Exploring the Matrix: The limits of Submission

Submission has its limits.  

We should be careful to not confuse submission to God with knowledge of God.  Authority is only one aspect of a whole relationship to Him.

We are not slaves, but sons and daughters to God, loved by Him for our own sake and through the sacrifice of Christ.  Submission is a gift we give to God freely out of love, not a payment demanded before He will deal with us.   If we submit purely out of fear of retribution, then we are His slaves, not his sons and daughters.  our relationship is tainted by coercion. It is hard to love someone who forces His love upon us by demands of utter obedience. 

Jesus said in John 15: 15 "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you."  Jesus did not come to enslave us but to empower us.  

Submitting to God does not mean submitting to everyone who claims to speak for God.  Many sects, cults, and movements began because some leader claimed an authority from God they had not received and did not possess, convincing others that questioning their leadership was questioning God.   Christians should be cautious against abusive leaders who demand unquestioned obedience. 
In some churches and ministries followers are told "Touch not God's anointed."  This is a way of saying that everything a leader does is perfect, and should never be questioned.  Christians should be well advised to avoid such groups and to leave them if they are already involved. 

David Johnson And Jeff Van Vonderen gives this definition of spiritual abuse in Their book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse,  page 20. "Spiritual abuse is the mistreatment of a person who is in need of help support or greater spiritual empowerment,  with the result of weakening undermining or decreasing that person's spiritual empowerment."  Their book is a helpful one for anyone who believes they are in an abusive relationship with a church or church leader.

Money, sex and power have always been abused within organized religion.  The most dangerous of the three is the abuse of power. Most churches and church leaders are loving, God-fearing people who recognize their own fallibility and welcome constructive criticism, but there are a few who want nothing more than to exert power over the lives of others. They may rationalize this desires by believing can make the world better by doing it, but they fail to see is that power abused is mostly what is wrong with the world.    

In Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings, a magic ring symbolizes worldly power.  Anyone in possession of the ring acquires great power, but  is corrupted by its spell.  It cannot be used for good because any good person becomes evil by wielding it.  Tolkien wrote his book after having endured two world wars.  He had seen the effect that power had on those who sought to remake the world by force. 

We must not give to our leaders a ring of power by granting them an authority in our lives they ought not possess. When we do not think or act for ourselves, but expect our leaders to do all the thinking for us, we should not be surprised when they abuse our trust. 

Authority belongs to God.   To insist on other’s submission is to take the place of God.    God is the only person who deserves our unquestioned obedience.  Submission is no excuse for not thinking or doing for ourselves.   

Question for further thought:

What is the difference between being an authority and being authoritarian?  How do you tell true authority from authoritarianism?

Exploring the Matrix: The Disciplines of Submission

In the last posting we looked at the third point on the faith matrix, submission. Submission is the necessary surrendering of ourselves to our central point of faith, which for a Christian is God.  It is the essence of all worship and all moral action.

Submission is necessary in any society.  When the doctor gives us a prescription, it is usually up to us to take it.  When a policeman tells us to stop, we stop.  When we read in a peer reviewed journal that global warming is a fact or that cigarettes cause cancer, we accept this because we have faith in their authority. For us, the argument is ended, and we accept. That is submission. 

For a Christian, God is our final word. If we submit to God, and we believe the the Bible is the Word of God, when whatever the Word of God says is fact to us.  End of story. If the Bible tells us that it is a sin to steal, then we do not steal. If the Bible tells us to love our neighbor, then we love our neighbor.  Submission is the acceptance without proof of a previously accepted authority.

This is not as easy as it sounds. Our struggles with morality attests to this. If everyone who believed that cigarettes were bad for you stopped smoking, the tobacco industry would go out of business.  Both the weight loss and fast food industries are based on the idea that just being told overeating is bad for us won’t stop us from overeating.  Submission is something we must work at daily.

Paul writes in Romans 12: “1 appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

It is hard to give a dead sacrifice to God, but our bodies are a living sacrifice. That means that no matter how often we give our bodies to God, they still tend to crawl off the altar.  We need to daily submit ourselves to God.  Jesus says in Matthew 16: 24 “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”  Taking up the cross is a daily act of submission, a willingness to sacrifice ourselves over and over to the object of our faith.  This is much more challenging than a single, dramatic conversion experience. It is a habit of submission that challenges us daily.

The way we accomplish daily  submission is thought practicing the disciplines of submission.   These include silence and solitude, fasting, Sabbath, percentage giving, and chastity, along with others.   Let’s talk about these individually.

Solitude and silence.   The first command a dog learns in obedience training is “sit.”  Dog trainers do this because they understand that dogs must first get still to hear and obey their masters.  When a dog is distracted, they cannot hear our voices.  Excessive action blinds us to the voice of God.  An overactive, agitated, or worried mind cannot hear God’s voice. If we are fretting over our circumstances or attempting to multitask our spirituality, we cannot hear God’s voice.  That is why we need to follow Jesus’ example and find places to withdraw and meditate.

I am an overactive person.  Those who know me best have suggested that I may have attention deficit disorder, though it has never been formally diagnosed. I do know that there have been times in my life when anxiety and hyperactivity have gotten the better of me.  In one such time, a counselor asked me to sit still and think of nothing for five minutes. It was the longest five minutes of my life! Silencing my brain for even three minutes was too much for me.  Since then, I have learned the value of meditation and centering prayer, which helps my overactive mind to be still, in order that I might hear God’s voice.

Fasting.  Fasting is fully or partially refraining from something that I regard as necessary to my life or wellbeing.  

Much has been written about fasting is either magical or legalistic. Sometimes people advocate fasting as a means of forcing God’s hand in our favor—a hunger strike against God. Others teach it as a requirement or law. It is neither.  Fasting is a regular spiritual activity aimed at learning self-mastery and submission.

As anyone who has ever gone on a diet can testify, sugary foods and carb-loaded delicacies are addictive. So is caffeine, nicotine, many other substance. When asked to give them up even for a short time, our bodies go into rebellion. 

Fasting gives us a means to gain victory over our addictions. Once our appetites are mastered, the greatest barrier to soul liberation is gone.

Addictions to television, games, texting, and web surfing may be more helpful today as fasting from food. We all are addicted to something. Fasting is the key to self-discovery.  you never know how much you are enslaved to something until you give it up for a time. When we voluntarily deny ourselves food, or any other needful thing, we are choosing instead to trust God. 

Sabbath.  Sabbath is taking on day—one twenty-four hour period—for rest and recreation.  Its origins go back to Genesis 2, where God rested after six days of labor creating the universe. The purpose of God’s rest was not because He was tired, but to allow his creation to grow on its own without His interference.

Our reasons for keeping a Sabbath are much the same. It teaches us that the universe is capable of running without us.  If we think our job cannot run without our constant upkeep,  then we are probably doing them wrong.  Sabbaths give times for the works we do to grow.

Sabbaths also give us time to enjoy God and His works.  Recreation is not idle amusement, but it provides us an opportunity to step back from ordinary things and see how it all relates to God. 

Unlike God, we do get tired. We need to rest.  Constant effort warps our perspective and interferes with our ability to work at peak effectiveness. Without Sabbaths, we work more but get less accomplished. Sabbaths are necessary to effectively keep working. 

Peter Scazzero likens the Sabbath to snow days when we were children. When it snowed so hard that people could not get to work, they stayed home and relaxed, drank hot chocolate, and built snowmen.  Sabbaths are like getting snow days once a week. It refreshes the mind, body, and spirit. 

Percentage giving (tithing).  Tithing is the discipline of submission in money.  Tithing refers to a tenth of our income.  The percentage of giving, however is not as important as the priority. Tithing is giving from the top¸ that is, the first part of our income, not the last. Tithing is the commitment of our first resources to God.  Finances are one of the places where most of us have the greatest struggles making God our ultimate concern.   That is why it is important to make giving to God’s work the highest priority.

Christians talk of trusting God, but they are often the most anxious people on earth.  We worry about money, health, our children—just about everything   Rather than seeing it as lack of trust, we have almost made a sacrament out of caution. Our anxiety over money often prevails over our faith, and we turn off the spigot of generosity through fear of the future. Tithing excludes all that, forcing us to trust God. 

Tithing is not a path to riches, unless We mean the riches of learning how little we need.  It isn’t for gaining worldly wealth through some magical means by “investing” in God’s favor.  Instead, it is a way of breaking free from our money addition. 

Chastity. Chastity is the sexual equivalent of fasting. How could God have created sex as such a pleasurable experience, then restrict it to be used only within the context of marriage?  Because sex is one of the ways we learn submission. Denying ourselves such an obviously pleasurable act causes us to learn mastery over our bodies.

Chastity isn’t just for some people. It is something everyone must deal with.  Unmarried people deny themselves sex until marriage.  Married  people deny themselves sex outside of marriage.  Though most of us will experience It, we all must learn to say “no” at some time, and keep it within a proper order.  

 Many people today claim that chastity is impossible. Sexual desire, they say, cannot be tamed.  We don’t have to look far to see that this isn’t true.  Catholic priests and nuns choose to remain celibate for life, although there are some who break that vow, the majority don’t.  Until recently, most men and women did not have sex before marriage, though there were always many who did. Most men and women stay faithful within marriage, only a minority stray. 

Sexual feelings are not the problem—it is lack of sexual control. Sexual pleasure has become for many an ultimate concern, more important than relationships, vows, or health.  We know that sexual promiscuity is destructive, but we do it anyway. 

Sexual urges have many benefits, but the most neglected benefit is developing submission and self-control. In resisting sex, with all its appeal, we learn to submit to something higher than our appetites. 

Submission is following God. When Jesus gathered His disciples, he first said “follow Me.” He did not discuss what he was going to do with them.  When He ascended into heaven,  he told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came. Then they would get their marching orders. 

As we think about submission, we need ask ourselves some important questions.

Can I sit in solitude and silence, waiting for God to lead me, and not act on impulse?

Is God my only final authority?

Do I trust God even when I do not understand?

Am I willing to say "no" to my appetites and desire, when God asks me to?

Do I practice a life of self-discipline and self-control for God’s sake?

Let me know your thoughts.  I would love to hear from you.  Here are some questions to stimulate discussion.

1.     Which is easier—to submit to God or to submit to earthly authority?

2.     Is humility taught in churches today?  How important is humility to you? 

3.     What is the hardest place to practice submission—in eating, money, sexual habits, or following God’s guidance? 

Exploring the Matrix; Submission, part 1

View the YouTube video on submission here.
Without discipline, we cannot be disciples.

The disciplines of the Christian life include  prayer, Bible study, journaling, meditation, praise, confession, forgiveness, silence, solitude, Sabbath, tithing, simplicity, celebration, and giving thanks .  No one can perform all the spiritual exercises perfectly, any more than anyone can perform every physical exercise perfectly. But we do what we can, expressing in our bodies the worship in our hearts.  

For a discipline to change us, it cannot be something we do only occasionally.  It must become a regular habit.  Habits effectively transform us through our commitment to do them over and over.  Over time, they make us into better, healthier, and more loving people.

The depth of our relationship with God is mostly determined not by how we think about Him or feel about him, but from out willingness to submit to him by developing godly habit, or exercises. These habits have the power to bring us closer to Him in ways that thinking and feeling do not.  By practicing these habits regularly, they become a means of grace. 

A beautiful illustration of this  is found in the 2009 film The Way. Martin Sheen plays a man whose son died while walking the Way of St. James--a five-hundred-mile pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Though the father is not religious, he decides to honor his son by finishing the walk, carrying his son’s ashes as a way of honoring his memory.  Along the way, he meets other dubious pilgrims--a failed writer looking for inspiration, a man trying to lose weight, and a woman recovering from the emotional trauma. To complete the route, they must stop at every altar along the way. At first, these stops seem trivial to most of them.  But as they progress, they get caught up in the sacred rituals and together they begin to encounter God. The act of walking, praying, and worshiping at the sacred sites become a means of grace.

Such a pilgrimage may seem strange to those raised in Protestant traditions. We tend to look at the rituals of live as “vain repetitions,” but for those who have fully entered into the experience of them, they understand the significance.  Our bodies must worship as our minds and hearts worship.  Action often comes before belief.  We learn to say our prayers before we understand their meaning. We go to church before we understand the sermon. The habits of faith can precede our understanding.  These habits remain, when our doubts cloud our minds and depression clouds our hearts. Habits serve as a final reminder to us of God, when all our reason and emotions fail.  They are signposts left in their lives to point us back to faith.

The first inner action faith requires of us is the act of submission. 

The first meaning of the word “worship” is “to bow the knee.” It is an act of surrender in stillness before the presence of God.  When a dog is being trained the first command the animal learns is “Sit.”  Sitting for a dog means coming to a place of stillness, where it awaits orders.  Submission is a place of stillness before God, where we learn to await His orders. 

This is especially hard for those of us who have been raised in the Western values of action and equality. We want to be out doing something.  We hate the idea of sitting still almost as much as we had the idea of submitting to things we cannot understand. We want results and answers, not silence and stillness.  But if we are to follow God, we must learn to listen to His voice, and wait in silence before him.

Submission is yielding our wills to a person, principle, or truth without question, complaint or manipulation. 

Christ submitted to His Father.  Paul submitted not only to God, but to the earthly authorities that God placed over him, including the Roman government and priestly leadership of Israel. He said, “Follow my example, as I follow Christ.”[1]

In order to grow in submission, we must develop the virtues of submission namely respect, obedience, and  humility.

Respect means having a healthy fear.  I do not hate snakes, but I respect their power enough to stay out of their way.  Proverbs reminds us that the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)   we cannot know God unless we understand His power. Fear of God is a good thing. God has great power for good or for ill. If I come against Him, that power will be against me. But if I am for Him, that power will break anything that tries to stand in His way.  Once I have a healthy fear of Him, I do not have to fear anything else.

Obedience  is the habit of doing what our master wishes.  This habit is never developed just to God, though.  In order to develop a habit of submission we must also learn to submit to those whom God has placed over us. 

St. Benedict wrote that submission to others is a necessity step in learning submission to God.He taught his monks a twelve-fold path to humility:  

1.       “That we have the fear of God before our eyes at all times.”

2.       “That we desire to do God’s will above our own.”   

3.       “That we submit our individual wills to our Superiors in obedience.” 

4.       “That, we accept hard and distasteful duties when commanded with patience and even temper, and not grow weary or give up.”

5.       “That we do not hide from our Superiors our evil thoughts, but humbly confess them.”

6.       “That we be content, even with the meanest and worst of everything.” 

7.       “We not only say but believe that we are among the most unworthy. 

8.       “We do nothing except what we are charged to do.

9.       “We keep silence unless asked to speak.

10.   “We do not engage in frivolous conduct.

11.   “We speak gently--listening, not shouting.

12.   “ We do not draw attention to ourselves by our actions.”  [2]      

 One of the clearest examples of the benefits of obedience in the Bible is in Genesis 22, when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to Him on Mount Moriah.  God did not rescind this order intil Abraham demonstrate his willingness to carry it out.

Few of us will ever face the kind of test like Abrahams, , but sooner or later, we will all face the blind faith test.  We will be asked to follow, even when it makes no sense.  That is when we discover if our obedience is real or a sham. 

Humility is more than just self-deprecation or self-abasement, but being willing to submit our thoughts, attitudes, feelings and actions to another.   It has nothing to do with the way we think about ourselves, but everything to do with the way we view others.  It is laying aside our lives to another as a living sacrifice to God.  To be humble is to realize that the ultimate judge of all we do and are is God. We do not take the measure of ourselves. God is our ultimate judge.

True submission is rooted in desire.  It is a voluntary act of a free person, not the groveling of a slave.  We take pleasure in the pleasure in surrender. To live without submitting to anyone is not freedom but slavery to self.  The “free” soul is not free at all, but caught between worlds, trying to satisfy spirit and flesh, the world and God.

We learn submission through practicing the inner spiritual disciplines.  These include solitude, Sabbath, fasting, and giving, They have no other purpose than to cause us to obey. 

Who am I? is the central question of self-based spirituality.  Christianity and other God-based forms of faith begin with a different question whose am I?  Who owns us? Who controls us? Who delights us, and we in them?  Submission is the purest form of love, not taking away out individuality but making us willing to lay aside our selfhood for the benefit of another.  It is a purposeful emptying of self so that the will of another may fill us.  This is what God calls upon us to do, when we seek to know His submission.  

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[1] 1 Corinthians 11:1

[2] St.  Benedict (2011-04-30).  The Rule of St.  Benedict (Kindle Locations 428-429).  PlanetMonk Books.  Kindle Edition. 

Exploring the Matrix: The Action Balance

The second balance beam in the Christian walk is the balance of witness and submission. It involves the connection of body and spirit.  (for more about the balance beams, go here.)

God reveals Himself to us through physical acts. He gave us physical signs—the sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament, baptism and communion in the New, promising to reveal himself through physical acts to His creatures. He entered our world by taking on flesh.  When He demonstrated His love bodily in the crucifixion. He healed physical ailments and performed miracles.  Through these means He demonstrated that what we do with our bodies matters to our souls.  Physical actions cause us to come closer to God or push us away from Him.

The church calls physical actions that strengthen our relationship to God the means of grace. These include baptism, the Lord’s Supper, anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. Acts of love--such as visiting the sick, praying for the lost, and helping the needy--are also means of grace.  Fixing a flat tire for a stranded motorist, a kind touch on a grieving shoulder, or a well-timed word of comfort also convey God’s grace to others. Deciding to go to church instead of to the store or the golf course are acts of grace as well.

A disciple duplicates the actions of a master.  A coach runs his team through hours of physical practice. A dancing master does the same for her dancers.  Musicians follow their master, repeating continually the scales, methods, and pieces that made her great.  Martial arts students follow the discipline of their sensei.   In every area of life being a disciple means physical training. Faith is the same; following Jesus means bodily action. 

Willard gives this example.

“Think of certain young people who idolize an outstanding baseball player.   They want nothing better than to pitch or run or hit as well as their idol.   So what do they do?  When they are playing in a baseball game, they all try to behave exactly as their favorite baseball player does.   .    .  The buy the same shoes he wears, the same glove he uses, the same bat.

“Will they succeed in performing like the star, though? .  .  .  The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave a certain way only during the game.   Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation, to provide a foundation in the body’s automatic responses and strength for his conscious efforts during a game.”[1]

 “Being the Son of God clearly did not relieve him of the necessity of a life of preparation that was mainly spent out of the public eye.   .  .  The secret of the easy yoke involves living as he lived in the entirety of his life—adopting His overall lifestyle.”[2]

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes:

“The inner righteousness we seek is not something which can be poured on our hearts.   God has ordained the disciplines of the spiritual life as a means by which we place ourselves where He can bless us.”[3]

All physical acts start in the mind as an inner choice. When the alarm goes off, we choose whether to get up or to turn it off and roll over in bed.  When the clock says noon, we must choose whether or not to eat. It takes mental energy and will to make choices about behavior.  So God has provided us with an inner mechanism that governs our actions and saves us from the burden of making constant decisions.  This mechanism is called habit.  Habits enable us to choose certain behaviors automatically. Once they are formed, we do things without thinking, freeing up our minds for more important functions and for multitasking.  Habits govern most of what we think and do every day. 

A large part of our spiritual lives are governed by habits as well.  Our morning ritual of devotions, our weekly habit of corporate worship, prayer before meals or at bedtime are not something we think about doing—we just do them.  Fasting, giving, forgiving, witnessing,  helping,  and even silence are habits that lead us closer to God.  Responding in anger to sleights,  overeating,  drug or alcohol use, timidity, worry, timidity, and fear are also habitual responses. 

In order to experience the means of grace, we must learn to master our habits,  both positive and negative.  For most of us, this the hardest part of our walk with God.  Can we learn to master the habits that master us?  Can we make our habits work for us instead of against us? 

Christ has a kingdom--it is wherever He rules.  We have a kingdom, too—it is wherever we are the masters of our own souls. Before we can surrender what we have to Christ, we must possess what He has given us.  Before we can make our souls His, we first must make them ours. 

Habits are means of maintaining our faith on a daily basis are the way we keep a continual commitment to God. The early church understood that, and established a regular system of rituals which continually kept them in contact with and in submission to God.  The inner disciplines of prayer, study, and worship, keep us close to God throughout the day.  St. James wrote “faith without works is dead.”[4]  Inward faith without outward behavior quickly disappears.

In the next several articles, we will be discussing how to balance two kinds of habits—those that help us maintain stillness and attention before God, and those that lead to act in the world on God’s behalf.  These two groups of habits we are calling Submission and Witness.

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[1] Dallas Willard The Spirit of the Disciplines, (HarperSanFrancisco) 1988, pp.  3-4. 

[2] ^{Ibid, p.  6.} 

[3] Richard Foster The Celebration of Discipline (Harper One, New York) 1978, p.  7.  

[4] James 2:20

The Limits of Passion

see the video on passion here.

While emotions are good and necessary in our Spiritual walk, emotionalism--the worship of emotions--is a danger for anyone who would seek God.  Emotionalism is not the pursuit of God through passion, but the pursuit of passion through God.  It is an addiction to a feeling. 

There is nothing wrong with letting our emotions loose in the worship of God, but feelings can become overpowering.  When emotions rule, they can be cruel masters. 

In chapel in a school where I teach, a preacher preached a stirring, passionate sermon. The congregation responded emotionally, shouting and lifting their hands.  It was a powerful moment.  Afterwards, I asked my preaching class.  “Did you enjoy chapel?”

They responded with an enthusiastic “Absolutely!” 

“How many of you ever got that kind of response to one of your sermons? Is it a good feeling?”  Many said they had, and that they loved it.

Then I went on.  “What would you do for that feeling? Would you lie to get that feeling? Would you push others aside to get into the chance at that feeling again?  Would you pretend to hear from God, just to get that feeling?”

This time, no hands went up.  But they all said they knew preachers who did.  There are very few things quite so addicting at the attention of others, especially in church.  The feeling of pride and power which comes from being in front of a crowd is just as addictive as cocaine or heroin. Passionate desire is wonderful, but seeking it for its own sake cuts us off from God.

Emotions are not constant. Sometimes they come with great power. Other times, they may to dry up altogether. This does not mean God abandons us. Our relationship with God does not depend upon how we feel today. 

Passions can be divided into three classes:

·       unconscious passions that we do not recognize,

·       ordinate passions that we both recognize and master,

·       and inordinate passions, which master us.  

Unconscious passions are our prejudices and preferences. If we prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla, a red dress over green one, or rock over jazz, we we may not even know why-we just feel it.  Superficial preferences make little or no difference spiritually--they are simply the byproducts of our upbringing, conditioning and heredity.  They do not cause a problem spiritually unless we mistake our feelings for what discernment from God. If we think that God is for chocolate over vanilla, red over black or one kind of music over another, then we have confused our unconscious feelings for God.

When applied to people, the preferences become prejudices.  We may feel that fat people are lazy, rappers are not real musicians, or tall people make good leaders—without any true rational basis for such assumptions.  We may try to rationalize these feelings, when there is really no rational basis. Our attempts to justify our prejudices are the result of emotional suppression. We may react to someone positively or negatively because of some past experiences with someone similar. If we recognize our prejudices for what they are—echoes of past feelings, we can laugh them off and go on. But if we do not recognize them, they cloud our perception of the truth.

The best way to overcome unconscious feelings is to make them conscious. Acknowledge that we—like everyone else in the world—is prejudice to some degree, due to our previous emotional training.  If we recognize this, we can make allowances for it, like a marksman adjusting for the wind direction when he takes aim. But if we deny our feelings of bias we miss the truth every time.

Ordinate passions are feelings that are recognized but under controlled. Every passion has its proper time and place.  “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.” (Eccl 3:1)    Knowing our feelings and when to express them is essential to wisdom. 

Passions must be expressed sometime.  They cannot be suppressed forever.  Ignoring our feelings is like ignoring a fire alarm.  If we do not pay attention to our feelings, they will consume us. Learning to express our feelings in controlled, non-harmful ways prevents them from exploding into destructive behavior. 

All passions are linked. If we deny our negative feelings such as fear, lust, and anger, we will usually find that our positive feelings—love, joy, and happiness, will become harder to express.  To deny one passion is to deny them all. 

Inordinate passions are the loud, insistent and demanding passions that are out of control-- anger so strong that we strike out in violence, lust so strong that it leads to pornography and adultery, appetites so strong that we cannot stop eating, or fear so strong that we panic and run from a fight. They cannot be ignored or allowed to run wild, any more than we can ignore a mad dog in our yard. They ruin lives and destroy relationships.

Philip St. Romain offers these warning signs of an inordinate passion:

·       When every decision in life centers around it.

·       When the thought of not having it causes us to be anxious and afraid.

·       When our desire for it eclipses all other desires

·       When cannot imagine any circumstance that would completely satisfy our desire.

·       When we compare ourselves with other people’s so-called fulfilled desires.

·       When we lose our passion for everything else. [1]

If we fall victim to inordinate passions, we must confess them to God and to others. Pray for help from God, confess the hurts we have caused, and seek professional help if necessary to learn how to manage our inordinate passions. 

Inordinate passions are serious; but equally serious and dangerous are passions which are not high enough.  We cannot adequately serve God and others unless we feel love or help without feeling empathy. Bridling our emotions is not enough. They are the engines which will power our faith.  

We must say something, too about guidance and passions.  God has spoken to us subjectively through dreams, metaphors, visions and feelings. But we must remember that our capacity to receive God’s guidance through such means has been seriously affected by our own inordinate and unconscious emotions, and by our sinful nature in general.  Do not trust subjective feelings alone, but test them against what God has given us for objective guidance.  Test them through the Word of God and through seeking the guidance of others who are not as emotionally involved as you.  Do not trust temporary feelings to make permanent changes in your life.  Long term changes comes from changing daily habits. Habits will be the subject of our next article.

Have you discovered any unconscious prejudices or inordinate desires in your life? What do you find is the best way of dealing with them when you find them?  Write and let us know. 

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[1] Philip St. Roman A Handbook for Spiritual ho Directees;  a book of Spiritual Exercises, (Kindle Edition)

Exploring the Matrix: Passion, Part 2

(Watch the video on passion here)

Building Spiritual Passion

Harnessing our emotions is a little like training horses. Before we can master it, we must first be willing to get on the horse. If we are afraid to reveal our true emotions even to ourselves, we will never be able to direct them. Mastering feelings does not mean denying their existence, but learning to exercise and encourage the good ones, even while we safely vent the bad.    Passions must be recognized and exercised, not locked up and shut away. 

Feelings are like fire. The more we feed them the greater they grow. It is not only permissible but desirable that we joyfully express our love of God and others. 

Even so, many Christians have a hard time doing this.  They have been taught that feelings cannot be trusted, that they should “walk by faith, and not by feelings.”  While it is true that we should keep following God when feelings are absent,  the lack of feelings does not help our growth or effectiveness in Christ.  We love our wives even when we do not feel it, but the lack of feelings towards our wives is a sign that something is wrong.  Emotions are important in any relationship.  

This is especially true in our relationship with God.  Emotions ae not simply an extra blessing, but are actually a means that God uses to speak to us and direct us.  The Psalmist says “God inhabits the praises of His people.”  He is the master of our hearts and uses our creativity, imagination, and our emotions as a means of special revelation to us. 

For that reason, a Christian needs seek for a more passionate,  emotional life in Christ.  There are several avenues through which we discover and cultivate a deep passion for God.

 

Get alone with God

It is impossible to grow any relationship if we do not spend time with those we love.  This is especially true in our relationship with God.  The first step in building a deeper emotional connection with God is to establish a quiet time in the day reserved for Him alone.

Find a place where you can be alone as free from distraction as possible. Drive time or work times do not count,  be at a place where your focus is all on Him.  Start that time with meditation.  Meditation is not prayer—it is slowing down and getting in the right frame of mind for prayer.  Just as we cannot stop an eighteen-wheel truck on a dime, we cannot stop our anxious, rushing psyches without putting on the brakes first.

Praise and thanksgiving also needs to be part of that time.  Praise is when we tell God what we think of Him. Thanksgiving is when we acknowledge the goodness of His gifts. Don’t be distracted by the gifts, though, and forget to praise His nature.  We often forget the Giver as we look at the gifts.

Prayer is more than talking to God; it is time spent in the Presence of God.   It is not about asking or receiving—it is more like dancing with God, an intimate interaction that is deep and beautiful.  Prayer is praising Him, thanking Him, surrendering to Him, wrestling with Him, laughing with Him, and in all ways enjoying His company. Such prayer is never perfunctory, but very intimate and alive.

Reading Scripture is a great help in our quiet time, especially the Psalms.   This is not the same as the study of Scripture discussed in the previous segment, though. This is reading for inspiration, not information. We don’t have to get all the theology and history straight.  We are simply reading as an avenue for the Spirit to speak to our heart.  It is important here that we enjoy it, and be open to the leading of the Spirit.  Often, the Spirit will allow one word, phrase, or sentence to leap off the page into our hearts, and convey a special message to us.  This does not replace an intellectual study of the Word, but is a supplement to it. 

Get creative

As we worship, we should get creative.  The Psalmist says “sing a new song to the Lord.” 

Passion and imagination are closely tied.  We must find our own voice to speak to God.  Art speaks the language of the emotions, whether it be music, painting, dance, poetry, or even sculpture.  We may write, sing, paint, play a musical instrument, or do whatever it takes to express our own God-given creativity. 

This is not about skill level or proficiency. It is a means of self-discovery.  As we discover ourselves, the Holy Spirit within introduces Himself as well. 

Talk about it

An important tool for emotional  self-discovery is talking to others. That “someone” does not have to be a professional, just someone willing to listen--a trusted friend who will allow you to talk.  Putting feelings in words and bringing them is usually all we need to discover our inner passions. 

We spend a lot of time with other people. Unfortunately, most of it involves superficial and shallow conversation.  The kind of interaction that builds our passion is the sharing of heart feelings.  It involves developing the ability to share and receive the emotions of others through openness and empathy. 

Psychologist call it “the talking cure.”  When we disclose our hearts to others who are sympathetic and non-judgmental, we learn to work though them.  The act of sharing discloses to ourselves the feelings we have. A good listener can free us from our inhibitions and help us to get in touch with what is really going on inside. 

As we talk to others, we also develop empathy for others.  Passions are not taught, they are caught. If we expose ourselves in a positive environment to the emotional lives of others, it feeds our own as well.   If we isolate ourselves from the poor, sick, and needy, we will never understand their sorrow.  Christian compassion means literally to feel another’s passion, pain, and hut.  We will never really understand their pain, if we are separated from them.  We have to go where the suffering are, even at the risk of our own safety, to truly develop empathy.  Only when we obey God’s command and go out into the world do we see the world as He did.

Listen to your dreams

Dreams in the Bible are often messages from God, and sometimes still are. But ordinary dreams are important too, revealing our inner feelings sometimes suppressed in our conscious thoughts. 

Keep a dream journal, writing them down in the morning, just after we wake. We seldom remember dreams after we have begun the day. A dream journal has for parts—a title for the dream, a theme, the emotional attitude the dream suggests, and questions that the dream raises about what we are thinking or feeling.  The details of a dream are not as important as the overall themes or impressions of the dream.   Dreams may we direct revelations from God, but are more often reveal our true feelings to ourselves.  If we are looking to get in touch with the emotional side of ourselves,  dreams may be an important clue.

Write it down

One way to find our passion is through the ancient spiritual discipline of journaling.  A journal is a daily, private record of what happens in our lives, and our emotional reactions to them.  A journal is a private record should be kept it in a safe place. The one rule of journaling is that you should never under any circumstances censor what your write.  In a journal, write what you really feel, not what you think you should feel.   It is between yourself and God.  

You will probably be surprised at the feelings you have locked inside.  Later, in a time of quiet reflection, you can ask God to help you as you work through your emotions.  But working through your passions starts by acknowledging to yourself that those feelings exist.

Use your Body

Passionate, heartfelt worship involves the whole body, not just the brain.  Bodily actions such as kneeling or the lifting of hands is more likely to ignite our passion for God in the same way that dancing r saying “I love you” can ignite passion for our spouses.

Emotional responses are stimulated through the use of all five senses.   Old Testament worship in the tabernacle of God was sensual worship:  beauty for the eyes, music for the ears, incense for the nose, hugs and kisses for the face and lips, and the sacrificial meal for taste.   God enters us though all our portals of recognition. 

The Bible uses physical words for praise, indicating physical movement --to leap, to brighten the face, to lift the head, to dance.  The Psalms tell us “Sing a joyful song unto the Lord” Psalm 100 “Clap your hands, all ye people” psalm 47 “Shout with joy to God!” Psalm 66 “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and praise God!”  Psalm 137 “Praise his name with dancing, make music to him with tambourine and harp!” Ps 14 

Worship should involve all five senses—sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell.  The more ways we can connect through our physical senses and bodily motions, the less likely our thoughts will stray. 

When a poet writes a poem,  he connect his or her emotions with ours through the invocation of the sense.  He writes about the smell of roses, the color of plums, and the taste of lemons. These images get beyond the reasoning parts of the brain and engage the primitive parts as well, invoking deep  emotion.

Get in touch with nature

Spending time in God’s creation can also awakens our passion from Him.  Many people find that spending time in nature gets them in touch with nature’s Creator.  A time in the mountains, at the beach or in the desert may show in a new way the glories of the One who created us.   God’s creation can renew and intensify our passion for Him.

Some people are more emotionally expressive than others.  It is also true that we often misread the emotional depth of others. Emotional expression is not universal; what may seem cold and distant to one may deep and passionate to another, so it is hard read another’s passions. Neither should we worry about how other people see our emotions.  What is more important that we learn to get in touch with ourselves,  and learn the deep feelings that God uses to speak to our hearts.  Feelings are not for show,  and should not be sought for their own sake.  That is emotionalism—the worship of emotions. But the expression of passion can go a long way to helping us experience the passion of God in our lives. 

Do you think of yourself as a passionate person.  How do you express your passion and love for God?  How can you stimulate and encourage the good passions in your own life?  Write and let us know.

Exploring the Matrix: Passion, part 1

watch the video on passion here.

When I was a teenager, Billy Graham came to town, and I and my church friends went down to the stadium to work at the crusade.  My friends volunteered for the mass choir, but considering my singing ability, I chose to work instead as a counselor.  They trained me how to share my faith using a little blue book called “Peace with God”. 

Page one showed a man standing on one side of two cliffs.  Between the two was a valley that represented the gap between us and God.  Page two showed half-built bridges called “religion,” “philosophy,” and “good works.” Because we are incapable of reaching God through our own effort.   On page three, a cross lay between the cliffs. God had done what we could not do, offering his Son on the Cross for our sins.  We could find our way to God, by confessing Christ and praying a prayer, which was included in that little blue book. 

At first, I expected that when someone prayed the prayer there would be some dramatic change. Usually there was not.  Sometimes a new convert would complain that they felt no difference. There was an answer for that right in the little blue book. There was an illustration showing a train with three cars--an engine, a coal car, and a caboose.  The engine was “Fact,” the coal car “Faith” and the caboose “Feeling.”  The fact was God’s promise; our faith connected to it, and the feelings weren’t important.   The engine can still run with or without the caboose.[1]

 It was a tidy presentation--accept the facts and you accept the faith. Don’t worry about feelings.

The older I get, the more inadequate that answer is.  No one accepts Christ for purely rational reasons.  Blaise Pascal wrote that “We know truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart, and it is in this last way that we know first principles; and reason, which has no part in it, tries in vain to impugn them.”[2]

Passions—emotions—are critical to us for many reasons. First, because God speaks to us through our feelings.

In a previous blog, we talked about two realms of understanding—the objective and subjective. The objective is the material universe. The subjective is our reaction to the material universe.  It exists only within our mind.  To the atheist or deist, the subjective is just an echo of the material world. But to the theist, who believes in an active, personal God, subjective impressions are one more way God speaks to us. Human feelings can be influenced by God just as human intellect. 

God in the Bible speaks though the prophets through dreams, visions, parables and impressions in the mind.  These are products of imaginations guided by God, and emotions infused with His Spirit.  He did not give us the Bible by dictation, nor did He simply give us natural principles that we can discern. He used the passion and imagination of men to convey His message to the earth. 

Whenever we talk of a “call” to the ministry, pray to God to give us peace or courage, or look to God for guidance through a sign, we are acknowledging that God still speaks through the subjective. None of this makes sense to the purely practical minded.  It is only by acknowledging God’s sovereignty and power over the heart that we begin to understand the power of God-directed passion.

Second, passions motivate us to action. Reason describes and understands, but  emotions are necessary for motivating and making decisions.  Knowledge, no matter how complete, is not enough to provoke actions unless it is accompanied by feeling.  

If objective truth was the only thing necessary for change, then alcoholism, smoking, overeating, drug addiction and speeding would disappear. We all know they are wrong, yet many do them anyway. Our bad habits and misdeeds spring from the dark recesses of the soul; from the same mysterious places that produce love, joy, and happiness.   

Shane Hipps writes:

“The exaltation of reason is the greatest legacy of the print age.   Printing helped fund the rapid acceleration of higher-order thinking and intellectual development.  What an extraordinary gift that was to us.   However, when it reverses, the emotions are seen as pesky little distractions that get in the way of good reasoning.   The consequence is that people are reduced to merely cognitive, rational beings.  The problem is, we are not just rational beings.  The Psalms reveal a very different picture.   These are the poems of the heart.  And they show us that the emotional life is integral to our very being and life with God.”[3]  

Third, passions are probably the most Godlike thing about us. We share our passions with God.  God gets joyous, angry, jealous, and loving to the highest degree.  All the feelings that motivate us are also present in Him.  It only stands to reason that God would use this link with humanity to communicate with us.

God’s passion is modeled for us in Christ.  He took a whip to moneychangers in His Father’s house, wept over Lazarus, and sweat drops of blood in agony on the night before His death. Such a Lord cannot be reconciled with a passionless, cerebral approach to the Father. Intellectual belief must be accompanied by desire. 

If there is one word which describes the way Jesus related to the people around Him, it would be empathy-- the ability to feel what other people are feeling. Our ability to empathize with others gives us an advantage over those who do not, enabling us to feel what they feel. We understand others by putting ourselves in their places, reaching them in emotional ways.

Jesus tailored his reactions to each person He met to their moods.  He played with children, argued with Pharisees, wept with widows, and rebuked disciples.  He never had a “typical” response to anyone.  His reaction to each person was unique. 

Passionate living comes naturally to some. For others, it must be cultivated.  In the next blog, we will talk about how to cultivate a greater sense of passion.

Do you see yourself as being more passionate, or more reasonable?  What stimulates your passion for God?

Write below and let us know. 

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[1] This is a point also made by Peter Scazzero in his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. 

[2] Pascal, Blaise (2012-05-12).  Pascal's Pensées (Kindle Locations 1539-1541).Kindle Edition.

[3] Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels