a drop of water

In Chapter 3 of Prayer, Richard Foster describes the Prayer of Examen.  He starts out by noting that there are two parts of this prayer, 1. The examen of consciousness and 2. The examen of conscience.  He describes each separately but ends with the understanding that they are much more like two overlapping circles, always influencing with each other.

He describes the examen of consciousness as the method “through which we discover how God has been present to us throughout the day and how we have responded to his presence.”  It’s implication is that we become more aware of our surroundings and that “God wants us to be present where are.”  I know that for me I am often asking God for and about tomorrow, completely ignoring what is infront of me today.  God becomes limited to the servant who is preparing and providing for my tomorrow (which he is), but I forget that he is the God who is present with me right now, today.

The examen of conscience is the process of inviting the Lord to search our hearts to the depths of the psalmists words in Ps 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.  See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”  We uncover those areas that need cleansing, purifying and healing.  Foster mentions two dangers to deep introspection without God: 1. “If we are the lone examiners of our heart, a thousand justifications will arise to decalre our innocence” and 2. “If left to our own devices, it is easy for us to take one good look at who we truly are nad elcare ourselves unredeemable.”

It is easy to be upset and want to end the evil and sin that is outside of ourselves.  What if we had the same kind of feelings towards the actions within ourselves of the same ilk?

When we are sick, we often go to the doctor for a diagnosis.  They have the knowledge of the how the human body works and know the current remedies for our ailments.  God has the knowledge of not only how our human body works, but how our heart and mind work.  It makes sense that we should go to the great physician regularly to stay healthy.

These three points in Dallas Willard’s, Renovation of the Heart helped me process my thought life.

1.  Pride and overconfidence in ideas, images, or bits of information  simply because they are “ours” or “mine and I am (we are) in the habit of relying on them.

2. Simple ignorance of fact which can be combatted by “constant openness and learning”.

3. Allowing our desires to guide our thinking, especially the desire to prove we are right or have the approval of others in “our crowd”. 

I believe that the most competent leaders rely humbly on their advisor’s knowledge and understanding of their fields in order to make judgements.  Likewise, God is the expert in any field that we might engage, from programming to cooking, from friendships to romance.  We must not let our pride and overconfidence, our habit of relying on our own understanding to skip the cornerstone of relying on God for our ideas, images and information.  (We also can not trick ourselves into thinking that God needn’t be bothered or relied on for the simple daily tasks of our lives.)

Always being in a posture of learning (and growth) allows us to make ignorance a motivational fuel instead of a humliating stumbling block.  When we apply ourselves to something, whether it be the study of theology or photography or apologetics, we often puff ourselves up as self proclaimed experts.  Then we look back down from where we have come, from the top of our hill, and fail to see the mountains all around us that we are called to climb.

It seems really difficult to keep our desires from influencing our thinking.  I guess this is partly a result of crowd mentality, where it is easy to conform to the crowd’s movement and direction.  We don’t want to be alone in our thoughts, we want community to validate our ideas and thoughts.  We become accustomed to the approval of man instead of the approval of God.  Sometimes we end up associating the approval of Godly men and women as the approval of God, but that shouldn’t be our goal.

All three of these aspects allow us to leave space for God to speak directly into our lives through our thoughts.  With less pride in our own self-reliance, we can rely on God as the expert in everything we attempt to do.  With constant openness and learning we can let God break down the wrong ways we’ve been doing things.  With seeking approval and rightness in God’s eyes, we allow God to break the pressures and expectations that culture has put on us.

One of my favorite passages is Micah 6:8, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  I recently discovered the context of the passage, where God presents his case against Israel, and Israel responds.

God reminds Israel of what he has done for them. He mentions a few characters and events:

• Slavery in Egypt – God sent Moses to lead Israel out of their lives as slaves in Egypt.
• Balak king of Moab – Was preparing to stand in Israel’s way and drive them out of the country.
• Balaam son of Beor – Was called by Balak to put a curse on Israel, but God told Balaam no.  (Same Balaam who had his donkey speak to him)
• Journey from Shittim to Gilgal – This was the parting of the Jordan River by Joshua, which parallels the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, earlier.

Next Israel responds with a few ideas to pay for their sins: burnt offerings, one year old calves, thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil, and even their firstborn children. All of these were very costly sacrifices, some instituted by ceremonial law, but were impractical and some wicked (as Matthew Henry states).  God then tells Israel, that he has already said what he requires of them.

God asked them to act justly.  The verb act (or to do in other translations) implies to make.  God asked them to love mercy.  The love here is the same love that God has for his people. Go asked them to walk humbly with Him.  One of the implications of this verb to walk, implies departing from something.  God asked them to be just in their actions, to love mercy as He loves his people, and to walk away from their sin nature, as they follow Him.

All of these instructions ultimately ask us to offer ourselves to God and directly address the last bastions of our old self.  It is easier to give God things, actions, etc. than to give God ourselves.  Acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with Him is impossible without us letting God permeate our thoughts, actions, and wills. Instead of offering God myself, I think that I often try and substitute something that I’ve assigned great worth to, similar to the Israel’s initial offering of rams and rivers of oil.  I offer up my success or hopes for success, my “big” ideas for the Kingdom; offerings that I think are close to or worthy of what God has already done for me, when in reality they are often just clanging symbols.

Dallas Willard, in his exposition of the parable of the Widow’s offering (Luke 21:1-4, Mark 12:41-44) said “It was of greater value, more of value was done with the widows pennies, than with the large gift of the others.  The context of the kingdom among us transforms the respective actions.   Little is much, we say, when God is in it.  And so it is, really.”  The worth is not in the pennies, but what the pennies symbolize; a transformation of the woman’s heart. This is to say, that often we can make offerings as a response to what God has done in our lives that have “big” outward worth and end up missing the inward surrender to God that allows Him to renovate our heart, mind and soul so that we can become the people who act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Him.

In a letter to his mother to console her on the death of his father, he wrote,

“Three years have gone and every trifle relating to father is still alive as ever inside me.  I am so certain my love, that we will see him again in an unexpected but completely natural heaven, in a realm that all is radiance and delight.  He will come towards us in our shared bright eternity, slightly raising his shoulders as he used to do, and we will kiss the birth mark on his hand without surprise. You must live in expectation of that tender hour my love, and never give in to the temptation of despair. Everything will return.”

-Vladimir Nabokov

My family and I visited the grave sites of both my mother’s and father’s parents this Christmas.  It has been almost six years since my last grandmother passed away.  I have a few memories stored away of my grandparents, their body language, the feeling of their wrinkly old hands holding mine, maybe a faint echo of a their voices. Deitrich Bonhoffer noted as he was led to his sentencing, “For you it is the end, but for me, it is the beginning of life.”

Nabokov bolsters his mothers countenance against despair by painting a beautiful vision of what Heaven holds.   It is a place where we will be reunited with those whom we have loved so much, restored to their former selves.  Nabakov lives his life not in despair of what he has lost in his father’s death, but in the life and glory of being reunited with his father someday.

Life here on earth is a great gift, and its end opens a door to something much greater in Heaven. I am excited to hold my grandparents hands again someday, to hear their voices in strength and clarity, to see their body language unhindered by age and ailment.  I want to live under the vision so eloquently painted by Nabokov, where death is just the next step in life in Christ.

“To accept, with confidence in God, that I do not immediately have to have my way, releases me from the great pressure that anger, unforgiveness and the “need” to retaliate imposes upon my life.”

p. 74, Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard

The above quote (out of context from the main point) made me realize, that I often inaccurately use the idea of free will to justify my will.  I fall into thinking, because I have free will, then my actions to implement, ensure, and get my will are justified.  But what this line of prideful thought really says is that I am glorifying my own will as the righteous purest and most valuable expression of life and existence and that any infringment upon my will can only be wrong (evil).  When my will is not met, it is not just that “I have been wronged” but that I have the opportunity to acknowledge and embrace God’s will as a response inplace of the “anger, unforgiveness and the ‘need’ to retaliate.’”  Free will is not a justification for my own will; it is a freedom to consciously and intentionally choose, discover, and align my heart with God’s will.