Sabbath

In the years since I have stopped working a second job for the cable company and have focused solely on my ministry work, I have consistently taken a sabbath each week.  On occasion I have to forgo my day of rest, but I would say that 9 times out of 10, on a Monday I am available only to my family, and do no thinking or laboring towards my ministry efforts.  While it has always been a needed time of rest and retreat, it hasn't always been as life-giving as other disciplines in my life like worship, prayer, study, fellowship, service...

I was in conversation with my spiritual director about my practice of sabbath, and he suggested that I find ways to engage on my sabbath; not just retreat from the world, but engage in some particular activity that I find enjoyable for its own sake.  In particular he asked about a 'creative' outlet.

Now, I have some ability at drawing, but its never excited much passion in me, I have a passable ability at guitar, but my passion there lies in worship not in creating music, I like to write, but very little of my writing is 'creative.'  I have, however, long been passionate about building things.  In recent years that has largely taken the form of fixing up the two houses that we own, which, obviously, is not very 'creative' either.  Even more problematic for the practice of sabbath, it just isn't retreat from work.  I derive an income from it, I have deadlines and expectations, it is work.

And so, I have turned my hand back to building furniture...

I have built a few pieces over the years, only one or two that I felt 'proud' of, but have always enjoyed it.  In the last two months of sabbaths I have built a small table, and a wooden offering box for use in our worship service.

Here is the lid and the box before I added the straps to the lid and attached the lid to the box:

A Role for Intentional Ambiguity

Teaching people to paint masterpieces simply can't be done in an over-structured environment, for this reason, sometimes the best place to learn to swim is the deep end of the pool:

http://www.jimcollins.com/media_topics/hedgehog-concept.html#audio=84

I think this is a big part of the reason why Jesus was so often so ambiguous.  Often, the best way to prevent someone from understanding something is to answer their questions.

Reinforced Habits

"Maybe your eating habits started at a young age. When you were good your parents may have rewarded you with candy or took you to your favorite fast food chain. You then began to associate junk food as something positive. Over time this became ingrained in your subconscious and you have continued this as an adult.

Now you treat yourself to ice cream, candy, greasy restaurants or nights of drinking every time you do well in life. Celebrations are an excuse to be unhealthy. You have to break this habit. Celebrating a positive time in your life with something that impacts you negatively is hardly a true celebration."

David Schenk

Worship Changes Us

St. Paul writes the following in the twelfth chapter of his epistle to the Roman Church:

¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Here Paul is instructing us that true worship involves our total humanity.  A living sacrifice that continually presents itself, not merely in song, but in its physical entirety.  Our thoughts, emotions, actions, and lifestyle are included in our worship, not merely words.

In worshipping God in this way we are honoring Him according to His proper worth; we are giving Him something.  We are also, however, giving God access to us; He is giving us something in return.  By acknowledging God for who He truly is, and by doing so whole-heartedly, we are receiving a renewed self.  A self that begins to look more and more like Him.  Our whole being is being conformed to His as we worship Him.

We are made in His image, designed to reflect His glory into the world around us.  Like a mirror turning towards the source of light, in order to reflect it; we turn towards God in worship to do the same.  In proclaiming the majesty, beauty, and power of the Creator through worship, our reflection of Him becomes cleaner, clearer, and brighter.  It is then that we are able to truly understand, discern, and perform His will.

In my own life this has been true.  Decisions I had made for evil, destructive patterns of thought I had settled into, bitterness I had held onto, lies I had believed; all melted away in moments of worship.  Almost without notice these things came to pass; there was no conscious renouncing of these evils but only an embracing of God.  After such an embrace, I discovered that those evils had been let go of almost against my will, they had been crowded out of my soul.  As if there was not room for bitterness or envy within a soul filled with thoughts of God.

In idolatry our humanity is perverted and our godliness polluted.  In worship of our Creator, we become more fully human and more godly as well...

Paper Pt XI: Implications for Purpose

Kingdom Justice and Ecclesiastical Purpose

The good news of the Kingdom is the proclamation of the Kingship (Messiah or Christ) of Jesus.31 The Kingdom of God is the powerful advancement of God’s agenda, His ‘making all things good again,’ through the victory of Jesus over all other powers on the Cross. The resultant state of this victory is justice; God’s manifest ‘good.’ This victory has power over sin in all of its manifestations, within individuals, between individuals, between ethnos, and even where it is found ensconced within the power structures of our societies. If the Kingdom purpose is justice, then the Church’s purpose is to further that justice, through proclamation and participation in God’s ‘good.’

6) Personal Transformation – If Jesus has conquered sin through the Cross, then by being joined to Him, individual humans are being transformed. We must acknowledge that when the gospel is preached women and men will be “taught to obey everything (Jesus) has commanded”32 as a result. Therefore notional and nominal assent to certain doctrinal statements will be replaced by confidence in, and reliance upon, Jesus’ victory over all powers. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested within us individually.

7) Deep Community – If Jesus has renewed the covenant people, and reconciled people to each other through the Cross33 then there will be a resulting experience of community within the Church. Mere coexistence will not suffice; attendance at the same events will be replaced by intimacy; participation in the same programs will be replaced by sharing common resources; receiving services from paid church workers will be replaced by laboring together for common goals; we will move to a place of vulnerability and submission before each other. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested in us communally.

8) Multi-Cultural Expression – If the Cross has “destroyed the dividing wall of hostility”34 between Jew and Gentile, then the Christian community will be marked by extreme diversity. A diversity that goes beyond ethnic diversity, and brings together people who share little except their common commitment to Jesus. The gospel demands true multi-cultural expression, where diverse backgrounds, value-systems, and even languages, must be brought together in common submission to the King.

9) Social Justice – The Church must go beyond individual conversion, and even personal and communal transformation, and work to see justice effected in any and every arena where systemic evil is present. The victory over the powers at work in individuals is also accomplished within the various economic, social, and political systems of the earth. This rebuts our conservative rejection of the social ramifications of the gospel, and the political alliances we have allowed ourselves to be co-opted into in some contexts. Global income inequalities, environmental degradation, human trafficking, urban segregation, minority disenfranchisement, etc. are all issues that speak to the veracity and effectiveness of the gospel. Justice (God’s ‘good’) will be manifested on the earth.

Obedience

We might think that God wanted simply obedience to a set of rules: whereas He really wants people of a particular sort.

Repentance

"Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor--that is the only way out of our 'hole'. This process of surrender--this movement full speed astern--is what Christians call repentance."

C. S. Lewis

Repentance

"Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen."

C. S. Lewis

Perfection

...the command to be perfect as God is perfect is not idealistic nonsense, nor is it a command to do the impossible. God wants to make us into people who can obey the command.

United to God

There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made. Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prizes which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?

Wrestling God....

So this is a once a year appearance of Tamy to the blog...but here I am for a few thoughts...

I truly feel as if I have wrestled God lately, he has been bringing me through something that at first I just wanted to run away from or be healed of. However through God's grace I am seeing the beauty of this struggle and even slightly thankful for the experience. I am not sure if it is over yet either as I am finding only he really knows, and sometimes that is a comfort and sometimes that is for me terribly frightening.
I am a passionate woman who has surely tasted of the goodness of God and I would love to report that I don't often forget that but in times of hardship I am someone who has seen the mighty hand of GOd only to doubt it when in the wilderness. I too like the Isarelites have seen the Red Seas in my life parted and then grumble and complain about no food or water in the desert and have often thought I would be better in my previous situation than in the current. The wrestling I have done as of lately is primarily due to my own desire for control and tendency to worry instead of trust. At one clear moment in this trial I remember thinking that I just did not want to do what God was asking and I just didn't want to trust but...to whom else can I go cause He has the words of eternal life. I felt stuck cause I desperately wanted out of my situation but I could not turn my back on my Lord cause I have seen the things he does and the beauty that follows His purposes. I also could not pretend that I am surrendered when in fact I am not, that false living would be even worse that turning my back on him. So it was in this time that I called in the big Guns ( those spirit embodied friends of mine that at scattered to the four corners of the world) to please pray and for insight, and I do not know that it was in those conversations that I heard from God. Those conversations instead provided the safe place to wrestle, those friends love me and point me back to the fact that God to loves me, and anything that he is doing will be for his beautiful purposes. God has been showing me his beautiful purposes in this trial, and I am seeing that sometimes the thing that we hate and try to rid ourselves of is the very thing that God uses to reveal himself in. My paradigm for viewing life and more importantly God in this life is changing. I am being liberated from control and worry, (the lenses that I often view things from) but it is deeper cause in my desire for control and when I worry I have seen God as desiring to be in control and wanting things his way. So there was this sense of God as task-master instead of father, lover, friend. He is faithfully showing me His love and most often this happens through my kids. They are so assured of my love and their importance to me, they are confident when they approach me and ask for whatever they want, they have no problem interrupting me or climbing all over me while I am talking or doing something. This for me is a small illustration of the Fathers desire for us to approach him, and in my response to my children, the way that I love them and can't stop it no matter what they do, I just love them. This reveals His heart towards us...

I can not really explain all that I feel Him doing, I truly feel like chains are being broken in my heart, I taste of the coming freedom from all that would seek to capture my soul. The way that I see God, my service to him, my life lived with friends and strangers is all changing somehow that I can't explain. The glasses that I am used to wearing I am taking off and I am in the period of time where my eyes are learning to adjust but if I patiently wait I will see clearly again.

Training Wheels Pt IX

So what?

How does this become practical?

Hopefully in two ways:

1) A closer, and more contextual, reading of the Law. A more nuanced approach to what is going on in the Old Testament passages, and the New Testament itself specifically in reference to the Law. Consequently, a greater understanding of what God has been up to throughout history, so that we might gain greater understanding of what God is up to now!

2) A deeper desire to become righteous in Christ! A growing passion to engage the Spirit of God, and the source of righteousness! A heightened resolve to open our souls to our Father through prayer, fasting, study, worship, giving, serving, and sharing.

Good and Evil

"But abuse does not destroy the proper use."

NT Wright tossed this little phrase into paragraph about political power, but it implies a definition of good and evil that bears exploring and repeating.

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Sin is not a thing. Evil is not a thing.

Good is a thing (or rather many things). Pleasure, beauty, purpose, power, existence! These are good, in and of themselves. Some of the typical targets of Christian vilification, sex, alcohol, dancing, gambling, tobacco, etc. are not evil, nor is engaging them inherently sinful.

They are not evil, because evil is not a thing!

Evil is the perversion of good, not its opposite. Therefore adultery is the sin, not sexual pleasure; drunkenness is the sin, not alcohol; addiction not smoking; titillation not dancing; you get the picture. Something is evil when it takes some good thing and misuses it; a public official using his political clout to oppress the poor; a woman using her beauty to diminish other women; enjoying the pleasure of food with no regard to issues of larger importance; separating sexual intimacy from personal intimacy; again, you get the picture.

Sin, truly, is "missing the mark."

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...and so, we must realize that engaging in perverse behavior is no greater an evil than abstaining (or encouraging others to abstain) from behavior that is healthy!

Of course, there are appropriate times to set aside pleasurable and otherwise good activities (1 Corinthians 8:13), but there is the equal danger of allowing prudish people to set the agenda in a way that denies the inherent goodness of God's creation (Colossians 2:16-23).

Jesus is the Lord of Life, who has come to share that abundant life with us, and we must learn to embrace His creative goodness. We can no longer be the prudish people who cannot talk about sex without getting red cheeks and hot collars, instead, we must begin to recognize (and to teach the world) that it is not the porn star who is sexual, but the monogamous husband and wife. We are the possessors of the reality, of which the world has only parody.

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Our witness is hampered by drunkenness, surely; but we must begin to acknowledge that our witness is just as tarnished by an inability to enjoy fine wine.

Courage

Click on the title link to read a story of a friend of mine...

(This is EJ's mother, for those of you who met him on the youth trip)

Paul tells us that God works all thing for our benefit. This woman understands that when Paul says 'all things' he means 'even cancer.'

May we have courage like hers.

Informed or Transformed

You’re saying that preaching doctrine leads to spiritual growth?
Actually, I would say that preaching doctrine can lead to spiritual growth. But I think it’s a big mistake to assume that people will necessarily love and follow Jesus just because we preach sound doctrine. People’s hearts have to be touched. As I like to say, there’s a big difference between knowing that honey is sweet because you’ve read about honey in a book and experiencing the sweetness of honey by tasting it for yourself. The Devil has sound doctrine, and it hasn’t done him any good. We should help our congregations taste the sweetness of God. That’s when transformation happens.

'Oh yes, I've read that book!"

(Click the title link if you want the whole thing)

You see, the flow of human events around academics proves that they too are sinners. They too are ready to give in to the pulls and pushes of the social context. Another little piece by Lewis called "The Inner Ring" is one of the most important things for any Christian academic to read. It is a story about how we hunger all of our life to be included. And that is one of the main reasons why reason has to be redeemed. I often jokingly say, but not so jokingly, that the lie most commonly told in my context is "Oh yes, I’ve read that book." Now why do we say that? Because we want to be included, we don’t want to be left out. We want to be "in." The whole word "party" is an interesting word; it means "to be a part of." We like to be included; we like to be brought in. Only the strength of a greater community that is provided by Jesus Christ can stand against that. And that’s why Paul refers to the church as "the pillar and ground of truth" (I Tim. 3:15).

It is only the person in a redeemed relationship to God that can stand for truth. Truth is too hard. You often hear the verse quoted to the effect that "The truth will make you free." The truth will not make you free! That verse doesn’t say that! Read the whole thing! It’s about discipleship: "If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-33) But today we no longer have to know the truth. On the elevator in the Humanities building at USC it just says "…The truth will make you free." Truth will not make you free - it’s probably better said "the truth will make you flee." Truth is hard to live with. And that is one reason why there has to be a community of redemption that comes down to earth and provides a context in which people can truly walk free, in the truth, because they are supported by their spiritual redemption before God in relationship to Him. They’re living in what I call "a conversational relationship with God."

Dallas Willard

The Disloyal Saint

The Old Testament Saint, Ruth, abandons her culture, her people, her country, her heritage, and her god...

She is a model for us who must do the same. When it becomes apparent that our loyalty to this world is simply just a chain around our necks binding us to a sinking ship, we must show the same disloyalty she showed.

When it becomes obvious that our culture, our people, our country, our heritage, and our gods, are simply different faces on a sick and depraved system; it is then that we must reject them all for what is true and good.

The only hope of rescue and salvation.

Tom's Idea

How many of you have heard the saying, "God first, family second, ministry third."

I remember once, long ago, saying that to my Pastor's wife. She responded by disagreeing, and saying, "no, it is all God! If you just make Him your everything, He will put everything else in it's proper place."

I really liked that, it made a lot of sense to me, because, often times, the whole 'family before ministry' is really a way to make family before God; it is a cop out.

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So a woman asked that exact question in our Discipleship Group this past week. "Who am I supposed to love more, God or family?"

...and so, I explained to her what my pastor's wife had once explained to me...

Unfortunately I wasn't doing such a good job explaining, because our friend didn't understand what I was getting at and she asked, "Am I not supposed to love my family at all? I am only supposed to love God?"

Then Tom chimed in:

"God is the lens through which we see our family... and everything else!"

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It isn't that God doesn't want us to love family, or to prioritize other good things in our lives, but rather He wants us to prioritize our lives around Him and His agenda. Saying "God, family, ministry, in that order," makes God one priority among many, even if He is the first priority. God should be the one who sets our priorities for us! He is above all of our other priorities...

God is not the biggest planet in orbit; rather He is the sun, the gravitational center around which the planets orbit.

12 Punch Combo!

^12-13And now, friends, we ask you to honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!

^13-15Get along among yourselves, each of you doing your part. Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs. And be careful that when you get on each other's nerves you don't snap at each other. Look for the best in each other, and always do your best to bring it out.

^16-18Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.

^19-22Don't suppress the Spirit, and don't stifle those who have a word from the Master. On the other hand, don't be gullible. Check out everything, and keep only what's good. Throw out anything tainted with evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:12-22, The Message)

MAN!!!!

I am always blown away by passages like the one above. There are so many just like it in scripture. It is easy to read over a list of commands like this one and think something like, "Paul wants me to be a nice boy," but when you actually ponder each one, it is like getting punched in the gut, repeatedly!

Be cheerful NO MATTER WHAT!

Submission, selflessness, honesty...

Intellectual commitment, humility, thankfulness...

My friends words about "God's framing hammer of righteousness..." are echoing in my ears.

I could spend a lifetime on each one of these things, thanks for the sucker-punch Paul!