Hit Between the Eyes–Facing up to wrong beliefs

What do you do when faced with a lifetime built on the wrong paradigm?

Thanks to the conspiracy of the Holy Spirit and the books that have dropped into my life this week, I’ve been reminded of a paradigm shift that is incomplete in my life–one of those belief systems that dies hard and must be weeded out root by root… Mine has been the upbringing of a self-righteous Pharisee. No blame intended, it’s just what I latched onto as a means to satisfy my need to please…

Little by little the Spirit shows me what he sees and what I need to confess and reject. I’m still trying to frame clearly in words this insidious belief system that sabotages my heart. It’s something to the effect of believing that doing the right thing, avoiding mistakes, treading cautiously so as not to slip and fall, living wary of potential failure… all these things are indispensable to maintaining a ‘right-eousness’ that will not only qualify me for the Kingdom but guarantee me an A+ standing. Yep, I got Jesus ‘on board’ at an early age too, as that was clearly the ‘right’ thing to do in my religious community, and I might need His help along the way…. Cultivating a relationship with Him was clearly requisite to maintaining my ‘righteousness’ (and bolstering my insecurities). So I did, as much as a self-righteous sinner can. But I’ve always been goaded by stories that depict great love and adoration, great mercy, forgiveness and compassion. The self-righteous generally are.

Consider, for instance, the publican and the Pharisee going up to pray. Who gets a hearing? Not the “I thank thee that I am not like that lout of a man”, but the miserable repentant sinner who pleads: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”(Luke 18).

And what’s this with the prostitute kneeling at Jesus’ feet weeping and washing His feet with her tears, trusting His compassionate heart to forgive: “Her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Lk.7:47) I have long secretly envied her heart-felt extravagance.

“Little love” is not enough to empower a life of self-forgetful service and whole-hearted sacrifice! Anything short of my life a ‘living sacrifice’ is insufficient worship to offer. But giving up my fabricated ‘righteousness’ and dogged self-preservation feels like a life-sentence. Hmm… ‘death to self’ could it be? What would that look like?

I’m reading a book I borrowed from my dad-in-law entitled: Living Sacrifice (Roseveare). It’s been one of those times in my life when books conspire to nail me between the eyes with my condition. Whether Owen Meany* (see last week’s blog) and his sense of destiny to give his life to save others, or Helen Roseveare’s reflections on lessons learned as a missionary in the Congo/Zaire, or the book I have yet to mention that came in the mail this week for me to review…All point to a love that is not only willing but glad to surrender its life for another. If these are not enough hints, there’s Paul’s joyful letter to the Philippians, in which he extols the privilege of suffering for Christ’s sake. It has been granted to us that ‘for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for his sake…’ (Phil.1:29).

Paul himself experienced the rigorous life of the true Pharisee with its confidence, zeal, and blamelessness and declared it all a net loss, garbage in comparison to the worth of knowing Christ, sharing His righteousness, His resurrection power and His sufferings. It was the goal of Paul’s life to be like Christ, humbly obedient to the point of death. Where does that kind of self-forgetful zeal come from?

My guess is, love. And Paul’s own words in his letter to the Corinthians confirm it: “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. II Cor. 5:14,15

This kind of self-sacrificing love is unfamiliar territory for the self-righteous—wise in their own sight, self-sufficient, not cognizant of the grace in which they live and breathe. Thinking they have little to be forgiven, they love little. I wonder if you saw “The Passion of the Christ” (Gibson, 2004) when it came out? I watched alone those moments of Christ’s trial when the pious Pharisees and chief priests in all their regalia were standing smugly by and I was struck with my own culpability. But then with awe I realized that this repugnantly self-righteous lot were among those for whom Christ came to die. His piercing words to them throughout His ministry–calling them ‘white-washed sepulchers’, blind guides, children of the devil—were not meant to condemn but to confront them with their sinful selves so they could repent and be saved.

And even still Christ calls to self-righteous me, to relinquish my rubbish and rely on His righteousness alone. And again, by faith, I trade in my bankrupt agenda for His and trust Him to put His great love in my heart. I can’t serve Him without it.

It’s got to be by faith. Everything else reeks of self and sin. “Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” Rom.14:23 I do want to ‘get it right’ but my motives are so skewed. Jesus is not only the founder of my faith, but its perfecter (Heb.12:2) It’s not about the perfection of what I do but of my faith—resting my whole case on Christ from beginning to end. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.” (Col.2:6) It doesn’t just start with believing I’m a hopeless sinner and He’s my Saviour. It continues that way. He saves me from myself every day by passing day, and my only hope of walking worthy of my calling is by faith, that He is able…thus the fear and trembling of ‘working out my own salvation’ (Phil.2:12) for it is this awesome, holy, perfect, almighty God that is in the process of redeeming my life and making it an instrument of redemption…

Larry Crabb goes so far as to state: “Without an ongoing consciousness of sin, any sense of nearness to [God] is counterfeit. But with consciousness of sin, the fire of purifying holiness will sustain your faith.”(God’s Love Letters to You,44) I’m still chewing on this one.

Helen Roseveare’s stories viewed apart from such a work of God only make me squirm. Such self-sacrificial service was her response to Jesus’ love and death for her, ‘a way to express to God [my] great love for Him.’ When she speaks of this ‘insistent demand in our heart to express to Him our love’ I hesitate in self-examination. But the last enigmatic straw is this willingness to suffer, the costliness of such a love. She speaks of it as the ‘privileged opportunity of sharing in His love’, of ‘jointly demonstrating’ it to others…

Am I willing to give my whole heart, soul, mind and strength for His purposes—the loan of all I am, for His glory, without advance notice of the implications, and without life-time guarantees? This is going to have to be a process He works out in me too, by faith. When I glance through the Hebrews 11 crowd, that great cloud of witnesses to the life of faith, I am stretched.

choosing mistreatment with God’s people rather than ‘the fleeting pleasures of sin’
considering ‘the reproach of Christ’ greater wealth than Egypt’s treasures because of the reward in view…
enduring ‘as seeing Him who is invisible’
refusing release ‘so that they might rise again to a better life’
‘of whom the world was not worthy’
‘for the joy set before Him’ enduring the cross
All of them were looking ahead to another reality—an unshakeable Kingdom, which made their present losses of no account. Not living under persecution or great hardships it is easy to get lulled into clinging to present comforts and shunning discomfort. I’m challenged by the perspective Larry Crabb champions in his recent book God’s Love Letters to You (Thomas Nelson, 2010) These devotional excerpts certainly don’t read like conventional ‘love letters’. They continuously point to a greater hope than the present, a bigger purpose than present ‘blessings’–God’s sort of ‘tough love’–designed to prepare us for Kingdom living. For instance:

“The greatest danger My people face today is prosperity, blessings that reinforce the false hope that nothing serious will ever go wrong in their lives if they just keep believing, expecting, trusting, and smiling….When every expectation of how your life should turn out is shattered; when I seem to you like an indifferent, cold sovereign, a promise breaker, a useless God, an abandoning parent, rejoice! You are ready for the unveiling, to meet Me as I am.” (47)

“When your life hits a bump that I could smooth but don’t, will you continue to think I should surrender My wisdom to yours and do what you think best?”(50)

“My people in Judges never repented. They remained in love with their own sense of well-being, with no understanding that love, real love, the love that defines Me, involves suffering the loss of well-being for the sake of another….You…are inclined to depend on Me for the good life of blessings and to mistake that dependence for love. You’re more afraid of losing the good life than of losing (or never gaining) a close relationship with Me. You do not yet see that being with Me is your greatest blessing, no matter what else may be happening in you life.”(20)

“Know this: those who live by faith will struggle in ways that those who live to make their lives work will never know. It is that struggle, to believe despite desperate pain and confusion that a good plan is unfolding, that will open your eyes to see Me more clearly. Is that what you want? Will you pay the price?

“The price is this: you will tremble in agony as you live in a sinful, self-prioritizing world. You will learn to wait in emptiness and frustrated desire for My plan of love to reveal itself…”(53)

And so, God loves, and we believe, as we bank on His righteousness being sufficient. And we wait for our full redemption, ‘prisoners of hope’, confident that God is working in us to make us like His Son and love the world through us in the meantime.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe” (Heb.12:28)

God be merciful to me, a sinner,

LS

*My book review of: A Prayer for Owen Meany is at: http://thestackofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/prayer-for-owen-meany.html

Destined to be a GRAND Mom…

BOOKS, LIVE IT!

“Grandmom” has taken on new meaning for me. My firstborn’s firstborn is learning to talk and now can utter this magic word. Magic, because it addresses ME! The ‘me’ who was once ‘destined’ to be a single woman missionary and Bible translator…the ‘me’ who never dreamed of having kids, let alone grandkids, who never babysat or dared to hold a baby lest it cry and never dreamed of finding the man who would change my destiny!

From time to time you hear a person say they’ve ‘missed their calling’. They find themselves in a future they hadn’t seen coming with a job description they feel ill-prepared for. Or they’re looking over the neighbor’s fence, so to speak, and envying his lot. Or maybe the ‘good old days’, the leeks and garlic of Egypt suddenly seem more appealing than the present wilderness (or bewildered-ness?!).

Sometimes I feel like that. And sometimes I reflect on how different life might have been. But I am SO glad I do not hold the Master Plan. The ‘calling’ that is mine I might have missed–this calling that at once delights me and intimidates me…

I’ve been pondering destiny this week. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of my summer reading project, a novel entitled: A Prayer for Owen Meany.* Here was a kid that believed in destiny. He set his face like flint to face what he believed his own destiny, no matter how fearful. He believed his hands were God’s and God would accomplish His purposes through his life. There are no ‘accidents’. Come what may, it was his destiny and he would accept it as such. He had faith in a sovereign God. Despite what could be viewed as tragedy woven through the course of his life and finishing him off at a young age, he dies clearly a hero. He ‘finishes his course’ confident that he has fulfilled his God-ordained destiny. There is triumph in spite of all the story’s sadness.

In contrast to Owen Meany is the attitude of his life-long friend who struggles to believe that anything he might decide to do would matter. He is forever indecisive, waiting to see what will happen next… He feels life happens by chance and ‘luck’. The book is in fact his story of coming to faith, because of Owen Meany. All five-hundred plus pages went down this past week on our drive to visit the grandbabies…and have been stirred into my thoughts on calling and destiny…

I guess we are at a time in life where it is not altogether clear where we are headed or what is next. Once-upon-a-time it was quite straightforward—school, college, marriage, special training for missions, babies, missions, furlough travel, homeschooling…but now all that is ‘history’ as they say and we are nearing half-a-century of antiquity ourselves. What’s next? Have I made my ‘mark’ on the world? Have I walked in all those ‘good works’ prepared for me from the foundation of the world? (Eph. 2:10) Is the way I walk ‘worthy of my calling’? (Eph.4:1) Is the fruit of my life fruit that ‘will remain’?(Jn.15:16)

If you’ve read my mind here for long, you know I ask more questions than I find answers for, and today’s are no exception. I sat on a slope laden with pine-needles this morning, inhaling the essence of wild rose and hot pine, watching an osprey soar to alight on a towering pine tree, listening to the roar of the river rushing white far below… and reading in Isaiah. Big picture words. Strength-giving words. Words of destiny and assurance. And pondering what it means to live life without a blue-print, yet in the personal care of the Designer of Heaven and Earth!

I share my findings with you:

“I, I am He who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, … and have forgotten the LORD, your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, and you fear continually all the day because of the wrath of the oppressor, when he sets himself to destroy?” (Is.51:12,13)

“I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of hosts is His name. And I have put my words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of my hand,…saying to Zion, ‘You are my people.’” (Is.51:15,16)

“Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments… Your God reigns!” (Is.52:1,7) (The JOY of the Lord is your strength; you are clothed in His righteousness)

“Fear not, for you will not be ashamed; be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced…
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called. For the LORD has called you…” (Is.54:4,5)

“In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;…If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you…no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed…this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication (righteousness) from me, declares the Lord.” (Is.54:14-17)

“…for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children.” (Is.49:25)

“But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced;…Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty?” (Is. 50:7-9)

I love Isaiah. His writing is so powerful and comforting. But speaking of destinies… I wonder how he viewed his?! He was willing to go and preach to the people of Israel but was told ahead of time that they would not listen and his words would seem to be in vain. (Is.6) Still He was chosen to speak and spend His life pleading with Israel to listen to God’s words… He died not seeing the fruit of his life, perhaps little knowing that he would give to the world the prophecies concerning Christ and bring hope to countless generations!

Who am I to question my calling and wonder about the worth of my destiny? It is God who is at work in me, giving both “the desire and the power to do what pleases him.” (Phil.2:13) He has the blueprint. He is the builder. I can trust Him with the process.

And when I wonder if I am ‘up to it’, this GRAND calling, I read again Solomon’s words:
“Now, O LORD my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David, yet I am but a little child; I do not know how to go out or come in…So give Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” (I Kings 3:7-9) I am reminded of my source and why I’m called to pray without ceasing! My competence or incompetence is not the issue. Even Paul acknowledged this:

“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.” (II Cor.3:5)

This God who calls the foolish and the weak (I Cor. 1:26ff) to show off His power is fully able to accomplish what concerns me.

I have gradually been making my way through a little book with yellowing pages called: The Saving Life of Christ by Ian Thomas (Zondervan,1961). Its emphasis is on the untapped nature of the life that is ours because we are in Christ, created in Him to be ‘the human vehicle of the divine life, inhabited by God for God.’ ‘What you are is totally irrelevant…if only you will recognize the principle that it is God that works in you…’ Citing the lives of such as Jacob and David and Elijah and Isaiah, he states that ‘it is in the school of destitution—the bitter school of self-discovery—that finally you graduate into usefulness, when at last you discover the total bankruptcy of what you are apart from what God is!’ (63) He suggests that while living in the past tense of remembering what the Lord has done, or the future tense of His soon coming, ‘we forget that He is the eternal I AM, the eternal present tense, adequate right now for every need!’

I appreciated his thoughts today regarding vocation. Referring to Moses’ life he remarks that it is not man’s ability but his availability that qualifies a man for God. Our commitment isn’t to a need or a job so much as it is to God. He is looking for restful availability and a prompt response to His every impulse. God calls me to ‘Be still, and know that I am God’. In other words, ‘quit the panic! Just let God be God!’ These are all reminders that I need as I reflect on my ‘job description’. In another chapter on our completeness in Christ, Ian Thomas suggests: ‘Relate everything, moment by moment as it arises, to the adequacy of what he is in you, and assume that His adequacy will be operative…” (Thomas,16). Boy! I sure want to get the hang of that!

How GRAND this Mom shall be is only limited by how yielded she is to the God who is her strength. What place she will have in her children’s and grandchildren’s lives is then subject to her Designer’s specifications. I find comfort in knowing I’m not left to my own resources; I love these words in Hosea: “I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.” (14:8)

So let the (grand)children come!

–LS

“For the LORD comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.” (Is.51:3)

And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God in all that you undertake. Deut.12:18

*By way of disclaimer, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (William Morrow and Co., 1989) is not a ‘Christian’ book per say, and being a ‘coming-of-age’ novel centered around two boys’ lives, contains language, sex and some violence, but a great deal also to chew on regarding faith, religion, and God’s sovereignty. It is set in the era of the Vietnam War, so expect also controversial American politics. That being said, it is an unforgettable and very skillfully written story. (For a fuller review see my book review blog at: http://thestackofdawn.blogspot.com/2011/07/prayer-for-owen-meany.html )

Nothing gold can stay…

All Sorts

Have you noticed how good things always come to pass. Long-awaited but so quickly past?

Old friends from far-away and long-ago come to visit—stirring memories and names long unspoken—and when good-byes are said a kind of weary home-sickness settles in…

Not a longing for any physical place. Not a longing earth can satisfy–but a longing for no more change, no more growing old, no more good-byes…

Nothing stays. Nothing lasts. The cherished, the familiar, the routine… the best of things are broken, or taken, or lost, or parted with in some way… Season gives way to season passing in a succession that quickens with age. Winter will come, though summer delays yet. Death is sure. Obsolescence is the rule. Tomorrow is uncertain—will it bring sun or clouds? Loss or gain? Wonder or grief?

I feel it in my joints. I am no longer twenty-something. I hear it in my children’s cautions…(who’s looking out for who?!) I see it in my parents—ailing, failing, calling obliquely for help from far-away…Roles reverse and I’m called on to grow up and be care-giver…

Life seems like a very long ‘good-bye’…

An endless deposit of blessings come my way, it’s true. But not for keeps. With open palm I am to hold each one, to delight in it but never grasp it to my heart…to be filled with wonder and gratitude at each and every one, but not to insist on possession. It is as though I’m being forever weaned from the temporal so as to acquire a taste for the eternal—the better and lasting possessions yet to come. Only gratitude, born of trust, is a fitting attitude with which to handle such transience.

I am so fickle, like a spoiled child. Always wanting more. Delighted for a moment and then dejected and demanding. Sinking my hopes in earthly moments, living for bright but transient tomorrows which when come and gone leave me despondent…

And yet we are heirs of an eternal Kingdom, one which will not, cannot, be shaken. (Heb. 12:28)

Our citizenship is not here, but “in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil.3:20,21)

“For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (Heb. 13:14)

It’s true, all I see and know here, everything that ‘matters’ in a worldly sense, is destined to perish with the using, and guaranteed to pass into oblivion (I Jn.2:15). How should I then live in the meantime?

It was said of the ‘Hall of Faith’ heroes who lived and suffered and died in faith, that the world was not worthy of them. (Heb. 11:38) They lived differently because they believed in an unseen hope.

If we are truly strangers and pilgrims here and now, what purpose and vision distinguish us from earth-dwellers with no other hope? If this world is like a scene in ‘Our Town’ (see Thornton Wilder’s thought-provoking play by this title) and real life transcends it… how differently will I choose to live? Can I face each day grateful and unafraid—knowing whatever comes is for now, but not forever.

True enough, good things come only to pass, not for keeps. But so do the hard things. The sad things. There is a better day coming, a certain hope that will not disappoint, a goodness that will not fail, a bright tomorrow that will not end…Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and what’s more, I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. That’s a long time of a good thing, unchanging, unfading, for ‘keeps’.

I guess it’s all a matter of where I set my sights. That which is truly gold will last—“the city was pure gold, clear as glass.…” (Rev.21:18)

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, (I Pet. 1:3,4)

—LS

P.S. My title is drawn from this poem by Robert Frost:
Nothing Gold Can Stay

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

Good enough for me!

All Sorts

I have to chuckle sheepishly to myself this week as I chew on some good words:
.“So much of our praise to the Lord is limited to the moments when we have determined that what He has done is good…in these situations we praise God for His faithfulness.” (Paul Tripp, War of Words, 74)

When things have turned out as we wished, when a prayer has been answered promptly with a ‘Yes, I’d be glad to do that’, when the sun shines and life feels good, it’s pretty easy to exclaim, “God is so good!” or “Isn’t God so faithful!”

Is He not good the rest of the time? Does His faithfulness lapse? And when that trying situation is not resolved and there’s no end in sight—am I quick to believe that God is good and faithfully at work despite what I can see and feel?

These are thoughts that challenge me. My heart’s been a little sad this last few weeks. My faithful hiking companion and ‘bear-dog’ injured his leg in a rush of bravado shooing a bear from the yard. That was nearly three weeks ago. It happened all in a moment but he has not been up to going on walks since, let alone climbing Scout or rambling off in search of new trails and making me feel ‘bear-safe’. I’m on my own and the sense of his absence is acute, especially when I consider the likelihood that his injury may not heal itself. There’s this great sense of loss—loss of a good thing, loss of freedom to hike with a carefree aloneness–the sense of loss that always comes with sudden change. But I tell you this because I am so encouraged by what I sense God doing in the backdrop of my sadness.

That first tear-filled walk alone I was bursting with tension between grief and gratefulness and could really not say much but “Lord, you know…” But there was deep gratitude welling up for all the good years He’s given. Eight years of carefree rambling and idyllic retreats with the Lord in His Creation. It was all so custom-made for my very own soul that I can’t really explain it. Can I complain if that season is drawing to a close? Are there new possibilities ahead that I would fail to see unless weaned from this delight? I don’t know, but I am so encouraged that God has planted in me this sense that it is all under His control and He is indeed working all things for my good.

Ha! There is a potential pitfall in expecting always what’s ‘good’. So quickly I can lapse into self-pity and doubt and begin to think I’ve been neglected, mistreated, etc… Our ‘good’ sensors are terribly out of whack, magnetized to self-centeredness. If it doesn’t please me at the moment, if it doesn’t ‘seem’ good, if it’s painful in any way… how can it possibly be good?! But God says He is working everything out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Rom.8:28). Of course, one big adjustment we could give our ‘good’ sensors would be to orient them to what God’s purposes for us in fact are: to make us just like Jesus being the main thing! And the prescribed process is likely to include discomfort. (See: Heb. 12, James 1:2-4, I Pet.1:6,7) Funny how we get to thinking the discomfort is evidence that we’ve been forgotten, when in fact it’s quite the contrary. God is giving evidence that we’re His very own sons, being shaped for glory!!

So my trails have been abruptly halted, except for those I’ve taken with real people companions. These are increasing –a new thing growing? Am I being weaned from my solitary habits? Hmm… Can I trust that God is faithfully accomplishing all the good work He has promised to do in and through my life?

Absolutely, by His grace I can.

Do I yet have to fight anxiety some times when I don’t know what to do next with this faithful hound?

Yep. That too is part of the process. But ya’ know, the one bad night when the dog was acting agitated and senile, and I was very consciously busy ‘not being anxious’ but still not knowing what I should do, this solution came (thanks to my wise bedfellow): “Count your blessings”. You’ve heard of counting sheep, well that has never worked for me; but I can tell you that counting blessings does. My mind wandered back to the delight of getting to keep Louie when he was just an energetic two-year old…and I was asleep before the count of eight.

I’ve been giving myself doses of doctrine lately regarding God’s sovereignty, and find I just want to lap up more! For instance consider Nebuchadnezzar’s conclusions about God after his bout with insanity:

“I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever,for his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay his hand
or say to him, “What have you done?” (Dan.4:34-35)

If this God is in control of my life, need I ever panic (or despair)? Life is never really out of control and though I may be confused or not know what’s going on, God does. And I’m His. And He cares about every little detail. Isn’t that enough?

Or consider this inheritance we’ve been freely given:
“In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.” Eph. 1:5,6

For that matter, look at the whole of Ephesians 1 and it’s pretty clear that God is the one pouring on the blessings, guaranteeing our inheritance, assuring us of a blameless stance before Him, sealing our adoption ‘papers’ with His Spirit… in short, doing a host of things we are helpless to do for ourselves, a host of things that beg the question: “If God be for us, who can be against us?!” Can any circumstance obstruct His purposes for us?

Ahhhh… to get to the point where I remember at every moment that He is active in my life, working in all things for my redemptive good. That would sure change the way I react to ‘problems’ wouldn’t it? If indeed, “God has us just were we need to be so that His purposes for us and His promises to us may come to pass,” (Tripp, 74) then what more could I wish for?

And the more I think about God’s sovereignty, the more I’m drawn away from worry and toward worship. God is so good and so faithful—all the time–and that’s good enough for me!

“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah.” (Ps.62:8)

“Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come–For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord from my youth—I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more—So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.” (Ps.71)

I leave you with a snatch of a favorite poem by George Herbert (a pastor and poet, 1593-1633) entitled:

Gratefulness

Thou hast giv’n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart….

Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be
Thy praise.

If you enjoy poetry, you’ll enjoy the rest of this poem found here: http://www.janice-campbell.com/2007/11/20/gratefulnesse-by-george-herbert/

–LS

P.S. I am indebted to author Paul David Tripp for encouraging my thinking along these lines in his thought-provoking book: War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles in which he explores the implications of God’s sovereignty on the way we communicate. Good stuff!

The Unity of the Spirit

LOVE IT!

“…eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:3)

I noticed something recently in the tower of Babel story. God said there wasn’t anything these rebels couldn’t do when they were unified in purpose. “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

And it struck me, if this is the case with mere men in defiance of God, setting out to make a name only for themselves, what would be the possibilities for us as believers? If we were so united in purpose with Christ as our Head–think of the possibilities? The Babel-ites set out to make a name for themselves. What is our mission as God’s ‘chosen ones’? Is it not to make His Name look good?

Jesus’ prayed before His crucifixion: “…that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me…that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”(Jn.17:22ff) There’s power in unity! The world will sit up and take note when we are filled with that kind of love for each other. Such unity is a wonder of no small proportion.

But it won’t happen without the Spirit moving in each of us—to replace our natural conceit and envy with compassion, our judgmental fault-finding with humility, our irritable complaints with forgiveness, our self-exalting, self-promoting, self-centered natures with His love.

Where does it start? I like the way Romans 5 puts it: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” That’s the ticket. His love poured in so we have something to pour out! We’re destined to love just like Jesus. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…” (Rom.8:29) In the meantime there’s the practicum—right here where we live loving the spiritual ‘kin’ that surround us. Together we’re being shaped to resemble Christ.

In his book, Becoming a True Spiritual Community, Larry Crabb envisions such an environment for growth: “Members of a spiritual community look at each other with the conviction that God has placed something terrific in every member. It may be well hidden, but spiritual energy can see it, call it forth, and enjoy it.” (97)

This kind of interaction may mean we have to adjust our focus when we look at each other—looking not at what’s wrong but at what’s right! What evidence can we find of the Spirit at work in each of us? It means learning to talk (and listen) with the Spirit’s energy, not from my old nasty nature, which gives me that smug self-righteous feeling (‘rejoicing at wrongdoing’). The Spirit’s energy in my new nature will generate a response based on love and leave us both encouraged and ‘knit together’– in a way that brings God great pleasure. He’s out to make us look like Jesus and He delights in us ‘as is’ and calls us ‘saints’. Can we do less for each other?

What drives my communication?

From what I read in Scripture the purpose is ‘building up’ and ‘giving grace’ to the hearer (Eph.4:29)—not necessarily airing my every complaint, opinion and latest ‘news’ tidbits…Not that these are always out of place, but what is the ‘aftertaste’ of our conversation? Does it leave us mutually encouraged? Reminded of the goodness of God, viewing life in all its myriad details with a confidence that God is at work in and through us?

Does the way I speak make God look good, or absent?! “Speaking the truth in love” is our rule of thumb, for the purpose of growing up together in Christ. What would that look like?

“In spiritual community people participate in dialogue: They share without manipulation, they listen without prejudice, they decide without self-interest. The absence of dialogue is sure evidence that we don’t really believe others are speaking from a place worth hearing, and it is even stronger proof that we ourselves, whatever we may think are not in fact speaking from that place. Our words are so often unwholesome, not the edifying words we’re told to speak” (Crabb, 95)

We sometimes substitute puffing ourselves up for building others up. This happens when I think more of myself and my experiences than I ought to think. (Col.2:18) Love isn’t like that. It ‘vaunteth not itself’ (I Cor.13). That’s a wonderful old-fashioned word that means to display oneself or ‘employ rhetorical embellishments in extolling one’s self excessively.’ Hmm… (ouch).

I was looking at that passage in Eph.4 about building up and giving grace to the hearer and do you know what it says next? “…and do not grieve the Holy Spirit, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Is there a connection? Could it be that we literally cause the Spirit within us great sadness when we speak in ways that puff us up and tear another down?

Considering His role in our lives, it makes sense. The Spirit is the One at work in us all to bring us to “the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect (“finished”) man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13) This is not just about me, it’s a project necessitating our joint co-operation, and joint allegiance to the Head: “From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.” (Eph.4:15,16)

We’re in this thing together. Our conversations matter. We need each other.

Paul echoes the significance of this unity in his letter to the Philippians: “complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility…”(2:2-3)

And again to the Colossians: “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony,” (Col.3:14) This is literally a picture of ligaments binding together the body. Love keeps us from being out of joint!

Paul says he struggles greatly on their behalf “…that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col2:2)

From prison he urges the Ephesians to walk worthy of their calling “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:3)

So much emphasis on unity! Must be we need to take note. Must be unity is worth the work of preserving. Being a devoted loner much of my life I can’t speak with great experience here but this past year I’ve been part of a wee gathering of saints committed to grappling with some key issues in the Word and coming to a consensus as much as possible. It’s been a stretch and a precarious unity at times. But unmistakably we have grown and been enriched by each other. Our disparate little group is learning to love beyond disagreement and to hang onto each other through differences. The Spirit is clearly at work. And we are the recipients of His joy!

What I’ve tasted of such ‘community’ whets my appetite for more. Imagine a place where it would be ‘safe’ to ‘confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed’? Might this healing be just what the Body in our day is lacking?

Crabb comments: “I know of little else so powerful as confessing wretched failure and having a friend look on you with great delight.”(99) This is what God does; He delights in our confession and gladly grants forgiveness. Can we fully celebrate God’s forgiveness together if we have never admitted we are sinners? “The safety necessary to own my badness comes when someone believes that I am in Christ and that He is in me. Then anything can be faced without fear of being discarded.” “The more I see sin in the presence of a spiritual community, the more I see Christ and celebrate Him and long to know Him and be like Him.”(99)

So, though I’ve had but a taste of such community, such unity of purpose, such love– I’m increasingly convinced that my life in Christ is meant to be lived in context of other ‘joints’ and will only realize it’s full purpose in that context. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say here.

It’s not about me and you and our separate ways and means. It’s about me being there for you to cheer you on, to be glad with you, be sad with you, to share my own failures and the lessons I’m learning. And maybe it’s about me looking at you and seeing the good things God is doing and reflecting that back to you. And maybe we are meant to get together and admit the places where we can’t see Him working at all and ask Him together about it. It’s about our being ‘knit together in love’, not for the comfy-cozy of it but for the strength it gives the Body.

So let’s be EAGER BEAVERS ‘to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of love’ as “we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, [even] as by the Spirit of the Lord.”( II Cor 3:18)… and who can tell what God will do in and through us?!

–LS

…on loving and living the Word of Life!