Trying

I'd like to begin today with an extremely random quote: "Do or do not; there is no try"  --Yoda.  Our favorite green jedi munchkin utters this line while trying to get Luke Skywalker to use the force strongly enough to lift his X-wing out of the swamp that inexplicably exists on (in?) the asteroid where Yoda lives.  At least I think that's how it goes; I haven't seen the old Star Wars movies in quite a while.

Anyway, that particular line has always been one I've loved to quote, partially because Yoda is one of the only voice impressions I can do with any level of proficiency whatsoever and partly because it just seems applicable in many situations.  You have to watch out for Yoda, though.  As the main philosopher of the Star Wars series (along with Obi-wan, I guess), he's always saying things that are obviously meant to be profound costumed in a mystifying array of vague spirituality, ambiguity, and reversed syntax.  When you look closer, though, his statements usually fall somewhere on the spectrum between pure nonsense and outright falsehood.

This one is a prime example.  Now, I think it's true that people tend to use the phrase, "I'll try" to indicate that no one should expect them to succeed, either because they aren't up to the task or because they don't actually plan to expend that much effort on it.  So in that sense, Yoda's instruction could be legitimate.  A jedi saying they'd try would be a cop-out of that order, since the force should enable them to do basically whatever they want (an interesting issue never really addressed in the films, by the way-- why can't they fly? why can't they all shoot lightning out of their hands? If Vader can choke people with his mind, why does he even bother with a lightsaber? But I digress.)  Here in the real world, though, there is no force.  Here, we have God.

The most powerful force in the universe is not a formless power that can be used to good or evil ends.  Far from it, He's a person (three of them, actually) with a very specific will for how things are going to go in his world.  His sovereign will puts us in the position where we clearly do not have control over our own success or failure.

I'm not trying to get into the whole free will vs. sovereignty argument here.  I think it's self evident, though, that our best-laid plans tend to "gang aft a-gley" as Robert Burns said (rough translation: they go straight to crap a lot of the time).  A much more intelligible quote from another poet sums it up quite nicely, I think: "For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."  --T.S. Eliot.  Now, Mr. Eliot wrote some really depressing poetry (and some very snobbish literary criticism) early in his career, but then an amazing thing happened: he met Jesus.  The quote above is from after that happened, in the midst of his crowning accomplishment, a very long poetic meditation on the value of life (and other things) called The Four Quartets, which I highly recommend.

I think T.S. Eliot was wiser than Yoda.  I also think that the preceding is a sentence that has never before been written in the history of literature.  I'm ok with that.  All I know is that the Bible is filled with verses backing up the idea that we have very little control of the "do or do not" part of life.  For us, there is only try!

"Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?  Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?"  Lamentations 3:37-38

"Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain."  Psalm 127:1

"Lord, you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished, you have done for us" Isaiah 26:12

Far from being depressing, this is freedom.  If our success or failure as men or women-- as Christians, as people-- depends on our own efforts, we are screwed.  But God takes the pressure off!  He is already doing things; the things that we have accomplished are all things that he did.  Instead of worrying about whether we succeed or fail, we get the privilege of discovering and participating in the plans of God.

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them"  Ephesians 2:10 (ESV).

I quoted from the ESV here because the NIV makes the verse sound unnecessarily Yoda-ish by inexplicably translating the Greek word for walk as "do" in this verse (and in no other place for whatever reason) and adding another "do" before good works, where there isn't even a verb in the original!  Their carelessness caused me to misunderstand this verse for years, thinking that I had to somehow make God's plans happen.

What if instead, God is already at work in His world?  What if his plans are already in motion, and we can just walk right into them as we pursue relationship with Him?  What if all we have to do is try, and He handles the success and gives us failure when we need it?  What if we can trust that He is strong and He loves us, and the rest is not our business?

Can we really be led by the hand of God, hear his voice, and work alongside Him in his perfect plan?

It's something I'd like to try.

Integrity in Community

I've had a couple conversations recently that really got me thinking again about the issue of how we relate to each other within the body of Christ (i.e. the church). Long story short, I ended up expressing a lot of my thoughts about it in a poem, so I'll start with that:


Euphemistic Eucharist

Howya doin’? What’s up?
Pretty good, not too much,
life goes on, praise the Lord,
the usual and such--

By pretty good I mean
my family’s a mess--
we fight, except not here:
in this house we just bless.

I’m saying in not much
my schedule is insane:
it’s filled with noise and stress
it hardly can contain--

Life just keeps on going,
and so I don’t have time
to let you see beneath
charade and pantomime.

To praise the Lord I smile
and just sing happy songs;
pain stays behind the mask
where it, of course, belongs--

The usual just means
I’d tell you I’m depressed
were I allowed to break
facades so nicely dressed

And such and such and on--
a thousand pointless things
I’d rather say than tell
you anything that stings.

Safe. But are we happy?
We smile; are we alive?
The one place where it seems
reality should thrive,

instead we hide away;
we put our pride above
our pain--how can we throw
our masks aside and love?

Because we need help and we need
to be saved and all of us are
pretty much the same kinds
of messed up so why not just be real?

Can you see here what I’m driving toward?
Maybe then we could really praise the Lord.


So, I realize that my poem is a bit caustic.  I'm just trying to honestly address a real issue, though, and the fact that it keeps on coming up among people I talk to lets me know I'm not the only one who feels it.  The issue, as you can probably guess from the poem, is that church (not just mine, or anyone else's specifically, but church in general-- the conversations I mentioned at the beginning were with people from three different ones) has a tendency to become a place of fakeness where people don't feel like they can come with their real problems, instead of what it should be: the place where they could safely be honest and receive healing.

3 questions come to my mind:  why does this happen, why is it so bad, and what can we do about it?

Let's break my OCD tendencies toward order and symmetry and start right in the middle with the second question.  I don't want to belabor the point that the phenomenon I'm talking about is bad news, but I want to start with what I see as the basic reasons why it is so harmful.

The first is that everyone has problems, and problems don't just go away.  Of course, drawing near to God is helpful in dealing with them.  God can supernaturally solve them whenever he wants to.  The problem comes when churches start teaching (or just believing, consciously or subconsciously), that this supernatural encounter with the healing Lord is only a one-on-one deal.  Now, I know that God has healed me at times without any help from anyone else--he's just that good.  However, the general model that he has laid out for us is something totally different.

"And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (James 5:15-16).  This is God's model for healing.  We get other believers involved, and they pray for us so that we will be healed.  Catch that?  James is letting us know that if we won't share our brokenness, both spiritual and physical, we won't access all the healing that we could because it comes through receiving prayer from each other!  So that's one reason why it's a crisis that we don't feel like we can be real in church-- where else will we find the righteous men who can pray powerful and effective prayers for our healing?


Another reason is that everyone has problems, and everyone knows this is true.  Even (or especially?) people who aren't Christians yet.  We might feel like being real with the stuff of our lives will scare unbelievers away, but I propose that the fakeness we choose instead is infinitely more frightening.  Everyone knows that people have problems.  Everyone knows that they themselves have problems!  So if you walk into a group of people where no one seems to have any, what do you think?  You think, I'll never fit in with these people.  So another reason this fear of dealing with real issues in church is a problem is because it is actually driving away the broken people who desperately need to receive healing by being prayed for (and who God wants to make into the powerful and effective prayers who will then help restore others!).

Finally, and potentially most seriously, being fake in church will hinder our worship.  We might think we can sneak in and deal with our problems alone with God and have ourselves fixed by the time we have to talk to anyone.  The problem there is that God is looking for worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth (John 4:23).  If we won't be real with God and with our family, we can't worship him in the way he desires.  This is serious stuff, and if you don't think so just read in Exodus and Leviticus about people who tried to worship God in unauthorized ways.  If we want his healing presence to be with us, we have to be willing to worship in the spiritual integrity God is seeking.  Otherwise, our thanksgiving (Greek: Eucharist) will amount to little more than empty words we use to avoid saying what we really mean.

So, why does it happen that we feel like all we can be at church is just fine and peachy-keen, etc.?

I think it probably comes down to fear, mostly.  Just because we all have problems and we know it doesn't mean we necessarily feel comfortable sharing them with people!  If our fear of being judged for the things that are still messed up about us trumps our desire to be healed from those things, we won't share, plain and simple.  If we have a history of being judged, that makes things worse of course, as does seeing other people be judged in places (like church) where they should be welcomed instead.  Put all those things together, and fear wins out a lot of times.

Also, I think there's a misunderstanding in the church of what the Bible really teaches about joy.  When it says to be joyful in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:16), is that the same as being happy all the time?  If the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), and a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), are we weak Christians who don't have the Holy Spirit if we go through struggles and trials?

All of the answers are no, in case you're wondering.  No one is "too blessed to be stressed" either (although some might be in too much denial not to smile).  Joy is not the same thing as happiness, and godly joy is just as compatible with sorrow as with happiness.  Jesus himself wept (John 11:35), but he was given the oil of joy more than all his companions (Psalm 45:7).  He also got so stressed that he sweated blood (Luke 22:44).  So godly joy must be something different than unceasing happiness.  What if, instead, it's the ongoing security of knowing that eventually everything will work out for your good because it's all in the control of the all-powerful God who loves you?  Then you can feel the pain of loss and brokenness without losing hope, and when you are happy you can be happy for the right reasons.  That's the joy that will bring you strength.

One further note on why the problem of disingenuousness happens at church:  it kind of gets to be a vicious cycle.  No one wants to be the first person to do anything, so if no one is talking about any real stuff, it's that much harder for anyone to break the trend.

Which segues nicely into the last question: what can we do about this thing?

First, let me say that I'm no expert on this.  I'm actually more of an expert on being fake, to be quite honest.  All I know is that I deeply desire to be real, and I'm starting to learn what that means.  So how can we be the ones to step out and start being real in the one place in all the world where the truth should win out?  How can streetlights shine into darkness that has clouded the home of light?

The main thing I can see is that we have to start wanting more of God so desperately that we don't care about our own images.  We have to care more about what he thinks of us than what anyone else does.  This is what it means for him to be our Lord.  His opinion is the final word, and what he says goes, no matter what it makes us look like.  If we start believing that, maybe we can be the ones to step out and take the first risk.  We can't make anyone else be real, but we can show them they won't die if they try it!

Also, we have to confess and repent of our judgmental spirits.  This will allow us to bless other people who are real enough to be honest about their problems instead of comparing our own struggles to theirs to see how we stack up.  All judgment is comparison, and all comparison is irrelevant because God's love is infinite.  What if ours started looking more like his?

We also have to stop getting the truth backwards.  It's not that God is so good that his followers shouldn't have any problems; He's so good because welcomes us in spite of them!  He fixes them too, but for whatever reason he hasn't chosen to do it instantaneously in most cases.  We have to let him be who he is in this instead of making him into a false image of what we want him to be.

I'm sure there is much more to be said on this topic-- does anyone else have any ideas to share on how we can help?  I'll end with one I just thought of, which is actually the most important one: prayer.  I want to start asking God to change the problems I see instead of just worrying about them.  I want to talk less and pray more.

So-- God, change what you want to change.  Make us more like you.  Make your body whole.  Let us walk in integrity, bravery, and community.  Give us real relationships with real people, and let us worship you in Spirit and in truth.  Amen.

The Law and the Spirit

One of the great things I'm finding about reading the Bible is that it helps me deal with the craziness inherent in life. What I'm saying is, if we really walked in the true implications of its teachings, I think our lives would make a lot more sense. For example, I read this verse the other day that blew me right out of the water. I mean, I knew it was in there, but I had never really thought about it before or what it would really mean if I lived like it was true.

Side note: isn't it easy when you're reading to take in words and yet no meaning whatsoever? We have to stop doing this with the Bible. When we're young, too many of us get trained to read the Word in whole chapters, like a textbook. I say read as small a chunk as necessary so that you really wrestle with the meaning of what you read. Only after you do that will reading whole chapters make any sense! Ok... that's the end of my tangent, but unfortunately it really broke up the flow of where I was going. Here's what you should do: go back to the top and read that first paragraph again, but this time skip this whole tangential paragraph and move on to the next one when you get done.

Anyway, here's the verse: "God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-14). Do you hear how radical that is? The law, that written code we could never succeed in keeping and therefore opposed us, is cancelled! Ended. Voided. Xed (bonus points if you get that reference). Nullified. Removed. And I could keep going like a thesaurus, but I don't need to because just in case any of those words aren't strong enough for you, the verse says the law is also nailed to the cross of Christ!

It's not just this one verse either. Now that I've spent some time thinking about it and searching further, this idea of the cancelled law is found throughout the New Testament. The story certainly doesn't end there, though. Let me connect some more dots in this constellation before I try to make a point from it.

So, according to this crazy verse, the law is crucified on Jesus' cross. That got me thinking, what else died on that cross? Short answer: I did. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). It kind of puts a damper on the joy that the law is dead to find out that I'm dead too. Thankfully, the story doesn't end there either.

I may be dead, but that verse does seem to give me some hope of life through Christ because Jesus didn't stay dead but rose again. The apostle Paul (who wrote all these books I'm quoting, by the way) agrees elsewhere in his writings: "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him... The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:8,10-11). So what really died?

Sin in me died, so that Christ could take its place. The NIV really mistranslates this concept as the "sinful nature" dying, but a better term is "the flesh," the part of me that is not my spirit. So really, it's just a flesh wound! (I've had worse... No you haven't! Your arm's off! ...Ahem... many apologies to anyone who hasn't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Anyway, this idea of the crucified flesh is what's important here. Paul says later on that "if you live according to the sinful nature [flesh], you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Romans 8:13-14). The idea of us being dead, then, is so that we will be led by the Spirit.

The verse that brings this whole thing full circle is Galatians 5:18-- "If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law"!! I know the actual verse ends with a period, but I couldn't resist adding some exclamation marks (notice how they're outside the quotation marks). I just can't believe how Paul makes this unbelievably radical statement so matter-of-factly. Of course the written code is cancelled! How could it not be? It's like he's saying we should already know this stuff!

And really, we should. Maybe we even do, but how many of us live like it? I think the church in general and most of us individually are pretty stuck on the law. We are very concerned with our outward appearances and doing the right things, but where is the concern for the spirit? Is there even a point to changing people's outward morality if the heart underneath remains unchanged, not under God's control?

I don't really know, and I'm not trying to suggest that sin is unimportant in light of the law being cancelled. People made that mistake in Paul's day, and they were badly missing his point. "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6:15-16). The gravity and importance of sin is not just that some law says not to do it. It is serious because it enslaves us and eventually destroys us.

We are meant, though, to be slaves to righteousness. This is tough language, and I think this has a lot to do with why many Christians balk at the idea of the law being completely cancelled. We are faced with this unsettling dichotomy in Galatians 5:18. Either we are led by the Spirit, or we are under the law. There is no in-between space.

Here's where it gets tricky. Think about the difference between the law and the Spirit for a minute. The law is made of rules that apply to certain situations. If someone makes me mad, I shouldn't kill that person. Ok, got it. I'm extremely attracted to this person, but I didn't sleep with them. Check. Success, as far as the law goes. Apart from these few rules, I am free to do as I please. But being led by the Spirit is much different. He wants to lead us in ALL situations! Do whatever you do in the name of the Lord, remember? 100%. Being led by the Spirit means constantly seeking his direction and submitting to his leading in everything, even the things we would much rather control ourselves.

That, my friends, is hard. There's no getting around it. I'm terrible at it, and I assume you are too. I'm getting better I think (hope), but I still want to keep some areas of my life for myself. That's why we tend to go back to the law. We are not bound by it, but we bind ourselves to it because it seems easier. If we have a rule we can follow for difficult situations, we feel like we will be able to follow it and save ourselves. We want to earn salvation instead of just being saved. We feel like we will be able to keep the rules well enough to meet the standard. It's not true, of course, but it's what we believe. The rules seem easier than laying our lives completely at the feet of God, listening to his voice and letting him direct us in all situations.

Maybe we just misunderstand holiness. I was at my church's men's retreat recently, and we talked a lot about sexual purity. The speaker offered a lot of insight into how to live a pure life, but in my mind the single most important thing he said was that holiness is active, directional. It IS action! It's about what we do, not all the things we don't do. And how in the world do we expect to know what to do unless we let ourselves be led by the Spirit? The rules just don't provide enough guidance.

It's kind of like walking blindfold between two electrified wires. You could do your best to walk straight and wait until you get zapped to change course. That's life under the law, the wires being the rules and associated judgments. Or, you could let someone who knows how to see lead your every step, trusting that he knows the best path and won't let you stray into pain. That's what the Spirit does for us. "Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life" (Romans 6:22).

It's directional. It's all-encompassing. It's eternal life. It seems a little crazy in our human understanding, but it's so good. That's God for you :)

Whatever you do...

"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." -- Colossians 3:17

This verse has been rocking my world this week. It's so simple, yet so powerful. Simple, in this case, I mean as the opposite of complex, not of difficult. In fact, I think this simple instruction from Paul is something that almost nobody is really good at.

The problem is, we're far too quick to view these kinds of statements in Scripture as suggestions. But this is a command. It's not just an idea for a way to receive blessing and have a better life (although it is that too), it's a sovereign directive from God himself. Obviously, it's a good plan to pay attention to those. So how do we do this thing that God is commanding? Let's take it piece by piece.

First, we have this crucial qualifier, "whatever you do." This is a huge deal, because this phrase makes the coming instruction all-encompassing. Whatever is about to be said, it applies to every single situation and action in our lives, so it should always be on our mind as we make our decisions. These kinds of over-arching statements in Scripture are fairly rare, and they always indicate things that are of great importance. In fact, I can only think of four others in the whole Bible right now (but if you know of any more, please let me know!). One is in Proverbs 4:23: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Also, there are the three "one thing" verses, which I'm pretty sure I've previously mentioned on this blog. They are in Psalm 27:4, Luke 10:42, and Philippians 3:13-14. If you don't know them, you should really look them up right now. Also, I can't think of any better place to start memorizing Scripture than these verses.

Next, we have Paul refusing to leave any loopholes in his command. Words and deeds are both included. I know the old saying "actions speak louder than words" has some merit to it, because a lot of times people remember what you do more than what you say. But, trying to make the two things separate is a deceptively false dichotomy. It's not like what you say is unimportant as long as you do the right thing. Words are actions! They are things you choose, and God expects them, like everything else, to be included in his dominion. To reinforce this beyond all doubt, the next words are "do it all." Everything. Pretty self-explanatory, I think.

Now we come to the payoff. We are to do whatever we do "in the name of the Lord Jesus." This part is really the reason I'm getting rocked by this verse. What does it mean to do something (or, as we are instructed, everything) in Jesus' name? Here's my take on it. If you think about it, every action or word gives glory to something. If I brag about my accomplishments, I give glory to myself. Another way to word that would be that I say those boastful things in my own name. If I idolize a celebrity, I give glory to them. I try to be like them, and make decisions essentially in their name. See where I'm going here? Essentially, we are always worshipping something because that's what bringing glory means. If you disagree, try to think of an action that brings no glory to anyone or anything. I couldn't do it.

That's why I'm thinking that doing something in Jesus' name means doing it for his glory. AND, as I just stated, everything brings glory to someone or something. SO, if we aren't bringing glory to Jesus with what we do, we must be bringing glory to someone or something else. There is no middle ground, no neutral gear here. That actually reminds me of another big over-arching statement of the Bible that I forgot earlier. In Matthew 12:30, Jesus says "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters." That's what makes this command from Colossians so stunning. There is no moral neutrality. Either words or actions bring glory to God, or they bring glory to something else, and if it's something else then that is against God. Being against God, as you may know, is not a good place to be.

Then to reinforce this point, Paul finishes with the clarification that the things we do should all be out of thanksgiving (see that worship/glory idea again?) to God. This helps us have a better visual picture of what Paul means. It's a good question to ask ourselves as we consider doing something: "can I do this while giving thanks to God?" If the answer is no, we shouldn't do it. End of story.

Here's where this thing gets really sticky for us. As Christians, we want to please God, but we also have our flesh that just wants to please itself. We know it's a bad idea to offend God, so our favorite phrase becomes, "well, it's not wrong..." etc. I'm not going to pull any punches here: that whole idea is a lie from the enemy. If something isn't specifically for God, it's against him. If it doesn't gather glory to God, it scatters that glory elsewhere, and that IS wrong!

Another favorite strategy of ours in justifying our actions is comparison. This one works two different ways. One way is that we have something we want to do, so we look at someone we respect who is doing that: If they're doing it, it must not be wrong! They're a great person! The other way is that we look at someone who is doing something much worse: I'm not doing something that bad, so I should be fine. Both of these approaches have the same problem. The verse doesn't say 'whatever everyone else does,' it says "whatever YOU do"! The decision to glorify God with your life, your words and actions, is up to you individually and no one else. Others might decide differently from us what they think glorifies God, but it shouldn't have any impact on our own decisions. On the flipside of that, we shouldn't judge them either. We should just do what we believe God says is right, no matter what.

So what should we do in light of this all-inclusive command? I can't really tell you what to do because God has to stir it in your heart. As I just mentioned, you shouldn't do anything just because I'm doing it or anyone else is. You need to glorify God in whatever way he shows you. But I'll tell you what I'm doing: I'm looking carefully at my life, thinking and praying about all the things I have and do. If it doesn't glorify Jesus and can't be used to give thanks to God, I'm getting rid of it. When I say getting rid of it, I mean exactly that. In the next week or so, I expect the amount of possessions I have and things I spend my time on to noticeably decrease. I also expect, though, that I won't really miss them if I pursue Jesus instead.

I know that all sounds pretty radical. Jesus was pretty radical too. While we're being radical then, let's just call things what they are. Anything that brings glory to something or someone other than Jesus is an idol. Not just a personal choice, a waste of time, or a harmless little addiction but an idol. And I'm not talking like American Idol, I'm talking like a false god (although I often feel like the two are pretty much synonymous). It's what the first of the Ten Commandments is talking about not having. I just feel like so many of us have the cords of materialism, this world of things we worship, wrapped around us like seaweed dragging us down. What's worse, we don't even know it a lot of the time. I know I didn't. It might be because Christians don't like to use the word idol, which I'm convinced is mostly because it draws attention to their breaking of the first commandment! I know now that I've been breaking this commandment and ignoring it for years. Speaking of people who had seaweed wrapped around them, Jonah said, "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs" (Jonah 2:8). I don't want to miss out on any more blessings because of stupid things I bow down to! I want to guard my heart and see my life be blessed because of it.

Now, will I get all this right, and keep that command perfectly? I highly doubt it. But I will try. I have to. I'm realizing more and more that if following Jesus isn't a 100% thing, I don't even want to do it. I'm tired of wasting my life. God is calling us to radical holiness, something completely outside what this world's system can offer, something for which there is no model other than Jesus. Holiness. Worshipping one God, being set apart for one purpose only. "Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14, ESV).

Want to come with me?

Your Kingdom come...

Anyone who has ever been even remotely associated with Christians or Christianity will certainly recognize the phrase serving as the title for this entry. In fact, many Christians have probably said those words countless times without really thinking about them, until finally the words are completely stripped of meaning. (As a side note, constant repetition of pretty much any word or words will eventually make you wonder what things mean. It works especially well, I find, with multi-syllable words. For example, just try saying something like "telephone" or "salami" over and over and over. Eventually, you'll be like, "who thought of this word?" and then "what does this word even mean?" until it finally ends up with something like "who am I?"...) Anyway, strange forms of amusement invented by only children aside, I think there's real danger in saying some things without caring about their meaning. Specifically, I'm talking about things with real spiritual significance, e.g. the Lord's prayer.

What are we really saying when we say "your kingdom come" ? Well, first of all, God's kingdom when fully revealed will be the place of ultimate peace. There won't be any more war, or death, or hurt or crying or anything like that. Sickness will be a thing of the past, as will poverty, racism and any other forces you can think of that are currently killing people. The entire old world order of things will be repealed (Revelation 21:4). So obviously that's what we should be hoping for when we ask God to bring his kingdom.

But, there's another whole side to this kingdom thing. We really like the loving and comforting part (as well we should), so it's easy to get stuck there. On the other hand, here's what got me thinking about this whole kingdom issue in the first place:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.' At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:1-5)

The other thing we're talking about when we ask for God's kingdom, whether we know it or not, is his majesty and power. This is why just saying the words is potentially dangerous. We need, as Psalm 34 says, to be taught the fear of the Lord.

Think about it like this: Imagine that you lived sometime in the Middle Ages, and you were a swordsmith (because that would be a pretty sweet job). One day, the king of the whole land shows up at your shop with his heavily armed royal bodyguards and tells you to make him a royal sword. What would you do? I have a feeling you would drop what you were doing and make it as soon as you could. There wouldn't be any other choice. You wouldn't, I imagine, be saying anything like, "Well, I have a lot of other work coming in... busiest season of the year, you know... and I really should be taking some time to myself to relax, if that will even be possible with all the housework I have to do... but I would like to help, so maybe I can fit it in around the end of the month" or anything else like that. You'd be firing up the furnace and asking for the specifications. See where I'm going with this?

It's funny that we have to go back so far to the Middle Ages to conjure up an image of a king with that kind of power. In that day, you just didn't argue with royalty. I wonder why we think God would be any different than that. Why in the world do we think we have any choice in the matter of what he tells us to do? This is THE King we're talking about, the Lord Almighty, from whom angels hide their faces. Angels whose voices shake the earth. Imagine what happens when the King himself speaks! No wonder Isaiah said he was ruined. I bet he was pretty sure he had no right to live.

The next thing that happened to him, though, is that God cleansed him from guilt and blessed him. Here's the thing: that same mighty, fearsome King is the one who loves us. And, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). So where does the fear of the Lord come in? I know we get all excited about the coming blessings of the kingdom, but God doesn't change (James 1:17). He is still the King, high and exalted, seated on the throne as well. How can we reconcile these things and relate to him in the proper way?

I see it something like this. If you think back to my swordsmith analogy, I said that he didn't have any choice about following the king's orders. The king holds the power of life and death, so obviously arguing with him is a bad idea. But, good kings don't derive their power from threats. They are respected for their wise and caring rule and hold the power of command by virtue of that. If it was a good king in my analogy, he probably wouldn't have killed the poor ridiculous swordsmith if he turned down the king's request. He would, however, have taken the huge pile of gold he was waiting to give the swordsmith for the sword and taken it to someone who would do his will.

So, what does it mean to fear the Lord? If he loves us perfectly as his children (which he does, in case you were wondering), it's not a question of punishment, like if the king had his bodyguards kill the recalcitrant sword maker. God just doesn't sit in Heaven with lightning bolts waiting to zap us. Thing is, he doesn't want or need to. Psalm 37:17 says that "the Lord upholds the righteous." If he is constantly holding our world together with his hand of blessing, I think that's a position worthy of respect. But, he gives us the freedom to turn him down. As much as it breaks his heart, he will let us push his blessings away by refusing the mission and call that he has for us. What we find, as we turn our backs on the blessings by taking control for ourselves, is that we have plenty enough problems without God shooting lightning at us. All the chaos and confusion we let in will ruin us pretty quickly. God allows it, through his tears, for the purpose of bringing us running back to his hand of blessing. This is discipline, yet another way he loves us.

The fear of God for us as his children, then, is something more like reverence. (For his enemies, it's a whole different story.) For us, it's not so much that we have to worry about being smited (and yes, I know the correct word is smitten) but that we have great respect for the all-powerful force of blessing that runs our lives. It would obviously be idiotic for us to attempt to live in the dangerous land outside that protection, but it's still something we tend to do. We give the King, the Lord Almighty, all kinds of reasons why his blessing isn't quite as good or important as the other things we've got going on. And, he respects our wishes with what I can only imagine is some type of sorrowful disbelief. "You want what instead of me?"

Incidentally, this attitude on our parts probably has a lot to do with why non-Christians look at us and don't especially want what we have. If we spend our time actively running away from the blessings we are offering, why would anyone else want them? If we won't live like there's a living King in the land, why would anyone else believe it? I mean, if God is real and he is the all-powerful force of blessing we say he is, then we owe him everything. Everything. All of it, all the time, no matter what. Time, money, jobs, relationships; all his. All subject to his leading, every moment spent in his service. If we lived like that instead of like The World Lite™, then maybe more people would realize the truth. In fact, it would be impossible for them to avoid.

So, let's not be naïve when we pray "your kingdom come." We definitely want and should ask for the blessings that are part of God's kingdom: tears being dried, healing from sickness, etc. But why do we think we should just pray about something we're supposed to have a part in doing? How do we expect to gain the blessings of the kingdom without submitting to God's rule? If we want God's kingdom to come, maybe we should think about living like he is the King.

Constellations

The Bible is quite a big book. I've spent a lot of time studying it, but the funny thing about it is that there's always more to learn. It's almost like there's actually too much in there for our brains to actually keep hold of at once! This is really one of the amazing things about being a follower of Jesus, but I think that it can also lead to a problem that too many Christians fall into: compartmentalization. We study or hear a teaching about one specific topic or verse, and we can remember and hold onto that one for awhile. The next week, we get some other individual answer and we hold onto that. The week after that, a different one, and so on. Now, this seems like it would work out, the constant accumulation and stacking of knowledge in theory giving us an ever larger database of wisdom to consult as we face the issues of our lives.

Unfortunately, what I'm finding to be true for my life is that my capacity for successfully remembering and retaining the lessons I learn this way is much smaller than I would hope for. If I had to make a highly scientific and educated guess, I would say that my capacity level is approximately 3. That is, I can keep track of about three life lessons at a time. More than that, and some of them start getting pushed back into the dark recesses of my brain. This is not to say that they are forgotten, just that they're not at the forefront, not at the top of my mind bursting to be lived out.

Here's the thing, though: the problem I mentioned earlier is not a problem with me and my limited capacity. God knows I'm frail and he hasn't called me to more than he's given (or giving) me grace to do. The problem is with this weird system that we accidentally fall into as Christians where we compartmentalize our life lessons and try to apply them separately (and, all too often, one at a time). We study the Bible this way too, focusing on one verse or concept at the expense of the rest. It's kind of like going outside in Cleveland at night. We live our lives in such a polluted space with so many other things filling our vision that we can only see one or two stars at a time. They seem disconnected, individual points of light lost in swirling darkness.

Can you see where I'm headed with this analogy? The individual stars certainly aren't bad things. But, God has much more for us than just a couple stars here and there. He wants to give us the whole heaven, really. And he wants our lives to be more than just fragments and splintered efforts at holding onto a few lessons we've learned. Psalm 86:11 has to be our constant prayer: "Teach me Your way, O Lord; I will walk in Your truth; Unite my heart to fear Your name."

A united heart. Not some collection of insights, feelings, lessons, and whatever else we accumulate along the way, but one integrated whole, moving in one direction, only toward God.

God wants to give us this wholeness. I think that's why he made his book the way he did. 66 different books, one purpose. It's really incredible how the Bible is an integrated whole given its construction, but it is, and the more I read it, the more God connects the dots of the individual stars into the overarching master plan. I'm not claiming to see the whole sky or anything, mind you, but every now and then I think I at least see some constellations. So, from time to time I might use this space to diagram some of them and play some "connect the scriptures." In that spirit, here's what I would have to call the big dipper:

God has told us what we need to do to live an integrated life, to have a united heart. Remember how I was saying that we live with so much going on that we can only focus on one or two things at a time? Turns out I didn't come up with that idea, Jesus did. He told Martha in Luke 10:41-42, "You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed." Funny, she was just like us. She was so worried about doing the right things for Jesus and getting her house in order that she totally missed the point. What was the one thing that was needed? What Mary was doing, sitting at Jesus' feet.

So, Biblical transitive property: A) Martha was a normal person like us. B) For her, God said only one thing was needed. Therefore C) For us also, only one thing is needed. We MUST sit at Jesus' feet. That's it. (By the way, some people might object to this by saying that nothing will ever get done if we all live this way. That, however, is ridiculous because if we spend all our time that close to God, when he moves we'll have to move as well. If he's doing something we'll have to do it too, just in order to stay close. And Jesus definitely didn't spend all his time sitting around. He also liked healing the sick, throwing tables, making the wise look foolish and hanging out with little kids, to name just a few. I think the real issue people have with living at his feet is that they don't really like the things he wants us to do.)

Parenthetical tangents aside then, all we need to do is sit at Jesus' feet. This is what Jude was talking about when he said to "Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life" (verse 21). It sounds so simple: keep yourselves in God's love. Live there. Soak in it. You don't have to earn it; it's a given, so just accept it. So why in the wonderful world of Disney do we have so much trouble doing this?

Short answer: because we have orphan hearts (see the previous entry for more on that). Two problems go into this. First, we all mess up sometimes (ok, a lot of times) and do things that aren't really worthy of love. Second, we all have been in situations where people in authority over us responded to our mistakes with anger and wrath instead of (or more stickily, mixed with) loving discipline. The end result that keeps us away from God is fear. Somehere inside we seem to be afraid that God is just gearing up to zap us for the wrong that we have so obviously committed. But, God is perfect by definition, so his love for us is perfect, and "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment" (1 John 4:18). The key word here is "because." It means that perfect love has to get rid of fear, because of fear's connection with punishment. By implication, there is no punishment in love.

To summarize, if we rest in God's love, we have no need of fear because there is no possibility of punishment. I know that this is dicey ground to walk, so hear me out. The important thing is the difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment is associated with the anger and wrath we have all felt from those above us that leaves us wounded. The truth is, though, that once we accept Jesus' sacrifice for us and his love, God has no more wrath for us, ever. The entire punishment for all our sins, past, present and future, has already been borne by Jesus on the cross. "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5). There is no leftover punishment that God reserves to pound us with as we mess up, since it is already used up.

Do sins still have negative consequences? Of course, but they do NOT change God's heart towards us in any way. He allows us to experience the troubles related to our mistakes "because the Lord disciplines those he loves" (Proverbs 3:12). He loves us enough to help us stop doing the things that are hurting us. This is love, not wrath; discipline, not punishment. Discipline is not punitive; it makes us disciples. See the linguistic connection? So, God uses our mistakes to draw us closer, not to push us away. We're the ones that push away from him because we think we aren't worthy of his unaccountable love.

But we are. Not through our own goodness or effort though, so don't get the wrong idea. The coolest thing of all is that, similarly to how Christ bore our sins and the punishment connected with them, he also has become "The LORD our righteousness" (Jeremiah 33:16). This was what Paul was talking about in Philippians 3:9 when he said that his one desire was to "be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith."

Righteousness comes only from God. But, if we believe, he gives us credit for Jesus' righteousness, so we don't have to feel unworthy. That lets us, like Paul, be "found in him." Sounds an awful lot like sitting at his feet, no? I think that connects the last dot of this particular constellation. That's how we live with a united heart. The Bible is amazing.

So, now you know why it was so long between my updates. This entry has been stirring in me for quite awhile, and I just didn't feel like writing anything else in between. I plan to update a bit more frequently in the future, but I wanted to get this one out, because really everything else I say should be taken in light of this quest for a united heart and life. It's the redefinition I was talking about before. Just one thing to hold onto, and it's so simple. Whatever my situation, I will sit at Jesus' feet.






P.S. The whole time I was writing this, the other tab of my browser was on http://www.blueletterbible.org/ which is probably the best website on the internet. Yeah, you heard me, the whole internet. Any possible way you could really want to study or search the Bible is on there. Check it out! Oh, and on a slightly relevant note to that, all the Bible quotations in this post (and actually in this blog as a whole) are from the NIV unless I say otherwise because that's what I'm most familiar with and it's easily accessible. The only one in this post that isn't is Psalm 86:11 which is NKJV, which I used because occasionally the NIV doesn't accurately convey the force or meaning or just coolness that a scripture should have, and this verse is a prime example of that. If you compare them on Blue letter, you'll see why. OK, that's really the end now. Until next time...