101. Basking in the Love of God

1 John 4:4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 

It was within the twelve step community that I came to more fully experience the power of God, his grace and love.  It is also where my spirituality matured.  I am not sure how one would separate the spiritual aspect of life; I am one who sees all of life as spiritual.  So within my life I reference those same twelve steps and traditions for guidance. For those of you who are not familiar with the twelve steps it is a guide to living life on a spiritual basis - what I hope we as Christians are up to.  I think it is one of the most profound guides to a life of faith.  It teaches how to live with ourselves, each other, the world outside our door and God.

One of the interesting steps is the twelfth step - Having had a spiritual awakening we sought to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.  The intriguing aspect of this step is that we are told wait to spread the good news - to the carry message until we have more fully experienced the grace and power of God.

          I was listening to an interview of Jim Douglas a man who has lived a life of radical faith. The interview is accessible at this link:

http://www.beyondtheboxpodcast.com/2014/07/jim-douglass-a-life-of-peace-and-resistance/

When asked what he saw as a first step towards living a life of radical faith his answer was this - that we first experience the depth of the grace and love of God.  That this experiencing of God is a basking in his love.  There is no rush to do anything else but relish his love for you.

          I came to faith long before I got clean and sober.  Yet my faith did not result in my salvation from drugs and alcohol.  Regardless of how hard I prayed and pled I remained lost.  While part of this was my not understanding my addiction, the other part lies with being too quick to picking up my cross to follow him. I was not alone in that rush.  No sooner I was saved, then I was told to get busy working out my salvation.

          It was only when I focused on my well-being that I became of use to God.  It was only when I took the time to go through my life and all the warts and wrinkles that I found salvation.  It was only when I truly opened life to God that I became healed that I was able to stand as example.  Yes, I was of service, I set up tables and chairs and made coffee and cleaned up - I was of service, but my primary focus was on being healed.

         

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.
Romans 12:2

We are called to be in the word.  All it takes a short drive to somewhere, anywhere, and one realizes how ugly, angry and brutal this world can be.  Everywhere it seems there is an invitation to join in this ugliness. 

          But we are called to put ourselves last; to forgive those who have slighted us; to pray for our enemies; and this for me is a tall order.  To do so, on my own, whether it be to the glory of God or not, only serves to be even more frustrating. But in Romans we are called first to the renewing of our minds. 

          I need to daily, sometimes more often, and regularly spend time in prayer.  Though I believe I am constantly in the presence of God, I need to stop what I am doing and be aware of how much God loves me.  It is through doing this, basking in the love of God, that I am renewed of spirit.

          If I am to be the light of the world, then I cannot simply be another angry person.  As Paul said, “What if I speak in the most elegant languages of people or in the exotic languages of the heavenly messengers, but I live without love? Well then, anything I say is like the clanging of brass or a crashing cymbal.”

          Over the next several posts I will discuss how I think we are called to be in the world.  But it all begins with knowing the love of God.

100. Ready to write again

I had lunch with a friend of mine last week, we have started a tradition.  It seems that three years in a row a tradition makes.  We have known each other for almost forty years.  This man, my friend, I have always seen as being older, wiser, and just generally more together.  It is somewhat interesting when I think that the age difference is only a couple of years – but when we met those two years were a significant difference.  First impressions do last.

          After we got caught up on family and career nonsense, we got down to other subjects – including a lot of theology.  Which in turn brought up the blog, which if you have been a follower you know that I have stopped posting.  We talked about the challenge of remaining central to the message of Christ in our work, in our lives and in our writings.

          I know that I am opinionated, and despite my introverted nature, I do not mind sharing those opinions at volume with others.  And there are times when I have written in reaction to some of the opinions that I find objectionable.  When I wrote edgy pieces holding the church – you and me - to task I would get great numbers of readers and great comments.  But slowly I found myself becoming part of the problem.

          As I read scripture I see so much of it addressing our – my – tendency to engage in self-justified condemnation of others.  My desire to prove that I am better-than by tearing down the other.  It is the sin of the religious; righteous indignation.  When Jesus tells people to “go and sin no more;” it is this tendency that I think he is referring.

          Much of what I see as the point of developing righteousness is practicing humility and mindfulness of who we are and our place in the world.  It is the understanding that compassion is of the highest value and utmost importance. 

          So, writing a piece that is angry, or as my friend puts it “Shrill” is actually just joining in the problem.  In short, I am just another angry white man telling you what to believe about God.  And that has been the issue behind my not having posted in so long. 

          So much of what is presented as Christianity is repugnant to me.  It is filled with hostility and judgement and just pisses me off.  I have struggled by seeing such ugliness in others that I wonder if they have experienced the same grace that I have.  Maybe, just maybe, my atheist friends are right; my spirituality is simply a delusion best addressed by good medication and growing up.

          Yet, in my desire to rail against the ugliness of the Christian masses, I realize that all I am doing is being one of them.  St. Paul writes of this in Roman 2:1 “At whatever point you judge another you condemn yourself, for you do the very same things.” And thus, I fell silent.

          And I have waited to write again. 

So I think I am ready.  Ready to write reflectively about receiving God’s grace and love, striving for righteousness, and what I believe that I am called to – to do, to worship and be.  If my first set of writings was, as was put to me by another friend, a purging of my soul.  Maybe what I write now, is what fills my soul anew?

          Maybe now the fight is drained out of me?  Age and exhaustion are often the very things that lead us to salvation.  It once was confessed to me by a man who had struggled with lust and pornography, that it was the loss of his libido that had brought him under obedience to the Lord better than any prayer or striving of the soul.

          Maybe like the first set of writings which was the purge, this new set of writings is the infilling.  It is the act of my writing that I work out my faith.  Thus, you not only get to watch, but you get to participate in my maturation.

          Maybe, I have finally come to understand that the need for hostility and anger never was needed.  In my world, that has so often been depressed, hostility and anger has seemed useful.  When one is beset by everything, being well defended is wise.

          Maybe, it is that finally God has softened a heart made hard through circumstance.  I carry enough scars of the soul that bitterness is justifiable.  But in order to love one’s neighbour one needs to be loved.

There will still be some things that I will be prickly about – telling someone that you will pray for them when you are not willing to help them is about helpful a fart in a wind storm.  Your faith no matter strong it is, does not make you a better person, your actions do.