Reform & Revive

I am often left thinking/wishing that I could go back in time, just a few months, just to December, and make a few little changes. Maybe I’d re-read the email I’d sent out to all of my friends in early November which declared Pittsburgh to be the center of the Universe and that everyone I knew should move there and that I’d never leave. Or maybe I’d take a hint that after a few different sublets fell thru in Richmond that maybe I shouldn’t just up and leave - at least not yet. But no, I was persistent. I was gonna fight for this one, no matter what the cost and January 7th was the cut-off date.

That hasty decision still haunts me. That hasty decision still brings tears.

If I’m being honest, if I could take it all back, I would. I never would have moved, despite all the riches that moving there provided. If not moving would have spared my this physical and psychological pain, I’d take it back without thinking. I lay here facing mounting medical bills and am generally in pain all of the time. It’s almost impossible not to think about. It’s most-of-the-time overwhelming and the first question that comes to mind is “why”?

Why did I have to meet So and So and move to Richmond?

Why didn’t I see a doctor sooner?

Why can’t life return to normal, you know, like it was in the fall, when everything finally smoothed out?

Everything was designed for my losing. Even my comfort.

A few weeks ago, two of my dearest friends in the world were visiting from Illinois. The morning before they left we had coffee at Prince Street and talked about the “problem” of pain. Why does pain, in many cases, point one to Christ and in others, drive some from him? Why am I given the grace to see the joy in this misery, when I’ve seen others choose against that joy and rail against God? A few nights later, in Pittsburgh, I met a girl named Charis (Greek meaning Grace) who’d recently come to the States to have hip replacement surgery. She is younger than me. Not only had she just had a hip replaced, but she’d previously had two organ transplants and just by looking at her it was obvious she was ill. I don’t know all of the details of her situation, but she is presumably in more difficult circumstances than I, but there she was, playing Dutch Blitz with the girls from her Bible study. Smiling.

Jesus moves on us to change us. He really will show us that everything was designed for our losing. My comfort’s been ripped out from under me and in nearly constant misery, I have to fight for joy. I have to lean on the grace of God to show that my joy is in Him and not in my comfort or any other temporal thing; this is hard and usually not evident from my exterior behavior. And, to be honest, I hate the reality of this. Why can’t it be different? But that’s the wrong question. If, as part of its mission, the church is to serve, and if I am part of the church, it is most certainly my job to serve, and if, in this pain, I develop perseverance and hope and joy, then down the road, it is my job to help someone else find those very things in the midst of pain and suffering as well.

The better, real question is: Why NOT me?

Now looking through the glass not dim, Coltrane all around;
he sets a tone of dissonance, rightly now it seems.
For as the beauty clothes me in, a tragedy is found:
woodchips below - a resting place - long for love supreme.

For there he lies with outstretched span, stricken by a car;
afflicted by our fallenness, and smitten by our thorns.
He struggles with the weight of pain, not getting very far.
To stop, release his spirit’s breath - give way to Death’s dark door.

I prayed a prayer, and thought some thoughts, and something in me burned.
Oh I see my Savior, the pains he took!  For me: protect,
for prone to wander, weak I am, to that which I once yearned.
Until you did in me and Him- my soul: You resurrect.

Now to show He heard my prayer and strengthen my weak frame,
up pops the bird, into the air.  My soul shall do the same.

For those who might have been wondering: yes, I am still alive.  I started the below article back in April, maybe even March… and then life happened. =)  But here I am.

I love that the necessity of humility was brought forth so early here at Reform and Revive.  If the gospel is to intersect with our lives and our culture, humility is a necessary ingredient in that process.  Why?  Because God’s ways are not our ways and to walk in His ways requires that we surrender our drive to live “reasonable” lives.  (Perhaps Paul B’s comments on our “subnatural” state will help us with this…)

The first step toward walking in God’s ways is acknowledging Him as the eternal Sovereign Lord, which requires more humility than most of us possess (as was pointed out by Whit via Tozer in a previous post).  It requires that we admit to being creatures—and subservient creatures at that.  As Michael Casey puts it in his book on humility, you will often notice those of our race having trouble forgiving ourselves for any slowness of mind or ineffectiveness of will—essentially, for being human.  We refuse to see ourselves as the created subjects we are; we forget that we are not gods. We need to accept the fact that we are humus; our origins are in the earth and not the heavens.

But when we do come to terms with our creaturehood, we find ourselves in a stance to accept God as He is.   A wholly Other, uncreated, divine, eternal being … And to recognize our position relative to Him.  Mainly, as our Creator, He is the best authority on how we are meant to live.

There are many aspects to the life God calls us to, but in this article I choose to highlight what our Lord described as “the one thing that is needed” in Luke 10:38-42.  In this passage, Jesus tells Martha that her sister, Mary, has chosen the one thing that is needed, the thing that will not be taken away from her.  What is that One Thing?  Mary “sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.”

So how do we choose the one thing that is needed?

As always, I think it is a matter of faith—believing that God is right when He tells us that the most important thing we can do in this life is to sit in His presence, to listen to His words, to gaze on Him, to know Him.  This is the one thing that will bring the freedom, acceptance, and significance we are all seeking.  This is the One Thing that will fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts and transform us into the image of our Savior and King.  I don’t know about you, but too often, I just have a hard time really believing this.  My faith is weak.  I think, surely I must need to be productive and successful in some things and have the love and approval of some men and have my own way in a few matters at least to experience all that I desire of life.  But no, we cannot believe it, beloved.  Only when the Perfect, Holy, True God is our heart’s pursuit and desire are we free.

Can you believe this?  Will you choose to believe?  If so, I’d like you to consider all the different ways your life could look when only this One Thing really matters—sitting at the feet of Jesus, meditating on His word, seeking His presence, beholding His beauty and wisdom, listening for His voice, obeying His loving direction.  If you choose to believe the words of your Lord, what would this mean for your life?  Where could you live?  What job would you need?  What people would you need around you?  What would demand your time?

When considering the possibilities, on the one hand, having only one need is incredibly freeing, but on the other, it wounds our pride and offends our reason.  But this is the price we pay, this is the cost we count when we choose to follow God’s ways and not our own, when we submit our lives to the lordship of Another.  But be assured, child of God, that He rewards those who diligently search for Him (Hebrews 11:6) and that He is greatly pleased and honored by your faith in His wisdom in spite of how strange it may sound to your creature ears.

I know that I have listened so long to the ways of the world that I have failed to recognize that things such as professional success or personal dreams or the respect of men are expendable in God’s Kingdom. These are the lessons I have been learning lately, and so I ask you what the Spirit has been asking me:

What reasonable things in your life are keeping you from knowing intimacy with God as the one thing that is needed?

And will you humble yourself enough to let Him show you?

It’s worth it, my friends.  How do I know?  In part because I have tasted the sweet fruits of forgoing what I thought was reasonable, right, and good for more of Him, but more so, I know simply because He says it is so.

Will you believe Him?

The Nature of God is the defining Nature against which all things are measured.  Let me unpack that a bit.  What God loves above all things is Himself.  His Glory, His Presence, His Work, and His Son are the things which bring Him the most delight, hence why those who are saved are being conformed to the image of His Son - they must be or wouldn’t be accepted by him.  So, at the end of time, everything and everyone will be compared to the Nature of God and He’ll keep that which stands up, and cast away what doesn’t.  Believers will be found in Christ (God-incarnate) so they will find themselves with Him forever.

So, it is that which does not exist in accordance to God’s Nature (the defining, upholding, creating, outside of creation thing it is) that is considered sin.  That’s why all sin is described by the Bible in “realtive” terms that all imply missing, falling short, or perverting a pre-existent standard.  Words like “perverse”, “de-praved”, “fallen”, and “sin” (an archery term meaning to miss the bulls-eye) all show this.

This means that what exists in line with His Nature is the truly natural.  This makes the present fallen reality of the world - all things not in line with His Nature - not what’s “natural” but indeed “subnatural,” making the things of God not “supernatural” but the truly “natural.”  Everything God does then to break into this world is a matter of justice, restoration, and redemption - a matter of purchasing from darkness to bring to where all was meant to live.

What does this have to do with life as we know and experience it?  Simply put, it means freedom.  The idea of “supernaturality” creates this sense in us of impossibility, and we proceed to live life out of that notion that God is so “unattainable” for our little wills to obtain.  But the truth is more wonderful and terrifying all at once.  It’s not that he’s so far above, but it’s the fact that we’ve sunk so low that causes this gap.  But though we are trapped in this valley, Christ still descended and did the work required to make us truly natural humans again.  This means that in Christ we are more ourselves than we ever were apart from him.  We don’t lose our humanity, we gain it.  So the fight of this life is to live as you were naturally meant to live.

We must fight the subnaturality of this world to attain that which is truly natural, and in that find the rhythm of life that resonates in the most ancient and basest part of our souls that hearkens to a time in a garden long ago, and in a city that is yet to come.

I haven’t written for various reasons, but I am compelled to post a paper I wrote for my Psychology and the Religious Experience class I finish tomorrow. I was asked to take a psychologist in history and juxtapose that to a “spiritual practice.” Viktor Frankl is the psychologist whose work I used. He was a Jew, but he spoke many Christian biblical truths that are merely muddled in psychology’s jargon. My heart was moved to write about sanctification. There are several reasons for this, one of them being this is the sermon series we are going through at Redemption Hill. We were given various examples of spiritual practices and its funny but, truly, applying the gospel to your life is a spiritual practice (although I’m almost positive most people don’t see it that way). Its CENTRAL.

I do not apologize for the length, bear with me. :]

(slightly edited:)

(pps: I think what gives my heart the most joy about this paper is that I was able to dedicate the first page to explaining the gospel)

To me personally, an implication of the gospel is that the history of humankind which God put into motion is redemptive. Humankind chose to reject God’s will for their lives, and because of this decision now live separated from God. God, who is both merciful and just, sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the cross.  It is through belief in Christ that we are made right with God, and nothing more. Redemption and the processes of right action should never be based in self-righteousness. This means that as Christians we should never aim to do right action to be seen as righteous in God’s eyes. Christ has forever put us in right standing with the Father, and to go back to a mode of righteousness based on our own merit is a shallow understanding of what it means for Christ to have died for our sins- once and for all. Redemption is not a static event. The gospel should permeate all aspects of a Christian’s life. This redemption should be seen in the life long process of transformation.

            Frankl’s use of the phenomenological method allows for a Christian understanding of a meaningful life with the existence of God and His intentions for our lives. Frankl goes on to say that “of central importance is no longer what originates and operates behind our back within the mind but what has an authority and integrity of its own beyond the mind” (Fuller 226). I would argue that this authority beyond the mind is God who has demanded much from our lives, but recognizes that we have failed.

            Frankl describes the three major concepts encompassing his theory as: freedom of the will, the will to meaning, and the meaningfulness of life. Freedom of the Will is the understanding that despite a person’s circumstances, they are ultimately in charge of their own right action. Frankl believes that conditions are not causes (227). Much like the concept of Freedom of the Will, the process of transformation involves a Christian’s understanding that you cannot blame your right or wrong action on your circumstances (or “heat”) you find yourself in. In the article “How Christ Changes Us by His Grace” by Timothy Lane and Paul Tripp, Jeremiah 17:5-10 acts as a model of revealing the process of transformation.¹  Heat is said to describe “a person’s current situation with all of its difficulties, temptations, and blessings” (Lane and Tripp 18). If we are made right with God through Christ what is the purpose of right action? In a letter to the Romans Paul wrote, “Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”² Similarly, Frankl writes about the Freedom of the Will saying “freedom is taken by some to mean freedom to do as they please…but freedom without responsibleness [is] arbitrariness” (Fuller 228). Freedom from the Christian perspective is seen as freedom from sin. Again, Paul wrote “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”³   If our “life task is grounded in intentional self-transcendence” as Frankl would argue, why do we continue to ensnare ourselves in sin? I would argue this is because of our limited understanding of the gospel.

            The Will to Meaning lies outward (228). According to Frankl, right action only takes place when we have come to actualize “value-potentialities” (228). Frankl goes on to say that human beings are motivated “to actualize as many positive values as circumstances allow” (229). These values are what give us meaning to life. Under this theory, a Christian’s need for sanctification would be to understand and actualize in as many areas of their life the importance of right action with regards to their faith in Christ. To a Christian, the values that give us meaning to life should be centered on those which Christ exhibited. I would argue that a great example of values Christians should strive to grasp is contained in the fruit of the Spirit.⁴

              Despite the actualization of some value-potentialities, Christians are faced with what is and what ought to be (229). Most Christians that can be seen throughout history, media outlets, and their own literature are poor examples of what Christ required/requires of them. Martin Luther, for example, in his main work On The Jews and Their Lies clearly did not grasp the value of gentleness, patience, or love. Instead of speaking the truth in love, Luther trusted in himself to be the savior of the Jews.⁵  It is obvious here that Luther lost sight of the reality of his need for humility, because even his own righteousness rests in something Christ had done for him- a thing he himself cannot take credit for. Luther is an unmistakable example of what is instead of what ought to be.

Frankl says that there is a “tension between human existence as a will to meaning and meaning fulfillment, between what is and what ought to be… the real and the ideal- human being” (229).  For a Christian, this tension should have us express dissatisfaction (Lane and Tripp 16). The equivalent of what Frankl deems “what is and what ought to be” is, for the Christian, explained as joyful discontentment (20). This discontentment should be in the areas we have yet to grasp the value-potentialities of. Our joyfulness should come because of “the many things in our lives that would not be there without His grace” (Tripp, 20). At the same time “the life of self-examination and joyful discontent should not be confused with a life of paralyzing self-condemnation” (20). Frankl gives a very biblical perspective to failure and guilt by saying that “it is the recognition of the fact that we have missed the mark and gone astray that makes us want to do better” (Fuller 232). How fitting that sin literally means “missing the mark.” Instead of self-condemnation the Christian should find a balance between recognizing where they’ve sinned and proceed to repent, always relying on the grace of Christ to transform them. Despite our new found lives in Christ, “we always have the freedom to accept or refuse the value we are invited to actualize in a given situation” (229). We always have the ability to choose to sin instead of choosing right action.

Frankl’s phenomenological view allows for the perspective that our actions ultimately lie beyond ourselves. Frankl argues exactly what Christians would argue, that “we are not responsible to ourselves alone…responsibleness instead depends on a being higher than ourselves for the validity of the demands made upon our lives” (241).  So, with this in mind, it would be accurate to say that the demands made upon a Christian’s life depends directly on a being higher than itself (i.e.: God). Additionally, the demands made for our lives lie in the commands within the Old and New Testament. In order to seek validity within our faith we must be responsible to God and the life He’s given us. The religion of Christianity should not just be a set of rules and regulations we must follow to enter eternal paradise (obviously there are various wrongful motivations in this statement). Instead, a Christian’s conversion is described as entering into a marriage with Christ. This marriage describes just how intimate and personal God becomes with us, it describes commitment and longstanding devotion. Frankl’s view that our responsibleness is not a means to an end but a means to a “superpersonal agent” should ultimately be a call for all Christians to strive for sanctification through the grace of Christ.

            Overall, Frankl would argue that the belief in Jesus is a way to bring meaning to a person’s life.  For Christians this meaning to life is surrounded by Christ’s crucifixion on the cross. Frankl sees that in all humanity there is this understanding of what is and what ought to be. That people understand where they fail, and the way in which they wish to be. With this concept, it would be easy to understand why within Christianity there is a struggle between what is and what ought to be. If Christians are considered new creations, why are they constantly missing the various meanings of fulfillment? This is the process of sanctification, and it involves much of what Frankl describes as, “a call, first to listen, and then to respond” (228). What Frankl considers self-actualization, I consider sanctification. Frankl believes that “self actualization is thus seen as the by-product of a certain style of acting, the unintended concomitant of a life dedicated to meaning fulfillment” (228). If this “meaning fulfillment” is a person’s dedication to Christ, then we say that sanctification is the process by which right action occurs because of a life dedicated to Jesus. Again, we can change the term self actualize to sanctified when Frankl wrote, “one becomes self-actualized [sanctified]…not by seeking to actualize [sanctify] oneself, but by forgetting about oneself and directing oneself outward toward value [Jesus]. For Christian this ultimate value should be Jesus Christ.

¹ Jeremiah 17:5-10:        This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.    He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.    “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.    He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”    The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?     ”I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”

² Corinthians 5:17: “therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

³ Galatians 5:1: ^“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

⁴ Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control.”

⁵ Ephesians 4:15: “Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.”

Works Cited Fuller, Andrew R. Psychology and Religion. 4th ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publisher, 2008. 225-247.  Lane, Timothy S., and Paul D. Tripp. “How Christ Changes Us by His Grace.” The Journal of Biblical Counciling (2005): 15-21.