reason how they fit into my plans. They are completely off my radar screen. I won’t even ask the questions above. Why would I? They have nothing to do with me. They just get in the way of my plans – keep me from fulfilling my wants.
Back to God’s true part in my life. When he’s king, I’m not. When he’s king, then I began to realize that life in his kingdom is very different than life in mine. If I look to him as king, then the questions above become priority and the questions above are looked at through the eyes of humility. I can’t answer them. I am not in control. It is not up to me to figure this out, because I know I can’t. If I really see people the way God does, then I will long for them to experience his love and I will remember that Jesus says that when we care for those in need, we see Jesus. No, that’s not a typo. Jesus is in disguise among the people in need. Poor people. Hungry people. Broken people. Oppressed people. Discarded people. Displaced people. Unwanted people. His people. He’s there. And boy do we need to find him. Boy do I need to find him.
It’s an interesting theological question. Jesus is everywhere, right? Jesus is always with us. But yet, in this interesting text in Matthew 25, we see Jesus say he is there among the hungry, sick, naked, prisoners in a unique yet real way. When we care for the least of these, we meet Jesus.
And what is maybe the most challenging part of this call is what it does for us. We need to care for the least of these because of what Jesus does when we meet him in this way. He transforms us.
When we sit in our comfortable homes, leading our comfortable lives, Jesus is definitely there with us. But because of our unwillingness to step into the messiness of this world, we are not transformed in the ways God desires to transform us but more than likely are being “conformed to the pattern of this world.” (Rom. 12:2)
Mother Teresa said something that just haunts me.
“It’s the greatest poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”
The decisions I make to live the lifestyle I live leads to children dying? Is that really true? Because I choose to live the way I live and not give the way I’m called, children die? Isn’t that a little over the top? Is it?
Worth pondering for a moment. Worth even asking God if this is true. Worth not reading on and just ignoring what she said. Worth really engaging with God if it is true a child could live if I would give. Ask him.
If it was your child who was hungry or being abused or alone, what would you want people to do who had the power to do something? How would you feel if you knew that across the ocean lived a bunch of people, even those who claimed to follow the same Jesus as you do, who spend more on cosmetics and garbage bags than on helping brothers and sisters in Christ in need? Really, how would you feel?
We can do something. What we can’t do is nothing. Indifference is sin.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
Martin Luther King Jr.
The worst sin towards fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.
George Bernard Shaw
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King Jr.
When is the last time you asked God for help in knowing how to care for the least of these? Now before you start the progression of beating yourself up because you haven’t for a long time, pray now. Instead of letting a voice inside of your head that is not God’s take you down the path of guilt and shame, let God’s voice direct your path which is always toward hope – not only hope for you to live into this call, but hope for those who have begun to lose hope.
You can bring hope. And that is exactly the role God has called every single one of us to embrace – bringing hope. Being a hope bringer.
You see, when you come into the presence of God, he will change you. He doesn’t want acts of charity to alleviate guilt. That is self-centered. He wants hearts that so reflect his that compassion pours out when we see people – especially when we see people who suffer, who experience injustice, who have lost hope. As C.S. Lewis said, we are called to become little Christs – people who have been so influenced by our time with Him, that we speak, act, think, and love like him.
If we’re not seeing Jesus, we’re not becoming like him. We are not transformed by intellectual efforts, by having the right thoughts, or by living by our self-determined lists. We are transformed when we live in his presence. When we let him touch our lives, change our hearts, as we follow him. Then we’ll end up where we need to be and we’ll become who he longs for us to become.
As we bring hope, we find hope. As we see joy, we experience it. As we love, we are loved. As we give, we receive. It is the irony of the gospel. It is the way of Jesus.
It’s funny how much I want to tell you what to do. In fact, I actually see it as part of my own defense mechanism for not doing anything myself. At least I told you what to do. I’ll give some suggestions at the end, but I’m not telling you what to do. God will. Talk to him. Let him speak through the passions and experiences of your life. There are people in need who you have been designed to help. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where and when. I know he does. Let’s ask.
One thing I believe we all need to do is become more aware. We need to look for information and help in understanding the truths of what is taking place around the world and in our communities. We need to ask questions and pursue accurate information. And I hope more than anything else, it leads us to face-to-face encounters with people in need, so we can see Jesus and hear what he wants to tell us. And so he can break our hearts. Heart-breaking is good and necessary because our hearts have become calloused and hardened. Only Jesus can soften our heart, so we need to go where he does this work.
Go to www.who.int. (World Health Organization) Click on health topics – pick one that grabs your attention. Each of them has a statistics page. Read. Click on countries. Pick one that grabs your attention. Read. Then pray for this issue – pray for the people affected – pray for the people trying to help – listen to the Holy Spirit’s nudgings (or not). Is he asking you to do more here? Keep clicking. Keep asking. Keep praying.
Do a web search on an issue that peaks your interest. Instead of shopping or checking out the latest scores, take fifteen minutes and seek out information on poverty, malnutrition, AIDS, water challenges, slavery, needs of children, the sex trade industry, orphans, etc. It isn’t entertaining, that’s for sure, but it is a much better use of this vast resource of information. Go to www.one.org and help make poverty history.
Often it is awareness that is the key to helping us know how to act. It is awareness that helps us be more in tune to the leadings of the Holy Spirit. It is often when we are confronted with suffering, we realize we can’t just turn away. We must act.
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Hole in Our Gospel - part 3
Here are a few more excerpts from an excellent book, The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns.
Today we live in a media-saturated, Internet-connected, cell phone-equipped world in which everything that happens anywhere is instantly available everywhere. We are assaulted by images and stories of human tragedy and suffering, 24/7. International aid organizations broadcast their messages constantly via the Internet and other media outlets, providing convenient “on-ramps” for those who want to help but don’t know how. Lack of awareness is no longer an issue. And yet only about 4 percent of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind. We have become detached and indifferent toward the constant and repeated images of poverty and adversity that bombard us. In fact, our apathy has even earned its own term: compassion fatigue. But we cannot claim that we don’t know our distant neighbor is in need – not anymore, not today.
(102)
. . . for the first time in the history of the human race, we have the awareness, the access, and the ability to reach out to our most desperate neighbors around the world. The programs, tools, and technologies to virtually eliminate the most extreme kinds of poverty and suffering in our world are now available. This is truly good news for the poor – or is it?
Not really, because we are not doing our part.
Here is the bottom line: if we are aware of the suffering of our distant neighbors – and we are – if we have access to these neighbors, either personally or through aid organizations and charities – and we do – and if we have the ability to make a difference through programs and technologies that work – which is also the case – then we should no more turn our backs on these neighbors of ours than the priest and the Levite should have walked by the bleeding man.
Listen to the words of a modern-day prophet, and let them challenge you:
Fifteen thousand Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases – AIDS, malaria, TB – for lack of drugs that we take for granted.
This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening to Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment to the whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not North America or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives – African lives – are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.
This is a prophetic voice, one of both passion and vision. I wish I could say that it belongs to one of the great Church leaders of our day, one who is leading the Church of Jesus Christ to the front lines of the battle against poverty and injustice in our world. But, no, this voice that should shake our churches to the core with its high call to moral responsibility is the voice of a rock star – one who may have done more to advance the cause of the poor in the last twenty-five years than anyone alive. His name is Bono, and he passionately answers the question, who is my neighbor? Then he bids us, as Jesus did, to go out and love them “as ourselves.” His impassioned plea gives voice to the moral responsibilities inherent between those who suffer needlessly and those who have the power to intervene.
Listen again to Bono’s call to our generation to make our mark on history:
We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses,mechanics, children. This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
President Carter identified a hole in our society, defined by poverty, human suffering, and inequality. He sees a world unraveling at an alarming rate as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, creating greater and greater social and international disparity and isolation. Bono sees a hole too – in our morality. He sees the world’s poor, beaten and bloody, lying at the wayside, while the majority of us pass by without stopping. Either way you look at it, there is a hole that needs to be repaired – and it’s getting deeper.
(104-105)
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. Flannery O’Connor
(106)
Today we live in a media-saturated, Internet-connected, cell phone-equipped world in which everything that happens anywhere is instantly available everywhere. We are assaulted by images and stories of human tragedy and suffering, 24/7. International aid organizations broadcast their messages constantly via the Internet and other media outlets, providing convenient “on-ramps” for those who want to help but don’t know how. Lack of awareness is no longer an issue. And yet only about 4 percent of all U.S. charitable giving goes to international causes of any kind. We have become detached and indifferent toward the constant and repeated images of poverty and adversity that bombard us. In fact, our apathy has even earned its own term: compassion fatigue. But we cannot claim that we don’t know our distant neighbor is in need – not anymore, not today.
(102)
. . . for the first time in the history of the human race, we have the awareness, the access, and the ability to reach out to our most desperate neighbors around the world. The programs, tools, and technologies to virtually eliminate the most extreme kinds of poverty and suffering in our world are now available. This is truly good news for the poor – or is it?
Not really, because we are not doing our part.
Here is the bottom line: if we are aware of the suffering of our distant neighbors – and we are – if we have access to these neighbors, either personally or through aid organizations and charities – and we do – and if we have the ability to make a difference through programs and technologies that work – which is also the case – then we should no more turn our backs on these neighbors of ours than the priest and the Levite should have walked by the bleeding man.
Listen to the words of a modern-day prophet, and let them challenge you:
Fifteen thousand Africans are dying each day of preventable, treatable diseases – AIDS, malaria, TB – for lack of drugs that we take for granted.
This statistic alone makes a fool of the idea many of us hold on to very tightly: the idea of equality. What is happening to Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern and questions our commitment to the whole concept. Because if we’re honest, there’s no way we could conclude that such mass death day after day would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else. Certainly not North America or Europe, or Japan. An entire continent bursting into flames? Deep down, if we really accept that their lives – African lives – are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.
This is a prophetic voice, one of both passion and vision. I wish I could say that it belongs to one of the great Church leaders of our day, one who is leading the Church of Jesus Christ to the front lines of the battle against poverty and injustice in our world. But, no, this voice that should shake our churches to the core with its high call to moral responsibility is the voice of a rock star – one who may have done more to advance the cause of the poor in the last twenty-five years than anyone alive. His name is Bono, and he passionately answers the question, who is my neighbor? Then he bids us, as Jesus did, to go out and love them “as ourselves.” His impassioned plea gives voice to the moral responsibilities inherent between those who suffer needlessly and those who have the power to intervene.
Listen again to Bono’s call to our generation to make our mark on history:
We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses,mechanics, children. This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
President Carter identified a hole in our society, defined by poverty, human suffering, and inequality. He sees a world unraveling at an alarming rate as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, creating greater and greater social and international disparity and isolation. Bono sees a hole too – in our morality. He sees the world’s poor, beaten and bloody, lying at the wayside, while the majority of us pass by without stopping. Either way you look at it, there is a hole that needs to be repaired – and it’s getting deeper.
(104-105)
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. Flannery O’Connor
(106)
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