Stealing From our Creator

A while back now Pastor David Berge of City of Lakes Covenant Church, and preacher at Resurrection MPLS worship service at Aldrich Church in South Minnepolis, (pfwehw ... deep breath) began a sermon series on the ten commandments. I can assure you, that if this description of Pastor Berge's role leading my congregation leaves you as rooted as a helium balloon, please click the link and learn more about my church community.

The idea of a sermon series about the ten commandments, immediately makes me squirm a little bit. Am I going to sit here and have someone, even a good friend, tell me what I can and cannot do? The greatest thing about this series was that it wasn't that way at all. It wasn't a direct personal "do" and "do not", but a study on how God provided these Commandments as rules to freedom.

One week, Berge preached on the "Do Not Steal" commandment and one part of it really stood out to me. This was the idea of what it means to steal from God our creator. To preface my interest in this comment, I will first review a portion a previous sermon series in which Pastor Dave used a book by fellow Twin Cities Covenant Pastor, Steve Wiens entitled Beginnings as a guide. In that book, Wiens takes the reader though the Creation story in Genesis. In doing this he points out how God continues to create within us. He shares lessons and thought pieces from each day of creation, expressing the many ways that God continues to help us grow, embrace change and experience new creation and new life.

In the chapter related to the Third day of creation, Wiens speaks about the Hebrew word zera, or in English, seeds.  

God Spoke: "Earth, green up! Grow all varieties

          of Seed-bearing plants,

Every sort of fruit-bearing tree."

          And there it was.

Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,

          all varieties,

And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.

          God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning--

Day Three.

-Genesis 1:11-13

In this passage, God gives creation the ability to create. He plants seeds that we grow plants that will produce fruit that will hold seed that will grow more plants. God created perpetual creation. He gave even the simplest of his creations the ability to create. We have the same ability, both physically to reproduce, and more generally to come up with new ideas and to inspire one another. 

In this chapter, Wiens tells a story about a fundraiser he participated in where he and a few other men ran all the way across the Grand Canyon, in exactly the kind of sweltering heat as you would expect. They did it to raise money for The Keziah Project, a organization that helps Ethiopian women escape sex trafficking. 

Steve's uncle Ed, who ran that day as well, described the action of running an actual marathon, twenty four miles down into and back out of the Grand Canyon, like passing "..through the womb of the earth" (Page 65). Wiens relates this to the idea of bringing something into the world. Birth is good. Birth is beautiful, but any mother would tell you that it's extremely painful too. Like how birth brings good into the world, God created us to that too.

Wiens mentions that the value of the fundraiser was more than what first meets the eye. It wasn't just the joy and satisfaction of finishing an impressive physical feat or raising a bunch of money for great human rights cause that struck him the most. In addition to all  that it was the feeling of doing something that brought people together. He explained it as "being in the center of a very wide group of people who loved me and who supported me as we did something redemptive together" (page 65-66).  He felt like it started something new in him like the planting of a seed. It brought forth new life. 

Going forward in the chapter Wiens talks about viewing people with the assumption that they have "something in them (that) needs to be born" (page 67). God gives us gifts. He has given each of us something that we are made to do. Something that is designed to bring good into the world. Something like a seed in us that will sprout forth with fruit that holds inside of it, it's own seeds.

I feel this way when I write. I feel this way when I spend time with youth and when I collaborate with other musicians. These things bring me joy.

Back to the main point of this post, it is hard to conceptualize how a person could steal from God, especially when God created everything and has, as they say, "got the whole world in his hands". The point of this however is that when God created us, he created us with gifts planted inside of us and skills and abilities that we were made to use for His glory and His kingdom. This is fruitfulness. If we intentionally refuse to acknowledge our gifts, or refuse to use them as he has called us to, we are in a sense, stealing from God.

That hit me pretty hard. I can't count how many times people have told me how great a gift I have at relating to youth. I have felt the daily urge to write. I've felt the itch to share music. But when I feel this urges I have learned to cut them down. I tell myself they are impractical, because they are not money makers. I fear that if I spend my time doing these things that I am called to do that they will come to nothing and it will all be a waste of time. Let me insist, both outwardly to any readers of this blog and to myself, that what is practical is rarely redemptive. Practical decisions are, by their very definition, to insure comfort, to save face, to take care of me, to captain my own ship.

God has planted these seeds in me. He has given me these gifts to write and to perform music, and he has made me uniquely gifted in relating to people, especially youth. In my worry about what is practical I have forgotten what is missional. In worrying about my bank account, I have forgotten that I can't take the currency with me.

Because I am God's and he planted these seeds in me, the fruit that comes of them are His. In not using these gifts, in not acting upon the deep urging of my God given gifts, I am, and have been, stealing from my creator.

We have been created in the image of God, and are called as Christians to mirror Christ. In this way we are to be primarily merciful, sacrificial, self-giving, prayerful, relational, word focused, and creative people. In creating us he didn't make mistakes. He didn't put desires to create in my heart as a test so that I would learn how to choose more practical hobbies. He did not give me a heart for hanging out with youth so that I could only do that when it happens to come up.

God is a good Father and he knows how to give his children good gifts. He knows what makes me tick. He knows what things are "my jam" and what are not. He knows that better than I do. God doesn't expect me to build his Kingdom in ways that He's gifted somebody else. He desires for me to trust Him. Instead, I continually find a way to worry about the value of doing the things that actually give me vocational joy.

This is actually really good news, isn't it? Isn't it good that God has planted seeds in us that are made to grow fruit that in it holds more seeds? Isn't it great that he has given us unique gifts and promised to be with us?

I am learning how much I want to be good on my own. I realize that when I worry about being practical, and making the absolute perfect choice of what is best to do, I'm not trusting God, I'm clinging to my own safety. I'm like a child hugging a Christmas present that is too afraid to set it down. They are so afraid of losing it, that that they never open it. That steals from the giver. The child has to put down the pretty packaging and get to the actual gift inside.

I'm not planting the seeds that are inside me, at least not completely.

Once at a bible study retreat while I was a student at Gustavus Adophus College, a student from another school shared an memorable image. She said that she envisioned herself wrapped in heavy chains. However instead of the chains being locked, this girl saw herself clutching them. No matter how many times she had been convinced that God had graciously removed their burden from her, she eventually picked the weight of the broken chains back up again.

Let me state this clearly. This is NOT what it means to pick up your cross and follow him. We are not picking up a cross of judgement and following Christ, we are picking up a cross of redemption. This is an enormous difference.

Like that girl's vision, God intends to give us freedom. Freedom in exactly the way he created for us. One of the ways that he does this, is by planting these kinds seeds in us. By giving us gifts that will give gifts. This is good news. We have a God who created us out of the joy in His nature. His creation is built to continue to create. Actually, it's built to re-create. God has planted in us the seeds that will help grow the garden of re-creation. He's given us gifts that fit our vocation and our personal sense of recreation to lead to his re-creation of the world. God's redemptive purposes are in the works right now. The reconciliation of creation isn't passive. We, as members of Christ's vine, as parts of the body of Christ, His church, we are meant to be fruitful in our role.

I urge you. Listen to the desires of your heart. Listen inside of you to find the thing that makes you buzz. What excites you? What drives you crazy? Is there a way you are called, or people are calling you to work on those things that excite you or in opposition to those things that make you want to throw stuff?

One of the most remarkable things about God's law is that it is for our good. I am stunned by how much this idea of breaking God's law by stealing from him has effected me. It has shown me that the things that people have called out in me, the things that God has planted upon my heart are the things that give me real lasting joy. Not doing them, is stealing from God and stealing from my role in the redemption of the world.

Nonetheless, there is Grace for that theft. Only Christ followed God the Father's will completely. In him, God "made the One (Christ) who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Pray about those things. Pray for the Holy Spirit to provide you with wisdom and guidance. Ask the Lord if there are ways in which you are stealing from Him the goodness He has planted with you. Consider these words:

Forgive me Lord for the times where I have let what appears practical for my safety and comfort distract me from the gifts and inclinations you have placed within my heart. Gardener of Creation, nurture within me the seeds you have planted there, even some of them that I may not know yet, and use them for Your Kingdom purpose. Water them with your plans. As I look to you, remove from the soil of my heart the weeds that make it less fit for fruitfulness. Thank You Lord for your promises to work for our good. Thank You for Your Holy Spirit and Your living Word. Spirit help us to see in others, those things that must "be born in them". Give us vision. Lord, our strength is in You. Amen.

Fruitfulness in the Moment & Relating to the Past

In my recent bible study and life experience, action mindset is a huge focus. I have been working through my natural desire to overthink choices, decisions, due to not knowing what is right. I have also tended to doubt the potential for future successes due to past failures. Various things of late have reminded me that living as a Christian must be hope driven people of action in the moment. 

What does that mean exactly? I will consult an atypical source:

“It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.” -George Harrison

In my experience as a Christian, it's really common to take secular things and discount everything about them because they do not fully embrace Christian values or directly express Christ-centered truths. There is something to that, I guess, but the only thing not true in a Christian sense about what George Harrison is saying is that "we don't know if there is (a future)."

Brain science and my experience tell me that George is on to something with what he's saying. There are some similar sentiments in some Beatles songs in general. "All You Need is Love" reflects this same notion of living in the moment. John Lennon's "Imagine" goes further into a deeply humanist view of the beautiful ideal of the "brotherhood of man". If everyone would just live in peace and harmony, without agendas, we'd all be better off.

Now understand that I'm entering a very existential realm here, but in my experience truth is truth. We can not live waiting for the future to be different, because on earth, George is right, "we don't know if we have one." The past means nothing to this current moment because the past is no longer happening. If we neglect to be in the now and dwell in the past, we really fail to dwell at all.

Brain science says that the brain only works in the now. It doesn't record picture or video memories. It doesn't re-live the past. If you are dying for an interesting read take a look at this The empty brain, by Robert Epstine. It's a little nerdy, but it shares some very interesting and somewhat related ideas. While it's certainly not inherently Christian in voice, it's foolish to think it's against Christian thought.

If we believe God created the human mind, and if the human mind doesn't store information, we must confirm that God doesn't want us to dwell on the past. George Harrison can get behind that.

The past and Christian Life have an interesting relationship.

“We are products of our past, but we don't have to be prisoners of it.”
― Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?  

There are things from our past that we can stand on. Transformation moments in our understanding of life, love, work, play, and God. We have to understand that these events shape us. No one would think the way they do without their past experience, not Rick Warren, not Mike Boosalis, not Robert Epstine and not George Harrison.

I firmly believe that healthy balanced people have made peace with their past. Sometimes this is easier said than done. An individual may have things in their past that they want to hide; they are afraid people will judge them according to things they have done.

This is life.

Isaiah 43:18 says
"Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old."

Initially this seems to suggest that we shouldn't acknowledge the past at all. This however does not see the context of the rest of the passage ... even in the minuscule.  Isaiah 43:16-21 says:

This is what the Lord says—
who makes a way in the sea,
and a path through surging waters,
who brings out the chariot and horse,
the army and the mighty one together
(they lie down, they do not rise again;
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick)—
“Do not remember the past events,
pay no attention to things of old.
Look, I am about to do something new;
even now it is coming. Do you not see it?
Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert. 
The animals of the field will honor Me,
jackals and ostriches,
because I provide water in the wilderness,
and rivers in the desert,
to give drink to My chosen people.
The people I formed for Myself
will declare My praise.

Here, God declares that he is doing a new thing. Oddly enough, in describing the new thing that He's doing, the word of the LORD calls out some references to Israel's past.

Do you catch the peculiarity of this? "Forget the past!" God says, "I am doing a new thing, much like what I did in the past! ... remember that?"

God IS.

I think that is one of the most important things to remember about Christian relationship with time. Our heavenly father exists within time and outside of time. He is alpha and omega - beginning and end. This isn't saying that He was Alpha and He will be Omega. Its saying He is both of them.

This is reality. This appears to be paradox. So many spiritual truths seem impossible to a human mind. Especially a mind entrenched in Western philosophy and academic, enlightened though.

"Here I raise my Ebanezer ..." might be one of the weirdest phrases in your standard church hymnal, but in this context the idea is very helpful. The Prophet Samuel coined the phrase after God had been faithful to Israel by assisting them in defeating the Philistines. The Ebanezer is a commemorative pile of rocks. It's a symbol for the future, about God's faithfulness in the past.

In the words of Isaiah 43, the LORD is calling Israel to remember the Ebanezers they built up because in their now he was doing a new thing, like he had done then. God is telling them to forget their past actions or past circumstances and stand upon His faithfulness. God brought them through before. God's faithfulness remains.

In trying circumstances, it's not always easy to see the Ebanezers we have built. This is what Christian relationship with the past should be. We must acknowledge the past as something that has shaped us. We must acknowledge that we are not our past, and dwelling in it, letting it drive our current actions, isn't beneficial to the here and now. In human terms, George Harrison is right, "all there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future ..."

Now with God, this is were George misses the mark. We can hold fast to the fact that God IS alpha and omega. He IS the beginning and the end ... now. He is faithful and we can look to our past experiences and see those little metaphorical piles of commemorative rocks. We don't have to blot out our past, and we can learn from it. It's the nature of the human brain. Our brain practices activity and remembers positive and negative results of actions. It remembers good stimulus. But still, where George misses the mark is about the future we do not know we have. As Christians, we are people not just rooted in hope, but in assurance of God's renewal.

Christian life can be defined as life with hope, help and healing. We are not perfect people, our histories reveal that. Those three "h"s are nice things. God provides us with strength to help us in the present, blessed assurance and promises to give us hope for the future, and if we look close enough, lines and lines of Ebenezers, commemorating God's faithfulness and healing presence in our past(s). 

This IS Eternal Life; The Ordinary Extraordinary Life

The reality of Christian faith is transcendent. It's not something that stands still. It's not simply following a routine of bible reading, following rules, making requests or reciting prayers. It's not simply a rhythmic mantra to center the body and mind. It's not simply religion. There is more than what we do, but what we do is still important. 

Faith, in a colloquial sense, can be defined by the near cliche of "being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you cannot see." This is radical trust. I have faith that my family will be there for me when I have a hard time. I can't see the future. I can't predict any hardship, but I believe and trust that they will be there for me. I am also certain that they will continue to value my well being. I also have faith that the company I work for is, as they claim to be, working to provide equitable service for the populations they serve. I certainly hope for that, and I am certain that many of my co-workers are invested in shaking up the health care industry for the better.

This is interesting, because this definition of faith does not suggest any type of fuel except a personal conclusion. It's a person's decision whether to mix the trust and hope together and link them to one thing or group of people. I can evaluate past experiences and decide whether or not the thing that I am considering faith in is, in fact, faithful. There's no assurance or power from faith in the colloquial sense. There's no external source. Except for relationship.

That's what I consider to be the key to faith. Relationship is what makes the difference. No one puts faith in something of which they are not in relationship. Even long ago, the relationship of fear that ancient people felt while presenting sacrifices to sun gods and gods of the harvest. They were confident, that by making the effort to please these gods, they would give them the benefit of the doubt and decide not to wipe them off the face of the earth. Closer to home, I know my family, and I know they love and care about me. I know the people at my company, and I have seen the record of what they have done and continue to do. I have a faith in both of them. It's different, but real.

What does this say about Christian faith? What does Christian faith have different than colloquial faith? My 'ol pal Oswald Chambers has some ideas (from utmost.org reading for May 27th):

The Life To Know Him

…tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high. —Luke 24:49

The disciples had to tarry, staying in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost, not only for their own preparation but because they had to wait until the Lord was actually glorified. And as soon as He was glorified, what happened? “Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33). The statement in John 7:39— “…for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified”— does not pertain to us. The Holy Spirit has been given; the Lord is glorified— our waiting is not dependent on the providence of God, but on our own spiritual fitness.

The Holy Spirit’s influence and power were at work before Pentecost, but He was not here. Once our Lord was glorified in His ascension, the Holy Spirit came into the world, and He has been here ever since. We have to receive the revealed truth that He is here. The attitude of receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive reviving life from our ascended Lord.

It is not the baptism of the Holy Spirit that changes people, but the power of the ascended Christ coming into their lives through the Holy Spirit. We all too often separate things that the New Testament never separates. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not an experience apart from Jesus Christ— it is the evidence of the ascended Christ. 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit does not make you think of time or eternity— it is one amazing glorious now. “This is eternal life, that they may know You…” (John 17:3). Begin to know Him now, and never finish.

This is resounding reality of the Christian faith. We, as believers in Christ, have access, and direct relationship with the given power of the spirit, which IS "the reviving life" of "our ascended Lord". The death of Christ paid the price of sin and the resurrection of Christ defeated the cost of sin. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). We have been given life and life eternal as a gift. This, can be a complex monetary metaphor. First, there's the idea of death as our wages. That we should be paid death due to the labor of sin. Then, there's the idea that Christ paid the price for our sin. In other words, Christ took on the death that was due to us, and cashed the check with more than enough of a deposit limit, so that what we never had to bank those destructive wages.

It's probably easier to say that Christ paid the debt we incurred from our sin, but there's something interesting about the idea of thinking of death as wages...

Nonetheless, because of Christ, there is no balance due. Christ is risen and in him so ARE we who believe in him. We have this resurrected life at our grasps, right within the reach by "our own spiritual fitness."

Now while Chambers is talking about baptism, don't think of that as the action of symbolic physical baptism, but more like Holy Spirit entering in. "The word baptize can mean to dunk, submerge, or immerse. It can be used to describe  part of the process of pickling a vegetable" (Sacrament: ... "Remember Me"). To me this feels like a marinade. It's not a one time thing. It's not, dunk, move on you're good. Like soaking a cucumber in a brine or marinading a steak, it takes some time to make all that much difference. The idea of baptism, is a symbolic submergence in the reality of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The act of physical baptism in one meaning symbolizes the joining in Christ's death and resurrection. Under the surface of the water with Christ in death, out of the surface again with Christ in new life. "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (Romans 6:4) . This is completely valid. But remember also that John the Baptist baptized before Christ's death and resurrection. This was a baptism of purification and repentance. This is not a one time idea but the idea of turning and going the other direction and still going that way.

The action of this is to symbolize a continual action, or reality to live in. Repentance is a u-turn, not a flipped switch. Spirit baptism is constant marinade. This is the point Os Chambers makes when he says "the receiving and welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives is to be the continual attitude of a believer."

This is a relationship with the eternal-life giver. This is the access to the power that rose Jesus from the dead. This IS eternal life.

The ordinary extraordinary life of the Fruitful Christian is that the Kingdom may not be here but it is at hand. It is within reach. The power is in us and we can live in that reality. The ordinary extraordinary life is life in right relationship with God due to His coming down into our reality.

Faith in God is faith with relationship AND with real power promised. This is the mind-blowing gospel of Jesus Christ, that we we attach to the vine we are given the eternal life force of our creator. This is the transcendent element. Faith in Christ, continually seeking out that relationship, though the power of the resurrection and the given spirit, IS eternal life. "Begin to know Him now, and never finish." 

Fruitfulness and the Ears of a Sheep

Recently, I've had the unsettling and simultaneously remarkable feeling of recognizing my own spiritual immaturity. I have been humbled many times at my sheer ineptitude to comprehend the meaning of what I profess to believe. And I do believe it. Christ is my Lord. I'm just not very great at following him all the time yet. This reaction was only accentuated by the reading of some words from Oswald Chambers' devotional book "My Utmost for His Highest". I found them in the daily reading for May 20th, and I will get to it later on.

In reflecting upon some recent conclusions, that my spiritual maturity is considerably less developed then my once perceived spiritual maturity, I immediately though of the biblical motif of the sheep and shepherd. I think about how many times I have heard the passages about sheep and shepherds felt it it was soft. How can I relate to a sheep? I know that God provides but it just seemed so pithy and sad to acknowledge that, in relation to God, I could be like a dumb little sheep.

Here's the first story I think of:

Luke 15: 1-7

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

This story is about "sinners". This reminds me of a wonderful moment in one episode on the CBS TV show Blue Bloods. For those who do not have parents in their 60s who do not have cable, Blue Bloods is a show about a family full of NYPD Cops. The Irish Catholic family gathers regularly over Sunday for dinner, and they once blessed their food with this beautiful humble prayer: "God bless these sinners, as they eat their dinners." On one occasion at my own Sunday evening family dinner, my mother blessed our food with this prayer, to which my Yia Yia (Greek for Grandmother) said with surprise: "we're not sinners."

Now while my Yia Yia was not suggesting that we were all holy and blameless on our own (she was instead mentioning the Orthodox Christian distinction between sinner and saint, or believer), but nonetheless, the idea creates a pretty good example. We are all sinners. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,"(Romans 3:23). We humans are like clueless lost sheep sometimes, and God is like a good shepherd, as describe in:

^{Psalm 23}

^{The Lord is my shepherd;
there is nothing I lack.
He lets me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He renews my life;
He leads me along the right paths
for His name’s sake.
Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
as long as I live.}

Think of this for a moment. If King David, who is arguably the most human and God-centered character in the bible, can look at himself and see a sheep, than I should be able to as well. As a man striving to follow after God's heart, it's never a bad thing to follow after the example of David, at least in his non-murderous and non adulterous moments.

Like a sheep, sometimes we are lost. Sometimes we get ourselves into trouble. We don't always know which way to go on our own. Unlike sheep though, sometimes we think we've got it covered on our own, or find it essential to worry about every tiny detail about our lives and the perception of our lives. Some of my previous posts about my thoughts, and the fact that I have control of them, lead me to realize a misconception I had about faith, and it's relationship to the way that I feel at any given moment. Oswald Chambers really hit the nail on the head in his devotional passage for May 20th. Please take a moment to read (as found on utmost.org):

Taking Possession of Our Own Soul

By your patience possess your souls. —Luke 21:19

When a person is born again, there is a period of time when he does not have the same vitality in his thinking or reasoning that he previously had. We must learn to express this new life within us, which comes by forming the mind of Christ (see Philippians 2:5). Luke 21:19 means that we take possession of our souls through patience. But many of us prefer to stay at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us. We fail because we are ignorant of the way God has made us, and we blame things on the devil that are actually the result of our own undisciplined natures. Just think what we could be when we are awakened to the truth!

There are certain things in life that we need not pray about— moods, for instance. We will never get rid of moodiness by praying, but we will by kicking it out of our lives. Moods nearly always are rooted in some physical circumstance, not in our true inner self. It is a continual struggle not to listen to the moods which arise as a result of our physical condition, but we must never submit to them for a second. We have to pick ourselves up by the back of the neck and shake ourselves; then we will find that we can do what we believed we were unable to do. The problem that most of us are cursed with is simply that we won’t. The Christian life is one of spiritual courage and determination lived out in our flesh.

Oswald Chambers seems to always write with these kinds of pointed words. I found them very humbling, bringing to mind the image of me as a sheep, even a scared and lost sheep. In my thinking I felt like something was wrong with me that I wasn't feeling renewed in my mind. Blaming negative thoughts on the devil when my mind is my responsibility is ignorance of the way God made me. My moods are not his responsibility. 

The idea that I "need not pray about" my moods, is something I never thought. It makes sense though. If King David could think of himself as a sheep compared to God. If I believe David's sentiment in Psalm 23, I can trust that the Lord is looking out for my good. For

^{Even when I go through the darkest valley,
I fear no danger,
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff—they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
as long as I live.}

Maybe that's redundant to quote that again, but I think if it more as mantra. I am declaring now that I am a sheep. God is my Good Shepherd and I will trust his provisions. Worry is only choking away at my life. As a sheep I open my ears to hear the voice my my Lord and Good Shepherd. I will watch for Him as He watches out for me.

Once again this is not about discipline in the legalistic sense. The Good Shepherd doesn't scold the sheep for running off. He doesn't berate them for not finding the green pastures and quiet waters on their own. I need not worry about looking for them. Instead my discipline is in the orientation of my ears and eyes. I must look and listen for my God. I must see to be in relationship with him, reading his word, and living life alive and aware of how the Spirit of God in me could bring forth His Kingdom.

Fruitful Christian life is stalled if we worry about the world. If we worry about our place, our moods, our feelings, even if we worry about how fruitful we are being, we are standing there "at the entrance to the Christian life, instead of going on to create and build our soul in accordance with the new life God has placed within us."

To be a fruitful branch let us keep are ears perked a like a faithful sheep in the flock, and listen and follow our good shepherd to the places he leads, for his leadership is true and his guidance is for our own good. If He is leading you through the steep hills, press on there's greener pastures ahead. If you are within the constraints of the pen, sit still; He will call you out when the time is right. If he is offering you a drink, take it. If you are resting in the soft green grasses, don't hesitate to get up and go when he calls, and if you see a freaking butterfly don't stray too far off course. Though if you do stray off course, or fear that you have, remember:

My Mind is a Brutal Thing, and That's My Responsibility: a Redundant Reminder Due to Personal Need for Reflection and Reprocessing

My last few posts have been about fighting with my thoughts. This one is as well. It takes up an uncomfortable percentage of my mental energy of late. Over the last few years I've begun to understand that throughout my life I have conditioned myself to think thoughts that drag me deeper into the dark places of my mind. Back in January, I wrote a post entitled "The Mind is a Brutal Thing". This post will review a lot of those ideas. Many circumstances have brought me back to the brutality of my mind, but the initial idea for this post was triggered when I read this quote from my fellow Minneapolis Southwest High School alum, Matthew Manning. I was stunned by it's relevance to my current state of mind.

Powerful words from @wordsofbrick on Instagram

It's remarkable how much of a grasp negativity can have on the human psyche. Thankfully, while I felt the full brunt of this unsavory truth described above, I have yet to hit rock bottom. I kept a job. I'm not addicted, and, with the support my family, church and friend groups, I have managed to keep the door to joy open... or at least I've found a way to open it up again after I slammed it shut for a time.

With negative thoughts, a person is in a battle with themselves. My mind has been conditioned so strongly towards inward negativity. It fills my life with shadows. I am an expressive and joyful person, but lately, things that usually provide me with lasting joy are less satisfying. My mind distrusts the positive. It disregards my good traits. It places low importance on what I do well. It makes my path look hazy. Everything seems more costly and more difficult and less profitable and less enjoyable. That door to joy can feel pretty dang heavy sometimes.

Back in January, I wrote about these kinds of cognitive distortions, and how they effect my favorite things in life, even writing in this blog. So many times I pulled up a page to write a post and looked inward and see nothing of value. I think: how can I write about Christian fruitfulness when I'm depressed. I magnify my affliction and become more down on myself for being down on myself in the first place. Then on top of that, when thinking about spiritual things it becomes increasingly easy to over-spiritualize my mental state. I think, "my branch is withered" or "I'm drinking from wells that will run dry". I settle for inaction because I can't find perfection. I settle for stimuli like Netflix and/or Xbox or masking agents like drinking a couple of beers or filling myself with other relaxing/delightfully brain numbing (legal) pleasures. I've learned to either fill my mind with other stuff, or try everything in my power to make it shut up. This isn't healthy.  

It is true that I'm not always a fruitful branch. But convincing myself that I shouldn't share my thoughts about being a fruitful branch is nonsense. I'm not writing this blog to share stories about all of the times that I've been fruitful, or even to provide instructions or guidelines how to be or become fruitful. Instead, all I profess to do is to testify to the spirit that leads to Christian fruitfulness. Taking a few moments of contemplation, I'm able to come to this conclusion. Still, negative thoughts can overwhelm, and when they do the concept of hope starts to look like it did on Good Friday.

On that day, hope was dead. The rooster crowed and Peter had done the deed. Judas hung in the desert. The disciples hid and trembled in fear, for everything Christ said would happen, actually happened. Now their Messiah breathed His last. Their friend, their teacher, their Lord, was gone.

Quite a while back now, in holy week, my Pastor David Berge first mentioned this idea of living in a "Good Friday world". On Good Friday, everything went dark, quite literally in fact. "Good Friday" spirit is the feeling of when, in a rousing crescendo of terribleness, everything conspires to fall towards utter despair with the certainty of gravity. As humans we often find ourselves in a "Good Friday" mindset. We find ourselves in pain. We find ourselves fearful, stuck, lost, wanting to run away, filled with too much emotion or angst, overwhelmed by self-judgement, ect.

But this isn't where Holy Week ends. Good Friday is good without considering what comes three days later. Christ's Resurrection is a flip of the script. From the darkness of Good Friday comes the light of life. New life springs up from resurrection. The graves were opened and the hope of renewal was made real.

Fruitful Christian life comes from tapping into this kind of Easter Sunday thinking. Pastor Dave said Christians must be Easter Sunday people. This doesn't have anything to do with candy symbols of fertility or pastel colors, but instead means we must be agents of hope.

What makes that so hard?

Why can't I trust the good things? Why do I push away joy? Why do I have no grace for myself? 

In my negativity, I have found so much about the power of the sinful nature. I have learned so much about the crafty lies of the devil. Even though Easter Sunday delivered him the fatal blow, he continues to mess with my mind. The lies of Satan are powerful. There is so much potency in his nudgings. I feel like American Christian world view suggests that accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and savior does something magical in our spirit. And in someways it does. The supernatural spirit of God is provided to us. The Apostle Paul says this in Ephsians 1:13-14: "When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession,to the praise of His glory." This is wonderful news, but the gift of  Holy Spirit is not a "...poof" now you're holy and fruitful type of thing. It may be a "...poof" you are saved circumstance, but a seal and a down payment do not equate a metamorphosis.

After one of my personal spiritual awakenings, I remember feeling encouraged to use the Spirit of God as a filter for my thoughts. That felt like a really great idea. It felt faithful and in someways it was. It was intended to be a way of prayerfully maintaining purity in actions. The issue became when I took the verb "to filter" and began thinking of the Spirit of God as a filter: a noun. My prayerful request, due to a misapplication of an great idea, became an unfounded relinquishing of my own control. Yes, God is in control and the power of the Holy Spirit is to provide counsel. It is the guiding force in Christian life, but it's not a crutch. It's not a supernatural appendage. It's not a safety net designed to catch us when we fall. The spirit does that, but it's not its purpose. With faith comes a relinquishing of control, but this refers to the powers of the world on the outside. Praying for the Holy Spirit to filter my thoughts felt like relinquishing control, but in reality it became a relinquishing of responsibility.

How I came to the misconception that the spirit would be my filter I do not know. It's baffling to me that I could come to that conclusion. There wasn't some teaching suggesting that the Holy Spirit would simply cover my stink, that it works some what like axe body spray.

Easter Sunday truth conquered sin and death. It provides me with council to flee from my sin. It's spirit, the Holy Spirit, promises to give me the tools to fight off the lies of the devil. This is a reality that is to be actively accepted. It is this acceptance that leads to Christian fruitfulness. It is that power that allows the spirit to flow into the dry branches of my life. But what does this mean for my mind? The Apostle Paul says:

Romans 12:1-2

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

January's post reviewed all of Romans 12 and back then, it hit me that Paul's words are completely action oriented. It's unexplainable to me how utterly passive I found my faith to be for so many years. I found great comfort in the idea of the presence of the spirit, but my misconceptions lead me to miss out on feeling the effects of that power within me. They say faith without works is dead, but works do not happen with out thoughts. Christian fruitfulness is a very active business. It requires my effort. I am saved, by my faith, but in order to be holy and fruitful in the kingdom I must devote myself to relationship with the Lord. Submission to the authority and power of God isn't passive. Neither is it limiting. I do not differ to him as some kind of symbiotic appendage that fixes my problems. Instead, this is my prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for the sacrifice You have made in sending Your Son to earth to die. Thank You that in raising Him to life again, You conquered death and vanquished sin and delivered the devil a fatal blow. Thank You, that You have provided us with Your Holy Spirit that is given to us through faith. Lord, I look to You. I seek relationship with You. I am weak against the lies of the vanquished devil. My ears are quick to hear his lies and assertions. Lord, fill me as I fill myself with Your Word and renew my mind in it's power. Today I stand upon Your promises. I resolve now, in the words of Paul, to pay closer attention to my thoughts, as my responsibility, as as my spiritual act of worshipping You, my Lord.

Amen

For me, I feel like this shouldn't be a big revelation. That bringing about the renewal of my mind is actually a choice that I can make. Satan likes to pummel me with so much negativity that my heart becomes overwhelmed. Things appear foggy and hopeless. It is my responsibility to see through the fog to the promised hope that resides a the end. Listen to some more words of Paul form Ephesians 2:4-10:

"But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love that He had for us,  made us alive with the Messiah even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens,  so that in the coming ages He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace through His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.  For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—  not from works, so that no one can boast.  For we are His creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them."

I read this to say that I am created in Christ Jesus to do good works. I am save by grace through faith and this is the gift of God. I don't deserve it. I didn't earn it, but I must act to receive it. I must be willing to see past all of the negativity and feelings of lack of worth. Once I do that, it's when the may display his riches and enable me to do good works for His Kingdom. This is good news. This is fruitfulness. It's not for me. It's not because of me. Even while the adversary throws his shade, I must accept the gift of grace that I've been given. Let us not be deceived that pain is our destiny, that we are without hope. For these gifts through Christ have been offered to all. The infinite creator of the world, in His great power, has an eternity for all of us to enter into relationship with Him. We just gotta look up and accept what He's given.

IF: THEN; Meditations on the Song If I Stand

In my last post I focused on Romans 12 and the idea of renewing the mind. If you have a moment, and have not already done so, I would suggest taking a look at that post, as themes from it carry over into this one. In that post, I acknowledged that God calls us to do, not to over think but to act, knowing that God, in his Spirit has endorsed our actions of people of his Kingdom. To do this, Paul compels us to the renewal of our minds.

In the past whenever I have tried to facilitate some mental renewal in my life, I make efforts fill  my mind with positive stimulus. By that I mean seeking out some encouraging words or conversation, try to start some productive or creative activity, or simply taking sometime to do something that I enjoy. It's not an exact science and sometimes it results in passivity: things like video games or netfix. One of these practices that I think is very positive for my mental renewal, is dwelling on the words of a song. Music has power, and music tells a story. In my mind, stories always have something to teach. This week, a song showed me that some of my assumptions of mental renewal were wrong.

This week, I have chosen to use the song "If I Stand", written by the late Rich Mullins and most recently recorded by "Jars of Clay", as my alarm clock tone. My plan was to aim for the ideal morning. One where I'd wake up refreshed and ready for my workday. With the clock reading 5:10, I'd breath in the fresh morning air in my non-cluttered room, sit down at my non cluttered desk and, inspired by the beautiful lyrics and melodies of this song, begin my daily routine of reading out of Gospel of John, with subsequent journaling. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, I'd fire up my laptop and flow seamlessly into a rhythmic wave of inspired writing, where captivating scene after captivating scene would come pouring out of my subconscious, shooting through my arms and fingers, until they land in a Microsoft Word doc in the form of a fully edited novel draft.

Either that, or I'd move my attentions straight into the blogosphere, and whip out a post each morning. That's how I'd like to start my day: to begin by intentional spiritual and vocational training. I figured the encouraging words of this song could be just the positive stimulus I needed.. But this week, I never came close to the ideal morning. And that was okay. Instead, I would wake up to the lyrics of this great song: 

"There's more that rises in the morning than the sun, and more that shines on the night than just the moon. There's more than just this fire here that keeps me warm, in a shelter that is larger than this room..."

By that time, I find myself debating between buttons pertaining to thirty, twenty, fifteen, ten, five or three minutes. After tapping an option, I lay back down, falling into some sorry state between sleep and consciousness, only to be awoken again:

"There's more that rises in the morning than the sun..."

Ironic right?

First of all, the sun hasn't risen yet. And so, there in the dark, I find my ideal morning to be far less valuable that a few more minutes of bad sleep. Add the fact, that at this point, whatever light that's shining other than the moon (i.e. what is probably my neighbors bedside light peeking through our respective blinds, a streetlamp, alien space craft, or God knows what) is far more irritating than inspiring. It practically forces  my face deeper into my pillows and compels my sheets, blankets and comforter to be pulled further over my eyes.

Thus begins the chain of snooze buttons:

"There's more that rises in the morning..."

"There's more that ..."

You get the idea. 

However, even in this less than ideal morning ritual, I'm still learning. Thankfully, my sponge of a brain allows me to recall the whole song once I gain complete consciousness. I hear the full arrangement of instrumentation and artful harmonies that "Jars of Clay" used in their production. And then, there in my brain, as I walk the final block and a half from bus stop to work, the chorus rings out clearer than ever.

"If I stand, let me stand on the promise, you will pull me through. But if I can't let me fall on the grace that first brought me to you. And if I sing let me sing for the joy, that has born in be these songs. But if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home."

This is when the  "IF: THEN" idea hit me really hard. The thought process is a bit obscure but I hope to smooth out the odd jumps my brain makes to come to this conclusion. If we go back to the very first idea in this post, it shows that my idea of mental renewal, somehow got stuck upon trying to create positive stimuli. I'm trying to control my circumstance. The "IF: THEN" idea alerted me to a few different realities.

First, this tells me that on one level, the control that I have is not within the "IFs" of the world: that is to say external circumstances. Things happen that cannot be controlled: illness, injury, natural disasters, so on and so forth. What the human mind has an ability to control is the "THEN".

Second, the "IF: THEN" idea alerted me that there is always a moment between circumstance and reaction. A space of either deliberation or discernment. In my current mental state, the space between the "IF" and the "THEN" trends in the direction of self doubt, deliberation and the dragging of feet. In that space, in that state, I find myself further away from any possible positive "THEN".

Third, "THENs" become "IFs". That is to say reactions to circumstances will create circumstances that are, at least in some sense, controllable. If someone links together a lot of bad reactions to circumstances, more bad circumstances are bound to follow. You could say the same thing for the effect of good responses. This is an extremely simple idea.

Keep in mind, the prayer in this chorus does not only talk about "if I stand" but also "if I can't". It mentions "if I sing" and "if I weep". This reminds me that there are faithful ways for me to weep and to fall on one's knees. This reminds me, that in response to the world's "IFs" God does not demand from us strength or constant gladness. There are faithful and unfaithful ways to stand, just as there are faithful and unfaithful ways to fall, to sing or to weep. If this makes sense. that means there are faithful ways to fail. In my perfectionism, I deliberate over making the perfect choice. Many times there isn't a perfect reaction to a circumstance, but their is always a faithful one.

This also brings to mind Galatians 6:14:

But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through the cross, and I to the world.

If I stand (that is to say, if I am physically standing, or if I take a stand about something, if I stand up for myself, if I withstand persecution, or even just simple irritation ... etc.) I must stand upon the promises of God. I will not boast in anything else. It is not by human strength that the Kingdom comes.

Leading up to this beautiful prayerful chorus, the song refers to the divine truth that there is more to this world than just what we can sense. This "more than" essence in Christian epistemology, is the death defeating, sin shattering, sacrificial love of our Father and creator, that has been churning and swirling through the course of all history, in the ultimate direction of universal renewal. This is God's promise. Dwelling upon it, allows for more faithful "THENs" to go with any "IF". That is the promise that I want to stand on.

This song, even though it's role as an inspiration to my ideal morning has not come to fruition, it has directed me towards faithful thoughts. Truly:

"There's more that dances on the prairies than the wind, and more that pulses in the ocean than the tide. There's a love that fiercer than the love between friends, more gentle then a mother's when her baby's at her side. And there's a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiment, and a music higher than the songs that I can sing. The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance. I owe only to the giver of all good things."

It reminds me that my primary allegiance goes to Christ, anything else is secondary. I will cling to the mystery of his gospel and see the world, even it's mundane and simple things, in light of Christ's coming Kingdom.

People can get this all twisted. Having Kingdom focus is an underlying aspect of life in Christ. There is nothing dissociative about it. It's not saying that the world is less. It's not discounting the experience. Saying there's more that dances on the prairies than the wind, is not diminishing the beauty of the wind that makes the prairie dance. To say there's a love that's more gentle that that of a mother for her child is not discounting the wonderful thing that is motherly love. Neither is it  saying "to heck with my life on earth, I don't have to bother with this world, because I'm heaven bound". It's, as a person of faith, acknowledging the presence of the divine in the world. It's acknowledging that presence, which is perpetually inclined towards the renewal of the universe, as the base of my actions within the world. It's standing upon the promises of God, and doing good works of love for the good of people. It's weeping alongside those who weep because the Kingdom is not here yet. It's standing up against oppression or weeping for those who have not yet glimpsed the goodness of the Kingdom of God.

The world is a broken and beautiful place. It is terrible and terrific. It is awesome in awe-inspiration and awesome in its awful things. But do not get it twisted. We must not live with our minds rapped up in pity parties about the state of the world. Nor can we find ourselves building up walls against our worries, or designing defenses against that with which we do not agree.

IF: THEN is a very simple idea. IF: THEN is about action after a pause. It's about briefly minding that punctuation. One of the grammatical purposes of a colon is to precede and explanation. Within those two vertical dots there is energy. After any "IF" there must be a conscious moment of discernment. For me, I'm learning that I want Kingdom discernment to reside in that space between "IF" and "THEN".

While there is technically nothing wrong with choosing to fill my schedule with positive stimulus, that's only part of the equation. Real mental renewal doesn't occur by creating good circumstances, but by discerning positive responses. In an effort to be a man of God, I know that positive responses are those that run parallel to the Kingdom of God.

This is my prayer:,

Help me, Lord, to mind the middle between "IF" and "THEN". In your mercy give me clarity of mind, so I may discern what is right. I resolve to dwell upon your word and truth so that no matter what the "IF", I may discern a faithful "THEN". Lord, help me to let my roots dig down deep into your divine presence in this world. If I stand, help me stand on the promise, that there is more to this world than my circumstances. If I can't let, me fall upon your beautiful grace. Help me Lord to be a fruitful branch on your vine: to live in this world but not of it. Let me recognize, that with any circumstance You, through the power of Your Holy Spirit, have given me the ability to choose to act as a messenger and a carrier of your Kingdom. Amen. 

The Mind is a Brutal Thing

The human mind is a brutal thing. Mine is no different.

I don't like to admit that anything about me is brutal. It doesn't paint a good picture. It feels contradictory to my personality and my goals in life to admit that my brain is can, so regularly, be dark and negative.

To be brutally honest (and literally redundant), while the world tends to be a brutal place, I have been very stubborn over the years to admit my mind can be part of that trend.

My mind is not a kind place. It's can even be an abusive place. Of course, I put on my happy, smiley and easy going appearances, and do my best to be courteous, empathetic, compassionate, hard working and kind, but inwardly, to myself, I am a big fat jerk. This is when I, at my best, would make the following joke (see that the parenthetical comments are my negative mind chiming in loud and clear):

"I apologize, self, you in fact, are not a fat individual (though you may be considerably out of shape and as over weight as you have ever been ... however). It was inappropriate of me to call you fat."

If you caught the nuance, then you would notice that this "apology" is not in any way taking back the part about being a big jerk.

 

I am coming to the realization that my brain, if not distinctly prompted otherwise, tends to turn anything I think in the direction of fear, anxiety, comparison, and self deprecation. It's become so natural. It's my default setting. It's easy.

I am astonished sometimes how far in the periphery, how deep in the subconscious are and how influential these negative thoughts can remain. It is a sad reality that many many people in this world, especially in the USA, are dealing with serious depression and anxiety. I could go search for some numbers or statistics about it but I don't even think that's necessary. How many people do you know who have been depressed? Are you yourself depressed? How many times a day to you rag on yourself for not being good enough? How frequently do you compare yourself to others?

The truth is, a lot of good people have a lot of bad thoughts.

What's even more crazy, is that just about all of these negative thoughts that lead to depressed states are completely irrational. In the book "Feeling Good; the new mood therapy" by David D. Burns, M.D., these thoughts are referred to as cognitive distortions.

Here are some examples:

Over the past year, whenever I thought of writing anything in this blog, I'd pause, and think something like this:

"Man, I really should have been writing in that all along."

Then I pause again and think:

"I'm a just a withered branch. I have zero credentials related to being fruitful."

Other times when I sit down to play music, I start playing or recording a song, I stop and think:

"Why do I even try, I'll never get it right!"

"Am I an idiot? I can't remember the words to my own song!"

"Ehhhcck, that 'oo' vowel I just sang sounded so nasal, no one will ever want to hear that. I'm  terrible!"

Or when I'm doing some type of physical activity

"That was a horrible put, I'm a terrible putter. I should stop trying."

"How did I only hit that drive 260 yards, it felt like I crushed it ... Have I atrophied?"

"Why am I so tired after 10 mins of friesbee? ... I must be dying."

"Why am I so sore? (the day after 4 hours of frisbee) ... I must be dying."

These aren't the only examples.

Cognitive distortions that turn what should be my favorite things into things that seem impractical and turn everyday tasks into daunting excursions, or high pressure decisions. It's not that hard to get up and do the dishes, but for some reason a sink full of dishes sometimes just looks like too much work when with each thought I find myself sinking further into a cognitively distorted rut. I can't express how many times I am confronted with what seems like a impossible obstacle has fallen into my path when in reality, it's just a small sensation, or simple choice that doesn't really amount to anything in the long term.

My brain is wired to facilitate fear. It magnifies potential conflicts, assumes the worst, discounts the positive, and insists that I never make the right choices and nothing I do is ever good enough. Not only that, but it insists that no one could understand how bad I feel, and it assumes that everyone else sees me and my actions in the same negative light. This effects almost everything.

What has struck me most recently, is simply how much of human existence rests upon the brain. It is the command center. It's what separates humans from other primates, and what separates primates for other animals. In this way, I have come to the conclusion that everything in human existence, is in fact mental.

I know, I'm getting really philosophical here.

The fact is while each of these areas of human health have their own separate domains, they are all intrinsically linked together by human experience. And human experience is sensed through the brain.

While I've never been diagnosed with a mental illness, it has become clear that my well being, in all facets of my life, is deeply linked to the state of my thoughts. When my thoughts get trapped in metaphorical house of shadowy mirrors, my body feels worse, and my prayer life wains, draining me of the life giving connection with Holy Spirit flow.

My fruitfulness, in this world and in the Kingdom, is ruined. I am made withered.

Dwell on this for a moment. I just did, and it is really good news.

Romans 12

A Living Sacrifice

12 Therefore, 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. ² Do 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.

Humble Service in the Body of Christ

³ For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. ⁴ For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, ⁵ so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. ⁶ We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your^[a] faith; ⁷ if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; ⁸ if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,^[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Love in Action

⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.^[c] Do not be conceited.

¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. ¹⁹ Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”^[d] says the Lord. ²⁰ On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”^[e]

²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The message in Paul's words that I here is this:

Get your mind right, stop thinking and do something. Act upon your faith.

This is seriously different than my life of late. The mind is a maze. The human mind, especially one that is afflicted with negatively trending thoughts, can get so flooded with thoughts, no actions are taken. Everything can slow down. In this passage, Paul is writing commands to the Church in Rome. Verbs are key to life and living. Nouns are stagnant and passive. Verbs are active and alive.

"Do not conform"

"Be transformed"

"Hate what is evil"

"Cling to what is good"

"Be Joyful"

"Mourn with those who mourn"

What also strikes me about commands, is while they come from a place of power and authority, they are also given to someone with the stipulation that the commanded person must take responsibility to respond. That is to say they have the choice to act.

And not only that, but when it comes to faithful Christian authority like the Apostle Paul, these commands are commands that are designed to give life. They are commands that awaken souls to the truth of the life giving love of our God.

My mind is a brutal place. My mind is my responsibility. What I think about is under my control. I am convinced that if the heart, not the muscle of blood pumping fame but the metaphorical home of human love, and the soul, the home of spirit, must actually be found in the brain.

Growing up I had a misconception that holy spirit renewal was disconnected from my control. I believed that the Holy Spirit would magically wash over my brain and transform my mind like some uncontrollable wave of literal holy water, that would permeate my brain, purify my heart by it's marinating, baptismal, righteousness infusing power.

While I don't think that's necessarily a misconception, it's effect is not a passive thing. There is a wave of marinating, baptismal, righteousness infusing, literal holy water and that is called grace.

Grace is explained to in a (wonderful) Christianese way by the following acronym:

G- God's

R- Riches

A- At

C- Christ's

E- Expense 

This does not demand that the riches are accepted. Spiritually, and intellectually, I have accepted the reality of my new birth through grace by faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, but had an expectation that I would simply be made new. That all of a sudden after saying the magic word my mind would be removed of negativity and I would suddenly become a mouthpiece for God's words.

Paul's commands say something different. Life as a fruitful branch is not passive. It is living into the life that God gives through grace by faith. It does not ease responsibility, and while it is supernatural it is not simply magic. I believed that the Holy Spirit's presence in my life would renew my mind. For Christians, faith is comforting, but when it is genuine and devoted to kingdom work it is not a crutch. Faith doesn't make someone super human.

Paul tells us not to think to highly of ourselves. We have work to do. Paul commands the Roman church to take action. He tells them what to do an not do. He tells them to take control and believe in the good news. He tells us to go against the darkness of the world, but by renewing our own minds we become open to the transforming light of Christ. Then, in that transformed state we are commanded, equipped and endorsed by the omnipotent creator of the universe to do is his all renewing Kingdom work.

This is good news.

Sacrament: ... "Remember Me"

A long while back now I had a particularly intense theological-musing about two of the sacraments of the Christian faith. To set the stage for this session of theological musing, I was at a small Orthodox Church that my sister and her family go to to witness my little niece's baptism.

I find their Church very refreshing. While the method and pattern of worship is not necessarily what I am used to, I see a very healthy and encouraging congregation of Christ followers. 

However, in my theological studies, as non-extensive as they have been, I learned that the word Orthodox means "right worship". Since learning this, I've carried it with me like a shield whenever I visited Orthodox churches. 

I feel the sentiment that "we have it right", is contrary to the act of following of Christ. The same Christ who was the definition of humility even while holding all of the power in creation in his being. There is pridefulness in the declaration that anyone is "right!" Even Christ didn't do that. He had the power to do whatever, but he humbled himself to the will of God the Father and he sought his council day and night. This strong, though subconscious, judgment of Orthodoxy is magnified by how much they criticize pride in their very theology. Anyways ... moving on. 

This makes me (even more) hyper-attentive (than usual) when I enter into a Orthodox worship space. 

Emilia's baptism occurred on a Sunday morning, so it took me out of my normal routine of assisting with leading worship at Aldrich Ave. Presbyterian Church in South Minneapolis. I wanted to support my sister and her family but I also came with the desire to worship.

I confess that I feel most comfortable worshiping with a grand piano in front of me, and the freedom to worship without any constraints. I atleast want a hymnal or a hand out/powerpoint that tells be what is being said and sung. These things are not present at an Orthodox church. There is liturgy that is sung by a choir, and memorized by members of the congregation. 

It is beautiful. The chanting and the music the choir sang is wonderful and it brings glory to God. I just never really know what's going on and therefore, feel like an outsider. A welcomed outsider, but an outsider nonetheless.

Then there was the baptizm. During the baptism, Emilia was held by her God parents at the door of the church, where the Priest asked the God parents many-many times: "Do you reject Satan?" "Do you reject Satan?" "Do you reject Satan?" 

They said "Yes I reject Satan" each time. And then, at the Priest command: "Now spit on him ...", they both spat out the door. 

Earlier this year, I had the privilege of being God father to one of my good friends' baby daughter, and their Lutheran Church had very similar wording about "rejecting Satan". Actively declaring that "I reject Satan", was a powerful experience for me.

Throughout the whole time I found myself observing the faces of my Brother in Law's agnostic family, who were also was graciously welcomed into this ... for lack of a better word ... peculiar congregation. They had respectful but quizzical demeanors. Clearly all that ritual must have seem extremely odd to them ... especially the repetition and the spitting.

So there I was focused on every ritualistic element of the Orthodox service, focussing attentively, desiring to worship and learn , but subconsciously waiting to hear some "subtlety-protestant-condemning-Orthodox-pride" statement.

I didn't hear one.

In fact one element that I thought was fascinating and very interesting, was the way the Priest anointed Emilia with oil. It was an act of sealing her with the Spirit of God, symbolized in oil, by marking her with it, above her eyes (sight), beside her ears (hearing), under her mouth (speach) on her hands (work) and feet (where she goes). I remembered that from when my other Niece, Macrina, and my Nephew, Basil, were baptized. I love that symbolism and it reminded me of the very power that ritual can have. The power that sacrament can have.

As the Priest was giving his sermon, out of John 9 and declared that that passage reveals that the Church is not a perfect place, but a broken place. In John 9 a man who was blind from birth is healed by Jesus. The people of the community begin arguing and debating. They wondered whose sin made the man blind. They argued about who Jesus was. Jesus had, after all, healed the man on the sabbath. I kept thinking, while listening to this passage, that Jesus acted outside of the ridid bounds of religion. He did good work on the Sabbath. He brought glory to God the Father by restoring the mans sight. And I looked around at the icons surounding me, thought of the repetitive lituragy and I wondered what Jesus would think of contemporary Orthodox worship.

Then the priest blew me away. He said, and I paraphrase, that Emilia was not baptized into a church that was perfect. That she was baptized into a place of discourse. A community bound together by the love they have for God, united by the person of Christ in his Spirit, but imperfect, and bound to disagree.

I found those statements very shocking coming from this Orthodox priest. I think of them to be true. I simply did not expect that truth to be spoken.

He then said something that deeply connected with the way I was thinking. He said, and I paraphrase again: "What is in this water?"

He was looking down at the massive metal goblet-like thing that Emilia was baptized in.

"What is in this oil? It's only water and oil. Things of this world that we use as a physical reminder of spiritual truths. Is the spirit any more present here, in this water, than elsewhere?" (still paraphrasing)

I really liked that. The water isn't magical. It might be ritual, but it's ritual in the symbolic sense, not a magical or superstitious sense.

He spoke about the peculiar language used in the baptizmal liturgy that, the spirit give my infant niece a new body: let the old body pass away. This is so odd, and he acknowledged that. She's a baby, for heaven's sake. How much newer of a body can there be? But he said, that in the symbolism of baptism we are dunked in the water, like Christ was buried, and lifted up from the water as Christ was raised from the dead. In that way we are spiritually connecting our baptized bodies with the new body of the resurrected Christ.

In baptism, we are declaring that the church is made up of a collection of bodies that will be made new, by the promise of what Christ has done in his death and resurrection. We are not new, we are being made new. We are not perfect, we are being made whole. So like the Jew's who disagreed when Jesus restored the man's sight on the sabbath, the church is bound to disagree.

Only minutes after this humble theological statement, while preparing for communion, the priest waved his hands over the elements saying "let them become your body and blood". Talk about magical and superstitious. What an odd contradiction. The water of baptism isn't special, it's just water. But the bread and wine of communion are somehow meant to turn into the flesh and blood of our risen Lord?

Welcome to my critical mind, everyone.

Now I'm not Catholic or Orthodox and I do not mean judge anyone who is. I love people who are Catholic and people who are Orthodox, and most of the time I find that I agree with them on the most essential theological bases.

I know, there is power in the symbolic. There is power in ritual. There is power in the action of being baptized and there is power in the practice of taking communion.

But what is the point!?

A definition of "sacrament" is this:

An outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual divine grace.

I think of it as this:

A sacrament is a tangible, physical, sensory, and covenantal experience that expresses to us the reality of inward and spiritual divine grace in a symbolic manor.  

And while I don't claim to have greater understanding than the centuries of theology of the Catholic and Orthodox of history, I feel that this makes them even more powerful and enlightening.

I have learned, some from majoring in english (and some from the teaching and preaching of my now former pastor Matt Johnson) that biblical texts have defined purposes, goals, audiences and contexts.

Text is a tricky thing, because no matter what is said with language, there can not ever be a perfect linguistic representation of an event. Language is made up of symbols, and an image or symbol of something can never amass to exactly what it is or was.

At the same time the symbolism in a text does not supersede the reality of the actual concrete information that the text suggests.

For instance the word baptize can mean to dunk, submerge, or immerse. It can be used to describe  part of the process of pickling a vegetable.

In baptism we are submerged into water. Immersed in it's purifying nature, and sensitized by this on a physical level. At least this is how it was for my adult baptism. I remember the feeling. The cleansing and freeing sensation. It was beautiful. But it was beautiful in the symbolism of water as spirit.

When John the Baptist was baptizing, it couldn't have had much to do with the spirit of God. The Holy Spirit, the part of the trinity had not entered the world yet, as it has today. John was baptizing under the symbolic power of a sensory action, being submerged in the water, to remind people of their vow to repentance. To let the river wash them clean.

The word communion means: The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

Now how many times is communion really all that "communal" at all? In churches it seems like a very personal and individualistic practice.

"This is the body of Christ, broken for you."

Yes, this is individualistic... at least at the level of it being a very introspective, eat the bread/wafer soaked or followed by (at least at my church) your choice of wine or juice, and think about Jesus. This isn't bad, but I think Christ's message at the last supper was deeper than this. I think the church-ly sacrament of Communion has to call to remind us of what Jesus was really saying.

If a sacrament is a tangible, physical, sensory, and covenantal experiences that expresses to us inward and spiritual divine grace in a symbolic manor, that must mean that the tanglible experience must be something great.

Nope, that's not true at all. When Jesus broke bread and said "this is by body broken for you" and took wine and said, "this is my blood poored out for you", He was equating his sacrafice with some of the most mundane elements of life: bread and water. 

What does it mean then to "do this in remembrance of me"?

Was this Christ's mandate for all Christians to march to the front of a sactuary and tear of a tiny piece of his body and dip it into a cup filled with his blood?

Kind of ... but not really. Christ was saying: "remember me". Remember what I will do for you, remember the cross, remember the resurrection, in the mundane things. In the breaking of bread, a thing that happenes three times a day, not simply on a sunday at church. 

Baptism is a sacrament of spirit and of blessing. Of entering into the body of Christ through sumberging under water, as he died, and rising above it, as he rose to life. 

Water, oil, bread, wine are not magic. Sacrament is not magic. Sacrament is holy.  Sacrament says "remember Christ", not just while participating in the sacrament at Church, but in bathing in water, and while eating food. The sacraments use the mundane things, to point us to the truths they represent, and that they are truly everywhere.

In the sacramental church practice of Communion, we receive what I would call a meta image. It is an image of an image. A reminder to remember.

If anyone endured all the way to the end of this post I hope it was worth it.

Sometimes my mind is a crazy place ... Thanks for reading.