a drop of water

Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

The people to whom we minister and speak will not recall 99% of what we say to them, but they will never forget the kind of persons we are. This is certainly true of influential ministers of my own past. The quality of our souls will indelibly touch others for good or for ill. So we must never forget that the most important thing happening at any moment amongst all our ministerial duties is the kind of persons we are becoming.

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.

“Joy is not a requirement of Christian discipleship, it is a consequence.”
Eugene Peterson – p.96, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Those who I look up to are always joyful.  Even with the greeting in passing, their joy is contagious.  That is something I wish I could give to people, a contagious joy.  It is not just a contagious joy rooted in their innate ability to hope for the best, but in their belief in God and humility to see the good that is happening.  Peterson notes that “joy is not a moral requirement for Christian living” since we will “experience events that are full of sadness and pain” and that we should never conclude that “I’m not joyful, therefore I must not be christian.”

That truth in evidenced by those who I look up to who are seemingly always joyful.  Their life circumstances are not any different that mine, often much harder and more trying when you get to know what they face daily.  Peterson emphasizes that joy (and other christian ways of living) is not something “we have to acquire in order to experience life in Christ; it is what comes to us when we are walking in the way of faith and obedience.”

So often I find myself chasing after fruits of faith and obedience, only to realize that I’ve tried to play without reading the directions.  It is when I focus on the simplest things in life, God’s presence, his leading, and trying to be his hands and feet in the here and now that joy comes, because it puts the complexity and the overwhelming issue and problems in their place, in Gods hand.  That is where I want my joy to come from; any other source else is shortlived.

Any work done faithfully and well is difficult.  It is not harder for me to do my job well than for any other person, and no less.  There are no easy tasks in the Christian way; there are only tasks that can be done faithfully or erratically, with joy or with resentment.  And there is no room for any of us, pastors or grocers, accountants or engineers, word processors or gardeners, physicians or teamsters, to speak in tones of self-pity of the terrible burdens of our work.

p. 76-77, Eugene Peterson, The Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Reading this was like being doused with a bucket of cold water because I am very guilty of speaking in tones of self-pity towards my work tasks that I do erratically and with resentment.  But God is reminding me that he has given each of us no more than we can handle.  I have to realize that the spiritual qualities of those I look up to is not merely a result of them doing a specific type of work, but them doing the difficult work they have been given, faithfully and with joy.  Often times I see those who I look up to for just their spiritual leadership, discernment or wisdom, when that is really the tip of the iceberg of God’s work in them.  The tasks that are difficult for them are of no less and no more relative difficulty than the tasks that I see as difficult in my life.  It is the finding of God in those difficult times that deeply instructs us about him, how to trust him, and how to love him.

“…Everyday I put faith on the line.  I have never seen God.  In a world where nearly everything can be weighted, explained, quantified, subjected to psychological analysis and scientific control, I persist in making the center of my life a God whom no eye hath seen, nor ear heard, whose will no one can probe…

Everyday I put hope on the line.  I don’t know one thing about the future.  I don’t know what the next hour will hold.  There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe.  Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection.  I don’t know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world.  Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ’s love…

Everyday I put love on the line.  There is nothing I am less good at than love.  I am far better in competition that in love.  I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark mark than I am at figuring out how to love another.  I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way.  And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily–open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better that succeeding in pride…”

p. 76-77, Eugene Peterson, The Long Obedience in the Same Direction

According to Peterson, these are some of the risks and costs (or hazards as he puts it) that are apart of our lives as Christians.  He concludes this chapter on Psalm 124 with the idea that faith develops out of the most difficult aspects of our existence instead of the easiest, and that “it is the help we experience, not the hazards we risk, that shape our days.”  His power is made perfect [realized, tangible] in our weakness.  We put our faith in God, our hope in God, and our love for God on the line not as the ends, but as the means, because God’s nature, God’s provision and God’s love shape our days.