A Long Obedience: A No That Is a Yes

STUCK

When I was little, my older brothers used to try to put me into snow pits or various traps I could not get out of.  They would think my distress was funny, as older brothers often do.  They would say "Matt, you're in the STUCK."  I would cry, "No, not the STUCK."  We laugh about it now.

After receiving good instruction and encouragement at church or a conference, I am eager to try to get going with something new or releasing something destructive.  I think of all sorts of strategies and ideas about how good change could be.  When I come back to my life, however, I find I am in "the stuck."  The ideas don't seem to want to get started in my everyday life.  The old habits just seem too hard to overcome and new habits don't seem so appealing when I'm alone at work or tired at home.

A person has to be thoroughly disgusted with the way things are to find motivation to set out on the Christian way.  As long as we think the next election might eliminate crime and establish justice or another scientific breakthrough might save the environment or another pay raise might push us over the edge of anxiety into a life of tranquility, we are not likely to risk the arduous uncertainties of the life of faith.  A person has to get fed up with the ways of the world before he, before she, acquires an appetite for the world of grace.  (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 25)

A good idea, then, is not enough.  I vague hope will not propel me into a changed life.  Something else has to happen.  It does not need to be dramatic, but often it feels that way.  It is not so much a matter of feeling as it is a resolved will.  "It is the turning point marking the transition from a dreamy nostalgia for a better life to a rugged pilgrimage of discipleship in faith, from complaining about how bad things are to pursuing all things good."  (28)

NO BEFORE YES

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This decision is what the Bible calls repentance.  "A 'No' that is a 'Yes'" as Peterson puts it.  (29)  I think I am put off by the negative part at times.  I think I can just add more to my already full plate.  I think I can just squeeze faith in next to my hobbies and work and family time. John the Baptist came to clear the path for the Messiah.  Jesus basic message was "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near!" Both knew that my life is always more cluttered than I think and that much of it is not compatible with a life of faith.  "Repentance is a realization that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts.  Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace." (30)

When I finally get around to repentance, I face an even greater danger.  The strength of my resolve brings an expectation for immediate results.  I want to change now.  Such changes are like the seed that fell in the shallow soil in Jesus' parable of the sower and the seeds.  It grows up fast, but dies off quickly.  Depth is needed.  The soil has to be broken up and worked over.  Fast changes usually only yield disappointment.  The path is a long road, not a runner's sprint.

I've been learning how to start small and even test things out.  I try not to let my resolve move me into commitments I cannot keep.  The influence and power of God usually work into my life like yeast works through dough, with a lot of kneading.  A little bit can go a long way if it is done with faithfulness and in love.  I've often told my kids that five minutes of real devotion before God is worth hours of distracted or dissatisfied acts of charity or devotion.  Sometimes it takes a while to really stand before God and seek his face because of all of the clutter in my life, though.

Repentance is the beginning.  A "No" that moves me from self-satisfaction to brokenness, from worry to hope, from oppression to challenge.

Lord, I do not want to be cynical, but I do want to learn how to die to the world so I might live in you, with you, and for you.  Keep me from quick changes that only tire me out.  Allow my repentance to be the beginning of refreshing times with you. Amen.

A Long Obedience: Rooted-ness

WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

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Our church held a Renovare Essentials conference a week ago.  One of the perils of conferences and retreats is the return home from them.  Suddenly everything is back to normal and all the new thoughts seem almost unreal in the face of everyday life.  What can I do with the hope I may have acquired during my time away?  How can I deal with the return home?

Eugene Peterson wrote a book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.  Even just looking at the title, I begin to suspect that change might not come as quickly as the hopeful feelings for change.  Inspiration is indispensable.  Without it, change becomes impossible.  The problem is that hope that is disappointed too often falls into cynicism and despair.  So inspiration must take root and become endurance if change is to occur.

Should I be surprised that the opening lines to Peterson's book are, "This world is no friend of grace."  (15)  This is not to be merely down-faced and negative, but a real assessment of our situation.  When I arrive home or even as I drive there I find out quickly that "the spiritual atmosphere in which we live erodes faith,, dissipates hope and corrupts love, but it is hard to put our finger on what is wrong."  (ibid)  This is not meant to disperse inspiration and hope, but to encourage them to "hunker down" for some long days of mundane work and even opposition.

Another quote from the book captures the main illness of our day: "Everyone is in a hurry."  (17)  Instead of expecting that my relationship with God should be like "Google" search or a pop tart, I need some other ways of understanding why hurry and growing in faith have little to do with each other.  As long as my faith and practice are "understood as a visit to an attractive site to be made when [I] have adequate leisure," (16) I will find the hope and excitement of walking with God too time consuming and even tedious.

NEW IMAGES FOR LIVING LIFE

Peterson recommends, "For recognizing and resisting the stream of the world's ways there are two biblical designations for people of faith that are extremely useful: disciple and pilgrim."  (17)  Both of these images require a "rooted-ness" which makes war on hurry in my life.  A disciple is rooted in a learning relationship where "we do not [merely] acquire information about God but skills in faith."  (ibid)  Jesus did not come to satisfy my curiosity, but comes to show me how I might live well and fully.

The pilgrim is rooted in a journey.  He cannot stay in one place for long, but is always moving, not in a frantic or worried way, but in a deliberate and hopeful way.  This world is not my home.  Jesus is himself the only way to get home.  Not only by his death, nor just by his teaching, but in a continuing conversational relationship with him on the way.

Jesus warned about the danger of inspiration without rooted-ness.  "The one that received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.  But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time.  When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away."  (Matthew 13:20-21)  How often I have heard this and only thought of persecution because of the word and not the trouble!  "This world is no friend of grace."  Following Jesus as a disciple or pilgrim is full of trouble not because Jesus is a troublesome person, but because the people and human systems we are part of oppose the life he gives.  The seed is good, but the soil needs work.

The images of disciple and pilgrim can place my feet on the path of long obedience.  As with any training or adventure, deliberate planning is necessary.  There will be work.  Everything worthwhile demands it.  It need not be tedious or worrisome, however.  If Jesus keeps his promises, then the life I live in long obedience will be an escape from being weary and heavily-burdened into a partnership with him where he does all the heavy lifting.  (Matthew 11:28-29)

Lord, may my obedience be long and my worry short.  Take my hand for this journey.  Instruct me in living.  I want to leave behind what this world promises as "the good life" and learn from you as my gentle and humble teacher and friend what the good life really is.  Amen.

Traditionally, followers of Jesus find it necessary to adopt a "rule" or a planned way of living in order to remain rooted.  A rule brings my daily life into Jesus's presence.  Regular prayer, self-denial, Bible reading and study, service to others, are some ways I have found God in my life and remained near to him.

Prayer as Moving Outward

PRAYER AS GIVING FROM ABUNDANCE

Prayer that does not move outward dies.  When I hear this, I am haunted by the thought that unless I am hurried and harried by my efforts to do good, my prayer life must be dying.  It is more along the lines of saying, "To breathe, you inhale and exhale."  There is a necessary rhythm to prayer that follows Jesus commands: "Love God and love your neighbor."

Similarly, Moving Upward comes naturally to Moving Outward.  Foster quotes from Bernard of Clairvaux about the relationship between Moving Outward and Moving Inward and Upward: "If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal.  For a canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus communicates, without loss to itself, its superabundant water.  In the Church in the present day, we have many canals, few reservoirs."  (Prayer Treasury, Foster, p. 168)  Now I find I can practice what Jesus told his disciples to do, "Freely you have received, freely give."  (Matthew 10:8)

ASKING A GOD WHO WANTS TO GIVE FREELY

Praying the Ordinary, Petitionary Prayer, and Intercessory Prayer form the beginnings of giving.  All of them serve to keep me giving along with God rather than in my own strength with my own resources.  Praying the Ordinary takes brings prayer into my life "by turning ordinary experiences into prayer, . . .  seeing God in the ordinary experiences of life, and . . . by praying throughout the ordinary experiences of life." (ibid, p. 169)  In asking for myself (petition) and for others (intercession), I can ask for God to supply of the things I have let go and I ask freely from a God who wants to gives freely.

Giving deepens through Healing Prayer and the Prayer of Suffering.  The strength of the cross is that it promises both healing and the redemption of suffering.  Resurrection is the ultimate form of healing and the hope for which all healing points to.  As for suffering: "George MacDonald notes, 'The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like His.'"  (ibid, p. 322)  Both prayers for healing and in suffering are based in giving from the strength and hope that God gives.

GIVING REQUIRES COMMUNITY

Authoritative Prayer and Radical Prayer address healing and suffering through command rather than request, and in community rather than solitude. "In the power of God we learn to take authority over everyday issues like our eating habits and and our sexual fantasies and our fears and our failures."  (ibid, 237)  In these prayers, I feel God has wanted me to learn how to identify more deeply with Christ by not merely asking, but speaking out his will in community.

As I spend time with my family or go to church or even go to work, I sometimes dream about what it would be like to be in a world or community where such giving was typical and not extraordinary.  What would it be like to live where prayer was as natural as complaining is now?  Blessing as easy as cursing?  Healing as pervasive as hurting?  This will be the case someday.  By God's grace my heart and my life will be ready for it.

Lord, teach me not to hold my breath, trying to hoard in all your blessings, goodness, and knowledge that you give so freely.  Let me breath out with prayer, kindness, and service, sharing your gifts freely as you have shared them with me, knowing that you will always share more.  Let my prayer not become a time when I gripe about how bad everyone seems, but rather a time where I can hear you speaking through other people's lives. Amen.

Prayer as Moving Upward

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PRAYER AS RECEIVING FROM GOD

Richard Foster has a practice in prayer called, "palms up, palm down."  As a person is sitting, he places his palms downward on his legs.  This is where he lets go or drops certain things.  Then he turns his hands upward to receive from God.  Only empty hands can receive.  Self-examination that never turns its gaze upward is never really letting go, but really only holding on more tightly.  I get stuck in this form of introspection more often than I would like.  Looking upward in prayer helps me to let go.

"In one sense adoration is not a special form of prayer, for all true prayer is saturated with it.  It is the air in which prayer breathes, the sea in which prayer swims."  ( Foster, Prayer-Finding-Hearts-True-Home, 83)  Moving Inward through prayer is necessarily followed by and accompanied with Moving Upward.  Without this movement, moving inward and letting go is doomed to become merely "self-examination [where] we will always end up with excessive praise or blame."  (ibid, 30) Letting go is necessary only so that now I can open my heart and receive from God.

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FROM GRATITUDE TO LIKENESS

Moving Upward begins with the Prayer of Adoration.  Moving Inward can become narcissism unless I move toward "the grateful center, . . .  a time and a place where we were free of all the grasping and grabbing, all the pushing and shoving, all the disapproving and dissenting."  (ibid, 88)  Such thankfulness brings me away from mere self-examination into a true hope and a real love.  I let go so I can receive the goodness of God through adoring him.

The Prayer of Rest, Sacramental Prayer, and Unceasing Prayer teach me ways in which I can better receive from God.  In practicing rest, I find that the work of prayer and everything else does not lie in my hands, but in God's.  Sacramental Prayer and Unceasing Prayer are ways I can join God in his work rather than try to get him to do what I want.  They focus on using my body and other parts of creation to pray as in sacraments, or in drawing my attention back to God throughout my day, so that each moment is spent with him as an unceasing prayer.  I receive God's presence and life by resting on him and seeking him moment by moment.

Prayer of the Heart, Meditative Prayer, and Contemplative Prayer take the conversation I have found in resting with God, sacraments, and unceasing prayer and move them into communion and union with God.  In Prayer of the Heart and Meditative Prayer, I find I increasingly feel as God feels and think and God thinks.  They are gifts and practices.  In contemplation, the communion of shared thoughts and feelings becomes the union of shared will.  I anticipate willing what God wills from a heart formed into his likeness, "in true righteousness and holiness."  (Ephesians 4:24)  I receive the very best that God can give: himself living in me.

COMMUNION AND UNION WITH GOD

Moving Upward in prayer begins with gratitude.  Without thanksgiving I do not see life as it really is.  I do not understand how God really is.  Gratitude begins the journey to companionship (covenant) with God.

As gratitude takes root in my life, I can begin to discover and understand the mind of Christ.  His thoughts and feelings become the focus of my attention and the "bread" on which I live.  I turn my thoughts and feelings toward him more and more as I share communion with him in my mind.  From this immersion in the life of Christ, I find my will and my actions start to change.

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given to you." (John 15:7)  As the life and words of Christ make their home in my mind, my will and actions start to look more like Jesus'.  Through the renewal of my mind, God orders and enlivens my soul and my will and my body begin to act in concert with him.  I move from communion with God to union with God.

Quite frankly, I think I try to skip from gratitude to union.  I guess the process of change through communion and the renewed mind are more work than I want to do.  Obviously, the whole work is from God, but equally obvious is that he won't do it without my involvement.  As I heard Dallas Willard say recently, "We are not waiting for grace, grace is waiting for us."  God wants communion and union with me, but I find myself distracted and more interested in other things.

His mercy is patience.  He waits and works with me lovingly.  For this I am grateful.

Lord, where I place my mind is very precious to me.  I think long and hard about plans for myself and what I want.  I want to have the mind of Christ instead.  I want to be free from the worry about my own "kingdom," and my own name and be solely focused on you and yours.  I don't want to keep your grace waiting anymore.  Amen.

Prayer as Moving Inward

LETTING GO IN PRAYER

One of the most pressing needs in my life has been trying to teach prayer.  It is not that I have classes to teach or people knocking down my door; I have children who ask.  They want to know how to hear God, how to be near him, how to discover a conversational life with him.  Recently for my work in the Renovare Institute for Spiritual Formation I read Richard Foster's Prayer: Finding the Heart's True Home.  He outlines some important kinds of prayer that my family has found helpful.

"Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth, but from falling in love."  (Foster, 3)  Prayer is not just a feeling, but it includes feelings.  Neither forced nor glib, prayer is the honest response when my mind is moved by thoughts of God and his ways.  Rather than thinking I will be heard because of my many words, I pray when I love a Father who loves me so much and knows me so well that he knows what I need before I ask him.  Foster breaks the response into three pieces: Moving Inward, Moving Upward, and Moving Outward.

"Moving Inward" plagues the minds of some Christians because there are those who practice moving inward without moving upward or outward.  While I find it possible to get stuck in morbid self-examination and find myself distracted by the many methods of moving inward, such prayer is not high sustainable.  I find that in my life such introspection devours itself unless it is taken over by pride and made into a show.  I believe that the main purpose of moving inward is learning how to let go.

"To pray is to change."  (Foster, 6)  Real prayer is marked by repentance, not as feeling sorry, but as changing how I think about God.  For any worries about this process of moving inward and letting go as some form of dangerous "mysticism" or "Eastern meditation," I must simply answer that I cannot imagine repentance without some form of moving inward and letting go.  Without this portion of praying, I find my prayers very rote and my God very far away.

THE PATH TO OBEDIENCE

The pathway to letting go begins simply, with Simple prayer.  "We begin right where we are: in our families, on our jobs, with our neighbors and friends." (Foster, 11)  "By praying we learn how to pray."  (ibid, 13)  I learn how to let go of praying as if I were someone else instead of praying a just simply me.

Although the Father answers gladly my simple prayers, I am faced with times when I am forsaken.  I like how Foster says, "When you are unable to put your spiritual life into drive, do not put it into reverse: put it in neutral."  (ibid, 24)  I find that in the wilderness I learn to let go of what I think God should be and embrace who he is.

Further on the road of letting go, I look more deeply into my life and my heart through the Prayer of Examen.    Inevitably, from such knowledge of myself comes the Prayer of Tears.  Certainly I see my sin and my weakness, but also I grow in my ability to recognize God's grace and comfort.  God's complete faithfulness makes Examen and tears occasions of joy and growth.  I let go of trying to make it on my own.

Prayers of Relinquishment, Formation and Covenant start me on the journey of spiritual exercise and renovation.  "Only through the specifics of daily life can you be led into the Prayer of Relinquishment.  The will is surrendered moment by moment as you face the ordinary decisions of home, family, and job."  (ibid, 55)  In letting go moment by moment, I find that I need specific plans and activities that train me.  Formation Prayer is going over such exercises with my Father, seeing where pruning and growing needs to occur.  Finally, Covenant prayer solidifies the heart of letting go: obedience.  I have found that "obedience has a way of strengthening rather than depleting our resources. . . .  Obedience begets obedience."  (ibid, 72)  I let go of needing to have my way.

LETTING GOD

Moving Inward is not merely self-examination or morbid introspection.  I find that I must let go of my desire to keep things as they are in order to pray.  I have to let go of my worry about my life not being what I want it to be and draw near to God in my life as it is.  I learn to let go of false ideas of who God is and of what I think he should do and to embrace his mysterious loving work for good in my life.  I find that as I draw near to God I have to let go of trying to make it on my own and of trying to get my own way.  All of this "letting go" is the stuff of repentance which allows me to fall into his arms.

My children are willing to experiment with prayer.  I find that I have few definitive answers, but lots of hopes and ideas for how we can draw near to God.  The greatest joy is finding that as I move inward, God is not far away, but right there with me.  Without him, moving inward and letting go would be too frightening to take on in my own life or in the life of my kids.  But with him, we find that even though we have emptiness and pitfalls within our souls, he is there to fill us and carry us through our darkest nights.

Lord, let my journey inward be one of discovery and joy in the company I have with you.  I do not want to be afraid of what I find, but hopeful in the work you are doing in me and with me.  You are the Master Physician, the Great Healer, and my Comfort.  I want to fall into your arms.  Amen.

Humility and Sin: Learning to Live with Freedom

"The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath now made me free from the law of sin, which once led me captive" - is neither the annihilation nor the sanctification of the flesh, but a continuous victory given by the Spirit as He mortifies the deeds of the body. As health expels disease, and light swallows up darkness, and life conquers death, the indwelling of Christ through the Spirit is the health and light and life of the soul.

It is not sin, but God's grace showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was, that, will keep him truly humble. It is not sin, but grace, that will make me indeed know myself a sinner, and make the sinner's place of deepest self-abasement the place I never leave.

Being occupied with self, even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the revelation of God, not only by the law condemning sin but by His grace delivering from it, that will make us humble. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that works that sweet humility which becomes a joy to the soul as its second nature.

Not to be occupied with thy sin, but to be occupied with God, brings deliverance from self. (Andrew Murray, Humility, Chapter 8)

LEARNING FREEDOM

For most of my life I have been trying to learn how to live best in captivity.  How can I make this slavery as bearable as possible?  Weren't the Jews told to settle down in the cities of their exile?  I am also in exile in this world.  Perhaps it's best to just make the best of it.  Unfortunately, that is just my problem.

God has not removed the law of sin yet.  It is still alive and well in this life.  What he has done is supersede that law with another: the law of the Spirit of life.  The freedom I experience is not merely a future hope, otherwise no one could say they were set free, but only that they will be set free someday.  The freedom I experience is not an all-at-once sort of exchange, either.  If that were so, then I would be simply "freed" from the law of sin rather than being "hath now made. . . free" as Paul writes.

I suppose the best way to describe this freedom is that the chains are cut, but I am still like a freed slave in the South during the Civil War or like Pilgrims given leave to make a colony in the New World. The journey lies ahead of me even though freedom is mine.  I am free, but I must learn (and sometimes fight) to be free.

The Israelites' journey through the wilderness into the Promised Land gives a vivid picture of freedom.  At times they longed for their slavery back in Egypt.  Such longing buried them in the wilderness.  They may have been set free, but they never lived as free.  Perhaps my deliverance is a lot like theirs.  Maybe I am not so much doubting that the Red Sea of sin was split open for me and God fought for my soul against this "world with devils filled," but that I do not want to live in the freedom into which he has brought me.  I do not need someone telling me I have been set free so much as someone who will show me how to live free.

SIN FACES AWAY FROM GOD

The law of sin is the tendency to withdraw from the race, complain and die in the wilderness, make the "best" of this life.  The law of the Spirit of life is "continuous victory" over that temptation to "Curse God and die" or "Eat, drink, and be merry."  God does not remove the law of sin because it is merely the opposite of the law the Spirit of life.  They face opposite directions, one toward God, the other toward my self.

Murray points out that the law of the Spirit of life is evidenced by humility.  Humility is the right response to the law of the Spirit of life.  It performs two actions.  It denies the self.  When I live according to this law, I turn my back on living by the effort and power of my unaided, uncontrolled self.  Instead I embrace God through the Spirit.  I trust him.  I live for his aid and his control (which is not controlling).  The law of sin does the opposite.  Under that law, I deny God in how I live and trust my own resources to get me through.

Lord, I find myself so easily trying to manage my own sin and my own life.  Somehow I find I get so busy with trying to live my life without you, trying to make it all work.  The issue is not how good I am, but how good you are.   It is not about how bad I am, but about how you have loved me even in my badness.  Let me find the humility that empowers me to live with your grace.  Let me dispense with the false humility that drives me to despair.  Amen.

One of the best indicators of which law rules my life comes in the question, "What preoccupies my mind?

Humility and Holiness: Seeing Less of Myself

The one infallible test of our holiness will be the humility before God and men which marks us. . . .  The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.

Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a publican.  There is no place or position so sacred but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride can lift its head in the very temple of God, and make His worship the scene of its self exaltation.

Yes, even when in the temple the language of penitence and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself. Pride can clothe itself in the garments of praise or of penitence. Even though the words, "I am not as the rest of men" are rejected and condemned, their spirit may too often be found in our feelings and language towards our fellowworshippers and fellow-men.

[Such pride] can be recognized, not always in any special selfassertion or self-laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the mark of the soul that has seen the glory of God (Job 42: 5, 6; Isa.6: 5). It reveals itself, not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others, in which those who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self.

Unless we make, with each advance in what we think holiness, the increase of humility our study, we may find that we have been delighting in beautiful thoughts and feelings, in solemn acts of consecration and faith,while the only sure mark of the presence of God, the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting.  (Andrew Murray, Humility, Chapter 7)

 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”  (Luke 18:14)

 As a person who wants to write well, I am particularly drawn to beautiful or ingenious words or thoughts.  I can be taken away with how I go about saying something more than what I am seeking to say.  While being nice and mannerly can really play an important role in any personal interaction, it is the attitude within my heart that will make even plain words profound or beautiful words ugly.

So in many situations, I am faced with the those two men "coming up to pray."  I can be planning my day at work, talking with my wife at home, teaching my kids, or worshiping at church.  I will find those two with me in my heart.  One stands above everyone else, the other beneath.  One looks around for reasons to feel good about himself, the other seeks to be honest and true.

As an example, I can see that planning my time at home would have these two attitudes at war within me.  I can think about how much work I do compared to everyone else (at least in my own eyes) and commend myself to others by recounting all that I do.  From that I feel pretty justified in leaving certain things undone, things that are unimportant (especially to me).  Maybe, though another voice might speak loudly enough to hear: "It's all a gift to you.  You didn't earn any of it.  Even your ability to work is not entirely yours."  I might find myself grateful to be able to work for people I love and want to learn how to love.  No amount of work will repay what I've been given, so I need not work to earn, but work out of thankfulness.

I think this goes a little deeper than the little angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other.  First of all, both the men worshiped in the temple.  They aren't doing different things.  What made them different was how they worshiped.  Same with my work at home.  Either way I do the work, but the attitudes are entirely different.  The attitude will determine how I work.

One thing helpful in changing attitudes here is realizing that these two men are utterly different.  Their attitudes are two different sides of the spectrum.  Jesus told this story to show a choice I have.  Either I will be like the Pharisee or the publican (tax collector).

With this in mind, I have two ways I can seek to be like the tax collector.  I can seek to be like him directly or I can seek to not be like the Pharisee.  I can more easily recall Jesus encouraging his followers to not be like Pharisees ("Beware the yeast of the Pharisees", "Your righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees", "Do what they say, but do not do what they do", etc.).  I think he did this knowing that humility is not obtained directly, but indirectly.

What I find so helpful in Murray's comments is the connection between humility before God and humility before people.  What counts is humility before God.  It is what brings humility toward other people.  As a result, humility toward other people ends up being a good indicator of my humility before God.  If I am humble before God, I will be humble before people, so if I am not humble before people, I am not humble before God.

Humility is marked by the absence of self: self-consciousness as well as self-aggrandizement, self-contempt as well as self-worship.  A life lived before God is one where the self becomes invisible, neither petted and fondled, nor whipped and beaten.  As Murray says, God becomes all and I become nothing (but not worthless).  Such is the basis for holy living, life as it should be before God.  Such a life is "justified" or made right before God.

Each moment gives me opportunities for such living.  What if I really didn't have to worry about myself?  What if I could really trust God in each moment to work, play, and rest along with me?  What if all the burdens I have to lift in my life are easy because he is at the other end?  Worship might look a lot different as well as playing with my dogs at home.  And both would be holiness.

Be still, my soul, the Lord is at thy side.  I need not worry or complain.  I can trust instead of trying to please, because you are pleased with my trust, Father.  Let humility permeate my life as I look to you as my refuge and strength.  Amen.