The Balancing Act

I was at my home group the other night, and the whole subject of eternal security came up, albeit in a roundabout way. Like, we can count on God adopting us as His children. But we are also supposed to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." But God "chose us before the foundation of the world," right? And we are still supposed to strive to "make our calling and election sure."

It is that age old argument. Well, it's an argument from our perspective, I guess. And my friend said it in a really cool way. He said at the end, when we get to the entrance gate or whatever is there, and we are in front of God Himself, and He asks us why He should let us in, what will be our response? Well, I for one know I will fall on my face and say that of course He shouldn't, but would He please let me in because of the blood of Christ? That's the only thing that will get anyone in anyhow, and there is no way I am going to stand there and try to argue that I was good enough during my life to merit living eternally in the presence of a perfectly holy God.

So if that will be what happens then, there's two things about now that I know. a) I should never take Jesus sacrifice for granted. And 2) I can take Jesus sacrifice for granted.

I can work to make my calling sure even while counting on the gift of the shed blood of Christ. There's always a balance to be struck.

A little view of the top

God reveals His love for us in so many ways - many times through other people. We are God to each other sometimes, when we show real love. The flowers that show up at work, the note from someone you have not seen for too long, the surprise party thrown on a Friday night, of all nights, right before vacation. Pretty cool, really.

The Center Pole is...Whom?

Who is at the center of our spiral line of life?

For most people, it really is ourselves. We see everything through our own frame of reference, we look at every new situation in terms of how it might benefit us, we seem to constantly ask the question, "What's in this for me?" But is that how we should live?

Certainly not as Christians. We are supposed to be walking in the steps of Jesus Christ. And if there was ever an unselfish person in this world it was Jesus Christ. He knew He was God in the flesh, He knew He had power to do anything, have anything, become anything. And He chose to follow His Father's plan right to the cross and death. He always had His perspective straight, and had the long view in mind. "For the joy set before Him" he scorned the shame of the cross, endured the pain. What was the joy?

I think Jesus' joy was multifaceted - bringing honor to God, returning to the Father and sitting at His right, winning the battle over sin and death. But we were also part of that joy. He loved us! He still loves us, and is in the throne room of God advocating for us. "This one belongs to me," He'll say when our Accuser stands and tries to show God we are undeserving of salvation.

God is to be the center of our spiral. We are to always be looking to Him, walking in His love and grace. And anything that drags us off of that focus is bad - I would even go so far as to call it idolatry.

That includes being in despair about our own weaknesses. In fact, the ancient theologian Fenelon would say that despair over our weakness is worse that the weakness itself. If we can just recognize our weakness, then give it over to God, and walk forward knowing His love remains on us, then we are doing well. But if we wallow in it, analyze it, cry over it, hold onto it like some unwashed security blanket, then we are focused on ourselves and not on God. This attitude reflects our lack of belief in His promise that He will never leave us, that He will always love us, and that His grace is sufficient for everything - even for getting us Home.

Myopic Spiral

I was thinking about perspective the other day. I remembered that when I was learning to drive, I was taught to keep my eyes up toward the horizon, and this would make it easier to drive within the lanes on the highway. When we look at the road directly in front of our car, we begin to make small, frequent, and conscious adjustments, which sometimes only serve to keep us weaving around in the lane, instead of just driving straight ahead with our eyes on the goal, so to speak. If we look to where we are going, it is easier to stay on the straight course to get there.

So it is with our life of faith. If we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, we will find it easier to walk steadily toward Him. If we start looking down at the road right in front of us, we find ourselves veering off course. It is the long view toward the goal that keeps our path straight.

The Long Haul

Have Americans really forgotten what happened in Louisiana and Mississippi a mere 6 months ago? I heard someone lamenting about that this morning.

My church has teamed with the local high school to build a house and send it down to Cut Off, Louisiana for a displaced family. Whay would happen if every vocational center building program teamed with a local church and sent a house? Imagine that!

Could it happen?

Sure Footing

When God adopts us as His children, granting us the Holy Spirit, He grants us certainty. The trick is to walk in what we know to be true, rather than what we feel at the time.

Faith is the ability to look at any situation, face any kind of "feeling" about that situation, and still choose to believe the Truth that we know. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of what is not seen. So says Hebrews 11. But the ability to walk in certainty requires constantly reminding ourselves of that truth.

It is difficult to be in a crazy circumstance and hang on to that. But I think it is even harder to live this in the everyday. I mean, when a hurricane completely destroys your house, you don't have much but your faith to fall back on, so to speak. The thing in Proverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all of your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight - is eaiser to see when it is all you can see. But when you're in your everyday life, and just going through the normalcy of it, and everything around you is the familiar, normal stuff, and you have plenty of knowledge about what is going on and such, it is hard to remember that you're God's child. And when a question comes in the everyday, it is harder to pause and ask God. But we should, right? I mean, He is there all the time, and He always knows the answer.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking. Walking in the certainty of being God's child requires teaching ourselves to do that in all of the realms of life.

The Nature of the Spiral

A spiral staircase ascends in a circular line, so you come around to the same view of the room you left downstairs over and over, but from a slightly different perspective each time.

I am coming round to the anniversary of this blog, and I have realized that, just as I could have predicted, I am learning similar things to last year, but in a slightly different way, maybe at a deeper level. I started this endeavor after a weekend away with my church worship team. The annual prayer summit on which we go is a spiritual highlight of the year for most of us. We have time to spend in prayer and worship, and in talking with each other about the things of God.

It might be surprising, but most Christians don't spend that much time focused on the Divine because we are living here in this world and trying to do our jobs, care for our families, pay for our toys, and generally get along like everyone else. Sure, we try to spend time with God every day, we pray, we read our Bibles. But spending hours steeping in the presence of the Spirit? Listening for the Voice, learning to hear it better? There is nothing like a weekend away for that purpose to recharge one's soul, and to help one to re-learn how to hear, how to see, how to pray with the mind of Christ.

Of course, being a Christian isn't about how many hours we spend praying in our rooms, or about how many times we do our "read through the Bible in a year" plan. These things are the foundation for a life that is worthy of the call of the Creator of all.

At the end of the day, I know my God loves me. But I want to be able to say at the end of each day that I did all I could to stay true to Him whose name I bear and to bring honor to the One who purchased my soul.

The Spiral is Fluid and Connected

All that we learn comes together in the arts. We use it all - kinetic, aesthetic, mathematic, literary, all the subjects we ever learn - when it is connected in the arts.

Why is it that some think the arts less important than other disciplines?

I will never understand that.

Learning the same thing over again?

So since the human learning curve is a spiral, I suppose it is normal for the same things to come up again that we thought we learned a long time ago.

God is calling us to personal relationship, and personal holiness, and to taking Him seriously. I thought I had learned that. But since I am trapped in this claymation dwelling, I cannot seem to go for very long before I find I have forgotten who I am in Christ. I am so grateful for new mercies every morning and the fact that He never lets go of the other end of the rope.

Major things like hurricanes and earthquakes bring home the fact that we do not have the control in life that we think we do, and His sovereignty is the only thing that keeps me from despair.

May we all live less selfishly, and may we all remember the One in charge.

Step by step with patience

Ever find yourself inordinately grateful for the patience of God? I mean, really, He has every reason to give up on me. And yet, He continues His pursuit of me as if it hasn't already been nearly 25 years and I am still a wreck in so many ways.

People who think they are going to earn their way into heaven, work their way in, just be good enough to get in, have it all wrong. Because as I have said before, life isn't about me.

Self aggrandizement and self pity and self hatred and self esteem - or lack thereof - all have in common this one thing - "self."

The sooner we get over ourselves the better off the world will be.

Jesus came to suffer, to reach out to the lost and lonely, to heal the sick, to preach good news.

Shouldn't those of us who claim to be His do likewise?

Thank God He is still willing to let me. Thank God for His patience.

Around and around we go

So these retreats and summits are so great for recharging the batteries - and the battered. Those of us who are battered by life, I mean. We get to slow down so we can actually hear the voice of the Divine speaking to us - personally.

I am convinced that the enemy of all that is Good uses the fast pace of life to rob us of that opportunity. As a result, we get bogged down, distracted, and when we do think about God and our relationship with and to Him, we tend to have a somewhat skewed view.

For me, it usually comes in the form of dwelling on past mistakes about which I can do nothing, and with which consequences I daily live, trapped in the knowing of what could be and not being able to make it come to fruition. And so I pray that I am forgiven, and that He will help me out of that mess or this, and I end up "knowing" that I cannot possibly be the pleasing child of the King that I want to be, and "knowing" that I have made a mess, and "vowing" to be better.

And then comes the Voice, sometimes internally, sometimes in nature, and sometimes, as this, in the form of a friend, saying exactly what is needed, and echoing the words sent form the Throne of Grace - that my Father is proud of me, knows what I am doing, and has His Divine Hand on me to work, and to guide, and to mold, and to make, because He who began a good work in me is faithful to complete it.

And I return, ready for another round on the spiral.

The Center of the Spiral

I have been hearing the message over and over again lately - this life is not about me. This life is about making the most of what God gave me to do His work. It is about others - taking care of their needs, showing love and compassion and mercy at every turn.

Alison Littauer quoted a "dead guy" in a talk she gave, saying that even in the church, "self" is an issue. "The self can survive at the very altar, and watch the bleeding victim die, completely unmoved."

Oh, that I might not live that way - in service to self, in ignorance of my fellow man, in rebellion against my God!

Spiraling out of control...

Yeah, so I thought I would write things slightly more often for this blog...but alas, my life has been spiraling out of control.

Can't do it all, it seems.

Which is really pretty normal. I mean, even Jesus didn't do it all. There were probably still a few sick people in the world when he said, "It is finished." But He did everything the Father gave Him to do.

I can only strive to do the same. Right now it is being with my students and doing a musical - "Man of La Mancha." We're having fun.

Serving where I am planted - what a concept.

The Spiral is Unbroken

There are so many people who think that God has changed, or that the Old Testament talks about a different God than the New Testament. They couldn't be more wrong. God has always been about being in relationship with us, and has always given the same guideline - believe in Him and walk with Him.

Now, people interpret these things differently sometimes, but I don't think there are that many different ways to look at it. God has always been gracious - even Deuteronomy tells us that He loves to reach out to the alien. Isaiah talks about the Gentiles being included in the plan all along. And the New Testament is all about finishing the work He started, giving us a mediator who knows what it is to BE us, and who succeeded where we failed. Hebrews says that God, therefore, can deal gently with us.

We have ever been meant to walk in His steps, to be like Him. And the promise of life has ever been the same.

Spiral Peeled

When God created humans, He created them to have fellowship with Him. They were created innocent, sinless, and in complete communion with Him. He gave them a home - the Garden of Eden, and a job - to tend it.

He gave them two commands: Be fruitful and multiply, and stay away from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil." I have a few questions about this.

First, why is everyone always talking about the fruit being an apple? We don't really know what it was. Could have been kiwi or mango. But that isn't all that important I suppose.

Second, was there some magical property in the fruit of that tree to open the eyes of Adam and Eve? Or was it the simple act of disobedience to the One who made them and had given them everything that made them see sin and shame, and experience the fact that sin ruins our relationships with God, creation, ourselves, and others? I do not think the fruit had any magical properties. I think it was in the act of disobedience that their eyes were opened.

How they must have felt. To have never known shame, and now to know it so well. To have forever ruined the perfect relationship of trust between themselves and their Creator. Need a picture of that? Has a friend ever broken a trust? Something is different afterwards, isn't it? No matter what you do, things cannot ever be the same. We grew up with this. But Adam and Eve were the first ones to ever feel that, and, in fact, are the reason we all feel it. One time they disobeyed the command, and the whole thing unraveled.

Now, my last question is why even put that tree there? I mean, here was a perfect garden, a perfect pair of humans, perfect communion, with a command that, if disobeyed, would ruin it all! Why take the chance?

Because without free will, we would have been automatons in communion. God wants us to love Him by choice. He loves us enough, as the poem goes, to "let us go." We have the choice to come back to Him. And that makes our communion all the sweeter.

How sweet it will be when we get back to the garden, and God opens to us the tree of life.

Bonhoeffer and Hebrews 2

This morning I was reading "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He talked about the fact that the Kingdom of God is built and lived right in the midst of His enemies. While we were still sinners, says Romans, Christ died for us. We were enemies of God, and Jesus came and lived among us, became like us, so that he became the perfect author of our faith.

Then I was reading Hebrews 2. Verse 10 says that Jesus, the author of our faith, was made perfect through suffering. He will bring us to glory, but it was through suffering that He is able to do it.

How do these tie together? I am not totally cemented in my thinking yet, but let me give it a shot.

We are going to suffer in this life. It is how we live with this, how we live above it, that will show those who do not yet belong to God who we are. Building His kingdom, building His community here, will mean suffering. But we are "sown among the nations" to show God's character. And eventually, He will gather us in again completely, even as He has already gathered us in spiritually. This is part of why community is so important. If we share our suffering with another, our suffering is halved. And our joy at making it through is doubled!

Now, I say all this at a time when I am experiencing little pain and no real suffering. I just hope I can remember it later. But isn't that all part of being on the spiral?

The First Step onto the Blog Spiral

There is something to be said for the idea that the human learning curve is like a spiral staircase. Over the course of our lives, we seem to cover similar issues from different angles at different times. Hopefully, as we progress up the spiral, we get a better understanding, deeper picture, fresh perspective.

Learning to live out our faith is a lifelong pursuit. Living it out in community requires a readiness to share our lives and our thoughts. We must have people we trust with whom we can travel the road home.

I have no idea how often I will write articles for this blog. But as I learn, I want to share. My thoughts, stories, and lessons may help someone on their journey. Since we are all in this together, why not help each other along?