Category: Questions

The Body of Christ, Crucified…

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Church is important to me, and at least until my health became poor several years ago, I was very involved in ministry within it. Lately, however, I’ve been discovering I feel pretty apathetic towards it. I still love to worship in it, to raise my voice in song and take communion with others, to listen to messages that dig deep into the Word. To be quite honest, though, there’s something about it that can be so exhausting. The people who inhabit churches can be so broken, as we all can be. On the flip side, I’ve also been the recipient of generosity, grace and lots more love than I could ever deserve from people within churches. I’m not meaning to throw punches, and certainly have no right to cast stones; I know I can’t remain in apathy or disconnection, and that my eyes should be on God alone. It seems, however, that if there’s something to this whole faith thing, and I know that I know that there is, there should be something different about church.

 

I remember reading somewhere years ago, though I’m not sure of the source, an explanation of church that has helped me in accepting this, or at least it made it all so much more comprehensible. It explained that the Body of Christ, the Church, is still the broken body of Christ. Though often filled with wonderful and well-intentioned people, and inhabited by the Holy Spirit, the Church will not be the resurrected and perfected Body of Christ until the day our Savior returns. One day, we too, shall be like Him; for now, we are all still being sanctified. Sometimes, as when the church welcomes all into its doors and steps out into communities and preaches with actions and not just words, reaches out its hands to help those in need, we are like Him even now. Others, we are broken and bleeding and wounded…but still, the blood flows down from the Savior who died to bring all men to Him. As the band Casting Crowns said in their song “If We Are the Body”, may we continue striving to be His arms reaching, His hands healing, His words teaching, His feet going, His love showing [the world] there is a way.

 

Photo Credits, & an Interesting Article: http://www.charismanews.com/us/53715-study-thousands-of-churches-closing-every-year-but-there-is-a-silver-lining

“IF”…

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It’s funny how many of us are shocked when our lives don’t turn out as we expected, when most of us have been told from the beginning that’s how it would be. It’s almost as if we receive the warning as a challenge, clinging tenaciously to the belief our individual stories will be different from those of all others who have come before us. It seems we’re lucky if we begin life with this belief in the uniqueness of our journeys, but die knowing we’ve been proved wrong, with the certainty our stories are just a part of the greater human story told over and over again. When we’re young, we need to be powerful in our resilient hope; when we’re old, we have an even greater need to share a sense of connection and humanity.

 

If someone had told me, I’d probably still have had to learn it for myself. It’s a lesson I still learn over and over again, despite experience, and knowledge it shapes. Expectations are like cobwebs: even when we think we’ve shaken free, often, we later find them hanging on by a thread in some hidden and unexpected place.

 

In his resonant poem “IF”, Rudyard Kipling offers great observations for how to keep our heads in a world that rarely matched our expectations. These have inspired me time and time again, offering perspective and shifting paradigms:

 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

“Jesus, I Am Resting”…

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”Jesus, I am resting, in the joy of what Thou art. I am finding out the measure of Thy loving heart. Thou hast bid’st me gaze upon Thee, and Thy beauty fills my soul, for by Thy transforming power, Thou hast made me whole” (Pigott, Jean; “Jesus, I Am Resting”). This is the first chorus of the famed nineteenth century missionary to China, & founder of the transformative China Inland Mission group,  Hudson Taylor. In the face of grief, after losing his beloved wife, having long suffered heavy criticism and isolation, he wrote to his sister in England that these words were his greatest source of comfort. How difficult it is to be still and to rest in the sovereignty and presence of God, when He has allowed the one you most love to leave your side.

 

I’ve recently made a very personal, and yet public, decision to leave a ten-year career as a public school teacher because of my health. In so doing, I gave up any hope that my life could be easily understood by others looking in from the outside. I’ve been so blessed that there are many family and friends who understand or empathize the intensity of the process I am in, and who have offered me shelter and respite. It feels a bit like I’ve taken a giant leap off a cliff, and mercifully landed on a spacious precipice, but with the vast unknown still before me. I can’t see the next steps, the future is still completely unknown, and yet…it is here, in this place, today, that I must learn to rest. Deuteronomy 33:27 says, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.” They seem to echo the following verses of this great hymn, and prompt me to fix my gaze on God alone:

 

“Simply trusting Thee Lord Jesus, I behold Thee as Thou art,

and Thy love, so pure, so changeless, satisfies my heart.

Satisfies its every longing, meets, supplies, its every need.

Compasseth me round with blessings, Thine is love indeed.

Ever fix my gaze upon Thee, as I work and watch for Thee.

Resting ‘neath Thy smile Lord Jesus, earth’s dark shadows flee.

Sunshine of my Father’s glory, brightness of my Father’s face.

Keep my ever resting, trusting, Fill me with Thy grace.”

“Prepare to Be Surprised”…

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In the movie Dan In Real Life, Dan is a dad considering what to say to his daughter as she graduates from high school & heads out into the world. As he does so, he starts to examine his own life, & how often it surprised him, or failed to meet any of his expectations.  So, why is it that we’re always asking graduates what their “plans” are? Why do we try so hard to prepare for what’s coming, when in reality, we know there is no adequate preparation? Whatever happens will probably come as pretty much…a total surprise.  While plans & dreams can be great things, our expectations of what we think our lives are supposed to look like so often constrain & disappoint us. We often hold these visions so firmly, & cling so tightly, that it makes it difficult for our hands to be open to other great things God has intended for us.

 

Corrie Ten Boom, survivor of the Holocaust & author of The Hiding Place, said it this way: “I’ve learned to hold things loosely.  I don’t like it when He has to pry them from my grip.”  Living a surrendered life is not easy, but it IS what God call us to do, & it must be done over & over again.  In his Superpower Poem, Steve Gross states: “Openness to what is can take us far. Suffering is rooted in wanting things to be different than the way they are.”  How true this is, & how grand it would be if we could live each day as small children: open to whatever the day brings, playful & joyful in the opportunities that come, ready for adventure…all simply because they’re trusting in the good things they know their parents have prepared. “It isn’t that I cling to Him, or struggle to be blessed. He simply takes my hand in His, & there I let it rest. So I dread not any pathway, dare to sail on any sea, since the handclasp of my savior makes the journey safe for me” (unknown). It’s safe, we can trust Him…so let’s consider willingly surrendering our expectations to our Lord, & live prepared…to be surprised.

Irony of Christianity…

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In the movie Becoming Jane, the character of Jane Austen offers a wonderful definition of irony: “…the bringing together of two contradictory truths, but always done with a smile”. As an author, Austen is most praised for her astute observations and understanding of human character. The ability to understand the complexity of human nature must take irony into account. It is an incontestable component of life. We all have some  experience with navigating its paradoxes. Those of us who find happiness have learned to do it with a smile.

 
This definition of irony calls to mind many things for me, but foremost among them is Christianity. We are saved sinners; we’ve been made right with God, but live out our sanctification; God’s power is made perfect in our weakness (II Corinthians 12:9); we walk in faith, and yet by sight. The season of Advent is described as “the already, and the not yet”. Jesus, our Messiah, lived a life where He was fully human, yet fully divine. The apostle Paul described the irony of the Christian life in his second letter to the young Corinthian church: “…we are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed, perplexed, but don’t despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed….having nothing, and yet, possessing everything” (II Corinthians 4:8-10). Paul cuts to the core of the irony of Christianity in that same letter: “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God, and not from us….Therefore we do not lose heart: Though outwards we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (II Corinthians 4:7, 16). The irony of Christianity is a God who continually offers Himself to fill the needs of humanity, through broken humanity itself.

Faithfulness of Perseverance…

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It strikes me that the saints of old are often called the faithful. The most famous example of this must be in the beloved Christmas hymn “O Come All Ye Faithful”. Those of us with even a small acquaintance with humanity know that none of us are naturally saintly nor faithful. What is it that enabled these pilgrims to be found thus, and in so doing, to become “joyful and triumphant”? What would allow us to do the same?

In the “Faith Hall of Fame” begun in Hebrews 11, those such as Abraham and Moses are referenced because they believed that God had power to do what He proclaimed, and were obedient, even unto death, despite great obstacles. It could be said they persevered in the calling God gave them regardless of the circumstances.Merriam-Webster defines perseverance as “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering : steadfastness.” Paul wrote to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race” (II Timothy 4:7). I have always thought of the two statements as two different accomplishments, but maybe they are one and the same. Maybe to be faithful, we just have to run our races, not win any prizes. Maybe we simply have to stay the course. 
Today, we promise to be faithful in everything from attendance to marriage, and yet so few of us are. For most, it has come to mean loyal, or steadfast in fulfilling one’s promises or obligations. If we simply dissect the building blocks of the word, it is to be full of faith, but its definition parallels that of perseverance: “loyal, constant, staunch, steadfast, resolute, firm in adherence to whatever one owes allegiance, implying unswerving adherence to a person or thing or to the oath or promise by which a tie was contracted” (Merriam-Webster). It would seem it is working in tandem with God, and taking Him at His word, that enables us to embody such constancy and unswerving devotion, and gives us the tools to persevere.

 

God makes us faithful, by being faithful to us. Each day, He asks us to run the course He’s set before us, and each day, He acts as our trainer and guide, as well as our fuel and our rest. I’ve found if I’ll just show up & take that first step forward, He’ll take me the rest of the way; irregardless, He shows up every day. He invites all to come, regardless of their qualifications or the training needed. The end results are in His hands, and regardless of how we place, He is “quick to mark even the simplest of efforts to please [Him]” (Tozer, A.W., The Attributes of God). He offers Himself to as the prize., and in so doing, He Himself is glorified. As we, the faithful, sing out each Christmas to THE Faithful One: “Jesus, to Thee be all glory given…..Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing…. O Come, let us adore Him….O Come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord” (“O Come All Ye Faithful”, Wade & Reading).

The Inevitability of Hope: Esperanza…

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In her beautiful novel Gilead, Marilynne Robinson’s protagonist astutely notes, “We are never out of light, we just turn around in it.” David said it too in the 139th Psalm:

 

“Where can I go from your spirit, where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in the depth, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me’, even the darkness will not be dark to you, the night will shine as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

 

Such statements would seem to describe our existence on earth. We cannot escape the light and love and presence of God, and yet we dwell in the valley of the shadow, where we cannot yet fully enter in. Though I cannot escape His love, I am also unable to avoid waiting for its full realization. To be able to enter fully into the presence of peace one day is our hope; hope is essential to life. I remember feeling caught off guard once as I read Paul’s observations on hope in Romans 5:3-5:

 

“Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope; and hope does not disappoint us, because God has filled us with His love by the power of His Holy Spirit.”

 

I was in my early 20’s, and processing several years of experiences that had been traumatic for various reasons. The passage struck me because I felt jaded, and in my cynicism, had begun to assume hope could only be the product of naivité, something generally found at the outset of experience, but not at its end. This verse asserts the opposite: Hope comes as the fruit of suffering, perseverance and character; if hope is founded on the true love of God, it cannot lead to disappointment. As Paul says later in Romans, the eighth chapter, “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.”
It encourages me to think that though there are times I might not always feel hopeful, I can trust that it is still a possibility of whatever process I am in. In Spanish, the verb for “to hope” is the exact same as both the verbs for “to wait” and “to expect”. Though in English, the terms are nuanced, when viewed as they are understood in Spanish, it seems true we cannot separate them. “Who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we cannot see, we wait for it patiently” (Romans 8:25). Paul also felt the terms and their practices were inseparable. Esperanza: hope and expectation, inextricably intertwined. If waiting is unavoidable, perhaps too, expecting and hoping are inevitable: “We are never out of light, we just turn around in it.”

“Looking for An Answer to a Question I Can’t Name”

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I learned a long time ago to stop asking questions of others if I don’t want to hear their answers. At least that’s the case most of the time, with most people. It’s definitely a different story when it comes to God; despite my best efforts to predict and control my circumstances, He always seems to answer in the most unexpected ways. Sometimes His responses takes my breath away with how wondrous they are; others, they can stop me in my tracks with how much they seem to wound. He’s hard for us all to comprehend. Mostly, it seems my questions have to do with the problem of pain, essentially asking why I and others must suffer. Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias points out that only a Western worldview would allow this question. Isn’t it funny that we frequently question why we deserve to suffer, but rarely consider why a just God has freely given us so much love and grace and beauty?

 

Just maybe, I’m trying to reconcile the irreconcilable. Still, I can’t seem to stop wondering why things happen as they do. Why are we all living our lives as if we’re trying to tip the scales in our favor, when we have to know that’s not the way it works? Maybe, as Norah Jones sang, “I’m looking for an answer to a question I can’t name”. Author Marilynne Robinson reflects on this too:

 

“Things happen for reasons that are hidden from us, utterly hidden for as long as we think they must proceed from what has come before, our guilt or our deserving, rather than coming to us from a future that God in his freedom offers to us… My meaning here is that you really can’t account for what happens by what has happened in the past, as you understand it anyway, which may be very different from the past itself. If there is such a thing….Of course misfortunes have opened the way to blessings you would never have thought to hope for, that you would not have been ready to understand as blessings if they had come to you in your youth, when you were uninjured, innocent. The future always finds us changed. So then it is part of the providence of God, as I see it, that blessing or happiness can have very different meanings from one time to another. This is not to say that joy is a compensation for loss, but that each of them, joy and loss, exists in its own right and must be recognized for what it is. Sorrow is very real, and loss feels very final to us. Life on earth is difficult and grave, and marvelous. Our experience is fragmentary. Its parts don’t add up. They don’t even belong in the same calculation. Nothing makes sense until we understand that experience does not accumulate like money, or memory, or like years and frailties. Instead it is presented to us by a God who is not under any obligation to the past except in His eternal, freely given constancy. Because I don’t mean to suggest that experience is random or accidental, you see. When I say that much the greater part of our existence is unknowable by us because it rests with God, who is unknowable, I acknowledge His grace in allowing us to feel that we know any slightest part of it” (Lila, Farrar, Straus and Giroux; pp. 222-223).

 

Perhaps it’s natural I don’t understand God’s working, when there’s so much about Him that simply can’t be known yet, and so much of what we do know defies understanding. I’m a spectator in a parade, and He’s the grand marshal, looking at His creation from a view up above. As C.S. Lewis says of his character Aslan, and in so doing describes and untamable God: “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”  Who could worship a god that was at our level, that didn’t defy our logic? What can we do but stand in awe? As Chris Tomlin sings, it’s good He’s “Indescribable”:

“Indescribable, uncontainable,

You placed the stars in the sky and You know them by name.

You are amazing God

All powerful, untamable,

Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim

You are amazing God”.