Finishing Well

The semester is winding to its inevitable end. Thanksgiving break next week, two more weeks of classes, then finals. It doesn't seem possible, and there's certainly not time to get all done that needs to be done -- or so it seems.

Of course, it always does get done. That's the glory of academia. Kill yourself for 16 weeks, then you get to take a break and start it over: but it's not just the same old, same old; it's new classes, different mixes of students, another chance to do it better.

One does always wish to finish well. But it's harder to keep that focus when the new start is just around the corner. When exhaustion sets in, when one begins to wonder if teaching were a bad career choice, when committee and administrative work wears down time and patience and energy . . . I could start planning my Shakespeare class, or read the books for my new 411, or rework the 211 schedule . . . so much more satisfying than walking through the messiness of the end of a semester, the discouraged mind insists. The new to come draws the interest, sparks new energy.

But that's not the call. Looking ahead sufficiently to make plans for the future is right and good, but trying to live there, to make it come faster, is foolishness. Responsibility lies here, doing the best one can in the present to love God and neighbor -- to give all one has to the task at hand for His glory. Making that commitment and trusting Him to make one's work count (it's never we who accomplish anything eternal anyway; why do we get so caught up in how we feel?): that is the call, and that is the key to finishing well.

Lord, remind me to trust You where I am, to live for You where I am, now, today, not looking to some future day while letting this one limp to an inglorious close -- a future day which in any case will only be the same as this one when it arrives, one which itself will require trusting and serving You in the moment. Let me live it now so I will know the better how to live it then.

"A Strange Glory"

Chapter 3 of Death on a Friday Afternoon is a meditation on the third word from the Cross, first to Mary and then to John: "Woman, behold your son. [. . .] Behold, your mother!" Here Neuhaus explores the position of Mary as simultaneously mother of Jesus and first disciple of Jesus. He emphasizes two of her statements in particular.

"Let it be to me according to your word." Mary accepts, in full trust, the commission of God to bear His Son and have her own heart broken. She risks all human security -- how could she know if Joseph would choose to protect her? -- for absolute obedience to the Absolute. She is our model for how to respond to the Father, no matter what He asks of us.

"Do whatever He tells you." These, Neuhaus notes, are the last words of Mary recorded in the Scriptures, and he stresses their importance: "Everything about Mary is from Christ and to Christ," he writes; "Mary is the icon of the disciple-Church."

Mary's obedience and trust show us our own way. "To say that Mary's way is not our way is to say that Christ's way is not our way," Neuhaus says, "for Mary was in every respect the disciple of her Son." And "What she said she also did, and in her loss of her Son and her loss of herself she knew 'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.'"

Mary gave herself in "total availabilty to the will of God. She had no business of her own. She was always on call." But it is this availability, this trust that leads one through the inevitable hardship and brokenness of obedience -- for we are all called to die to self and abandon all that we see for only a hope -- to the light of the Cross. "At the heart of darkness the hope of the world is dying on a cross, and the longest stride of soul is to see in this a strange glory": the glory of hope and redemption, of love and life.

"In wonder is wisdom born." I desire to lose myself this Lent in wonder at the strange glory of the Cross, the redemption that would come, not from armed battle and kingly grasp of power, but from the utter sacrifice that to the world was a fool's mad suicide. May we have the courage, the trust, the will, to "do whatever He tells us," to know that the Fool is truly King of kings and Lord of lords and worthy of all glory and honor and praise.

"Day by Day"

I never cry in church. But my Father's mercies have been so lovely these past few days that this hymn brought me to tears yesterday:

Day by Day

Day by day, and with each passing moment,

Strength I find, to meet my trials here;

Trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment,

I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He Whose heart is kind beyond all measure

Gives unto each day what He deems best—

Lovingly, its part of pain and pleasure,

Mingling toil with peace and rest.

Every day, the Lord Himself is near me

With a special mercy for each hour;
All my cares He fain would bear, and cheer me,

He Whose Name is Counselor and Pow’r.

The protection of His child and treasure

Is a charge that on Himself He laid;

“As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure,”

This the pledge to me He made.

Help me then in every tribulation

So to trust Thy promises, O Lord,

That I lose not faith’s sweet consolation

Offered me within Thy holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting,

E’er to take, as from a father’s hand,

One by one, the days, the moments fleeting,

Till I reach the promised land.

Baby News

My friends' baby was born last Thursday. I got to see pictures on Friday while endangering my soul with envy of those who went to see him that night. Yesterday, Mom and Dad brought him up to the college to be introduced. Right now he is a sleepy, contemplative little fellow, with the perfect beauty of a C-section birth.

As I held him, he squirmed and yawned now and then, squinted up at me, and sighed himself back to sleep. So lovely, this precious new life with all hope and potential lying before him. Such complete trust in and reliance on those around him to love and protect him and care for his every need. So like we should be, babes in our Father's arms . . .

Blue Skies

I have had several occasions this semester to remind students that we stand before God and not before man. There was the young woman who had to finish several incompletes, the result of illness last semester, and so fell behind and did poorly on her first essay for my lit class. "Did you do the best you could with what you had?" I asked her. When she nodded through her tears, I reminded her, "Then you can stand before God without shame and be unconcerned with your grade. His judgment of your character is far more important than your performance on this essay, or my evaluation of it." And with the incompletes out of the way, she went on to do well in the class; God did not let her fail because of circumstances beyond her control.

He may have done so, however. There was, too, the young woman pouring herself into her classes, valiently fighting freshman homesickness and discouragement, and yet -- despite her intelligence, understanding, and hard work -- somehow not making the grades she could have legitimately expected. "What might God be teaching you about trust?" I asked her when we talked about an assignment she had done poorly on. "Might He be inviting you to trust Him without seeing results, to know His love for you despite a less-than-stellar performance? Perhaps the struggle itself is His gift to you this semester?"

We can only ever do the best we can in any circumstances. We don't have any more. We have only the knowledge and the wisdom thus far gained, only the time and energy granted, only the desire to give enough, knowing that what we have may never be enough, not from man's perspective, and not in a broken world. And after that -- the results are His, and our job is to learn to accept them, not rail against them or despair over them when they aren't what we'd like . . .

On a Jorma CD, Stars in My Crown, that a dear friend sent me, my favorite song has become "Heart Temporary":

Blue skies in the morning,
Stars, they fill the night.
Fall wind rustling through the trees
Sings a song of great delight.
On such a day you think you'd say
Exactly what you mean.
But in God's perfection, things ain't always
Just the way they seem.

chorus:
When the best you have to offer
Falls short of the mark,
Self-inflicted holes are piercin'
Deep within your heart.

Blue skies in the afternoon,
Breeze, it starts to still;
Two dogs sleepin' in the sun,
They lie upon that grassy hill.
At such a time you think you'd find
A way to share your heart,
But though you're reaching for her hand,
Still you walk apart.

(chorus)

Sun upon that old barn roof
Celebrates the day.
I hold this moment in my hand,
Follow it along my way.
The future flows; this feeling grows
Outside my window sill.
By letting go, I might escape
The prison of my will.

(chorus)

When the best you have to offer
Is all you have to give,
Enjoy the moment: God has granted
One more day to live.

Blue skies out my window
Said good-bye to early morning rain.

Again, and again, and again . . .

Weariness, physical and emotional, a mild but steadily worsening depression . . . thus all night and morning the tormenting repetition of words, phrases, bars of musical notes, like a sledgehammer on the frantic and exhausted mind. Then backing the car out of the garage into yet another driving rain and the windshield wipers pounding, cha-chunk, cha-chunk, cha-chunk, all the way to campus; trying to keep from screaming aloud the constant refrain to it all, just shut up already. These are the days that only the will carries one through -- the will to believe that Truth exists and His will does the carrying despite all apparent evidence to the contrary.

Come Be My Light

The title of Mother Teresa's book Come Be My Light, is not a prayer of hers to Jesus; it is His call to her in a vision -- a call to be His light to the poorest and most undesirable in India. From her writings:

"If God who owes nothing to us is ready to impart to us no less than Himself, shall we answer with just a fraction of ourselves? To give ourselves fully to God is a means of receiving God Himself."

"To the good God nothing is little because He is so great and we so small -- that is why He stoops down and takes the trouble to make those little things for us -- to give us a chance to prove our love for Him. Because He makes them, they are very great. He cannot make anything small; they are infinite. Yes my dear children [her sister nuns], be faithful in little practices of love, of little sacrifices -- of the little interior mortification -- of little fidelities to Rule, which will build in you the life of holiness -- make you Christ-like. [. . .] Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love . . . The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love."

She could say this and live this way because, as the editor says, "she trusted that His will for her would always be an expression of [His] unfailing love, however difficult or even impossible it might be at times to fathom His designs"; and elsewhere, "She entrusted herself to His providential intervention and her trust was rewarded."

Come Be My LIght: Doubt and the Christian Life

Tony Esolen has written a lovely post on doubt and the Christian life at Mere Comments, in response to an article in Time Magazine (which he links) about the new book of Mother Teresa's letters, Come Be My Light. She was even more amazing than any of us knew, and knowing why opens new vistas of hope and new strength for enduring.

I can only say, read them both and thank God for His grace. The book, of course, is on my amazon list, and I'll have to order it as soon as I dare.

Acedia

I've been reading Tony Esolen's translations of Dante, which are not only remarkable poetry but worth the cost for the introductions alone. I finished Inferno the other day and was browsing through the appendices, which include quotations from various influences on Dante. Among the quotes from Thomas Aquinas is this one on acedia (sloth):

"It is written: The sorrows of the world worketh death (2 Cor. 7:20). But such is sloth, for it is not sorrow according to God, which is different from the sorrow of the world. Therefore it is a mortal sin.

". . . Mortal sin is so called because it destroys the spiritual life which is the effect of charity, whereby God dwells in us. So any sin which by its very nature is contrary to charity is a mortal sin per se. And such is sloth, because the proper effect of charity is joy in God, . . . while sloth is sorrow about spiritual good . . .

"Sloth is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath-day. For this precept, insofar as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God and sorrow of the mind about the Divine good is contrary to that."

We tend to think of sloth as mere laziness, but it is more like ennui, a weariness that arises from having no purpose, no hope. Baudelaire describes it in "To the Reader" from his Flowers of Evil. The person suffering from ennui (the link gives several translations; some call it ennui, some boredom) can't even rouse himself to do evil, he has so little energy to act. This is the greatest sin of all, to Baudelaire; great evil would be better than inaction. One of my students this year commented that the poem reminded him of the Lord's statement that one should be either hot or cold, but never lukewarm. A different context, but a similar idea.

I like the Aquinas quote because it brings sloth into much clearer focus than any other description I've read. One is to rest in God and not be discouraged about the divine good. This suggests that sloth is born of not trusting God -- God is not here, He doesn't care, He ignores evil and doesn't do good . . . and so I lose all incentive to do anything myself.

But trust in God allows for joy even in the inevitable sorrows of a fallen world (not sorrow because "God isn't here"). And that reminds me of the hope that holds me together so often -- no matter how I feel on any given day, no matter what my circumstances are, He does love me and works for my benefit at all times. I fear that sloth will be my temptation this summer, as it often is. May I remember to look on Him and take courage.

“Already” – but “Not Yet”

To live in the “already” is a joyful thing, indeed. But I know too many people who have guaranteed others that “already” is already here every moment – that if you do not feel happy, satisfied, even ecstatic, there is something wrong in your relationship with God; your faith is too little or too weak. But this is a dangerous denial of reality; honesty compels us to recognize that the “not yet” is with us also and will be until we meet Him face to face – and what a glorious day that will be.

Kamilla, in her comment below, is right that the tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” honestly drawn, is what attracts me to writers like Greene and Waugh. The acceptance of the tension, it seems to me, frees mind and spirit to love and live in a way that insistence on either one or the other extreme as the primary reality cannot possibly do.

One can live too much in the “not yet,” of course, and despair; I am all too familiar with this . . . but I think the error of our own day has tended more in the other direction. In fact, this overemphasis on the “already” may lead some people to the extreme of despair when reality can no longer be denied. “O taste and see that the Lord is good” doesn’t mean that the bitter herbs have been removed from our diet.

A recent World Magazine article (5 May 2007) by Wichita writer Tony Woodlief points up this tension well, I think. In a column titled “Mornings,” he writes about his children waking in the mornings to seek out their parents, expecting them to be there and simply wanting to experience their love. He tells of many such wonderful mornings, then describes those other, “treacherous” mornings of waiting for their daughter’s death:

“In those grim hours the morning seemed to share the soul of night, creeping up to spill its light on the stark reality that the world is broken and that not even that glorious morning outside the Savior’s tomb has ended our suffering. [. . . .] On those mornings [. . .] one learns that sometimes God is silent, or perhaps that sometimes we cannot hear Him. It is difficult to believe, on those mornings, that the same sun under which we once rejoiced is now the sun that illuminates our despair.”

I recall on a spring morning of my own despair wondering that the sun could rise at all. But of course it does. Of course God still reigns. Of course we are still loved. Of course He wants us to still run to Him, even if He seems silent. I recall that Job’s lesson was not “Here I am to give you comfort and sympathize with you” – it was, quite simply, “I am.” And that was – is – enough. And sometimes knowing this gives us the delight of seeing and tasting the “already” of His redemption, the abundant life He holds for us. But not always; sometimes it only means that we need not be devoid of hope in the silence and the heartache of "not yet."

Woodlief puts it like this: “I’m trying to see mornings like my children, as expected miracles. This is our faith, isn’t it? – we persist in believing the unbelievable. We expect the impossible and grieve joyously, irrationally hoping that grief ends.” Because, of course, we know that the unbelievable is true, that the impossible has already happened, that we can know joy even in grief, that grief will end, even though its ultimate end is in the future, and not yet.

"He Has Befriended Us"

Neuhaus writes about our restlessness and dissatisfaction with life:

"Now we need faith, for the truth is not transparent; now we need hope, for we know we are not what we were meant to be."

Then he writes, continuing with the theme I wrote about yesterday:

We are His friends, not because we have befriended Him, but because He has befriended us. [. . .] Look at Him who is ever looking at you. With whatever faith you have, however feeble and flickering and mixed with doubt, look at Him. Look at Him with whatever faith you have and know that your worry about your lack of faith is itself a sign of faith. Do not look at your faith. Look at Him. Keep looking, and faith will take care of itself.

When I look at Him, I have no time left to look at myself and my pathetic worries and failures. When I look at Him, He can make me what He created me to be. Lord, help me look at You and leave off the maunderings of my foolish self-centeredness.

Fall Break

Dragged home scads of paper today -- homework I'm behind on grading, exams and essays that need to be taken care of before classes begin again a week from Monday. Discouraging to look at, but I'm trying to keep remembering that what is done this week doesn't have to be done after classes are back in swing and more of it coming in.

I'm utterly exhausted. But so many good meetings with students this week that make it worthwhile.

A tiny taste during the week of letting go and not trying to keep control of my time, my work. Getting things done that had to be but without worry and frustration at interruptions and needed conversations. I hope to hold on to that and practice it again this week at home, with much to do here as well as for the job and the constant temptations there will be to laziness rather than good rest.

Oh, to learn to live in Him, to let Him live in me.

Trusting God

Tomorrow morning I go in for lasik surgery on both eyes. By God's grace, afterwards I'll be able to see at a distance without glasses and the astigmatism that's been the curse of my life will be gone. I may need reading glasses, but that's nothing in comparison to what I've dealt with since third grade.

The decision has made me think a lot about trust. We are, after all, talking about the part of my body that my work absolutely depends upon. I've often felt that if I couldn't read -- read anything I like, I mean, not just what's been made available in braille or on tape (which I can't concentrate on, anyway) -- I am not sure life would be worth living. I realize, of course, intellectually at least, that this is not the case, but it suggests how important the written word is to me. And I am, tomorrow morning, going to entrust this so vital part of my life to a relative stranger, someone I've met twice in my life.

It wasn't an easy decision. There are risks, and if one of those risks makes my sight worse than it now is, it will be cold comfort to know that I'm in a very small minority of those who've had the surgery done. So I thought a great deal about risk and what kinds of risks I'm willing to take. Finally, the doctor's reputation and track record, along with the 100% satisfaction I've encountered among all the people I know who have had it done or know someone who has, decided me that it is worth it. Now I have to trust him and his staff.

But ultimately, of course, it's not the doctor and his staff that I need to trust. Men are fallible, always. It's God I must place my trust in, knowing that He is the One sovereign over all that happens, including what happens in surgery tomorrow morning.

This is a hard lesson for me, one I've struggled with all my life as a Christian. Always I'm seeing fallible people and feeling fear -- what if this person lets me down, hurts me, fails me in some way? And of course, people have done so, again and again, just as I have done to others, because it's a fallen world and we the most fallen creatures in it.

But the only way to conquer the fear is to place my trust in God. Not trust that all will happen as I want it to, that my life will be perfect and wonderful and without pain if I trust in Him, but trust that He loves me and that whatever happens to me He will use for His glory -- if I allow Him to. Please Him this will be another step in that journey.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. (I John 4:18a)

On Roses and Reason

In "Roses, Late Summer," Mary Oliver asks

What happens
to the leaves after
they turn red and golden and fall
away?

and

Do you think there is any
personal heaven
for any of us?
Do you think anyone,

the other side of that darkness,
will call to us, meaning us?

Then she describes the way the foxes and the roses simply go on about their lives and concludes

If I had another life
I would want to spend it all on some
unstinting happiness.

I would be a fox, or a tree
full of waving branches.
I wouldn't mind being a rose
in a field full of roses.

Fear has not yet occured to them, nor ambition.
Reason they have not yet thought of.
Neither do they ask how long they must be roses, and then what.
Or any other foolish question.

Of course one thinks of Matthew and the lilies that neither spin nor toil. I can't imagine Oliver really wants to be mindless, not having the very human questions about the soul which she is always posing, but I understand her desire to learn to simply live, not constantly questioning and wondering, but knowing one's place and filling it with joy and abandon and without doubt and rebellion.

This poem reminds me of Tony Esolen's post at Mere Comments that I linked a few days ago, about needing to understand and accept our place in the world, the place God has given us. Of course, it's a fallen world and surely some of our angst comes from seeing that sin does affect who we are and what our circumstances are, causing us to doubt. But is God really sovereign or not? Does sin (generally speaking) keep Him from placing us where He wants us, or is it sin (my personal sin of hubris and discontentment) that keeps me from seeing this fundamental truth?

I, too, would like to be like the roses, not asking foolish questions.

Risks and Raising Children

Thinking on our own disobediences and observing the world around us can indeed cause some hesitation or fearfulness when we consider bringing children into the world.

Even if parents are as perfect as human parents can be, and a child is generally obedient and never strays very far, there will be tough times and hurt enough. For parents will make mistakes, will sin, will fail in all kinds of ways, no matter how hard they try to do the right thing, and children must be trained and discipled and redeemed and finally choose for themselves to walk in the path of righteousness, for they are born bent away from God. And in the process, they too will err and sin and fail. This is simple reality.

Yet, God – who knows it is a fallen world and each of us is born into it bent towards evil instead of good – says “children are a gift from the Lord.”

And in the face of His gifts, ought we to say “I am afraid” because the riches are accompanied by risks? What in this world is not? God took the greatest risk when He created man with a free will, to love Him or reject Him. Every day He sees the horrors of a fallen creation, and chooses every moment to keep loving us and yearning for us.

When we look at what God has endured for His creation, the death of and separation from the Son, the constant sin of His creatures against Him and each other, then surely we are driven to think “the reward must be worth the risk.”

And it is. The babe in arms, the toddler learning to weave his way across a room, the wide eyes of delight in the newness and beauty and richness of this created world, the tiny hand on a cheek and the sweet words, “I love you,” the laughter around the dinner table and the serious conversations about life and love and eternity, someday perhaps the grandchildren’s hugs and precious love . . . It is all worth the risk; it is all worth the inevitable pain.

Obedience and trust always carry reward. Will risks be realized? Often, of course. And yet, and yet . . . greater risks attend fearfulness and refusal, do they not? We can only grow as we trust the One who calls us to live for Him, and we can only trust if we place ourselves at His mercy and set our feet into the water of the river, to see it parted for us in His good timing.

Trusting in the Dark

Many years ago, a friend drove me home one night to change clothes between some more and less formal activities our group of buddies was enjoying. It was a several mile drive, and my friend one who had made some important decisions, and someone I could talk to honestly.

I told him my fears, the only person who had heard them. I described my place at that time as standing with darkness before me and nothing of value behind me. My friends mostly seemed to be going down the same old path, a path I had finally realized led nowhere (or perhaps worse). I didn't want to continue on that path. And yet . . . I could at least see something on it -- not least people I'd known and been at ease with for many years -- and in front of me: utter blackness, the kind in the caves in Missouri where Tom and Becky got lost, darkness you can actually see because you can't see through it to anything else.

And I was terrified that one more step would take me over a cliff into a bottomless canyon . . .

Well, with the help of loving words from my friend and others, I stepped into the darkness, and the path indeed took me over a cliff, and I died, and though I try to resuscitate myself pretty regularly, He helps me to stay dead as much as I'll let Him. It was worth it.

Years later, I made another significant change, and someone called me "courageous." I wasn't. That change was from one familiarity to another (how different can teaching be, wherever you do it?), and since the life was being choked out of me where I was, the change couldn't very well be for the worse even if it turned out not to be for the better. And today, a couple of similar changes later, it is certainly better.

But I find myself facing that darkness again. There is a change in the wind, a subtle internal voice pushing towards something new, but this time,
again, something I cannot see at all. The familiar calls to me, siren-like -- here is comfort, here is security, here are material needs met, here you know who you are and you are recognized and respected. It is not, however, like that path years and years ago which held no good; it is a good in itself, and that makes it all the harder.

But that other call . . . I've heard it before. It terrified me then, and following it was the best choice I've ever made. But still I'm terrified. I want to see if there's another cliff there. I want to see the path and where it will lead.

I wonder sometimes if I will ever truly trust. Trust is a scary thing. And because I'm always wanting life to go my way, answers to be those I want, I am often blinded to the blessings He holds out until I look back much later and realize . . . oh, that's what He was doing.

I have been reading Chambers again lately, and what keeps leaping out at me from the pages of his meditations is our need to know God. He is continually rebuking us for our propensity to work for God, to gain His approval by our good works. But what He wants, Chambers keeps reminding us, is for us to know Him and in that way become like Him.

Have no other motive than to know your Father in heaven, Chambers writes; God does not hear us because we are in earnest, but only on the ground of redemption.

Father, may I long to know You, and thus trust You, and banish the fear of not knowing where You are leading me -- because my Father will never lead me wrongly or to my ultimate hurt. May I learn to let You be my vision indeed, taking each step you open before me with a childlike trust in Your lovingkindness toward me.

Dancing

I have always loved the image of the dance for marriage. Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity has a section in the front called "Quodlibet" (it means "whatever"), snippets of ideas the editors have been mulling over. David Mills writes about marriage this time, and I love these two paragraphs:

"It's as if the couple have spent so long learning to dance that now they move so fast and so smoothly that you just see one thing (one flesh) moving. The husband has always led, and he's still leading, but he's better at it: He's leading his wife where she can and (mostly) wants to go, and she's following because she wants to.

"She trusts him and thinks that following him makes the dance better, and even when it doesn't (because he's not perfect), they keep dancing in a way that covers the mistake. If she hesitates or resists, he changes the dance, most of the time (because he's not perfect), because he knows she sees something he doesn't."

Devotion

For a few days, I stopped reading Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest). Now I am trying to catch up, and being rebuked and encouraged at too rapid a rate. I need to discipline myself to read every day; he helps me to understand the Word and the Lord in a way that I need just now.

The June 18th and 19th entries struck me this morning. On the 18th, Chambers describes Peter walking on the water, and beginning to sink when he looks at his surroundings instead of his Lord. He writes, “If you are recognizing your Lord, you have no business with where He engineers your circumstances. The actual things are, but immediately you look at them you are overwhelmed, you cannot recognize Jesus [. . .]. Let actual circumstances be what they may, keep recognizing Jesus, maintain complete reliance on Him.”

On the 19th, he writes, “Jesus did not say – Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian work; Jesus Christ calls service what we are to Him, not what we do for Him. Discipleship is based on devotion to Jesus Christ, not on adherence to a belief or a creed. [. . .] There is no argument and no compulsion, but simply – If you would be My disciple, you must be devoted to Me. A man touched by the Spirit of God suddenly says – ‘Now I see Who Jesus is,’ and that is the source of devotion.” (emphasis added)

This is a constant tension in the Christian walk, it seems. Clearly, we need to know what Jesus taught if we are to live it, so Chambers cannot be speaking against knowledge of the Word here. He teaches from the Word himself, after all. But there are those of us who put knowledge above devotion. We are so concerned to be “right” about every jot and tittle of our intellectual beliefs that we forget the One who inspired us to hold those beliefs in the first place. Chambers, I think, is reminding us to look to Him, be devoted to Him, and the rest will fall into place. When I read the Word with devotion to Him in mind, He will reveal to me what I need to understand. I may not be ready or able to understand some things that others do; that’s all right. I may have a different understanding of some things; that’s all right, too.

It will all sort out in the end, after all. Faith is a mystery. None of us has it all down pat; none of us knows all the truth about this mystery – else it would not be a mystery.

Some disagreements about knowledge are very important: when someone says that God does not abhor homosexuality or adultery or divorce, for example, it is important to know that such assertions are wrong and to speak out about clear Scriptural truth. But so many of our disagreements are so much less important, and much of what appears clear to me may not appear nearly so clear to others who love the Lord as much as and more than I do. In these disagreements, I must learn to be humble enough to realize that it is possible (however remotely!) that I am the one in the wrong, and even if I am fully convinced that I am right, to allow that those who disagree may love Him just as much.

(And about the vitally important issues, it is also important to distinguish between someone who is teaching clear untruth and needs rebuke and someone who is seeking truth and needs loving instruction to understand it. Love, based on our devotion to Jesus, makes these distinctions and responds appropriately.)

Chambers speaks against our living for causes instead of for Christ, as Lewis does in Screwtape Letters. It is so much easier to live for a cause. If I put all my energy into what Chambers calls “the cause of humanity,” I avoid the ambiguity of love. I avoid the potential for being hurt, the difficulty of accepting those who are different, the humility of serving fallen people without reference to some list of attributes and beliefs which define their acceptability.

May I learn genuine, deep devotion to the One who gave up all for me. He did not demand of me perfection nor have a checklist in hand, He simply gave me Himself. I would learn to do the same, to remember and live in the awe of that day He first revealed Himself to me, and I said, "Now I see Who Jesus is!"

“Trust Me”

I have been immersed in detective novels the past few days, my usual wind-down from the semester. Sayers, Marsh, and another British woman I’ve never read before – Elizabeth Ferrars. Not knowing the name, I only picked up one of her books, A Legal Fiction, which looked intriguing. When we return to McKay’s, I shall pick up more.

In A Legal Fiction, the protagonist is given plenty of reason to believe that the young woman (a childhood acquaintance) who got him into the mess they are in may well be part of it herself – assault, theft, fraud, and now murder. She has hardly acted forthrightly, much evidence is against her, and now someone gives him a perfectly reasonable explanation of her actions which fits quite well with her involvement. So . . . he immediately executes a number of actions which will seal his fate unless she is actually loyal to him.

Hardly rational? When he encounters her again, she tells him she has made a decision to trust someone whom they have both suspected of involvement in the crimes. When he asks why, she says, in effect, “At some point, you just have to decide to trust someone.” He replies, “I’ve come to the same conclusion.”

Of course, here it is a matter of heart ruling head because he is in love with her. (You didn’t expect otherwise, I hope!)

But sometimes we are required to let heart rule head, too. I love the image of Reason as a dwarf in Spenser’s Faerie Queene. There he is, toddling along behind Red Crosse and Una, doing his best to keep up (and yet important; if they leave him behind altogether they do get in trouble), but always subordinate to Faith.

Scripture tells us the mind must be renewed by the Word. But we do not always allow this renewal, and anyway God’s ways are not our ways. And so we fret and fume and try to figure things out and get hot and bothered when the journey, or even what appears to be the destination, seems all wrong.

And all the time He is saying, “Trust Me.” “Be still and listen.” “I will never leave you or forsake you.” “Trust Me.”

If I love Him, I must choose to trust Him. And sometimes, that love for Him will require me to let my heart – fully His – rule my head. May I learn to walk with Him so that trust becomes a way of life. And may I keep the dwarf in his proper place, important, but always subordinate to Faith.

Considering the Lilies

Chambers’ May 18 meditation reminds me of Hopkins’ “As kingfishers catch fire”:

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon – all these are, and what a ministration they exert.”

Chambers goes on to apply this to our frequent “self-conscious effort[s] to be consistent and useful” and reminds us that “[w]e cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentrating on our Father in heaven. [. . .] [I]f we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies.”

This is so simple and yet so hard to do! I am having the most difficulty in looking at that long to-do list and frantically trying to figure out when to do what and wondering how I will get it all done and looking at who and what are depending on my actions . . . and I keep forgetting that none of it, in the end, is actually dependent on me, but on Him. And so if I am frantically doing without listening to the One who desires to direct me, I may do far more damage than good in all my attempts at usefulness.

“The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mould us. If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.”

So true. One must hear the words to understand why such people live in faith, but too often the words, and the deeds, are not flowing out of love for Him but a misplaced need to earn His approval.

I want to learn to listen . . . and listening is my weakest point. I can only be grateful that He knows our frame, that He holds us and that our life in Him is itself dependent on His abounding and never-failing love and not on our perfection in responding to it.