Virtue and Failure

Devotional Classics, Gregory of Nyssa, Excerpts from The Life of Moses

"This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because like slaves we servilely fear punishment, not to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some business-like arrangement. On the contrary, disregarding all those things for which we hope and which have been reserved by promise, we regard falling from God's friendship as the only thing dreadful and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This, as I have said, is the perfection of life." (p.157)

When my kids do something they shouldn't, what seems the worst is being caught. They feel truly bad and want to make amends as quickly as possible. They can't stand the disapproval. Punishment can almost seem welcome to them so they can "make up" for what they did. I guess there are some things people don't grow out of too easily.

Now, what about the things I am not caught doing. Without the obvious presence of another person to emphasize my disobedience or lack of control, I feel much less anxiety and sorrow. At this point I am tested. How much do I sense God's presence? Knowing that he know and sees what I have done may cause some level of conviction.

There is something to living in God's presence as living under the scrutiny of love which "does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth." (1 Cor. 13:6) God has no love for the evil things I do. This is bound to affect me the more I am aware of it.

And yet, it doesn't entirely. My mind says, "Well, God sees everything; there won't be any shocking him" or "He knows that there are worse people than me around." It is not merely his scrutiny nor his love that keep me from stopping my trek of virtue to indulge in evil side paths. Something more is required.

Something more than God's love? What could their be? Obviously God's love is foundational and necessary, but he has granted me my own measure of love to give or withhold from him. Friendship is not merely God loving me, but me loving God as well. My own part is infinitely smaller than God's, but still necessary.

So when I sin and fall, I still feel like a creep. God's kept up his side of the friendship, but I have been unfaithful. Granted. But God doesn't want us to feel bad about ourselves so much as feeling bad about distancing ourselves from him. As long as my reason for virtue focuses on what will happen to me when I do right or wrong, it will remain outside my heart and in the realm of behavior alone. My reason for virtue must come from a concern about what will happen to God if I am unfaithful.

Really, God hurts about my sin and unfaithfulness far more than I ever will. He will not become unfaithful or give up on me or lose control, but knows that I am in danger of breaking faith with him. My will and faithfulness can only bend so far. But even if I am not in danger of "breaking" entirely, our relationship is cut shorter and my experience of his loving community in Trinity is noticeably dulled. His love for me is so deep, each moment I spend away pains him.

Lord, I hate when I sin against you. I find I hate my failure more than I hate the hurt and the separation I cause between myself and you and other people as well. Forgive me for my pride about being right and virtuous. Help me rather to obtain the true perfection of friendship with you that I will not part with for anything because of the sheer joy and peace of being with you. I do not want to be right as much as I want to love you more. Amen.

This really makes me aware of my recovery time. After exerting in exercise, recovering correctly can mean the difference between feeling energized by my exercise or getting cramps and injuries. Similarly, recovery time from sinning against God is what happens after I confess. It can be spent in anger at myself and God and others which can leave me far worse off than the sin itself. I long to let go of my pride and worry about being righteous and "perfect," and seek to think on God's pain and his hurt as well as those I have wronged and eagerly try to remedy what I can. The hardest thing is facing the pain I have caused by sinning, but it is the only thing that will heal the relationship well and bring true virtue.

Pursuing Virtue

Devotional Classics, Gregory of Nyssa, Excerpts from The Life of Moses

"We should show great diligence not to fall away from the perfection which is attainable but to acquire as much as possible: to that extent let us make progress within the realm of what we seek. For the perfection of human nature consists perhaps in its very growth in goodness." (p.156)

"[Gregory] and other Church fathers used the Bible and its characters to teach us how to grow closer to God, how to "elevate" the soul to God." (p.154)

Stand at the crossroads and look;

ask for the ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

and you will find rest for your souls.

(Jeremiah 6:16)

Virtue seems a funny thing to rest in. I think of resting in bed, resting in the Bahamas, resting near a mountain stream, but not resting in virtue. The more immediate image of rest with virtue is thinking of sleeping on a bed of nails.

This fear and revulsion to virtue is foreign to Gregory. He sees virtue as the means to draw near to God. Although perfection has no limit in his eyes and is therefore unattainable, he understands the never-ceasing pursuit of it as the essence of human perfection. Certainly, pursuit can be merely the act of pursuing, but another meaning captures the kind of pursuit that he is talking about, I think: any occupation, pastime, or the like, in which a person is engaged regularly or customarily, like "literary pursuits."

The connotation has the feel of a hobby, like something pleasant. For the sake of certain hobbies, I have engaged in rigorous research, spent late nights in experimentation, and expended funds to perfect the outcomes. The whole process is one of joy and anticipation. Such "pursuits" reflect the sort of heart that can rest in virtue. When virtue is something I "love," the pursuit can become "rest for the soul."

Of course, the pursuit of virtue as a hobby breaks down, since hobbies are by definition non-essential. Virtue and the rest of the soul are matters of life and death. Grace enables me to take such matters lightly not because of their importance or because nothing is required of me, but because "he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Php. 1:6) Perfection lies in the seeking because of the power that God displays in everyone who seeks him and his ways (Mt. 6:33). In this way I can truly find rest for my soul: in the grace of God that empowers and inspires me.

Lord, let my pursuits be ones that take me to your side rather than away from you. You are the fountain of life. May your streams run through me in everything I do. And may I run - not walk - into obedience and virtue because they are your ways and bring me to your side for loving fellowship and for good work. Amen.

Rest in work happens when I learn submission. Virtue is the answer when I ask where the good way is. Walking in it takes trust and submission to the One who would guide me. When I work merely for myself, worry takes over. The heart of this rest is submission and trusting in the Father even as Jesus did, so that all my ways are ways of peace. "

Virtue and Perfectionism

Devotional Classics, Gregory of Nyssa, Excerpts from The Life of Moses

"Although on the whole my argument has shown that [perfection] is unattainable, one should not disregard the commandment of the Lord which says, Therefore be perfect, just as your heavenly father is perfect. For in the case of those things which are good by nature, even if men of understanding were not able to attain everything, by attaining even a part they could yet gain a great deal." (p.156)

The unattainable aspect of this command is for the Pharisees and teachers of the law. As Jesus explained the righteousness of the kingdom, they no doubt sneered at his ideas being presented to the disciples and the crowds. Not only were his ideas impossible, but laughable because the riff-raff that Jesus offered them to. They may have even seen his commands as blasphemous, asking people to try to imitate the Almighty God. Jesus would expect this from people who approach righteousness like the Pharisees did. They cannot see it any other way.

But there is another way to understand this command, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Jesus contrasted this command with a comment he gave before the examples of heavenly righteousness: "I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." This got me thinking, what is the righteousness of these experts and leading thinkers of the day? Basically, it boils down to something Jesus says later about them: "Everything they do is done for men to see." (Mt. 23:5)

The contrast, then, is this: my perfection is to be like God's in quality, not quantity. The perfection of God comes from his nature - who he is and how he is. The righteousness of the Pharisees came (comes) from external pressures and the basic desire to look good rather than be good. The whole point of the examples Jesus gives before this command in Matthew 5 is that I cannot do right by simply not doing wrong; I must become right to do what is right. Similarly, in Matthew 6 after this command for perfection, Jesus says I cannot do what is right by simply doing what is right, I must become right in order to do what is right. The perfection of the Father that Jesus points me to is one that comes from the inside out rather than the outside in.

I do not think that Jesus was saying that the quantity of perfection was unimportant. Not being able to attain it can drive me to despair and ridicule or to grace. Granted. But I see more than that. He is also pointing me to the only road to surpassing the outward forms of rule and law that never made anyone righteous. He points me to the idea that in order to practice virtue in any real sense, I must set my mind, heart, and body on becoming the sort of person who practices virtue. The adjective virtuous then means not someone who follows a bunch of rules religiously, but someone whom the rules follow and in whom they flow because of their life and character. Jesus seems to say, "Don't follow the rules, let them follow you!"

Striving to be perfect only leads to "perfectionism" when imposed from the outside as rules and law. When striving to be perfect is a matter of living with God daily and longing for and seeking out his goodness, his virtue, his righteousness (Mt. 6:33), then the outside of my life gets cleaned as well (23:26). Perfectionism has to keep score in order to continue on. Becoming perfect in virtue can (and does) enjoy doing what is right because it comes from God and can leave the results to him as well even while enjoying just "a part." Perfectionism has to compare with others (Mt. 7:1-6) and therefore must do things mainly for everyone to see. Becoming perfect in virtue is content and even more pleased to keep such practices and joys private, as a special offering to God. Perfectionism yields impatience, unkindness, envy, unhappiness, and conflict within the person and outside him toward others. Becoming perfect in virtue brings patience, kindness, encouragement, joy, and peace toward my own life and toward others' as well.

Lord, I have been in the grip of perfectionism too often. I have seen you as a task master hanging over me waiting for me to get something wrong so you can condemn me. Father, I did not know what I was thinking! You are so kind and your ways are so often misunderstood because of my own harshness and how it makes me see everyone else as harsh, too. Let me rather walk this road of perfection knowing that virtue comes from a heart and a life that is bent on loving you as surely as smoke comes from a fire. Let my intention be true: becoming good, right, and virtuous rather than merely seeking to look good, right, and virtuous. May your grace impel me as I turn to walk this path. Amen.

Like Jesus, I want to revel in the goodness of his Father. Jesus was unspotted because of his continual joy in the goodness of the Father, his continual efforts to do what the Father was doing. Certainly he is the only mediator between the Father and all people. Yet his mediation is not merely going back and forth between the Father and me, but also introducing me to the Father and showing me how to live in His presence with himself, the Son, and the Spirit. Such is the joy of virtue: relying on Jesus to do what I cannot do and finding more and more that I can do the things that Jesus does as I stand and walk with him toward the Father and in the Spirit. This is the rightness I long for: being right in the middle of the loving Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May virtue place me on their doorstep.

Sick with Virtue

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from The Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther

"It is the inner person who receives God's law, his word, and all his teachings. These show him how to become united with God. Where this happens, the outer person is structured and tutored by the inner person and learns that no outward law or teaching is needed, for human laws and commands belong to the outer person. They are needed when one knows nothing better." (p. 148)

One of the concerns when monitoring sicknesses in the public is the avenue of entry. How virulent a disease is in the public depends a lot on how it can infect a person. If the disease is not "contagious," the avenue of entry is improbable or even impossible. The more easily the disease is transferred from one person to another, the more "contagious" the disease is. This is what makes the flu more dangerous than gangrene in a public sense.

God's word is not communicable through outward laws and rules. They may be observed symptoms of an inner reality, but his communication with people does not occur merely through outward actions and observations. This is why public laws will never make people better nor will mere religion. Although there is outward conformity in both spheres that may make life better and easier for all, this is not, strictly speaking, receiving and following God's law and his words. Hopefully, they pave the way for God to speak with people in their hearts.

Outward conformity and outward motivational schemes abound because they produce outward results of apparent "goodness" and often outward rewards of money, respect, and satisfaction. This is not all bad, but fails to treat the real problem and develop real growth because it leaves the inside untouched. A person compelled to follow laws or develop virtue has not really become virtuous, but is merely "cashing in" on the outward benefits of his actions.

So, to begin with, how do I know if I've caught the "disease" of virtue, of following God's laws and words? What would be the symptoms of this disease? Jesus says that it can be tracked through the character of the person - his fruit (Mt.7:15-20). What kind of person am I? Am I getting "sicker" with love, defined as having joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.(Gal. 6)? Are his commands, in themselves, a delight to me (Ps. 1:2)? Such symptoms truly indicate that I have "caught it" in the roots of my life.

This avenue of entry intrigues me. Certainly it is why Jesus told the Pharisees to clean the inside of the dish and the outside will be clean also (Mt. 23). So what does this mean for virtue in my life? I think that it means that as I learn to love God's commands, the virtue he has and expects, the "symptoms" of that love will be virtuous acts in my life, just like when I am infected with a cold virus, I will display cold-like symptoms. As long a virtue remains a bitter pill to swallow, it will not take root or really "infect" me, but become distasteful to me.

I have noticed my body expresses delight or distaste of God's laws and words. Doing things with "gritted teeth" is more than just a saying, it is an actual bodily response to doing distasteful activities. My body can only be truly retrained from the inside out, otherwise I fall into hypocrisy. Only through my embracing God's grace and goodness will virtue become a delight. I need the room to fail and learn and I need the understanding that virtue is what is truly good - that I'm not missing out on anything by being virtuous.

Lord, I see that I cannot do this alone, but need your help at all points, even choosing to start. I have been resistant in each step, but I find that you are gentle and will not merely impose virtue on me, but will continually invite me into your ways. Help me to see through the fog of misunderstanding I have that calls your laws and virtue "stifling" or "unnecessary." Strengthen me with your grace. Amen.

I cannot choose to get "sick" with virtue, but I can expose myself to it repeatedly and intentionally, hoping to "catch" it. The Bible is, of course, filled with the virus. However, I find that I have developed some immunity to seeking virtue by repeated exposure to biblical teachings and readings that are empty of the real "sickness" of virtue, by replacing it with merely "trying" to be good, or by hoping that it will merely by placed on me through some experience. Therefore, I find it helpful to supplement biblical teaching with the teaching of others who have really gotten "sick with virtue" and can read the Bible with fresh eyes and hear God with new ears. Of course, being around people who have caught the bug is the most effective, and eagerly I look for them.

Virtue and Understanding

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from The Theologia Germaica of Martin Luther

"It may be commendable to ask, hear about, and gather information concerning good and holy persons, or how they have lived and how God has worked and willed in and through them. But it is a hundredfold better that people deeply within themselves learn and understand the what and the how of life. They need to learn what God is working and doing in them and how God wishes to use them and not use them." (p. 150)

"Nothing succeeds like success" the saying goes. So I find myself looking around myself, surfing the internet, or reading the latest personal or even church growth books, looking for success in virtue and getting things right. Somehow I think that the last bit of info didn't take because I didn't get just the "right" answer. I have read many a devotion book like a recipe or instruction manual, hoping that if I just get the proper procedure, I will break into that new and wonderful life and escape my old dead habits.

The temptation to accumulate knowledge is strong nowadays, since so much information is available and easily accessed. Really, that is only what it is: "gathering information." Somehow intelligence and success have been tied to this practice of gathering information. The other night I asked my family, "What does a really smart person look like?" I must admit that being full of information and facts came quickly to my mind.

I think James would agree with the writer of the Theologia in his assessment of this gathering of information. "Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such 'wisdom' does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, and of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice." (3:13-16) Gathering information generally does not go deep enough or inside enough to be useful.

Virtue cannot be learned or achieved in this way. The hard, fast throw of gathering information skips across the water of my mind, leaving little waves that quickly disappear. The writer suggests three things to submerge virtue and the right way to live into my life.

First, I need to learn and understand deeply. This sort of learning comes from reading and rereading material. I find that this precludes either skimming or merely quoting a mere phrase. Skimming and retaining quotes can remind me of things I have learned, but cannot replace learning and understanding. So I find that merely reading the Bible without studying it or memorizing verses without pondering or memorizing the surrounding context yields little understanding. However a person finds it, this deep understanding takes time and effort to work it from the surface of the mind into the "inner parts" of the mind, where it can influence a person's heart. The slowness of this kind of learning frustrates me when I am in a hurry and impatient for change, but without it, knowledge can never go deep enough to effect virtue at all. With spiritual knowledge, which is necessary for virtue, prayer must accompany my efforts because, as James says, such wisdom "comes down from heaven" and is not attainable merely through my own thinking.

Second, the content of my learning must embrace "the what and the how of life." I think of the "what" of life as the everyday, moment-by-moment occurrences I experience and effect. Whatever good things I may think about must be true to real life as it happens. I have children, a wife, a job, and I live in the presence and creation of God. Many seemingly "great" thoughts leave out or run over the "what" in life, making them impracticable. Virtue must be framed by real life to be real virtue. Now I find that virtue always involves real changes in my life, but they are changes that have more to do with my habits and expectations than with my circumstances.

The "how" of life is that most things do not happen just because I want them to. Prayer leads to action and action back to prayer in my experience. Virtue must be approached with much thought, but it must not stay there. It must be practiced. But one the realities of virtue is that it generally cannot be practiced directly without falling into hypocrisy or despair. I cannot merely practice being humble, or stopping anger. These sorts of things have to be approached indirectly. Studying them helps me a lot. I follow it by studying myself in God's presence, observing what leads me into virtue or away from him and his virtues (called the Examen of Conscience and Consciousness).

This leads into the last suggestion. He says I need to learn "what God is working and doing" in me. When I understand that virtue can only come to me through everyday life, I must learn to see it coming through my everyday life. When I learn that virtue comes only with practice and discipline, I must seek and find disciplines and practices that will address my specific problems and strengths. This requires walking with God. He addresses me as I pray and study as well as when I reflect on my day in the evenings and helps me to find certain holy habits that will indirectly deal with my barriers to virtue.

Lord, it is so nice to see continuity in so many writers who address developing a virtuous life. I like writing about it. Would that I was better at doing it. So many things come through "fits and starts," but you are faithful in driving them deeper into my heart by your grace. Let me not work too hard, forgetting your love and kindness. Let me not be lazy, forgetting your desire for Christ to live in me. May I live up to my words and up to your hopes, Father. Amen.

This reminds me about how I need to practice my personal reflection (Examen) more faithfully. This is one of the great things about reading writers like this and pondering them is that I can more easily see when I have left something important behind. In our family, we sing a song, "You've got to look behind you, before you move on to the next thing" so that we don't forget our things when we go somewhere else. Perhaps I'll being using that for my prayer in the evenings, so I don't leave anything important behind.

Virtue and Keeping Score

Devotional Classics, Theologia Germanica, Excerpts from Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther

"We have those who have been illumined by God and guided by the true Light. They do not practice the ordered life in expectation of reward. . . . They do what they do in the ordered life out of love. They are not so concerned about the outcome, about how a particular behavior will turn out, how soon, and so on. Their concern is rather that things will work out well, in peace and inner ease." (p.148)

I love the description of virtue as an "ordered life." What is virtue except the practice of doing things rightly, that is, at the right time, in the right spirit, and in the right order? Conversely, what is sin other than doing things wrongly in time, spirit, and order?

How can I hope to have an orderly life of virtue without light? Trying to order anything in the darkness is at least challenging, and often impossible. It's like drawing with my eyes closed. Only an approximation may come about, but more likely, a bunch of squiggles and lines that make no sense. Such is virtue without the Light of God shining in the person doing it.

And yet, even with the Light, my virtue looks a lot like the squiggles of a two-year old. My hand is not practiced and my eyes do not know what they see. This area is probably one of my worst. Virtue and holiness do not have much natural appeal to me. They speak of rigidness, discomfort, and the danger of self righteousness. But this writer speaks of love.

Such love begins with God who loves me, of course, but continues on to become a responding love in me. As my awareness and experience of God's love for me grows, so does my love for him. In loving God, I find a love for his words and his deeds. This love of God's righteous deeds is where virtue comes from. Just as many believers can "love God's words," I can also learn to "love God's virtue, his good deeds."

Such love of virtue becomes most apparent when the outcome of virtue is not so important. Loving to do what is right because it is right, because it is from God is the heart of virtue. This idea of letting go of the outcome, whether reward or improvement, is powerful to me.

I have practiced many (most, all?) virtues because I am eager for the outcome. It was to improve, impress, receive blessing. Measuring outcome is what all human achievement is based upon. In the sense that such outcome can guide me deeper into virtue through perfecting my action and enlivening my love for God, it is not a bad thing. But it quickly distracts me from the worship of God, who orders and sustains everything, and whose commandments create and sustain all life as well. Such love and worship is the wellspring of true virtue.

So I love the idea of virtue as an orderly life that God has created, orders, and sustains by means of the creation itself and his commands. Virtue becomes an art of living well in this life, like knowing and practicing dance steps for a dance. When the steps are hard, I know I am facing places where my desires have misguided my bodily actions, and where practice and strengthening are needed.

Lord of heaven, let me love your presence. Let me also love your virtue, your righteousness. Let the order and beauty of such a life infuse my mind with wonder and pleasure, my heart with plans and determination, and my soul with longing and hunger. Help me let go of results in favor of pleasing you and enjoying virtue for itself. Amen.

Doing right and well could really become a joy if I can "simply enjoy the doing of the task without looking at the 'scoreboard.'" (p.152) The only score I want to keep is the increase of peace in my life coming from the knowledge and love of a God of virtue.

Prayer and Ignorance

Devtional Classics, Jean-Nichlas Grou, Excerpts from How to Pray

"Every Christian ought to say to the Savior as humbly as [the disciples]: 'Lord, teach us to pray.' Ah! if we were only convinced of our ignorance and of our need of a Teacher like Jesus Christ!" (p.138)

What else is there except this as my beginning and my constant reminder? I must first be convinced of my own ignorance in prayer. The best of whatever "methods" there may be underscore this fact and hammer it into my soul. I need the Teacher to instruct me or I will find I am not praying at all, but speaking empty words like people who are speak only to themselves or some idol.

How can I develop this sense, this attitude of complete dependency on the Lord as I pray? I like the phrase "convinced of our ignorance." It means that when I come to pray, there is not a question of whether something I do will reach God or make me better. I am groping in the dark, whether I feel self-composed or frantic. Like entering a dark room without a light, my prayers must enter enter the darkness of my incapacity to reach God, or I have not entered the right room. It reminds me of Ex. 20:21: "The people stayed at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was."

Prayer is not about making things happen, but about meeting God. The first rule is meeting him in the darkness. Prayer is stretching out my hand and knowing that God will take it. I must accept the darkness, my ignorance, and not be afraid to grope around a bit. Prayer that is too habitual or predictable is one that remains at a distance from God. To approach God, I must enter the darkness of my own emptiness, limitation, and ignorance.

Yet, there is great comfort in this. Darkness is not comforting, but knowing that God will take my hand is. Knowing the Lord will be found in this darkness makes the darkness desirable and even pleasing. I begin to enter the place of prayer with expectation that he will meet me. I do not have to have all my prayers "right" or all my feelings in order; I find that God is close in my ignorance.

Lord, I do not want to stand far off from you because I am afraid of what you might do or what you might not do. Distance reveals my anger and fear. Call me to draw near to you in the darkness of my ignorance so I may find the light of your face. You are in the darkness, but you are not darkness, but light! I am blind every time I come, but you make me see all the time. Remind me today. Amen.

The alternative is all to familiar: heaped-up empty phrases. Me talking with no one answering. Routine and ruts. Confusion and emptiness. This is why my prayer must have some time and preparation. I need to remember what I hope for and not fear what I may have to go through. It's always worth it. I want to retain the wonder and dependency of one who is ignorant each time I pray. Let the groping be my reminder rather than a frustration.