He has not forsaken us

One of the deepest emotional pains that one can feel, I believe, is the fear or belief that God is not love, or that one is not loved by God, or that God's grace is not sufficient to cover one's sins, or that God is distant and displeased (they are all permutations of the same feeling, I think). When one has known and seen God, and experienced His love and mercy, He becomes the deepest desire of one's heart; He overwhelms us with the torrents of His love, and we respond with adoration. So at any point after that, if we begin to fear that we have lost that love through some sin we have committed or righteousness we have left undone, the pain of that fear will penetrate to the depths of our heart like a dagger that stabs and a club that crushes.

Unfortunately, the emotional nature of this fear makes it incredibly difficult to counter! Reminding ourselves of the truth of God's love, going back to the cross and remembering the pain He suffered on our behalf, and repeating the assurances of His grace to ourselves time and again are all good things to do, and they can help restore a soul to joy and confidence in Christ - but I think it is also good to cry to God in the midst of our fear, as the author of Psalm 6 does. For an emotional pain there must be an emotion outlet and an emotional healing.

"O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord - how long?
Return, O Lord, deliver me!
Oh, save me for Your mercies' sake!
For in death there is no remembrance of You;
In the grave who will give You thanks?" - Psalm 6:1-5

The truth that he knows - God's mercy and deliverance of His people, His righteousness and healing power - is interspersed with what he feels and fears - that God is angry with him, and has forsaken him, and is abandoning him to death; the desperate plea of v3 captures it perfectly: "But You, O Lord - how long?" In his head, he knows that in God is deliverance and salvation; he knows that God will rescue him and not abandon him. But in his heart, he feels that God has already forsaken him - that the pain and the trials have continued longer than he can bear already, and that God is not with him in them. It's a place we've all been in, I think, particularly if a specific trial or struggle (read: external problem or internal sin issue) has lingered with us for any length of time. You said You would sanctify me, Lord! Why do I still struggle and fail so much with this one temptation? And You said You would be with me always and work all things for good, Lord! Why is my life such a wreck of circumstances, then? Why do my endeavors wither and die instead of prospering when I'm trying to follow You?

But there is beauty even in that emotional plea, twisted as it is by the lies the world has spun about the impermanence of love and the impossibility of grace, because he is trying desperately to feel and believe the truth that he knows - and because, at the end, there is hope. Our cries to God do not have to be perfect or sinless for Him to hear us; He hears our weeping and our supplication, no matter how weak and frail and faithless we are, and He will receive our prayers. He has not forsaken us, and He never will; His love has not failed us and His grace will endure through all eternity.

The Seat of the Scornful

In Psalm 1, the blessed man is described as one who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful; that last phrase is one that has often confused me and given me cause to think and ponder. What I'm coming to think is that the scornful, or the mockers, are those who practice the soul-destroying art of flippancy in the Screwtapian sense. They are those who look upon good, noble, and virtuous things with a cynical and contemptuous gaze, or with open disregard for what they would call the foolishness and futility of those things. And to sit in their seat is to look at life from their vantage point and through their eyes. In some way I feel that this attitude of scorn toward life is one of the most dangerous and destructive things in the world, both for the individual who holds it and for the society around that individual, but it is incredibly difficult for me to express this importance with words of enough meaning and strength.

There are things in this world that are of primary and utmost importance, things that characterize our humanity and serve as the rich soil for our roots or the sky which healthy growth strives to reach. Some of these things are the innocent and fundamental aspects of physical and temporal life in the midst of all God's creation - things like hard work, marriage, babies, beauty in a flower or a mountain or the face of a woman, strength in the arms of a man, and the fellowship of believers worshiping God together. Others are the good and glorious principles and virtues that stretch through eternity and underlie all that is worthwhile in temporality - things like the love and grace of God, justice, righteousness, honesty, compassion, holiness, and judgment; the high praises of God in the mouths of His saints as they wield the two-edged sword of His word; all that is lovely, pure, noble, praiseworthy, and of good report.

But the destroyers of civilization - no, let us call them the destroyers of humanity - attempt to cut away at the reverence and value we ascribe to these things, and they do so with mockery, scorn, contempt, and the overriding derision of elite and enlightened opinion, first, and then of public opinion more broadly. If we cast away those things, however - if we trade in laziness and entitlement for diligence and hard work, for instance, or falsehoods and manipulation for honesty and faithfulness - what will we have left? There will be nothing left worth living for; there will be nothing left that is characteristically human in the majestic and beautiful sense of humanity for which we were all created, which we may one day hope to see, and which we as of yet can still see occasional glimpses here and now. By making those good and virtuous things objects of mocker and scorn, we lose both the rich soil of a godly and honorable temporal life and the high and glorious heavens that soar in the eternal visions and aspirations of one who seeks to know and follow God. Stunted and weakened, we wither inwards in petty sins and quiet despair, having barred the door of our hearts to both life and joy.

Unbelonging

Psalm 107 is one of the most beautiful of all the psalms, and also one that illustrates God's love for and involvement in the lives of His people. Every time I read it, a different aspect or picture stands out to me. Today, what caught my attention was the first descriptive stanza, verses 4-9:

"They wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way;
They found no city to dwell in.
Hungry and thirsty,
Their soul fainted in them.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
And He delivered them out of their distresses.
And He led them forth by the right way,
That they might go to a city for a dwelling place.
Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness,
And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
For He satisfies the longing soul,
And fills the hungry soul with goodness."

It is a picture of loneliness and unbelonging, of souls who wander alone and unfruitful through barren desert places, trudging through the wilderness with empty hearts. To them, life must seem both meaningless and hopeless, as they long from the depths of their being for the joy and abundance they can neither find nor create. Yet though their sorrows lead them to the point of breaking, they do not stumble into the pit of Despair, for they remember in their desolation, despite the seeming futility of life, to cry to God who does not scorn the tears of a lost and broken soul.

When they so cry, out of the pain and the bitter empty ache of their hearts, He hears them not with condemnation or contempt, but with kindness and compassion. He hears them, and hearing them, He responds with action, entering their lives and changing its course. He leads them to a place where they can dwell: He gives them a home and a place to belong, and a community in which they can find both fellowship and purpose - where they can have their own needs met and also come to know joy and find meaning through serving and loving the people around them. In essence, He saves them from the barrenness of a life alone and loveless by restoring them to the human fellowship for which we were designed.

All too often, even here in an actual city, there is no community. Souls wander by in the wilderness of their isolation and loneliness, longing for love but unable to find it, looking for a place to belong, but turned away by the indifference of those who fail to even notice them. The deep, throbbing ache for a place and a people to belong to becomes the steady undercurrent of our existence, however we try to silence or ignore it. Oh, that God would bring the goodness of community and loving fellowship to our lives, here and now! Deliver us from the distress of our aloneness and unbelonging, Lord, and lead us by the right way, and satisfy this longing of our souls!

A flower in blossom

Sometimes I think we don't actually desire God quite as much as we think we do - or at least, I think co-existent with our desire to know Him and be near to Him is a desire to pull back, to withdraw, to refuse the vulnerability and surrender which necessarily come with knowing anyone intimately, but especially God. You can see the same push-and-pull of warring desires quite frequently in romantic relationships, to give a more accessible example: each person loves the other, and wants to trust and know (and be trusted and known by) the other, but there is an undercurrent of what can most simply be called fear that holds them back from fully letting go into mutual trust, vulnerability, knowing, and nearness. Each can be so desperate to earn and keep the other's love that they refuse to fully open themselves to the other (for fear of rejection), and as a result close themselves off to the love they most deeply crave. It is bitterly ironic that the direct consequence of the actions taken in search of love, in the striving to deserve love, is the construction of a barricade against the full force of that love when it finally comes.

And if it is such a bitter irony in the context of human relationships, is it not even more bitter when it occurs in the relationship between man and God? In a relationship with another person, the fallibility and imperfection of humanity can be used as a rationalization for the fear of vulnerability and genuine love, but with God that excuse falls short. The fear is exposed. Why do we hold back from the actions that would draw us nearer to God? Why is any flimsy excuse or distraction allowed to pull us away from our prayers or prevent us from meditating on Him throughout the day? It is not - it cannot be - that we fear He will reject us. If anything, our lack of devotion and piety would be greater reason for Him to reject us. More importantly, however, we know that His love is unfailing and enduring; we saw that He was willing even to suffer and die because of that love. No! - it is the love itself that we fear. It is too great, too high, too mighty; it is too far beyond our comprehension, and we fear it because its bounds are unknown - and, we have heard, unknowable.

A love without reason or end, a love that endures the scorn or indifference we show to it, a love that perseveres unchanging despite our fickle attention and attempts at returning it, a love that forgives, a love that knows us completely and does not let go, a love that is determined to hold on to us no matter how much we fight to be rid of it, a love that refuses to be angry no matter how we yell and storm and try to hurt it - that is the love God has for us, and that is the thing we fear most and yet most deeply desire and need. If we could but open ourselves up to it - open up our hearts not caring if it killed us with the strength and glory of its torrents - I think we would find that all the tense, angry, self-conscious, anxious striving in our hearts would be washed away, and that our souls would relax and unfold like the petals of a flower in blossom under the light of the sun.

Acknowledging need

"It is easy to acknowledge, but almost impossible to realise for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little - however little - native luminosity? Surely we can't be quite creatures?
"For this tangled absurdity of a Need, even a Need-love, which never fully acknowledges its own neediness, Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become 'jolly beggars.' The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his Need. He is not entirely sorry for the fresh Need they have produced. And he is not sorry at all for the innocent Need that is inherent in his creaturely condition. For all the time this illusion to which nature clings as her last treasure, this pretence that we have anything of our own or could for one hour retain by our own strength any goodness that God may pour into us, has kept us from being happy. We have been like bathers who want to keep their feet - or one foot - or one toe - on the bottom, when to lose that foothold would be to surrender themselves to a glorious tumble in the surf. The consequences of parting with our last claim to intrinsic freedom, power, or worth, are real freedom, power and worth, really ours just because God gives them and because we know them to be (in another sense) not 'ours.'" - C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

This is not the way I naturally think, and I don't think it's the way most other people think either.We are ashamed of our Need, even our Need for God; we wish to be independent beings, possessing something utterly our own which we can then give to God and to other people. In fact, we don't want to admit that we are dependent on God, not just because of our sin, but because we are His creatures, the things He has made and whose life He sustains. I love the analogy in the first paragraph above: we want to have some light of our own, to shine bright with the goodness of our own being, instead of simply reflecting the light of God. But since we are His creatures, even if light did shine forth directly from us, it would still be His light that He put within us in the first place.There is nothing we can offer Him that He did not give to us, and because we are fallen we tend to need His help and encouragement even in that act of giving. And that is hard to accept, so I tend to fight it - I try to prove to myself, through continued efforts to be perfect, through the accumulated praises of people around me, through my own self-assessment in every situation, that I am a being who can live without Need and give freely of what is inherently my own to God and others: in other words, that I am a being like God in that I am my own self-sufficient person characterized by Gift-love rather than by Need-love.

But of course this is not true! So the fight becomes a lesson in failure and discouragement, or in self-righteousness and pride, depending on how the battles of the moment are progressing. In either case, there is no true delight, freedom, or consciousness of value. How could there be, when I am trying to live outside the constraints of reality? As Lewis wrote above, the false belief that we are self-sufficient, independent beings is what bars us from experiencing happiness. It imprisons us in continual striving for inherent personal perfection, in lies (believed in the heart if not spoken), in competition even with those we love the most, in the desperate fortress of pride faced with defeat. Having proclaimed to ourselves that we are Need-less - without Need of any sort, and particularly without that Need of God that infiltrates our whole being - we begin to feel that we are needless - meaningless beings without any greater purpose or worth. The One whom we need even to be truly ourselves is the same One who has made us able to meet the needs of people around us, given us a purpose and a meaning for our lives, and thus bestowed upon us greater worth than we could have ever made for ourselves. The One before whom we are utterly powerless, and upon whom we are dependent for life itself, gives to us His power, that we might live by His strength and do greater things that we could ever have imagined for ourselves. And the One who is a fountain of joy and love, apart from whom we are dark and hate-filled little creatures, will, if we will let Him, cause that fountain to spring up in glory within our very hearts, giving to us that which we could never earn or make for ourselves, but in the act of giving making it truly ours in Him.

Building love upon knowledge and joy upon truth

From The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence:

"That we ought to make a great difference between the acts of the understanding and those of the will: that the first were comparatively of little value, and the others, all. That our only business was to love and delight ourselves in God."

Note first that he does not say acts of the understanding are of no value. In attempting to correct one error, we have a tendency to swing to the other extreme - to say that, because we have previously strayed (or seen others stray) by valuing and seeking intellectual knowledge without the corresponding practice of virtue and devotion, we must completely abandon the pursuit of knowledge and simply attempt to live ethically and with love. But what we see taught here is that the acts of the understanding do still have value for the Christian. And when we think about it, we see that it must be so, for the acts of the understanding create for us a compass of truth, giving direction and guidance to the acts of the will. Without that compass, our will would be adrift in the chaos of ever-changing opinion, confused, "tossed to and fro and carried about by every wave of doctrine" (Eph. 4:14), without direction or purpose, never attaining to the great and glorious end for which God has created us.

However, it is equally clear that to stop here, having obtained a working compass, would be insufficient. Simply knowing the direction we ought to travel will not lead to the completion of the voyage! This is why the acts of the will are of such great value: it is by them, by choosing to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Mt. 22:37) and to find in Him our soul's true pleasure and delight, that the ship actually sails. By the acts of our will we show whether we are following the direction our understanding has established, or ignoring it in favor of some other course; by them also - and only by them - we advance towards the destination of our voyage: full holiness and true unity with God.

Treasure hunt

One of the dangers inherent in developing a skill, gaining experience, or having a talent is that one may come to consider it only in terms of the potential it holds for obtaining power and admiration. That is, self-centered ambition and the lust for power may reign in one's heart instead of a willingness to serve for the good of others without recognition. This is most clearly a problem in ministry settings. For example, someone who has served as a Sunday school teacher for 15 years might inwardly begin to crave recognition for her work, and to resent the chair of the Christian Education committee who hasn't served as long as she has but has more power and gets more attention; if she allows this desire for recognition to have its way, she will replace harmony and trust on that ministry team with conflict and bitterness. But it is not limited to ministry, and I'm sure you could come up with examples relevant to your own experience! In any situation where someone in a subordinate position believes themselves to have more skill or experience than the person over them, there is great temptation for this kind of resentment, and anyone who has not felt it in themselves is a far better person than I am.


In God's way of doing things, however, all of this is turned on its head. The One whose example we are supposed to follow, though He had the most complete and legitimate claim for authority and recognition of anyone in the universe (being all-powerful and all-knowing rather help with that claim!), chose to serve those who were by any objective standard lower than Himself, genuinely and simply, without complaining or boasting. So, likewise, the Apostle Paul tells us to consider the needs of other people as well as our own needs, and to think of other people better or more worthy of esteem than ourselves - because if we think of others in that way, instead of allowing ourselves to think we are superior, it is far easier to love and serve them with a willing heart. So, again, Jesus told His disciples that those who are greatest among His children are those who lay down their pride and lust for power to serve the least of those around them.

The goal, then - the great adventure of life - is to discover and act upon the opportunities we have to serve those around us. It is like a treasure hunt, where each act of service is a priceless jewel, and the lowliest and most ignored labors are the most beautiful gems of all.

Living faith

Our faith is not a static, unchanging thing, an acceptance of truth that springs fully formed into existence and then remains at that state of being forever. Rather, because it involves a relationship as well as an intellectual acceptance, and because even that intellectual acceptance must be continually renewed and strengthened to survive the natural changes of our emotions, bodies, and environment, faith must be living and dynamic. If we do not feed it with truth, or support it against the weight of negative emotions, or encourage it with reminders of the work of God in our past, it will eventually wither and decrease, and in so doing will draw our hearts away from God. For faith is what pulls us toward Him; it is the tow-line reaching from our hearts to His. Thus, if we neglect that cable - if we fail to make it fast around our hearts, or if we allow the storm to fray it and choose not to repair the damage - our pull toward God will not be as strong, and we will find ourselves drifting in the seas. And without His guidance, our souls are very likely to run aground or capsize: in short, to shipwreck.

So, then, it is crucial for us to intentionally nurture and build up our faith. How do we do this? First, and most essentially, we choose to believe. Critical thinking does not injure faith, but dogmatic skepticism will. So having come already to the conclusion that Christianity is true (as we must have, if we've reached this point of strengthening and maintaining our faith), we need to approach the Bible, Christian teachings, sermons, songs, and so forth with an attitude of belief - of receiving all that is true and that we can understand into the depths of our hearts, of accepting those truths with willingness to change our attitudes and actions in response to them. All the outward signs of faith, the Bible studies and Scripture memorization, the regular attendance at church, will not strengthen our faith if we have hardened our hearts to their influence. But of course those things are also important! They are the means by which we take in the truth that will strengthen our faith.

When we have set our wills to believe, and are feeding our faith a steady diet of truth from the word of God, we are in a good position, but nothing in this world is secure. Our emotions may rise up in a storm too great for our will to resist, and threaten to sink our little ship of faith, or our circumstances may seem to belie God's promises of everlasting love and faithfulness and scatter secret doubts and falsehoods into the midst of our faith. This, I think, is when it is extremely important to have the support and encouragement of the church - the community of other faithful Christians willing to help us make it through the rough waters with our ship intact. Outside the emotions in our head or the situations in our lives, they can keep reminding us of the goal towards which we're sailing, and encourage us with their glimpses of the glory and beauty of the One we're following on this voyage even when we can't see Him ourselves.

Conversely, we have the privilege and responsibility of so encouraging our fellow Christians in their faith. As the book of Hebrews says, "exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today'" (Heb 3:13). In other words, we should give encouragement at the moment we see it is needed, and even if we don't know that it is needed, instead of postponing it for some more convenient future time. Our encouragement of others should be a regular part of our lives - an outpouring of our love for them as our brothers and sisters in Christ, which desires to see the growth of their faith and their knowledge of God - not something we do sporadically or for special occasions. We must not take faith for granted, ours or anyone else's - it is something worth fighting for, and therefore something that must be fought for if it is to endure.

Hidden evils

None of the things that appealed to Eve about the forbidden fruit were bad. She saw, rightly, that it was an attractive fruit that would be good to the taste, and that beyond those normal qualities of a good fruit it would also increase her wisdom and knowledge, and make her more like God. Obviously it isn't bad to enjoy good food, nor on a higher level is it bad to desire and seek after wisdom and knowledge. Indeed, those are things that God gives us and wants us to enjoy; there are even hints in the Bible that we will become so much like God that we can be called gods (see Psalm 82 and John 10). So from a purely rational perspective - proceeding strictly from observable facts and ignoring direct revelation - it would be perfectly fine to eat that fruit. But the key part of that is ignoring direct revelation. All these things looked good, and were good, and were things God was prepared to give to Adam and Eve in His own good time and manner, but it was wrong for them to try to obtain them in their own way by eating the fruit.

I think we are tempted by many similar fruits today: things that logically seem good, that from every perspective except one make sense for us to pursue, but from that one perspective are strictly and clearly forbidden. There might be choices we have to make in which one path seems the best from financial, prudent, and personal angles, but involves sacrificing our conscience or shirking one of the responsibilities God has given us (such as a child's submission to his parents or a wife's to her husband, or of anyone to some duty or charity for which he or she is specifically and uniquely responsible). No matter how attractive that path may seem, if it requires some other disobedience, it is the wrong path; it is forbidden fruit, and no amount of rationalization can correct it. And that can be hard to accept, sometimes! Particularly if ambition or pride enters the game, it can be hard to turn away from something that seems so good, so right, so much like something God would want us to have. But it is essential. It is, at times, the cross we must carry as followers of Christ, through which we learn to deny ourselves as He denied Himself to carry out His Father's will.

Praying against temptation

After Jesus had the Passover dinner with His disciples (which we now remember as the Last Supper), He went to the Mount of Olives to pray, and told His disciples to pray also, that they might not succumb to temptation. But they didn't pray. He prayed in such agony of spirit that, according to the gospel of Luke, His sweat became like drops of blood; Matthew says He was deeply distressed and sorrowful. After all, He knew what was about to happen! Because He desired to obey His Father's will, however, even more than He wanted to avoid the suffering into which He was about to surrender Himself, He prayed, fervently and earnestly.

A little ways off, His disciples slept. They didn't sleep simply because they were tired and out late and didn't realize the distress that Jesus was in: Luke tells us that they slept from sorrow. He had just told them at dinner that He would be betrayed, and suffer, and die; that He would leave them; and that one of them, Peter, would deny Him at the moment of truth. And so although they didn't fully understand what Jesus was talking about - their responses to Him in the book of John make that clear! - they could certainly tell that something was wrong, and that something great and dreadfully sad and painful was forthcoming. So sleep offered them a welcome escape from the sorrow and the bewilderment. Instead of having to wrestle with their worries and fears, with all that they didn't understand, and with Jesus' obvious sorrow and ominous warnings, they could rest in peaceful oblivion. I'm sure it seemed like a good solution - the easiest choice, the most pleasant path.

But because they slept at that moment, they didn't pray. And because they didn't pray, then, in the empty moments before the Pharisees and priests came with their servants and guards to take Jesus away, their hearts and minds were not prepared, not fortified by faith, to endure the fear and sorrow to come. They did not pray, as Jesus had taught them, for God to keep them from temptation - and so when temptation came, they fell. What seemed like the easy road, the escape from pain, ended up leading them into even more sorrow and pain. Peter runs into the night alone, bitterly weeping, not just for the arrest and imminent death of his Lord, but for his own denial of his Lord and friend.

It made me wonder how often I've chosen to pursue an escape or distraction instead of praying - how frequently I simply try to avoid the worries and the sorrows of life by ignoring them, instead of facing them head on in prayer and seeking the strength and the grace of God to help me deal with them - as well as how often that choice not to pray has resulted in sin, as it did for Peter. For the world is full of paths that promise an escape, that offer peace and happiness without the unpleasant task of coping with and fighting the pains and sorrows and fears of reality. I know I've used Facebook, Pinterest, blog-surfing, and even programming to numb or ignore feelings I don't want to deal with, instead of taking them to God with prayer and supplication; lest you think technology is the prime foe, I can tell you that I've done the same with books, homework, and projects - anything that distracts the mind and heart from the real issue can work. It doesn't seem like a bad thing to find peace in these distractions, and it probably isn't always a bad thing. But when it takes us away from prayer, when it leads us to seek peace and comfort in anything other than God, when it leaves us in a happy drugged stupor at the moment the trial comes, instead of strengthened in faith and prepared to hold fast to God - then it is a bad thing, leading to increased sin and multiplied sorrow.

So let us pray! Let us learn from Jesus and His disciples (as positive and negative examples, respectively), and pray in the midst of the worries and sorrows of life, the bewilderment and the suffering, that we may not enter into temptation, but may be protected against sin and strengthened for righteousness.

Small servants of a great God

In Christianity, the things we naturally value and prioritize are continually being upended and overturned by things we might consider weaker, lesser, or more simple. We see, for instance, that knowledge and intellectual standing, though it wins us approval and acclaim from both the church and the world, is incomplete and can even be a hindrance if not accompanied by good works of love and service. We find that power is not to be sought after, because in our weakness we learn our great need for the grace of God, humility and dependence are allowed to bear fruit, and our hearts grow near to Him. We read that

"God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are" - 1 Corinthians 1: 27-28

So I think the chance to write, or to say, or to do something undeniably great or profound - something that will attract attention and garner respect - is often a temptation from which we ought to flee. I don't mean that we shouldn't attempt to do great things for God, or share the insights He has given us about life or from His Word, but I do mean that we should often do these things in a sort of secrecy, not letting our right hand know what our left hand is doing: saying and doing what is right, because it is right, regardless of who or how many notice or how they respond. It is often easy to do something challenging and hard when we are winning praise and admiration for our effort; it is not so easy to do the same thing when no one notices we are even trying, and gives us only scorn and discouragement when they do notice. But in the second case, we learn to rely on the strength and approval of God instead of men, and we learn to swallow our pride and our ravenous hunger for attention and recognition.

And think about it. Do we really want to be the wise and the mighty in this world? Do we want to grow so great in the eyes of our fellow men (and often ourselves) that we forget how small we are in the presence of God, or begin to avoid His presence for the precise reason of avoiding that feeling of smallness? Do we want, in the end, to be put to shame by the weak and foolish things, by the people we have despised in our own self-absorption and upward climb? Wouldn't we rather humble ourselves now, and share in the glory of God later, when we will be free of the miserable burdensome urge to claim that glory as our own? He Himself, though by nature and by right the most glorious Being in all infinity, became small and weak and despised, that by descending into the lowest parts of the earth He might raise up us all to be with Him in glory. If we long to know Him more and to become more like Him, then it only makes sense that we too ought to descend into humility and lowliness, to serve when service is hard and inglorious, that we might be like our Lord and Savior. And as He who descended is also He who ascended into all the heavens, so only when we descend with Him into suffering and death - the death of our own pride and self-centeredness - can we truly ascend into liberty, beauty, and glory.

Walking in our faith

Sometimes I think we over-intellectualize our faith. Instead of learning from and applying the basic, simple, understandable meanings of the scriptures we read, we try to probe ever more deeply into the text - to see new insights that maybe no one else in our circle had seen before, or to build up theories and systems of doctrine. And sometimes it is good to search more deeply into the passages, to gain a fuller understanding of the words, their context, and their application: to use our minds to seek after the knowledge of God through His word. I think, however, that it is not always beneficial. C.S. Lewis once wrote about the dangers of theoretically and intellectually understanding a passage without equivalent practical and personal understanding - of having one's head filled with knowledge and ideas, but not having trained one's hands and feet and heart in the disciplines of obedience, service, and love. It can make us think we are farther along in our growth in the faith than we truly are, and it can begin to plant in us the seeds of spiritual pride. As Paul writes,

"Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing  yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him." - 1 Corinthians 8:1-3

It can be easy for certain types of people to acquire knowledge of the Bible and appear wise and mature in their faith, while in their heart drifting away from the foundational truths of the gospel, and in their life still needing to learn how to live out of the love and grace of God. I speak as one of these people, honestly. Acquisition of knowledge, in any sphere of my life, comes easily and is enjoyable, so it makes sense that I would delight in that part of the Christian life and begin to neglect other aspects of the faith! But God has redeemed and desires to transform our entire being, not just our minds. He wants to change our hearts, that they might learn compassion, mercy, forgiveness, and empathy. He wants to change our mouths, that they might learn to speak with truth and grace, to encourage and uplift and edify, to forego biting scorn and sarcasm. He wants to change our hands, that they might learn to give from love (of God and of others) rather than from duty, that they might labor not for our own good, but for the glory of God and in service (however menial or unpleasant) to others. He wants to change our feet, that they might not carry us to places of pleasure, comfort, and entertainment, but to places where the darkness of sin is powerful and the need and suffering of our fellow human beings is great. He wants to change our will, that it should no longer be bound by our stomachs, or our sexual desires, or any of our natural sinful tendencies, but instead be freely following Him. God wants us to grow in our knowledge - there is no doubt or argument about that - but this growth of knowledge should be informed by our love of God and of others, and it is only a part of the growth and change that He desires of us.

So as we read, let us also seek to apply - not in the typical Bible study meaning of that word, that rarely leads to true and lasting change, but in the sense of honestly striving to live in obedience to the commands of God, by His grace, and from a foundation of love. When we read, let us first seek to know and understand God more, and then seek to discover how we ought to be living with and for Him in our faith! And if we find that a certain path we have chosen does not honor Him, or if we find that we have been ignoring or neglecting certain aspects of our faith, then we should immediately step off that path or begin to cultivate those aspects of our faith. Our reading and studying should be for the purpose of following God more closely, not for the sake of being the one with the most knowledge and the deepest insights. The Christian faith is profoundly this-wordly, to use Bonhoeffer's language; it calls us to live completely in the world, even though we are not of the world - to genuinely love, to sacrificially serve, and to wholeheartedly obey - to walk in the truths of the gospel, not merely to know them in our minds.

Apologies and One Thought :)

I apologize for writing so infrequently these past two weeks! I have most certainly had thoughts and ideas, so that can't be my excuse this time; I have also had plenty of time, especially this past weekend, so business isn't a suitable reason for my absence either. But my thoughts have been the type that end up written in the margins of my Bible - short (only a sentence or two at most) and centered around a specific verse, and thus requiring much expansion before becoming suitable for the blog. And my time has been spent with people, in large part, and creating things with my hands for the other smaller part. In essence, I've been more immersed in the real world around me, more connected to the people in my life and more in touch with the physical realities and rhythms of the created order - and I think this is a good thing, although I still think I should have spent a bit more time writing down some of my thoughts for the blog!

Anyway, here is one slightly longer thought that has been slowly taking form in my mind. It seems to me that one of the dangers inherent in Christianity is losing one's balance spiritually - prioritizing the spiritual and intellectual aspects of the faith over the physical, or vice versa. For someone like me, raised in very Bible-centered churches, and naturally intellectual, it can be easy to neglect or forget about the more physical qualities of my life and faith: to think, imagine, theorize, read, and meditate, without serving, giving, loving, and shaping the world around me. We have spirits and minds, to be sure, and we must use them to the best of our ability for God, but we also have bodies, and we have an equal duty to use them in service to and worship of God. If we think otherwise, and consider those bodies a mere hindrance and source of evil, we have left the path of Christianity and taken up Gnostic doctrine! God created matter and gave us physical bodies - hands and eyes, dexterity and strength - and He desires us to make good use of those bodies: to use the talents and skills within them to shape and tend and labor, as Adam and Eve were intended to do in the garden. So it is not a waste of time to make things that are beautiful and useful and good, even though that making might not in itself necessarily seem to be very important in terms of faith. It is not a waste of time to love one's family in a very physical way, by doing their laundry, keeping the house clean, and making good food for them to eat. It is not a waste of time to build or sew or craft, as God has given you time and skill, if the work is done as a labor of love, to make something beautiful for a good end (where good does not necessarily equal grand or noteworthy, but is very often simple and small though filled with virtue, purity, and loveliness, as in Phil. 4:8).

The Pursuit of Happiness

God wants us to be happy. As the psalmist says,

"in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

And again,

"be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous; and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!" 

 He provides for us here on earth:

"You crown the year with Your goodness, and Your paths drip with abundance. They drop on the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered with grain; they shout for joy, they also sing."

And He has given us incredible spiritual blessings - His grace, His love, forgiveness of sins, knowledge of Himself, the promise of glory, and so on:

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."

But the happiness He has intended for us, and which He desires and delights to give us, is not the same happiness that we want for ourselves or that our culture values - the hedonistic self-centered happiness of pursuing and obtaining one's own wishes in this world, or the proud self-righteous happiness of succeeding or making a difference in this life by one's own merit. To paraphrase Lewis (since I don't have the book at hand, nor would I be able to find the passage quickly if I did), God has intended us for infinite and eternal happiness, centered in Himself - the strong and beautiful spring of all true happiness and joy - and if we so desire we can begin to prepare ourselves for that happiness right now, by learning to trust and know God more. If we have to sacrifice some of our more readily obtained and plainly visible happinesses along the way, if we must suffer and be miserable for times in this life, I believe it is worth it, if those sacrifices and sufferings are God's tools for making us into being capable of truly knowing Him and delighting in the great happinesses and indescribable pleasures He has treasured up for us in Him.

Worldliness

"...the most insidious temptations to 'worldliness' today do not necessarily come in the form of enticements to sexual dissipation, or even to complicity in socio-political oppression, but rather in the form of the suggestion that it is possible - and indeed 'normal' and expedient - to go about our daily business in the world without giving much thought to God." - Craig M. Gay, The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist

This quote makes me want to read the whole book! I might need to make a special trip to the Phoenix Seminary Library to find it, but I think it would be worth it. However, the quote on its own holds a lot of truth and provides much to think about. Rather than defining worldliness (the state of being of the world as well as in the world, to borrow from the famous Scriptural passage) by a set of actions or some behavioral standard, the author defines it in terms of the attitude and perspective of our hearts and minds - and since those things are what inform and motivate our actions, I think they provide a good foundation for an understanding of what exactly worldliness is.

As I've been reading through some of Paul's letters, I've noticed this perspective on the meaning of worldliness as well. While he does give the churches practical lists of actions that reflect godliness, he also lays heavy emphasis on the importance of having our hearts and minds set on other-worldly things, on matters of eternal consequence and origin. As he wrote to the Colossians,

"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." - Col. 3:2

In the entire previous chapter, Paul had warned the Colossian church to be vigilant lest the traditions and philosophies of the world affect their faith and walk with God - to make sure that the basic beliefs and patterns of thinking common to the world (that is, to sinful man in himself) were not allowed to crowd out the truth of the gospel and the entirely different perspective that must accompany it. How were they to stand guard and do battle with those influences? By setting their minds on things above - by focusing their thoughts and the meditations of their hearts on the things of God, on eternal and heavenly matters, by gazing on Him and seeking to know Him. And if they did not? Well, in Philippians, we are given an illustration of what it means to choose to set our minds on things on the earth, instead of striving toward God:

"For there are many who walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame - who set their minds on earthly things." - Phil. 3:18-19

To become of the world - to let our thoughts and fears and aspirations be centered around earthly things - is to become an enemy of the cross of Christ. He died that we might die to the world in Him; He was raised that we might be raised with Him to new life, to a citizenship in heaven, to an inheritance imperishable. When we choose to go through life not thinking about God, not living by the principles of the gospel, not concerned about how our new life and new identity ought to affect us here and now, we are choosing to ally ourselves with the world, and to set ourselves up in opposition to Christ. And if that is the posture of our heart towards God, then it ultimately doesn't matter whether or not we follow His moral standards flawlessly or work tirelessly for the creation of a better world. We will still have chosen this world - temporal, created things, that fail and pass away - over the uncreated, timeless Lord who gave His life that we might know Him and dwell with Him in glory and love for all eternity.

Living out the Christ-life

Recently, I've been listening to a recording of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis in the car and occasionally at work (I think I listened to it three or four times this past week, because my iPod is set to begin a playlist over again once it completes it so I just kept listening to the book over again), and a lot of different things have caught my attention, made me think, and challenged my actions and attitudes. One in particular is Lewis's argument that Christian morality (as opposed to other systems of morality) is not in its essence about following a list of rules and laws, but is rather about becoming like a specific person - namely, Christ. Therefore, when one is attempting to discern whether a particular course of action is moral, the best question to ask is not "is this action right or wrong?" but "is this action something that Christ would do?" Obviously moral laws and standards are a great help to this: if something is clearly forbidden by the standards in the Bible, then it isn't going to be something Christ would do, and doing it isn't going to help us emulate Christ and become more like Him.

But this different perspective goes both deeper and higher than the moral laws. There are many things (small, everyday, trivial things) that are not strictly wrong but that are not in the spirit of Jesus Christ, and choosing to do them, though it may not bother our consciences at all, will not help us grow into the Christ-life (to borrow one of my favorite Lewisian words) God is giving us. So this desire to emulate Christ pushes us higher than the moral law does on its own. In addition, in seeking to be like Christ we find that it is not enough to change our actions: we must also change our attitudes and thoughts; no, we must go further still - we must change the very essence of who we are. So we are cut far deeper by this need to become like Christ than we ever were by the moral law alone (and it can cut quite deep!).

However, I also find it incredibly encouraging. To become like Christ in character as well as in outward action, I must become a better person than I ever guessed just from studying the laws and standards that attempt to define righteous behavior, and I continually found myself falling short of those laws alone. And here I see my whole self falling short of being like Him, knowing that no matter how much I perfect my actions, words, and behaviors there will still be sinful thoughts and uncontrolled emotions in the depth of my being that I will never be able to eradicate. You might ask, at this point, why I say I find this encouraging! It is simply this: when I see that the law (which I can delude myself into thinking I am able to obey, if I try hard enough) is only a shallow and superficial veneer over the whole depth and glorious height of perfection to which we are called in being like Christ, my pride has to fall back and I am free to rest upon the grace of my Lord. Do you see how it works? Only when we realize that we are unable to reach the heights to which we are called will we begin to rely on God's grace, and it is only when we begin to rely on His grace that we begin to experience the great freedom and power of being His child. He has made us for glory, and He will lead us there in Christ, by making us like Christ, by drawing us deeper into the knowledge of Christ.

Need

Towards the end of his book Perelandra, C.S. Lewis juxtaposes two seemingly opposite ideas as true ways of perceiving reality. There is first the idea that God has a purpose for us - a part for us in His plan that gives us meaning - and that He thus has need of us and we likewise have need of each other. No one is separate and alone; in the great plan of God, every part is necessary and depends on each other. We see this in the common biblical analogy of the church to a body, where every member is strengthened and built up by what the other members supply: no one of those members could survive separately, but each needs all and is needed by all. Even Christ, as the Head of the body, needs us (in a manner of speaking, for He is self-sufficient), that, for example, He might reveal in us His grace, mercy, and righteous judgment.

The second idea is that God has no need of anything that He created - He simply created us and loves us out of the overflowing abundance of His goodness. He was not less before He created us, nor is He the greater because He created us. He does not lavish His grace and blessing upon us because He needs our love or because we deserve His favor, but simply because He is. Likewise, in this idea, we have no real need of one another, and so we are able to love as He loves: freely, without the conditions of merit or need.

I can't say that one or the other of these ideas is false; both ring true to me. The first speaks to my inner hunger for purpose, to my desire to be needed, and to my honest admission that I desperately need God and other people. But the second expresses the riches of God's grace, explains how we can begin to love as God loves us, and leaves God's eternal glory unlimited. Maybe this is one of the seeming paradoxes of Christianity - the pairs of apparently contradictory truths whose reconciliation lies beyond our current ability to reason and understand, like the concept of the triune nature of God. What matters is that it is true. We are needed, and all that we do matters and has significance, and we must not let our feet slip; we are not needed, and we can give and love in the freedom of our insignificance, resting in the greatness of our God.

"He has immeasurable use for each thing that is made, that His love and splendour may flow forth like a strong river which has need of a great watercourse and fills alike the deep pools and the little crannies, that are filled equally and remain unequal; and when it has filled them brim full it flows over and makes new channels. We also have need beyond measure of all that He has made. Love me, my brothers, for I am infinitely necessary to you and for your delight I was made. Blessed be He!
"He has no need at all of anything that is made. An eldil is not more needful to Him than a grain of the Dust: a peopled world no more needful than a world that is empty: but all needless alike, and what all add to Him is nothing. We also have no need of anything that us made. Love me, my brothers, for I am infinitely superfluous, and your love shall be like His, born neither of your need nor of my deserving, but a plain bounty. Blessed be He!" - C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

Meditation for Ash Wednesday

I've been writing about death, specifically as in our death as citizens of heaven to this world (here and here), for the past couple days because today is the first day of Lent, and Lent is in a sense all about death. In the sense that Advent is a time of preparation leading up to the celebration of Christmas, Lent is a time to ready our souls for the celebration of Easter. Traditionally, this is done by an increased focus on prayer, fasting, and giving: prayer aligns us with God, drawing us nearer to Him; fasting (not necessarily from food, but as a general practice of self-denial) is intended to help us detach from the pleasures and pursuits of this world, to die to ourselves; and giving is a restoration of harmony between people made by considering the needs and interests of others as well as of ourselves. So in our relationship with God, ourselves, and others we seek to put off the old man of sin and put on the new man of righteousness in Christ. Because of where the season falls in the liturgical year, it is also a fitting time to read the gospels and see how Jesus lived and conducted Himself as He prepared for His own death, and then seek to emulate Him in our lives here and now.

Shouldn't we be doing this all year long, though? Of course! Seeking righteousness for forty days during Lent isn't a ticket for pursuing our own pleasures and desires the rest of the year! But I think maybe it is good to have a yearly reminder, encouragement, and challenge to seek God more intentionally, just as it is good to rejoice in His resurrection on a specific day each year even though that resurrection should be a source of joy in our lives on every day. As long as the season of Lent remains just that, instead of becoming a ritual through which you try to obtain righteousness, merit, and the approval of God, I think it can be a very good thing - a time to recommit (to use a more Evangelical-friendly word!) and repent.

My main concern with Lent (and with many of the other traditions and rituals of the Church) comes from Paul's letter to the Colossians, where he writes,

"Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations - 'Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,' which all concern things which perish with the using - according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."

For example, it is really spiritually beneficial to fast on Ash Wednesday, as the tradition goes? Or if I fast as a mere religious ritual, am I really strengthening my spiritual pride in my control over my flesh without actually having to learn self-denial and death in the ways God gives me to learn them? Am I creating my own rules, which I am capable of following, so that I don't have to face up to my failure to follow God's rules? Am I creating my own self-imposed religion, so that I don't have to feel my deep and biting need for God's grace?

While I want to commemorate Lent this year, I need to make sure that my heart is right as I do it (in the same way as I need to do with Advent and Christmas, honestly, although the temptations for each season are different). If I use the time to more intentionally seek God or to strive to be more generous with my resources, I must make sure that I do so without pride, without loudly proclaiming what I'm doing so as to get recognition for it, and with a genuine desire to know God more. He must be the center in order for it to be good - but conversely, if He is the center, than it will be good. And personally I think that if I spend all of Lent trying to follow God with my whole heart, I will be constantly reminded of my great need for His grace, so that when Easter comes (which is the celebration of His wonderful grace and power toward us!) I will be able to celebrate it with incredible joy - and hopefully I will have begun to establish patterns and habits of seeking God in my life, so that after the season is over I may continue to pursue Him just as intentionally and just as passionately.

More thoughts on dying to this world

In C.S. Lewis's book Out of the Silent Planet, an unsuspecting Englishman named Ransom is kidnapped (by other humans) and taken to a planet called Malacandra, where he meets and befriends its rational inhabitants. At one point they are preparing to hunt a dangerous water creature called a hnakra (plural hneraki), and one of the inhabitants of Malacandra is speaking with Ransom about the hneraki (for reference, Oyarsa is the ruler of Malacandra and Maleldil is God):

"'I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, not love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes. I will tell you a day in my life that has shaped me; such a day as comes only once, like love, or serving Oyarsa in Meldilorn. Then I was young, not much more than a cub, when I went far, far up the handramit to the land where stars shine at midday and even water is cold. A great waterfall I climbed. I stood on the shore of Balki the pool, which is the place of most awe in all worlds. The walls of it go up for ever and ever and huge and holy images are cut in them, the work of old times. There is the fall called the Mountain of Water. Because I have stood there alone, Maleldil and I, for even Oyarsa sent me no word, my heart has been higher, my song deeper, all my days. But do you think it would have been so unless I had known that in Balki hneraki dwelled? There I drank life because death was in the pool. That was the best of drinks save one.'
'What one?' asked Ransom.
'Death itself in the day I drink it and go to Maleldil.'"

Death itself is not a glorious thing, but it can be a precious and desired thing because of what it entails: because it can throw the piercing glory of life into stark reflection, preventing one from sinking back into the complacent stupor of pleasant and meaningless existence; and because it is the door through which we must pass to receive true and everlasting life and to be with God in a greater way than we yet can. It is not for us to try to thrust open that door before God calls us through it, but it is also not for us to shirk back in fear of the passing through. As Jesus Himself warned us, "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

So let us pursue what is right without regards to the risk. Let us seek what is good without compromising for our own security or comfort. Let us proclaim what is true without omission due to fear or embarrassment. Let us follow God with all of our being, so we may find that death is not the terrifying end of all good things, but is rather the pathway to glory and life.

To seek death

When we seek to live in a way that pleases God, when we strive to be like Jesus in our thoughts and actions, when we desire to know Christ and have Him be the center of our lives - what does that entail? More than I know and can write about, certainly, but one thing it means is that we seek death.

Before you lessen the impact of that statement with all the rationalization of what exactly "death" means when, say, the Apostle Paul says in Philippians that "to die is gain" or that he longs to be "conformed to His death," take the time to think about it honestly. What does it mean to die? It is to be cut off, alone, from everyone else, as a single individual - to see your dreams for your life fading from your grasp, to know that you will have no future in which to do the things you've always wanted - to suddenly wonder what substance or worth any part of your life has had, and if anything you did ever truly mattered - to abandon all material things without a hidden reserve, to lose all earthly treasures without a safety net or back-up plan, to be separated irrevocably from the physical, visible world around you. How could this be the thing that we seek, when we serve a God of life, a God who delights in pouring out blessings upon His people, a God of joy and harmony and love? Is it strictly a physical death that we seek? Clearly not, since those who followed Christ, though they died for Him, did not seek that death as a suicide seeks death. They were seeking something else, and had already attained death before they reached that earthly death.

So what is this death that we seek? We seek to die to this world, even as we still live and remain in it. And how does that work? It means that the things that matter in this world - respect, approval, fame, material security, wealth, physical health, pleasure, comfort, convenience, and so on through the list of all that we pursue and idolize - these things must not matter to us any longer. Whether we are rich or poor, wealth or poverty must not be the thing that matters or the thing we seek; whether we are sick or well, health or sickness must not be the thing that matters or the thing we seek; whether we are well-loved or despised, the opinion of others (negative or positive) must not be the thing that matters or the thing we seek. It should be as though we have been cut off from those things, alone as a single individual on the other side of the great divide, seeing our dreams for this world fading away, knowing that our future does not lie with them, dispensing of every last hidden reserve and secret treasure that would bind us to this world.

Death hurts, dearly beloved.

It hurts like hell to be torn from the things and the people we love, that matter to us, upon which we have built the whole of our precariously balanced lives. And ultimately, death is hell, because it tears apart relationships and we were not made to be alone. But we seek death because we know that in Christ this death is not the ending. If we have attained this death - the death to this world, even as we physically live on in this world - then when physical death does come for us as it comes for all, we will find ourselves in the fullness and completion of life: not physical life, but that greater heavenly life which we begin to taste and see even now as we learn to die to things of earth. If we give up all this world first, simply because we seek to know and be with Christ and not for any other future pleasure we may hope for or any present accolades or admiration, we will find a more wonderful and beautiful life in Him. We seek death so that we might know what is the power of His resurrection; we desire to be conformed to His death so that we may attain to the resurrection from the dead.