Leftover Love for My Family

LEFTOVER LOVE

Why does my family receive the leftovers of my love and attention?  Why am I so tempted to devote more of my love, respect, and attention to those outside my house?  These are questions that my family has been asking for a while.

First, the question applies to not only my teen-age kids, but to myself.  One of my first questions when dealing with problems in my kids is the question, "Where did that come from?"  I have to do some careful self-examination avoiding the pitfalls of self-pity and self-justification.  Am I teaching my children that our life as a family is secondary to my work, my friends, or my church positions?  Self-pity says, "I am a rotten father.  I'll never get this right."  Self-justification says, "I'm doing my best.  What more can be expected?"  Both avoid the questions, "What can be done?  What would the Lord have of me?"

As I examine my tendencies to spend time away from home, to hurry my family from on event to another, or to make my family picture-perfect, I find that my attention and my desire is focused on pleasing and impressing people outside my family and home.  Why?  I believe that home and family is only one step away from our own hearts.  My marriage and my kids reflect what sort of person I am far more than my job, my friends, and my church positions.  As with my own heart and private world, I find myself more concerned with my family looking good rather than being good.  As long as everyone else thinks my family is okay, we're okay.  Never mind that we can barely stand being around each other.

If I settle for appearances over reality, that's not good.  If I mistake appearances for reality, that's dangerous and destructive.  The reason real changes in my family are so difficult and time-consuming comes from several factors:

• I do not want to change myself, really.
• I do not know how to change myself.
• I really don't want my family to change much, just in a few ways that will make life easier for myself.
• I do not know how to go about changing my family.

Change and growth seem elusive at best.  Most of the time I want to be struck by lightning or bit by a radioactive spider for change instead of doing any training or effort.  I might wish my family was different, like I wish I was a concert pianist, but wishing only breeds trying and trying is merely an effort expected to fail.  Two things are needed to break out of this situation: encouragement and endurance.

CHANGE BEGINS WITH TRUE HOPE

Hope needs to be set on what is true, otherwise it yields disappointment or even despair.  Jesus was big on truth.  He was always saying, "I tell you the truth" because he knew we needed truth to live by, truth to hope in.  The truth about family is that it is a reflection of the Trinity.  Jesus final word on God is that he  is his Father and our Father.  God's will and desire is bent on redeeming family relationships because, at their best, they give a dim picture of the oneness found in the Trinity.  If I work on my family life, I am deeply involved in the work of God, shining out his image.

Jesus's commands also reflect this.  Part of the greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves.  Who is our neighbor?  Simply, one who is "nigh" or near.  It may be that one of the big problems of the priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan was that they were overly concerned with people who were not "nigh" to them.  They were is a hurry to get "there" rather than love the person who was near at them moment. Sometimes that person is a stranger we may not like very much.  More often the ones who are near to me are my wife and kids.

All this talk about Jesus's commands often breeds guilt in my heart because I am used to seeing them used as clubs to beat people rather than hope to lift people. I am as guilty as anyone else. On the contrary, "everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope." (Romans 15:4) It is not Jesus who overburdens us with commands that we cannot keep, but ourselves. Loving family is not something I must or should do, but something that I get to do by God's grace. Jesus's commands are always pictures of what I can be like as I walk alongside him bearing the easy yoke.

So this is the encouragement. I am confident that God wants my family to be a center of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. This is his will. He never intended that such a life would be done without him. Jesus does not command what he will not have done by God's grace. His commands provide the picture of a life immersed in the Holy Spirit, a life drawing upon God's kingdom resources, a life dead to dead-end desires. Love is the best word to describe such a life. Family is where such love resides most of the time.

Endurance comes from knowing that when I pick up the burdens in my life, God will be at the other end, doing most of the lifting. Endurance comes from knowing that God will not lift what I I do not lift. My main work of lifting is the work of trusting. My effort begins as I trust God to work in my life. As I understand God's desire to make my family a place where love, joy, and peace reign, I can align my work with his. He takes my small efforts and gives them powerful results I could not have anticipated.

FAMILY MEANS TOGETHER

So what does that all mean? For my family, we do a lot of things together. As a result we do less things in general, since we feel we need and want to do many of them together. One of the most important things we do together is devote ourselves to God. Without such time with him, we cannot go on very long. Such devotion is made up of Bible/devotional readings, sharing work and conversation, eating normal and special meals together, and praying for each other and with each other. God continually meets us as we expectantly come to meet him.

Where are you to begin? Begin where you are. Make that one corner, room, house, office as like Heaven as you can. Begin? Begin with the paper on the walls, make that beautiful; with the air, keep it fresh; with the very drains, make them sweet; with the furniture, see that it be honest. Abolish whatsoever worketh abomination--in food, in drink, in luxury, in books, in art; whatsoever maketh a lie--in conversation, in social intercourse, in correspondence, in domestic life. This done, you have arranged for a Heaven, but you have not got it. Heaven lies within, in kindness, in humbleness, in unselfishness, in faith, in love, in service. To get these in, get Christ in. Teach all in the house about Christ--what He did, and what He said, and how He lived, and how He died, and how He dwells in them, and how He makes all one. Teach it not as a doctrine, but as a discovery, as your own discovery. Live your own discovery. (The City Without a Church, Henry Drummond)

Such a life will transcend the walls of our homes and the intimacy of our families. As we find ourselves trustworthy and able to work with what is small and close, we will find ourselves asked to work more with what is more distant and "big," but, I suspect, never to the exclusion of what is close and small. From the Bible as well as my own life I know that what is "big" and "important" to people in general is never big and important to God. The biggest changes start in the smallest corners and with unlikely people at the heart of them.

Lord, you know my heart. You know how I long to impress other people and how I think that by impressing others I will find the approval I seek. It is not true. Teach me how godliness with contentment is a great gain for myself and my family. Let me know the truth in the words, "Follow me, and I will make you a fisher of people." Just like you, Jesus. Amen.

The Cost of Legalism

Recently, I heard someone ask at church, "What is legalism?"  Mostly, it is a slur thrown around at people who are harsh and overly religious.  As far as that definition goes, I need to ask myself, "Would Jesus be called a legalist if someone met him today?"  Maybe. . . .

Jesus carefully warns his disciples about the "yeast" or teaching of the Pharisees (Mark 8:15).  He describes this yeast that spreads so easily in Matthew 23:

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1. Right words, wrong actions (vv. 2-3)
2. Produces guilt with no freedom (v. 4)
3. Does good deeds for others to see (vv. 5-7)
4. Focuses on authority in position rather than in deed (vv. 8-12)
5. Minimizes God's influence and power in this life (vv. 13-14)
6. Makes converts to an idealism instead of disciples of Christ (v. 15)
7. Uses words to convince instead of clarify (vv. 16-22)
8. Does "good" deeds without good character (vv. 23-24)
9. Outwardly clean without inwardly filthy (vv. 25-26)
10. Outwardly beautiful but inwardly dead and decaying (vv. 27-28)
11. Justified by self instead of by God (vv.29-32)
12. Persecutes and destroys those sent by God (vv.33-36)

 Legalism is a malady of the heart.  It has followers from all walks of life.  It is not defined by a particular viewpoint, but more by a particular attitude, a way of doing things.  Spiritual formation or discipleship or social action that does not have the substance, the reality, the heart of goodness leads inevitably to legalism.  A legalist believes a person can do good without being good.

I am grateful for this teaching in Matthew 23.  Jesus was right to warn me about legalism.  It is a trap. Jesus gives me some words for avoiding this trap:

1. Do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  (v.3)
2. The greatest among you will be your servant.  (v. 11)
3. You have one Teacher, the Christ.  (v. 10)
4. First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.  (v. 26)

I count the cost of legalism not only in what bad it does, but also in what good I miss.

1. I will miss being able to practice what I preach.
2. I will miss relieving people of their heavy burdens.
3. I will miss having God as my Master, Father, and Teacher.
4. I will miss being in God's kingdom, in his power and influence.
5. I will miss seeing others come to know Jesus and follow him.
6. I will miss speaking words that bring knowledge and truth.
7. I will miss having a just, merciful, and faithful character.
8. I will miss inward purity.
9. I will miss inward vitality.
10. I will miss being justified by God.
11. I will miss being a prophet, wise man, or teacher sent by God.

Other than the recognition gained from legalism, all it brings is hypocrisy and blindness.

I get all tied up inside when I worry about what everyone else is doing or what everyone else might be thinking about me.  I find that such thoughts carry the temptation of legalism.  Today, I am most moved by the thought that I have one Teacher, the Christ.  Through him I find that I have a Master and a Father as well.  There are many voices out there, but only one I have to attend to, really.

Master, Teacher, Father,  what good do I have apart from you?  Sometimes I fear what following you might cost me, but I see better what it will cost me to not follow you.  Let my surrender be based on counting the cost.  Let my examination bring me to your rule, your lessons, and your arms, loving Father.  Amen.

How the Kingdom of God Comes: With Waiting

Mark 1.1-1.8

Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of the spiritual life.  -Simone Weil

If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  (Romans 8:25)

For some of my kid's birthdays and Christmases we have had special presents or occasions planned.  The surprise that they felt was planned carefully by Dawn and myself for quite a while before the event happened.  When everything was ready, the surprise unfolded.  Foretold scripture makes me think of that planning for a surprise.  No doubt it says a lot about God's foreknowledge, but fulfilled scripture also shows what God has been planning for a long time and the meaning behind human history.  History is a story full of preparation for the coming of Jesus.

Such preparation was not left to the written word alone, but was fulfilled in the coming of John.  Fulfillment comes when the words come off the page and live and breath in the lives of people and the events of history.  The voice of one calling in the desert comes alive in John.  He immersed people in the waters of the Jordan as a preparation.  For what?  Immersion in the Holy Spirit.  John anticipated the one who would open the door to a new reality where people could be soaked and floating along in the currents of God's Holy Spirit through the words and work of the Messiah.  God just could not wait to bring us such a gift, a surprise that he had always planned on: being one with me.

Scriptural fulfillment is a big picture of what God wants to do with me everyday.  He has wonderful plans in store for me and each person.  He longs to bring them about in my life.  My part is to wait.  Wait with eagerness, with anticipation, with joy.  In the waiting there will be preparation.  In the preparation, personal change.  Those changes will lead to the power to live fully with him and abundantly in a new life.

Lord, it is a good thing you sent one more powerful than I to take me through this life.  With him the yoke of living becomes easy and light.  His presence reaches into the deepest places of my soul, out into the reality of this world, and up into the highest heaven which I cannot even imagine.  I am embraced, held, and carried along daily by your hand.  Fulfill your plans in me and through me, Father.  I hope in you.  Amen.

A Heart that Is Free

A heart that is free

is close companion

 of a peaceful soul.

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A free heart is one

that is not attached to its own way

of doing things,

that does not become impatient

when things don't go its way.

A free heart

will surely enjoy spiritual consolations,

but is not dependent on them

and will, to the best of its ability,

accept troubles in their stead.

A free heart

is not so tied

to a schedule or a way of praying

that any change is upsetting

and a source of anxiety.

A free heart is not attached

to what is beyond its control.

A free heart prays to God

that his name be hallowed,

that his kingdom come,

that his will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

For if the name of God is hallowed,

if his kingdom is in us,

if his will is being done,

a free spirit need not concern itself

with anything else.

(From Set Your Heart Free: The Practical Spirituality of Frances de Sales, pp.95-97)

Repentance: It's Not All that Bad

Repentance is not an emotion.  It is not feeling sorry for your sins.  It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing you could manage your own life and be you own god; it is deciding that you were wrong in thinking that you had, or could get, the strength, education, and training to make it on your own; it is deciding that you have been told a pack of lies about yourself, your neighbors, and your world.   And it is deciding that God is Jesus Christ is telling you the truth.  Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts.  Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace.  (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.30)

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.  (Matthew 13:44)

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What if repentance didn't make you feel bad?  What if the emotional marks of repentance was love, joy, and peace?  When I think about it, I find that repentance usually ends up in relief and joy.  I can finally let go of something that I thought I needed because I find there is something else so much better and greater.

No, what makes me miserable is my resistance to repentance.  Approaching the corner I mean to turn, I find myself full of fear, worry, and even anger.  Part of me doesn't want to repent.  That's the part of me that causes all the pain.  Repentance is the relief, the sunrise.

So Jesus also explains some of the top "dreads" that keep me from repenting in another parable.

Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path.  The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away.  The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.  But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.  (Matthew 13:18-23)

Ignorance is the first.  What I don't know can hurt me.  Persecution is another problem.  Other people's resistance can become my resistance through fear.  Worry and greed can eventually outgrow even the best of news.

Repentance asks, seeks, and knocks.  Repentance must come from certainty and fearlessness.  Repentance must weed out worries and all sorts of lust and greed to last.  Such repentance doesn't yield a mere 10% in a year, but 30,000% to 100,000%.

Is Jesus exaggerating?  Is he just advertising the kingdom with the current marketing techniques?  The message is clear.  The influence and work of God in my life is more valuable than anything else.  It is worth giving it all away.  Repentance may seem foolish to those who cannot see the hidden treasure, but it makes perfect sense to the one who has found the treasure.

Lord, you are my treasure and my triumph.  Save me from all that would take me from you.  Let my decision be wise, fearless, and lasting.  Amen.

The Reality of the Cross

 May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

 The high point in human history - the cross! . . .  The single greatest force in human life [is] the cross.  And believing that totally flips everything upside down.  (Dallas Willard, Jesus and Culture, Divine Conspiracy talks)

The cross is not primarily a show of how bad people are, but how badly people need God.  Without God our efforts at good are always interrupted by necessity.  Peter felt it was necessary to deny Jesus even though he swore he would go to death with him.  Pilate felt it was necessary to turn Jesus over even though he could find no charges against him.  The Sanhedrin turned Jesus over to the Romans because it was necessary for one man to die rather than a nation.

The reality of the cross is that as a human being, when I try to do good on my own, I will inevitably find it necessary to overturn or betray that good for the sake of something "necessary."  The cross outlines the hope of all people.  When my life is turned over to God, the "necessities" become the very things I have to put to death.  Instead of crucifying what it good, true, and beautiful for the sake of these necessary desires and fears, I have to crucify these desires and fears.

"The wages of sin is death," says Paul.  Living apart from God, away from his grace, and on my own only results in a continuing death.  All that is good will be crucified because it threatens the "Almighty 'I will'".  This form of self-will must die if I am to live.

The high point of the cross is that it really changed everything.  The greatest discovery of humanity was made on the cross by the one who showed us everything a person should be, Jesus.  The cross is mine to boast in because it shatters all the lies that I am fed daily about this world and myself.  The cold, hard reality of the cross crowns the life Jesus lived in this world with the power to be humble, the joy to go through suffering, and the life to conquer death.  These are not mere ideas, but realities found in relationship with God.

The world is crucified to me through the cross.  All the glamour, the display of wealth and power, the fear and dread, the seemingly unending supply of pleasure and distraction turns out to be a lie.  The world is a worn-out shirt, ready to be retired.  The world is a defeated enemy, ready to be destroyed.  The world is uninteresting and bland, ready to be replaced and renewed.  The cross tears the mask off of the world of humanity working apart from God and for its own desires and shows it to be futile and empty, like a dying criminal on a tree.

I am crucified to the world through the cross.  I become an exile in this world rather than a resident.  I find myself "on the outside" in many situations.  Jesus said that the world will hate those who follow him as it hated him.  The systems and institutions set up without God or against him have no place for me.  Occasionally I am attacked or rejected, but mostly where I follow Jesus I am just ignored.

Lord, let the cross define my reality and my hope.  Let me be like Paul who boasts only in the cross of Christ.  Amen.

Renovare Essentials

Looking back over two years in the Renovare (reh-no-VAHR-eh) Spiritual Institute, I have changed my mind about several things in my walk with Jesus.  The new thoughts and ideas were only the beginning, but still an important beginning.  The best part of my learning was the discovery that these ideas are not new at all, but pillars of of thought and experience that reach back hundreds of years.  Renovare reintroduced me to these new/old ideas and showed me how they worked in real life.

The Renovare Essentials Conference overviews some of these ideas about Christian spiritual formation.  Dawn and I attended one of these conferences a couple of years ago.  We wanted to understand Renovare's goals and foundations better before investing ourselves into the Spiritual Institute as well as starting this education together as much as possible.  We drove to Phoenix to spend some time in learning, praying, and talking about all this calling from God.

The most pronounced theme of the Essentials conference was God's grace.  Dawn and I found this relieving.  Renovare has a lot of material about spiritual "disciplines" and we both are aware of the tendency to take these exercises and make them into competitions and divisions in churches, so grace was a great place to start.

What I needed to learn is that God's grace is not so much about fixing my past or securing my future as living in the present.  The forgiveness of my sins is essential, but it is not everything.  The open door  to heaven is my hope, but it is not all that there is.  God's grace is provision for my life, rather than for my death.  If God's grace is God acting in my life, it is not an "over-and-done" thing as much as the living hand of a living God.  The question in my life has moved from "How can I or anyone else get saved by grace?" to "How can I or anyone else live by God's grace from moment to moment?"

Dallas Willard says,"God's grace is opposed to earning, not opposed to effort."  This expresses another idea I learned at the Essentials Conference.  The proper response of my will to God's grace is more about training that trying.  Because of God's mercy, he is not opposed to my trying, but also because of his mercy he tells me that trying will not accomplish what he wants in my life.  Jesus makes this plain when he speaks about following him: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."  (Matthew 10:38)  The grace of Jesus calls for great effort.  The point of this grace is Christ-likeness.

In areas of importance, training is required.  People do not speak of medical trying, but medical training.  The same is true for the military, musical performance, and pastoral work.  People do not trust someone who has merely tried the field, but someone who has trained in the field.  The orientation of the will is different when a person trains for something as opposed to when they try something.  Because of the importance of following Jesus, discipleship requires the intention of training and not merely trying.

With grace as the motivation and hope and with training as my intention, I found myself asking about the actual means of Christian spiritual formation.  This is where spiritual exercises enter.  The means of producing spiritual change in my life is very rarely direct.  I cannot become humble, patient, or joyful by just practicing being humble, patient, of joyful.  This is the fast track to burnout and frustration.  Instead of focusing on the direct practice of being joyful, I learned that I needed to indirectly exercise in order to obtain joy or patience or humility.

Lifting weights is an example of and indirect exercise.  Most people do not lift weights to get better at lifting weights, but in order to enhance their ability elsewhere.  Exercise indirectly prepares a person for practice.  Without adequate strength poor performance and injury result.  Similarly, solitude, silence, fasting, and prayer can be exercise that prepare me for practicing a life with God.  

Without spiritual exercise, spiritual practice is powered by my own abilities and costs me dearly.  I cannot make myself grow, but I can be prepared for the spiritual growth and change that God's grace brings.  Spiritual exercises are the means of effort that work God's grace into my life and train me for my work with God in my life.

For Christian spiritual formation, God's action in my life - his grace - is the most essential.  This grace, by its very nature, calls out a response beyond trying: training.  In this training, spiritual exercises are a primary means by which the Spirit forms me into Christ-likeness.  The Renovare Essentials Conference will examine and teach these ideas and the ways to work them into everyday human life.