I think. I write. I say things. I live things. Over the past few years, I have been awakened to a story worth telling and living – one inspired of God.
I enjoy the intricacy of it. I’m honoured to be a part of it.
I take pride in it – and, ah, there’s the rub.
Pride.
I don’t like my pride. I don’t like admitting that I have it. Railing against my pride, I often wonder if the solution to it is to do away with things things to take pride in – a profession, an education? If I should sequester myself in some abbey, and scrub floors and give away everything I have? Because the moment that words come together in thoughts or in words on a page, is one of my many moments of temptation.
Pride affects everything and every part. My job. My grad studies. My beauty. My story. My relationships. Ironically, I have struggled for a long time with having confidence in myself – I go through a lot of self-loathing in fact, and some Christians (myself included) can get stuck into this mentality that self-loathing is a good thing because it cleanses you of your bad little habits – to cut yourself off on your own strength, showing God how determined you really are. Bad thing is, it can also bolster the hold of pride in your life with an outwardly impressive veneer. Inside you’re still struggling, you’re still weak and an horrid as we all are, but you stifle your own cries to Christ. How utterly pitiful. How utterly less than what we were made for – and yet here, I am a co-conspirator of pride.
I have little confidence because I choose to ignore the gift of Christ to be my strength – instead, very much too often I embrace the tantalizing ‘promises’ of pride. It promises me power to wield, a sense of control over myself in a myriad of ways. The difficulty is this, the pursuit of maintaining one’s pride – it burdens, it destroys, it kills.
Friends, pride has made me nearly dead in so many ways – and, it’s made me introduce death to others too; separation from God. Sin that so easily entangles – though again and again we are reminded by scripture, I suppose pridefully, I am often surprised when I find myself so thick into it and unable to define precisely when I first conceded to it. If pride was frank about it, as it often is in its later stages, I imagine I’d be reviled at its attempt to ensnare me.
So, why continue things outwardly? Especially, why blog about it? Why continue in things that are rewarding to us? Why continue to do things that can so easily transition into nesting grounds of temptation? - Is this not like setting yourself up for disaster? Or like disobeying the direct command to flee from temptation?
In many ways the dealings with our Lord and our sin occur deeply and privately. But, important too is deal with the sin of pride outwardly - the difference is that you call moments of pride out for what they are - you confess, and then, you find yourself in Christ; amidst the chorus of those calling out to and boasting in Christ. Struggling with or against pride only gets me more tangled up - Christ says simply, Come, humble yourself and I give you rest, you get to know me Who is the only worthy and capable of saving and untangling. Just be – you are sinful. I judge, redeem, sanctify, make right, sustain and fill.
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Friday, March 05, 2010
Body of belief.
Belief is not 'merely' what I once thought: culminating in a purely cognitive or spiritual exercise. Belief is meant to be embodied: lived out with every straining fibre of our whole Self – the mind, the body, the spirit.
How many times have we heard good things, good news and simply do not believe it? That we intellectualize it into a neat cognitive box or out of possibility? Or romanticize it to the point that in dissolves into something euphorically intangible and superficially sentimental?
I do this all of the time - particularly, in relation to my faith, where I read one thing and am perhaps even passionately convicted by it, but distinctly believe in my body it’s antithesis; I continue living out what could be called a lie (though very much tangible in reality), and dismissing Truth.
I’ve been meditating on this for the last few weeks, and here’s the verse. We can look at it together,
The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. - Matthew 26:41
If you, just as myself and I ascertain many others, have traditionally read this with an interpretation that justifies the imposition of guilt inspired, stern self-regulation toward improving personal piety, than: Good news! There is no end to the fullness that God’s words can speak to us. There is more.
This verse well defines a very literal problem – a disconnect between the indwelling and an outworking of Christian faith. Often, we sequester our faith lives into the interior recesses of our beings rather than wearing them upon our sleeves (or foreheads, or wrists), because, most likely, we have grown up into the prevalent understanding that faith is equal to the spiritual and/or religious which belongs to the personal domain. An untouchable, unrecognizable faith, imperceptible to the scrutiny of anything or anyone else; a faith we internally mediate to satisfy our personal whims and needs - the delight of every individual.
But here, though this verse certainly indicates that there is a failing on the part of the body to work out one’s faith (and how humbling that is), belief is anticipated to be externalized in our bodies – our lives. Embodiment is part of belief. The ramifications of this are stunning. We are ushered into a community of embodied believers.
The last several months have meant a renewed, deeper pursuit of living out Christ in my superficial myself. I know - sounds highly mysterious and, even perhaps like a retreat back to a disconnected, intangible ‘spiritual’ discourse meant to bolster a believer with a sense of being above reproach. I'll be upfront with my confidence, Jesus Christ. A man who existed in history; sharing with you, and me the common experience of living, walking, and breathing on this earth. And He also spoke real words – words that more often than not confound me, not because I need to be some sort of hyperspiritual person to interpret them – but because I am often unacquainted the glories He speaks of in my common experience (i.e. most recent: not including myself to possess the dignity innate to humanity, because it has not been understood as part of my concept of Self, and thus not lived out in my body). This ignorance presses me to want more understanding – not for knowledge sake, but in rhythm with the will of Him Who came to offering the strength we so lack. Strength to possess body and belief.
How many times have we heard good things, good news and simply do not believe it? That we intellectualize it into a neat cognitive box or out of possibility? Or romanticize it to the point that in dissolves into something euphorically intangible and superficially sentimental?
I do this all of the time - particularly, in relation to my faith, where I read one thing and am perhaps even passionately convicted by it, but distinctly believe in my body it’s antithesis; I continue living out what could be called a lie (though very much tangible in reality), and dismissing Truth.
I’ve been meditating on this for the last few weeks, and here’s the verse. We can look at it together,
The spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak. - Matthew 26:41
If you, just as myself and I ascertain many others, have traditionally read this with an interpretation that justifies the imposition of guilt inspired, stern self-regulation toward improving personal piety, than: Good news! There is no end to the fullness that God’s words can speak to us. There is more.
This verse well defines a very literal problem – a disconnect between the indwelling and an outworking of Christian faith. Often, we sequester our faith lives into the interior recesses of our beings rather than wearing them upon our sleeves (or foreheads, or wrists), because, most likely, we have grown up into the prevalent understanding that faith is equal to the spiritual and/or religious which belongs to the personal domain. An untouchable, unrecognizable faith, imperceptible to the scrutiny of anything or anyone else; a faith we internally mediate to satisfy our personal whims and needs - the delight of every individual.
But here, though this verse certainly indicates that there is a failing on the part of the body to work out one’s faith (and how humbling that is), belief is anticipated to be externalized in our bodies – our lives. Embodiment is part of belief. The ramifications of this are stunning. We are ushered into a community of embodied believers.
The last several months have meant a renewed, deeper pursuit of living out Christ in my superficial myself. I know - sounds highly mysterious and, even perhaps like a retreat back to a disconnected, intangible ‘spiritual’ discourse meant to bolster a believer with a sense of being above reproach. I'll be upfront with my confidence, Jesus Christ. A man who existed in history; sharing with you, and me the common experience of living, walking, and breathing on this earth. And He also spoke real words – words that more often than not confound me, not because I need to be some sort of hyperspiritual person to interpret them – but because I am often unacquainted the glories He speaks of in my common experience (i.e. most recent: not including myself to possess the dignity innate to humanity, because it has not been understood as part of my concept of Self, and thus not lived out in my body). This ignorance presses me to want more understanding – not for knowledge sake, but in rhythm with the will of Him Who came to offering the strength we so lack. Strength to possess body and belief.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Lord of the ... Heart
Little things matter big to us.
For some of my patient's, their deepest sufferings come not from their diseases but from the missing of a favorite item, a smile from a familiar face. Our deepest delights can come in the form of tiny newborns, admiring the purposed tasks of industrious insects, a hand squeeze or the briefest gaze as a tiny reminder of love.
This week, the time came to put away a favorite, precious token that I have had for five years. To be honest, I never considered that ever happening... but, as God has repeated to me over and over, He is doing a new thing.
The token always reminded me of my commitments - tiny in the span of time and verbage it took to declare them. The bigger things it represented - the commitments haven't changed in the least, but my relationship to that representative token has.
It represented my fear as much as my commitment; I felt that if I didn't have it near me, that I would sabbotage my commitment and God's will. More and more, I realize that it represented a distrust of myself and worse still, a deep distrust of my Love, my God.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.
Song of Solomon 8:6
The heart, innately beats for the purposes of living. If the heart does not function as it should, correction is necessary - but the heart, being a heart, seeks only to do what it is made for: beating, pumping, sustaining.
Likewise, we exist, purposefully - and yes, we are in need of discipline and correction - but we are also wonderful, beautiful, dignified, entrusted with our humanity. Created that way and created to live knowing that. Trusting that.
For some of my patient's, their deepest sufferings come not from their diseases but from the missing of a favorite item, a smile from a familiar face. Our deepest delights can come in the form of tiny newborns, admiring the purposed tasks of industrious insects, a hand squeeze or the briefest gaze as a tiny reminder of love.
This week, the time came to put away a favorite, precious token that I have had for five years. To be honest, I never considered that ever happening... but, as God has repeated to me over and over, He is doing a new thing.
The token always reminded me of my commitments - tiny in the span of time and verbage it took to declare them. The bigger things it represented - the commitments haven't changed in the least, but my relationship to that representative token has.
It represented my fear as much as my commitment; I felt that if I didn't have it near me, that I would sabbotage my commitment and God's will. More and more, I realize that it represented a distrust of myself and worse still, a deep distrust of my Love, my God.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD.
Song of Solomon 8:6
The heart, innately beats for the purposes of living. If the heart does not function as it should, correction is necessary - but the heart, being a heart, seeks only to do what it is made for: beating, pumping, sustaining.
Likewise, we exist, purposefully - and yes, we are in need of discipline and correction - but we are also wonderful, beautiful, dignified, entrusted with our humanity. Created that way and created to live knowing that. Trusting that.
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