Thoughts on Sabbath: Contentment

One of the greatest achievements in life is being content to be God's. This is the unburdened story everyone longs for. It cannot be grabbed or bought, but simply hoped and trusted.

Bringing Together Theology and Spiritual Formation

A goal of [the early Church’s method for interpretation of the Bible]—and one can debate about how successful these efforts were—was to read a passage of Scripture not merely in isolation, but against the backdrop of the entire biblical drama, from Genesis to Revelation. . . . Furthermore, there was a strong belief that not only did the entire story of Scripture hang together, but each part also had abiding relevance for the contemporary Church, bringing edification, challenge, and direction. . . .Christian practices were always seen as growing out of these readings, since the biblical horizon, rather than their own, was meant to shape their lives and expectations. (Chan, A Spiritual Theology)

These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Cor. 10:11-12)

The connection between theology and formation is tied to how we read the Bible. The ancient method of having several readings of the same passage shows historically the Christian approach to the Bible needs to be holistic as well as focused, and livable as well as understandable. The de-emphasis and even loss of the holistic and livable way of interpreting the Bible has, in turn, threatened to make Christian spiritual formation focused to the point of being compartmentalized and easily understood without being part of normal human life.
In an effort to keep the Bible out of the hands of critics and scientists, Christians adopt the idea that human life is divided into pieces. The “spiritual life” is higher and greater and beyond normal mortal existence. While there may be some truth to this, what has happened is that the “spiritual life” is now somehow unrelated to normal life. We have “protected” the spiritual life, but made it less accessible and even irrelevant to normal human existence. Our faith is no longer intimately tied to our theology and our knowledge, but is just something we sincerely believe and treasure. We have held it above the rabble and noise and danger of politics, biblical criticism, and scientific analysis, but have succeeded in taking it away from the people and the areas that need to wrestle and question it to gain greater understanding. Spiritual formation has to fight from being held above and beyond the normal human life of politics, scientism, and biblical criticism by entering into theological discussion that will inform people living normal human lives among these entities.
  Since theology and spiritual formation are inescapably linked, theology must be brought into normal human existence and not held above and beyond it. One way to bring theology “down” is to read the Bible holistically. We must embrace the “storied” nature of the Bible, looking for narrative and its key feature as we seek to read it. In the midst of the story, we must learn how to drink deeply in elements of story like poetry, metaphor, plot, characterization, protagonists/antagonists, and context. These are more than a packaging to a “spiritual” truth. We must realize that within the telling of the story there is as much truth as in the principles that support and drive the story. In the gospels, for instance, it is not only the content and accomplishments of Jesus’s ministry that need our attention, but the manner and way that he went about ministering to people.

     Another way to bring theology into human life is to read the Bible as if the people in it were people like you or me. They must not be isolated by the historical understanding or their context, but must be translated by that historical understanding. Moses, Paul, Mary, and even Jesus to some degree must become the kind of people that we can relate to and grow into. What they thought and felt must become possible for us to think and feel. What they did must become something we can do. How they related to each other must become how we can relate. This involves careful analysis and increased understanding of their life and times, but also involves a great deal of imagination and pondering to really see them as people like us and not just mythical characters locked up in a book. Lectio divina and Ignatian meditation on the Bible can be effective methods to open up the imagination and make the Bible livable as well as understandable. We learn to really see the people we read about and really think and feel what they thought and felt through a Spirit-guided openness to the text that brings together analysis of the text and synthesis into normal human life.

From Sabbath to Hope

In such places [as the woodlands], on the best of these sabbath days, I experience a lovely freedom from expectations - other people's and also my own. I go free from the tasks and intentions of my workdays, and so my mind becomes hospitable to unintended thoughts: to what I am very willing to call inspiration. The poems come incidentally or they do not come at all. If the Muse leaves me alone, I leave her alone. To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry (Wendell Berry, This Day, Introduction).

 A good relationship has unfilled, unplanned time, when expectations are allowed to rest. In a good relationship with our Sabbath-giver, expectation draws us forward into life. When it is life-giving, it is hope. When it is death-dealing, it is dread. Some time must be spent out of the sun and rain of different expectations in this shelter-rest of sabbath.

Only in this do we find freedom. We find we are not tethered to our expectations, but we can ride them for a while, letting them bear us into new and better places. Expectation can only become hope when we can rest. Otherwise we find that we are pushed instead of invited, tied down instead of free. Dread is the result.

In the midst of rest, we find we have unintended thoughts. We will find out whether we have been tending to our thoughts or letting them grow into distorted and grotesque weeds of the mind. Rest allows us time to tend our thoughts and dig up the weeds that are intruders in the ecology of our life with God. Then rest can become a garden of delight, where the unintended thoughts are beautiful and surprising, helpful and holy. What grows in the mind rested on God is hope, the wordless silence allowing the relationship we have with God to speak and create anew.

Great Grace and Little Gifts

From a reading of the chapter on John Bunyan, "Exercising the Gift," in Devotional Classics, I thought I might put a couple of quotations and thoughts. First, I just wanted to put a Dallas definitions:

• Manifestations of Divine Power: you will see accomplished by your words and actions what cannot possibly be explained by your efforts and talents.

Also here are some ways which Bunyan discovered and learned his spiritual gift:

• He found out how he had been helpful to others. "Some of the saints had good judgment and holiness of life seemed to feel that God had counted me worthy to understand the blessed Word and that he had given me some measure of ability to express helpfully to others what I saw in it. So they asked me to speak a word of exhortation to them in one of the meetings."
• He tested his gift, exercising it to see if others received spiritual benefit. "I began to see that the Holy Spirit never intended that people who had gifts and abilities should bury them in the earth, he commanded and stirred up such people to exercise of their gift and sent out to work those who were able and ready."
• He was aware of how the Tempter would discourage him.  "In this work, I had different temptations. Sometimes I would suffer from discouragement, fearing that I would not be of anv help to anyone and that I would not even be able to speak to the people. At such times I have had a strange faintness seize me. At other times I have been assaulted by thoughts of blasphemy before the congregation."
• He noticed and rejoiced in his gift. "When I saw that they were beginning to live differently, and that their hearts were eagerly pressing after the knowledge of Christ and rejoicing that God sent me to them, then I began to conclude that God had blessed his work through me. And so I rejoiced. Yes, the tears of those whom God had awakened by my preaching were my solace and my encouragement."

Remember to pray for other peoples's gifts and try to encourage each other by noticing their gifts at work. "Gifts are desirable, but great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace. . . . Blessed is everyone to whom the Lord gives true grace, for that is a certain forerunner of glory."

Be Present to God

All we need to know is how to recognize his will in the present moment. . . .  The divine will is the wholeness, the good and the true in all things.  -Jean-Pierre de Caussade

"Mindfulness" or "being present" has no value in itself.  What matters is what I am mindful of or what I am present to.  The object of my mind's occupation will shape my mind - its content and it contentment.

Being present to God includes a number of aspects.

• It is letting go.  It is surrender.  I find that when I am before God, I am am freed of  my resistance to him and his will.  Resistance to God is distance from God.
• It is embracing his presence.  It is intimacy.  I find when I am freed from resistance to God, love for God flows into my heart and mind.  Distance from God is distance from his will.
• It is following Jesus.  Obedience to Jesus is abundant life.  I find when I am seeking to obey him, I become most aware of what is right in front of me that needs to be done.  His will is first and foremost in the present moment.
• It is in this moment in the details of life.  I can only find his presence, his will, and my surrender in the moments that I live, not outside them.  Whatever is removed from the present moment only has value in its service to the present moment with God.
• All these aspects and others address the same thing in the same moment.  In this way, surrender is God's will which is intimacy with God which is obedience to Jesus which is being present to God.  They do not occur separately, although I may be more conscious of one that another at any given moment.

In this way, I am discovering a unity of many different aspects in being with God in the present moment.  This unity helps me to avoid pretending to be present to him.

Be.  Here.  Now.  With God.

The Most Natural of All

While working through Dallas Willard’s suggested resources, I found this quote from Horatius Bonar in God’s Way of Holiness.  He lived from 1808 to 1889, was from a long line of ministers that served in the Church of Scotland for a total of 364 years, and was best remembered as a poet and hymn writer.  He penned the words of one of my favorite hymns which my family arranged on a music CD: “I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.” (Click to hear it.)

I think he does a good job of explaining discipleship as a holy life.  He walks beyond a consumer concept of Christianity and it’s counter-part, super-Christianity.  Discipleship does not move towards a mere “liberal sympathy” nor a “punctual devotion,” but something entirely natural.  It is based on an unbroken fellowship with Jesus, with the goal of “not copying a copy, but copying [Christ] Himself.” What a joy to anticipate learning from the Master Teacher who will bring us to a place where we can become “like the most natural of all creatures, a little child.”

A holy life in man’s estimation may be simply a life of benevolence, or of austerity, or of punctual devotion, or of kindly geniality, or noble uprightness, or liberal sympathy with all creeds, all sects, all truths, and all errors. But a holy life in God’s estimation, and according to Bible teaching, must be founded upon truth, must begin personally, in conscious peace with God through the blood of the everlasting covenant, must grow with the increase of truth and deliverance from error, must be maintained by fellowship with God, in Christ Jesus, through the indwelling of the “Spirit of holiness” (Rom 1:4). Error or imperfect truth must hinder holiness. Uncertainty as to our reconciliation with God must cloud us, straiten us, fetter us, and so prevent the true holiness, besides also fostering the false. Fellowship must be preserved unbroken, that the transmission of the heavenly electricity, in all its sanctifying, quickening power, may go on uninterrupted. Nothing must come between: not the world, nor self, nor the flesh, nor vanity, nor idols, nor the love of ease and pleasure.

The Word must be studied in all its fullness. Over its whole length and breadth we must spread ourselves. Above all theologies, creeds, catechisms, books and hymns, the Word must be meditated on, that we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts, and in assimilation to its models. Our souls must be steeped in it, not in certain favourite parts of it, but in the whole. We must know it, not from the report of others, but from our own experience and vision, else will our life be but an imitation, our religion second-hand, and therefore second-rate. Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for us. We must do these for ourselves. So no one can do our religion for us, nor infuse into us the life of truth which he may possess. These are not things of proxy or merchandise, or human impartation. Out of the Book of God and by the Spirit of God must each one of us be taught, else we learn in vain. Hence the exceeding danger of human influence or authority. A place of influence in such a case becomes perilous alike to the possessor of the influence and to those over whom that sway is wielded. Even when altogether on the side of truth, its issue may be but an unfruitful formalism, a correct petrifaction, an intelligent orthodoxy, and both they who possess the influence or are under its power ought to be greatly on their guard lest the human supplant the divine, and the fear of God be “taught by the precept of men” (Isa 29:13)—lest an artificial piety be the result, a mere facsimile religion, without vitality, without comfort, and without influence.

One who has “learned of Christ,” who “walks with God,” will not be an artificial man, not one playing a part or sustaining a character. He will be thoroughly natural in manners, words, looks, tones, and habits. He will be like that most natural of all creatures, a little child. Christianity becomes repulsive the moment that it is suspected to be fictitious. Religion must be ingenuous. No affectation, nor pedantry, nor conceit, nor set airs, nor what the world calls “whining,” can serve the cause of Christ, or give weight to character, or win an adversary of the Cross. The “epistle of Christ,” to be “known and read of all men” (2Co 3:2) must be transparent and natural. In living for Christ, we must follow Him fully, not copying a copy, but copying Himself; otherwise ours will be an imperfect testimony, a reflected and feeble religion, devoid of ease, and simplicity, and grace, bearing the marks of imitation and art, if not of forgery.

(Bonar, Horatius. God's Way of Holiness (Kindle Locations 1308-1334). Chapel Library. Kindle Edition.)

Coming In Out of the Wind - Renewing the Mind

Discipleship to Christ cannot be described in merely negative terms.  “Do not be conformed to this world” is a necessary component of discipleship, but not a complete description.  Paul also says, “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds” in his letter to the Romans. The movement away from the world and its distractions must be matched by a corresponding move to Christ and his way of living. C. S. Lewis describes this movement well in this excerpt from Mere Christianity. Moving away from a life that is impossible – a sort of compromise with our old life and the new one – we find we can live a life powered by grace. We turn from our usual mechanisms for dealing with life to find that the kingdom of God is close at hand, utterly available to us. As Lewis says, “We can only do it for moments at first.  But from these moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our systems.”  Also he describes so well that such transformation often comes where we least expect it: “the very moment you wake up.”


The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self – all your wishes, and precautions – to Christ.  But it is far easier than what we are trying to do instead.  For what we are trying to do is remain what we call “ourselves,” to keep personal happiness as our great aim in life, and yet at the same time be “good.” We are all trying to let our mind and heart go their own way – centered on money or pleasure or ambition – and hoping, in spite of this, to behave honestly and chastely and humbly.

And that is what Christ warned us you could not do.  As He said, a thistle cannot produce figs.  If I am a field that contains nothing but grass-seed, I cannot produce wheat. Cutting the grass may keep it short: but I shall still produce grass and no wheat. If I want to produce wheat, the change must go deeper than the surface. I must be ploughed up and resown.

That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.

He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird; it would be a jolly sight harder tor it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

(Smith and Foster, Devotional Classics, p.9)