Reform & Revive

Portable Bible-study with Mark Driscoll in the back seat of a VW Jetta:

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.