The Case Against Strategic Thinking

A friend of mine, a retired army colonel, once told me that in this world there were four kinds of people, but the army could use only three kinds.  First, they needed smart, creative people, who knew their field and could think strategically. These became generals and admirals, who planned campaigns.  Second, they needed smart, non-creative people. They knew how to carry out orders and get things done with efficiency. These became sergeants, corporals, and chief petty officers.   Next came the dumb,  non-creative people, who did what they were told. They made ideal privates and enlistees.  They just followed orders and did what they were told. The fourth kind of person, which the army could not use,  was dumb but creative people.  They were always wanting to do things their way, even when they had no idea what they were doing.  These people have no place in the army, according to my friend.  
Evidently not, because there are so many of them in the church!
The Bible gives us a pattern of command in the Kingdom of God, which is much simpler than the military.  Christ is the head, and no one else. We are His body.  We don't have to be creative--we just listen and follow orders. 
Nevertheless, most of us are not really fond of that arrangement.  We don't like listening to God. We prefer doing things our own way.  We church leaders think of ourselves as field commanders with God as the distant general back at headquarters.  He has left it to us to order the troops for battle, and he doesn't seem to care how we do it. 
Underneath our supposed faith in God, we don't really trust our Commander to make the plans for the battle. We are practical deists. We know that God gave us orders and instructions, but we presume He has no interest in the day-to-day running of the church--that he had delegated day-to-day decision making to poor fools like ourselves, and that He is incapable of giving us ongoing guidance.  For the most part, we understand the goals we are supposed to be pursuing, but we blindly stumble around with our eyes closed to his daily commands, failing regularly.We don't think of Christ as the living head of the church,  but a symbolic head, like the queen of England.   All the queen does is just show up and receive her subjects' accolades.  For the ambitious and self-important leader, we prefer it that way.  God might interfere with our plans.  Stephen Vincent Benet once wrote, "We're surer of God when we know He's dead." 
If God had really left the world alone, it would be up to us to plan the strategy.  But God is not dead, He is alive, and he hasn't left the earth. Jesus body may have ascended into heaven, but the Holy Spirit is still here and communicating with us on a daily basis, not only through the written Word but also through His presence within. So why are we concerning ourselves with strategic thinking?  That's His job.
The church on earth views itself far too often as a non-profit religious corporation, modeling its leadership strategy after business, politics, and sports. We are obsessed with developing strategic thinkers. Just look in the Christian bookstore and you will find title after title about church leadership training and church growth. Many of the writers are trained or even teach corporate executives and businessmen in secular business.  Yet rarely do we find books on being faithful servants good followers, or on learning to follow the Master's voice and direction.  There are many books on how to be generals, but few books for privates. 
God is not someone to whom we give titular obeisance while we plan how to run His earthly empire. does not tell us just exactly how He plans to win the world.  All he asks is that we be faithful in doing our job where we are.  Instead of worrying about the big plans,  He asks us to attend to small things--being loving towards those around us and faithful in our private behavior and attitudes. 
Military campaigns look different whether you are a general or a private. If you are a general, you see the overall picture like pawns on a chess board. But to the private, they look like confusion. In every army,  soldiers say to one another that if they were running things they would have done it differently.  Ordinary soldiers do not know the overall strategy.  That's OK, they only know how to sit down, be quiet, and wait for orders.
So if we do away with strategic thinking, what do we put in its place?
In place of strategy, pursue discernment. It is the job of every Christian leader to accurately discern what God is saying. 
Discernment isn't easy, and it isn't an afterthought. We cannot discern the will of God by having an opening prayer at meetings. It takes time and effort to quiet our inner, willful voices within and hear the voice of the Spirit.  This is not because God isn't talking, but because we are not naturally inclined to hear.  We must listen with humility--real humility, not the playacting that passes for humility among most of us leaders. We must set aside our business, cleverness, and egos long enough to let Him lead. We must join in the prayer Jesus prayed at Gethsemane--"Not my will, but yours be done."
When we do hear God, the first thing we hear Him calling us to is nothing. Hearing and following God is not about what we do but who we are.  Before God calls us not to evangelize the world, transform society, reform worship or to rescue the poor,  He calls us to be like Him. Before a soldier gets an assignment, he must first learn to be a soldier. Before an officer graduates officer training school, he must first be a better soldier than the other.  In the church, no one should be a leader who is not more loving to others, more devout in prayer, more enthusiastic about the Word, more forgiving or his enemies and more at peace with himself than the average member of the church.  If we accomplish all the good things in the world, but we are not this,  we are sounding brass or clanging symbols.  We must learn to be still and listen
We say "Someone has to lead--it may be me." If we were merely presidents or CEO's this might be true. But the real problems of this world are too complex for our puny minds to imagine.  We think that having the Bible has prepared us to be strategic thinkers, but that isn't true.  We also need the life-giving Spirit.  It is best to keep our focus on small matters, things we can understand than to presume to have knowledge that is beyond our human capacity.
The first command that we teach a dog is "Sit."  Once we learn to sit in stillness before God and be content with letting Him control the big things,  we can follow His lead. The first command God teaches us--indeed the only command that matters--is to sit until ordered and obey.  Just listen to God in the daily moves and let Him lead us.   Thinking strategically is not our job. Our job is just to follow where He leads.
The church doesn't need any more generals. We already have an excellent one!  But if we are content to be privates in the army of God, He can still use us.

The disciplines of Hope

How do we develop hope? Here are some activities may help:

Being Thankful

“In everything give thanks,” Paul wrote “For this is God’s will.” (1 Thess. 5:18) This isn’t a suggestion but a command.  He does not say to give thanks if we feel grateful, but to give thanks whether we feel anything like gratitude or not.  It is wonderful if our heart can be involved, but it is not necessary. In time our heart will catch up with the rest of us, and we may feel something like gratitude, but it isn’t necessary. Give thanks anyway.

Thankfulness helps to orient our mind towards ultimate purpose and destination.  It is an acknowledgement that is or can be part of God’s great satisfaction. Thanksgiving lifts us out of the tyranny of the moment and helps us see the vistas around us 

In the novel The Hobbit Bilbo Baggins his friends are stuck for weeks in a dark, foreboding forest.  Despairing of their predicament, they send Bilbo to climb one of the highest trees and look around.  Once above the treetops he feels fresh air and sunlight again and is greatly encourage.  More importantly, he sees their destination, the Lonely Mountain, is not far away. 

Thanksgiving gives us a glimpse above the treetops. We may be stuck in the muck of today, but it reminds us that we are actually making progress. Thanksgiving is the assurance of our souls that we are holding to the right course. 

We thank God for small blessings in the middle of major disasters.  Terminally ill patients can sometimes be filled with hope, not of a long life, but of seeing a loved one again, going to a graduation, or feeling a sea breeze. Small thanksgivings can be ours in big disasters.  The discipline of thankfulness reminds us of our many blessings.

We thank God for big blessings in the middle of minor disasters. When we are late for work,  our car breaks down, or we are caught in a rainstorm,  we can easily forget that life for us is actually pretty good. When we feel bad about something we forgot to do, we forget that God has redeemed us and still loves us, wholly and completely. Giving thanks for big blessings helps us deal with small disasters. 

Affirmation

Affirmation is the practice of self-reminding.  We sometimes forget who we are and where we are going.  The daily practice of affirmation helps us remember this. 

Affirmation is not magic. Reciting to ourselves “I am a good person” does not really make us a good person if we are not.  No, affirmations must first all be the truth to have power. 

A good affirmation is based on our position in Christ. It is a statement of how Christ thinks of us, and what He can do with us. It is not a statement of our own abilities, but of His 

Here is an example of an affirmation I have written and used for years.

“Today, I will remember that I am forgiven

“Today I will remember my worth in God's eyes.

“Today I will remember to give others my honesty and friendship

“Today I will remember that I am already loved enough

“Today I will remember that I can do all things through Christ

“Today I will remember the shortness of life and to live inthis moment

“Today I will remember to be thankful for all things

“Today I will remember that I can trust Him

“And in trusting, hope, and in hoping, know

“And in knowing, rejoice.”

A good way of writing an affirmation for yourself is a “beloved covenant” described in Trevor Hudson’s book Discovering our Spiritual Identity:

 Sit down in a quiet place and recall your favorite verses from the Bible.  If you aren’t familiar with the Bible and are just starting out reading it, just thumb through and write down a few promises.  Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to verses that stand out to you.  After you have a few verses,  read them over and over slowly.  Don’t look for things to do or to pray for—look for what God says about you, and His relationship to you.  Take these verses and write them down.  Then go back over them for about ten minutes a day for a few days.  Let these statements sink into your soul. You will find that it really helps to build confidence and hope to know just what God thinks of you.

Patience

We usually think of patience as a gift, but it really more of a choice. It’s knowing the reasons for hurry, but choosing to ignore them-- a hundred times a day, if necessary. 

I may be in a hurry to get home, but I choose to slow down and be safe instead of speeding up, because I know that home will be there when I arrive.  I want to buy a new car, but I choose instead to save my money, because I believe in the future I can afford it. I think that school is too hard, but I choose to do my homework, because I hope to graduate one day. I make these choices because of hope for the future. By choosing to say “no” to my immediate impulses, I am expressing my hope of future reward. 

Do not confuse impatient feelings with impatient actions. We can still be patient even when we feel impatient. Worry is resistible, and the act of resisting it is what we mean by patience. In time, the feelings of impatience will give way to peace, but it will not happen until we choose to be patient.

Use your Imaginations

Sit down, and make a list with three columns on it.  Label the first  “1year from now”,  the next “3 years from now” and the third “10 years from now.”

Now, close your eyes and use your imagination. Picture yourself one year in the future, with God in absolute control of your life and your situation.  What would your life be like in the best possible future with God in control, at these three points in the future?  Don’t focus on what your occupation will be, whether you have accomplished your occupational goals.  Don’t imagine a life without enemies, struggles or opposition, but instead concentrate more on who you will be inside,  and what your attitudes and inner realities will be.  Not so much what your will be doing at this time but who you will be inside.  Then pray over the lists and save them. Look back over them from time to time as you approach the future.

Hope is faith for the future.  In order to have hope future, we must see God there.  This requires a sanctified imagination. We need to have an image of our future selves with God in control, and what our lives would be like if we were.

A pessimist envisions the future and sees all the things that can go wrong. This is useful, since we all know that things can go wrong and it is good to be prepared. But pessimism alone cannot motivate us to do anything good. The more we imagine bad things happening to us,  the more we are that our negative imaginings will actually happen.

An optimist envisions the future and sees what can go right.   Hope arises from these positive imaginings. But we must be careful where our positive imaginings take us. If we divorce our hopes from our faith they are just wishful thinking. Our hope must come from God, and His power to change us.  If we just hope to be a better, kinder person without being a more Godly person, there is no real reason to believe we will succeed.  If we see ourselves conquering our present calamities and we do not see God in charge and getting all the glory, then our real hope is not in Him but in ourselves.

Real hope is not imagining a future without problems, but imagining a future with God’s sufficiency. It is unrealistic to think we can live in a sinful world and find everything easy and uncomplicated. But it is realistic to imagine that in the future we may be better equipped to cope, when we pursue a deeper relationship with God. 

Circumstances are guaranteed to change for us, but the relationship we have with God, who is the provider of all things can get stronger with every passing day. With His help, we will better be able to cope with life changes because we learn to trust Him daily,  The struggles of today will make us more able to trust Him in the future.

We cannot change the world, but we can change ourselves.  In changing ourselves we learn to better  cope with the world. 

The virtues of heritage

Once it took a trip to Israel and stayed at the famous Seven Arches Hotel on the Mount of Olives.  The Seven Arches is the place where most of the panoramic pictures of Israel was taken. It is just feet away from Bethpage, the beginning of the Palm Sunday road.
What a place it is!  There is the temple mound before you, and Mount Zion. There are the walls of Jerusalem rebuilt by Saladin the Turk along the foundations of the original walls. The Garden of Gethsemane in the valley below, and a little sign pointing down into the vast white sea of tombs in the great cemetery by the Eastern gate.  The sign says ‘the tombs of Haggai and Zechariah.”  The enormous sense of the ages long past is in that place as you are taken up in the realization of your own smallness and insignificance in time.  I have never been to the Grand Canyon but it must be a similar experience. You see your own place in the great scheme of creation there. But standing on that mountain in Israel, you cannot help but be overwhelmed by your place in the great scheme of creation, the heritage of Biblical history.
But what is history to us?  If we don’t have the eyes to see it, it is nothing.  A lizard crawling on that same spot would feel nothing but a hunger for its next meal. But God gave us the ability to appreciate what has come before us, and what will come to pass. This gives us the ability to appreciate what God has done, is doing and will do. 
But this sense has to be developed, just like every other sense.  To learn from history we must develop the virtues of heritage, so we can sharpen our connection with the past.  These virtues include memory, honor, and fidelity.
Memory is the second virtue of heritage. We need to remember the past.  The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 143:5 
“I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
And consider what your hands have done.” 
Deuteronomy 32:7 says:
“Remember the days of old;
Consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
Your elders and they will explain to you”
Our modern church suffers from a kind of Spiritual Alzheimer’s, which can be almost as devastating to the soul as the real thing. To have memory is to have wisdom. We are told in Proverb repeatedly to remember the voices of the past. 
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.
Prov 1:8-9
My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart,
for they will prolong your life many years and bring you prosperity.
Prov 3:1-2
Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding.
I give you sound learning, so do not forsake my teaching.
When I was a boy in my father's house, still tender,
and an only child of my mother, he taught me and said,
"Lay hold of my words with all your heart; keep my commands and you will live. 
Prov 4:1-4
Listen, my son, accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many.
Prov 4:10
This small sampling of verses is enough to show how important memory was to the writer of Proverbs.  Listening to our heritage gives us the gift of wisdom, prosperity, success, and a long life. 
“Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your forefathers.” Proverbs 22:28. Once removed, it’s almost impossible to reset. We cannot fully appreciate why that boundary was there in the first place until it is gone.
Honor is a recognition of the debt we owe people of the past.  A person may be dead but that doesn’t mean we owe them nothing. We still need to see that their work is carried forward.  The fifth commandment states “Honor your father and your mother, that your days be long upon the earth.” This commandment is considered the foundation for all human social relationships.   The Westminster Shorter Catechism elaborates by saying that included is this command is “preserving the honor, and performing the duties, belonging to everyone in their several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, or equals.”
Honoring the past means submitting in love to the wishes and desires of those who have gone before, whether they are dead or alive.  Honor to the past does not mean we should slavishly copy the past. Sometimes it is imperative that we go against the wishes of our ancestors, as they found it necessary to go against the wishes of their own. Honoring them does not mean slavish obedience but respect and love. 
The Hebrew word for “honor” is "kebed", which means “weighty.”  To honor our ancestors is to place weight on their wishes.  Honoring our historical roots gives us the wisdom to face our current challenges.  Our parents left what wisdom they could behind, to show us how to survive.  To place no value on the wisdom of ancestral tradition hurts ourselves.  We must remember that we will someday be ancestors to others, and we will want to leave some of our own traditions behind, too. 

Fidelity goes beyond honor and memory. It is being faithful where we are placed. In Matthew 10:11, Jesus gave His disciples some unusual travel instructions.  "Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave.”
 But what if, while we are staying at a home, someone gives us a better offer?  What if the family down the street offers you a bigger room and better meals?  Why not just leave them and go where the house is bigger and the food better?
That’s where fidelity comes in.  To change houses is to insult our host. If we were led to stay with one hose, don’t change until there is a clear calling of God to go elsewhere.
St Benedict, in his rule for monks, called this stability. When a monk entered holy orders, he stayed at the house where he was called unless sent out for mission work. There was no reason to change location until God called them elsewhere. They stayed loyal to that one house.
Loyalty is a precious commodity in our world.  Most people change careers two or three times in a lifetime. They change churches several times. We even change spouses! 
But in our constantly changing lives, we miss the value of a deep, long-term relationship with the same people over time.  After many changes, we lose all sense of history. We become like the lizard on a rock in the Holy Land, who can only see what is before him, missing the grandeur of God’s working through the ages.  
Don’t ignore your heritage. Go deep in it.  In the next blog, we’ll talk about how.

Do you think that heritage is undervalued or overvalued in the church?  What purpose does heritage serve in the church.  I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think.

The value of heritage

Humorist Harry Leon Wilson, while visiting the Grand Canyon, once remarked, “At last, I know a place to throw my old razor blades!”

His comment reminds us of what is wrong with our current view of history. We look at the great figures and events of the past and trivialize them.  History becomes caricatures. Washington is just a face on the dollar bill.  Napoleon becomes a pastry; Caesar becomes a salad; and Babe Ruth a candy bar.

Contemporary church seeks to relate to our fast-changing world by denying the past.  Some will not sing songs more than twenty years ago. Sanctuaries are designed (without the slightest recognition of irony) to not look “churchy.”  There’s little to remind us of our faith’s deep historical roots.

It’s a shame. By ignoring history, we deny what connects us. Think of history as a tree We are the topmost branches. We see other believes as separate branches, and do not see how we are interconnected.    But if we trace our origin back, we discover we discover our commonality, until we all eventually come from a common source, which holds us together. 

Our faith depends upon its historicity.   If it were discovered that Buddha did not exist, Buddhism would not be changed significantly.   But Christianity depends upon the historicity,  divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ.  It is based on real, objective events that happened in real time and space.  

In the best-selling book The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher writes “To cut a people off from their tradition is to break the chain of historical memory and deprive them of a culture. No wonder Christian culture withers in modernity.”[1]

Yet we are severing ourselves from our roots even while the rest of the world is seeking theirs. The internet giant Ancestry.com has sold more than a million aps for smart phones, owns subsidiaries in twelve countries, and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Recently, it acquired its ten billionth genealogical record.[2] History books continue to sell well, and are regularly listed on the best-seller list.

There are a growing number of Christians who grew up in the rootless “newness” the modern evangelical movement who are ditching it for something with historical resonance.  The fascination with the Puritans within the Reformed movement, the Messianic Jewish movement, the renewed interest in Eastern Orthodoxy, an increased number of conversions to Catholicism as well as the exploration of ancient faith practices in the Spiritual Formation movement demonstrate the hunger Christians to connect with Christian heritage in a meaningful way.  

A common trope in evangelical circles is that the church is only “one generation away from extinction.”  This may encourage us to evangelize our youth, but it simply isn’t true.  Heritage reminds us that the church has been going on for a long, long time. It gives us historical perspective that God’s will cannot be thwarted by the mistakes of a single generation. The church has survived heretical disputes, secular takeovers of ecclesiastical power, schism, persecution, and corrupt clergy. It is not about to die now—but will continue until Christ’s return and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

But none of this directly relates to the subject at hand, which is our own personal faith.  Why should we personally value our spiritual heritage?

First, because it gives us a sense of perspective. When the we are in difficult times, history shows us that we were not always there.  When we are in good times, history reminds us to prepare. 

Second, because it gives us a full tool box.  When my father died, I inherited all his tools. Some of them were too told to use and had to be discarded.  Most of them, however, are still useful.  Our heritage gives us a full tool box of ideas that worked in previous generation, and are still useful today.  Methods of prayer such as the lectio divina of the exercises of St. Ignatius are still of value today. So are many of the lyrics of ancient hymns.  It sometimes amazes me that a faith based on a two-thousand-year-old book can see no value in writings and practices of people only two or three generations past! What they learned back for the most part still works today.

Third, because heritage reminds us that we are not as important as we think we are.

Our knowledge of history has repeatedly helped us to challenge the errors of the present.  Whenever we lose our grip on history, we are left adrift in a sea of contemporary relevance, “tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men.” (Ephesians 4:14)

Recently, I heard a podcast with a former evangelical leader who had converted to Roman Catholicism.  He described the freedom he felt in being part of a church that did not say everything began and end with him, that did not feel the need to recreate itself every generation. 

When we forget the past, the first result is that we lose humility. We begin to think that we are the beginning and end of all things.  Our lives are not a not as long as we think, and our works do not last very long afterwards.  A generation goes, and a generation comes,
    but the earth remains forever.  

---

[1] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (p. 104). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[2] http://corporate.ancestry.com/careers/companyhistory/

The Virtues of Self-Awareness

We get self-knowledge the same we acquire any other knowledge--by applying ourselves to study the subject. We do this by setting aside time alone to meditate on our own history,  goals, and basic nature.  

But self-study is considerably harder than studying mathematics, astronomy, or psychology. It is hard to see ourselves objectively. We need God’s help, along with the help of of people close to us. But once we have come to understand who we truly are in God’s eyes, then that self-awareness can help us overcome anything the world throws at us.

Joseph the Patriarch was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and unjustly imprisoned.  But after he was released and promoted to a position of great power, he told his brothers “you meant it for evil, but God intended it for good.” (Gen. 50:20) It was his self-awareness of his own place before God that enabled him to survive and thrive.

Paul was beaten, imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, and left for dead, but in reflecting on his life story said.  “I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Cor. 12:20) His confidence in the face of suffering came from His awareness of himself before God.  He interpreted his life story through the lenses of God’s love, and His confidence before Him.

This kind of confidence only comes by daily struggling to establish daily practices of self-awareness.  These practices are based upon the developing certain basic virtues of self-awareness.  These include:  honesty, introspection, expression, remembering, and forgetting. 

1. Honesty.  Before we can know ourselves, we must be honest about our thoughts, feelings and actions.  This honesty means not only recognizing them to ourselves but acknowledging them to others.  John calls this “walking in the light” in 1 John 1: 5-7:

 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.  If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin

To walk in the light is to live honestly and transparently. We must reject the old adage “fake it till you make it.”  We cannot present one side to the world and another side to God. We must show our true--not without fear of what others will do, but trusting God to defend us.    

2, Introspection.  Self-awareness also requires self-examination. This means we must have a regular habit of self-appraisal on an ongoing basis. Only by practicing regular self-examination can the Spirit make us aware of our personal shortcomings as well as our personal assets, so we can improve the former while maximizing the latter.    

We all put on masks in front of others.  The biggest masks we wear, though, are the ones we wear when we look in the mirror.  We refuse self-examination and so we lack self-awareness.  We have reasons for this neglect.  We tell ourselves we don’t have time to look inside, and dismiss introspection as pointless navel-gazing. Sometimes this might be true, but more often we just don’t want to be bothered by a need for change. We often whitewash our real motives and conduct and make excuses for behavior for which we ought to be ashamed. 

But if we are ashamed of the past, it is only because we do not yet have the mind of Christ.  God has forgiven our past sins through Him.  We no longer stand condemned by God. We do not look back in shame, but to learn how to live in the future.

 Confession and recollection of our sins is like doing an autopsy on a dead animal. It nat be unpleasant but it can be helpful. Our past sins are dead, they can no longer harm us, but they can show us what to avoid in the future. We are free.  We can honestly assess our past, since we are no longer bound by it.   To hide sin is to give power to it.  Nor do we need to pretend to any kind of perfection, since in acknowledging and confessing sin, we have already acknowledged our imperfection.

3. Self-expression.  Have you ever had the experience of speaking and suddenly becoming aware that you were saying too much?  You find yourself expressing irritation at something you thought was already over.  Later, you say to yourself “Why did I ever talk like that?”   We do this because speaking is like turning on a spigot to our inner thoughts and emotions.  We may think we know what is us, but we are often surprised at feelings that rush out. 

Learning to express ourselves, both through journaling and speaking is necessary to really know ourselves.

Counselors call it “the talking cure.”  By getting a client to tell their story over and over, they process it in their mind. Each time we say or write what we have thought or done, we learn something new. We are not only speaking to others, but to ourselves.    

Sometimes words are not enough.  Art is a means of self-expression that reveals ourselves to ourselves. Any activity kind of creative activity opens up a window to our own soul. 

4.  Remembering.  Rabbi Joshua Heschel once wrote “Much of what the Bible demands can be compressed into one word—remember.”[1]  We need to remember events of ancient times, but we also need to remember where we came from, where we are going, and what God has done for us along the way. Telling the story of our faith journey helps us understand who we are, and to become aware of what God is doing in our lives. 

There are two kinds of memory—long term and short-term. One is the long story of where we were and where we are headed, of  answered prayers and moments of joy.  These memories sustain us through hard times. 

Short term memory is important when we get lost in the big tragedies of life.  They focus our attention down, like the lens of a microscope, on the daily blessings of today.  Remember the little blessings of this morning or last night helps us give thanks for the daily things when life seems long and hard.

One of my daily prayers each morning goes like this “Holy Father, maker of all things, thank your for Your universe.” It reminds me that God made all things to be enjoyed. When I fail to notice the beauty of my surroundings, I remember that the One who made all things for a good purpose.

5.  Forgetting.  Forgetting is just as important as remembering.  We should be aware of all things, but we do not dwell on all things.  I can choose lay aside those memories that are not profitable to me.  Intentional forgetting is not a denial but a choice to not allow those negative parts of my story to become important to the overall ending.  I choose to forget sins against me--not because they didn’t occur, but because I simply do not dwell upon them. 

Christian self-awareness comes from examining and interpreting our lives in the light of Christ. We put aside the elements of our past that we lead away from Him, while remembering what lead us to Him.  In this way, we surrender our story to the grace and mercy of Christ.

---

[1][1] Quoted from Trevor Hudson’s Discovering our Spiritual Identity,  IVP press, 2010, p. 35.

The Identity Balance

John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Faith,  wrote:

“Our wisdom . . . consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.” 

In other words, we need to know ourselves in order to know God, and we need to know God in order to know ourselves.

It’s easy to see the hang-ups we have from having too low or two high an opinion of ourselves.  If we have a poor sense of our own worth, we may try to overcompensate destructive ways. But if our sense

of identity is too high of self-esteem, we wind up self-centered and inconsiderate of others.

But how does this connect with the knowledge of God.  If our self-identity is too low, then it is difficult to see how God can love us.  But if our self esteem is too high, we can easily forget Him. Either way,  an improper sense of identity can cause us to fall off that tightrope balance that is the “narrow way”  righteousness.  To fall of doesn’t mean death, since we are in God’s hands, but it does make it difficult to know him and have faith in Him. 

Our sense of identity has two parts.  We are aware of ourselves as belonging to a community, giving us  a place in a wider world.   An American sees himself as belonging America, just as a Roman saw himself as belonging to Rome. A Christian equally defines herself being in Christ, which is what the word “Christian” originally meant.

We grow faster in our faith when we live it inside a supportive community.  It also gives us a place to express and communicate our faith with others.  Love calls us to togetherness, while self-love (which is of equal importance to love of others) calls us to be alone.

 We are also self-aware, having a personality that is different from the rest. We are not just American, British, Australian, Catholic, Baptist, or Christian, but we are also individually different.  This self-awareness means we can stand alone without external support from others. We can support others and join the crowd, but we can also choose to go our own way.   

Our faith defines our community and our inner knowledge. We need to be part of a group, but we also need to be away from that group. If we lose ourselves too much in group awareness, we risk becoming blind, overly dependents followers of a cause or cult.  If we lose ourselves in self-awareness, we can become unable to see ourselves properly, and are prone to arrogance.   If we go too far in either direction,  we will not be a whole person. 

Michael Kerr tells the story of a porcupines living in a common burrow while trying to endure a hard winter.  If they huddle closely for warmth, they will get stuck on each others’ quills. If they stay apart, they freeze to death.  We have to live close enough to our fellow people to share their warmth and far enough away to keep from being stuck. [1] Independence keeps us from being led astray, while community spares us from loneliness. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously wrote “Let those who will not be alone fear being in community. Let those who will not be in community fear being alone.”[2]  In order to have a close relationship to God, we need to build bridges to fellow believers, as well as a strong understanding of who we really are.  This is a hard balance to strike, but it is worth the effort. 

Are you more comfortable being alone, or being with others?  We are all think, act and feel differently about what part of this balance of identity is the most important to us.

Think about when you feel closest to God.  Is it when you are worshipping in a crowd or alone in prayer? 

How can you use both your alone time and together time to draw closer to God, who is with us at all times? Write me and let me know what your think.  If this makes you think share it with others, or better yet, take a moment to subscribe to this blog.  Write me a note or a comment. I’d love to hear from you.

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[1][1] Quoted in Creating Healthier Churches:  Family Systems Theory, Leadership, and congregational life From the Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, Min, 1996, p. 66.

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.  

The Limits of Witness

Just as thoughts and feelings can become idols, so can actions.  Jesus speaks about this in Matthew 7: 21-23

 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

It is hard to believe that someone who calls Jesus Lord, preaches the Gospel,  prophesies,  casts out demons,  and does great works can find themselves rejected by God, but that’s what Jesus says here.  If we do all these things and haven’t known Jesus personally, it really does us no good.

Being Jesus-connected is more than just being active in the church, or even in good works outside the church. It is a living and ongoing relationship.  It is easy for us to get caught up in the activity of doing what we think is God’s work, and forget to consult with Him about what He really wants for us. 

In our culture we often define ourselves by what we do.  When two people meet, the first question they ask is about their occupation “What do you do for a living?”  The greatest compliment you can give them, which is heard at many funerals, is to call them “a hard worker.”  The worst insult is to call them “useless.”  We often define our lives in terms of how much we can get done, or how much we influence the world around us. 

But this is just another form of community spirituality. Our ultimate worth comes from our relationship with God, not from what we do in the world.  When our lives become obsessed with action, we become a house without foundation. We try to get the outside of our lives in order, but the interior connection is not there.  This leads to burnout and frustration. 

Faith is more than just going through the motions. Head and heart must also be present.  We must know the Lord of our faith, both intellectually and personally.  In real faith, actions are an expression of a whole-life commitment to God. The details of our actions matter less than the reasons we are doing it.

Doing is not enough unless it also includes knowing and being.  We can go through all the motions and never become grounded in our faith.  When that happens we see several problems.

An over-obsession with outward actions leads us to judge ourselves by performance. If we are making a difference in the world, but if we do not perceive ourselves as making a difference, we get depressed and down.  What gives meaning to our lives is not what we accomplish but doing the will of our Father. His will may be for us to accomplish great things, or it may be to spend our time guarding little things.  We are like soldiers who are willing to march on the front lines, but are not willing to do guard duty on a lonely wall at midnight. Yet our place of sitting still is just as important as our place in the heat of battle. 

This action-oriented approach often becomes a problem at the end of life. What happens when we can no longer do for others or even ourselves?  What happens when we a sidelined by illness,  caretaking a loved one, or by job loss?   Can we be happy doing nothing important? Al of us will face a time of imposed idleness.  If we are not strong in our relationship to God, these can be the most difficult times we face. 

Then there is the problem of judgmentalism.  Mission-oriented people can fall into the trap of believing that everyone must have the same mission that we do.  There are many missions that God may give—evangelism, foreign missions,  discipleship,  social action,  political action, and many others.  But not all of us have the same mission. There is no one “main” mission of the church.  The Christian life is not about mission, but submission to Christ.  We must know Him and hear Him,  before we act. 

 Legalism is another problem.  Legalism is an obsession with doing everything right. It is the assumption that if we don’t do the right things in the right way that God will not accept us.  This is a distortion of the relationship we have with God. God loves us, not our action.  He does not exclude us from His fellowship because we do not do everything correctly.   He cares for who we are more than he cares for what we do.  Our best efforts for God all fall woefully short.  Compared with the perfection of Christ, our greatest efforts are like childish crayon scrawls next to the Mona Lisa.  But God, like any loving parent, would rather have those pictures painted by a loving son or daughter than all the great works of art combined.  He accepts us because He knows us. We do not witness for Christ to earn his love;  we witness for Christ because we already have it.

Witness In the world is a good thing. But it is not the only thing. A relationship with Him must come first. 

How about you?  Was there ever a time in your life when your service to God eclipsed your relationship with Him?  If it did, how did you get back in touch with God?

Write to me and let me know how this impacts you, share it and  subscribe to this blog. I will be writing new articles regularly.  

Exploring the Matrix: Witness, part 1

God put us here to do something with what He gave us.

God rested on the seventh day, not because He needed the rest, but because He deliberately wanted to leave a part of His creation unfinished, so we could help finish it. He endowed us with creativity, understanding, knowledge and wisdom to use in managing and completing His creation.

Before Jesus left, He commanded His disciples to complete His work as well. Matthew 28: 18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

To accomplish this and guide us as we work, He promised us the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world.”

The Holy Spirit was sent to enable us to be witnesses.  Bearing witness is the way we complete Jesus’ work on earth.

In its original context, a witness was a person who reported what he or she had seen in a court of law or on legal documents. Being a witness meant that we could verify with our own eyes something that happened. In the New Testament, a witness is someone who can publicly verify the reality of Christ.  Jesus bore witness to His experience with the Father.  The disciples bear witness to their experiences with Jesus. 

We can only be a witness to something we have seen, heard or experienced. If we have not experienced something, we cannot bear witness. All we can do is report hearsay evidence.

Being a witness isn’t the same as being a preacher or an evangelist. Preachers and teachers communicate a body of knowledge that they may or may not have experienced.  A preacher can tell the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament or of Jesus’ resurrection even though they were not there as a witness. A good storyteller can tell them with creativity and imagery that makes the listener feel they were actually there. A storyteller can do this whether or not they believe the story to be true. But a witness tells what he or she has seen and heard.  They can only relate what they know to be true.   

A person of faith will witness to the faith within them, not only by what they say, but by what they are.  To be a witness is to live our faith in public.  We are the living proof of an encounter with God. Bearing witness is not something we do with words alone but it is living as people of faith, expressing the effects of our encounter with God in every place we touch the world around us.

This distinction between witness and teaching is crucial.  If we think of bearing witness merely as the communication of a body of doctrine, then we have already disconnected our faith from our inner essence.  Sharing our faith becomes winning an argument.  It becomes expedient for us to exaggerate, mislead, or even lie about our own spiritual journey if our story is not seem “dramatic” enough to impress.  We see ourselves as God’s salesmen, more concerned about conversions than the truth. We pretend to be happy when we are not, so others will be persuaded to believe like us.  We exaggerate the changes God has made in our lives, excusing it as a “better witness” than the truth.  We manipulate others by seeking friendships with those who can give us political advantage.  This is no witness at all. Those who we hope to impress usually see through this and are turned off by it. 

Our real witness comes more from how we live in our daily lives, not what we preach.  It is how we display in the public arena our inner, faith-shaped nature, in Christ. 

A flower bears witness of the beauty of God;  a thunderstorm bears witness to His power--yet neither says a word to us. They glorify God by who they are, not by what we do.  When what we are and what we have experienced is lived out before the world, then we are witnesses to the transforming power of God.

The virtues of witness—Sincerity, Love, and Service..   

“Sincere” comes from the Latin phrase “sine cere” meaning “without salt.” Merchants who sold marble for carving would often cover up flaws in the stone by rubbing salt over the cracks. The salt was indistinguishable from the marble, so it hid their imperfections. But when xposed to water or a stonemason’s hammer, the cracks would open and the stone was ruined.  A “sincere” stone was a piece where the cracks were revealed and there was no attempt to hide.

In I John,  the apostles begins by saying that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. “

There is no deception in God; no attempt to hide, cover or deceive.  He tells us that we should “walk in the light”---that is walk with no attempt to pretend or deceive, just like God does with us. 

When we walk in sincerity, we live out our faith in the world around us. We do not pretend to agree with things we do not agree with. We do not put a smiles on our faces when we are really hurting. We completely reject the false doctrine of “Fake it till you make it.” 

A sincere person is one who’s head, heart, and actions are one. If they find that their feelings and understanding are out of sync, the seek to change one or the other.  If they are living at a standard that is below what the believe,  they change the way they live.

In Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus, one of the characters seeks to describe what made Spartacus a great leader. He says that unlike all other men he had ever known,  Spartacus was the same, no matter where you saw him. His personality did not have sides to it, but it was a transparent representation of his essence.  This is what John means by “walking in the light,” to have such a personality that nothing is hidden from other, or needs to be. 

When we do this, we are automatic witnesses.  People see God in us, and either react by acceptance or rejection of Him.  Either way, we put the focus on Him. 

We are witnesses to Christ only to the degree we cultivate transparency in all our dealings with others.

Love is the second virtue of witness. We must genuinely love God and love others. 

Love of God, love of self, and love of others are not necessarily separate.  If we love God, and we believe God loves us and others, then our love of others is an extension of our love of God.

Once we have made Christ our ultimate concern we have made the choice to be compassionate. We simply have no choice after that.  It is what Christians do.  Jesus makes this abundantly clear in Matthew 25:21-46.  The gist of His statement is found in this passage 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Christ identifies with the suffering. For that reason, He claims that serving them is serving Him.

If God loves us and we love God, how can we then hate ourselves? If we love Christ and Christ loved the world, how can we hate it?  For a Christian—or anyone who believes that God is loving—then acts of loves are actually acts of witness and worship. 

In order to develop a greater love of God and others, we must then do it in the context of the larger world.  In helping the poor, sharing the good new of Christ, and speaking out against injustices, we are witnessing to something we ourselves have experienced.  Loving becomes the supreme act of witnessing to God’s love. 

We do not get involved in social concerns and welfare because we want to persuade or because we are trying to prove something, neither are we substituting worldly relief for eternal salvation. We do it because we care—really, genuinely care about the suffering of God.  Christ, whose whole life on earth was one great display of empathy, expects His followers to share His empathy to the world.  That is why He sent us out to heal the sick, feed the poor, cast out demons, and to give help where we can.  It is part of His nature that we do so. 

Service.  Donald Whitney observed “When God calls His elect to Himself, He calls no one to idleness.  When we are born again and our sins forgiven, the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience, according to Hebrews 9: 14, in order for us to ‘serve the living God!’ ‘Serve the LORD with gladness’ (Psalm 100: 2, NASB) is every Christian’s commission.”[1]

Service is an expression of who we are in Christ.   Idleness and laziness is a retreat into self from the world.  It assumes that we have no reason to leave anything behind, or obligation to care.  We may empathize but we do not act, because we fear the hassle it will bring. 

In order to be of service, we must realize that we cannot serve everyone all the time. But we should start by serving those nearest to us first—our family, coworkers, and neighbors.  Jesus defines neighbors as those whom God leads across our path. 

Witness is depends on our submission to Christ, which is why witness and submission must always be kept balance. We cannot just hide in our cloisters all the time, and stay still before the Lord. We must also be willing to get up and represent Him in this world. 

God put us here to do something with what He gave us.

God rested on the seventh day, not because He needed the rest, but because He deliberately wanted to leave a part of His creation unfinished, so we could help finish it. He endowed us with creativity, understanding, knowledge and wisdom to use in managing and completing His creation.

Before Jesus left, He commanded His disciples to complete His work as well. Matthew 28: 18-20 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them i^] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

To accomplish this and guide us as we work, He promised us the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the world.”

The Holy Spirit was sent to enable us to be witnesses.  Bearing witness is the way we complete Jesus’ work on earth.

In its original context, a witness was a person who reported what he or she had seen in a court of law or on legal documents. Being a witness meant that we could verify with our own eyes something that happened. In the New Testament, a witness is someone who can publicly verify the reality of Christ.  Jesus bore witness to His experience with the Father.  The disciples bear witness to their experiences with Jesus. 

We can only be a witness to something we have seen, heard or experienced. If we have not experienced something, we cannot bear witness. All we can do is report hearsay evidence.

Being a witness isn’t the same as being a preacher or an evangelist. Preachers and teachers communicate a body of knowledge that they may or may not have experienced.  A preacher can tell the story of the Exodus in the Old Testament or of Jesus’ resurrection even though they were not there as a witness. A good storyteller can tell them with creativity and imagery that makes the listener feel they were actually there. A storyteller can do this whether or not they believe the story to be true. But a witness tells what he or she has seen and heard.  They can only relate what they know to be true.   

A person of faith will witness to the faith within them, not only by what they say, but by what they are.  To be a witness is to live our faith in public.  We are the living proof of an encounter with God. Bearing witness is not something we do with words alone but it is living as people of faith, expressing the effects of our encounter with God in every place we touch the world around us.

This distinction between witness and teaching is crucial.  If we think of bearing witness merely as the communication of a body of doctrine, then we have already disconnected our faith from our inner essence.  Sharing our faith becomes winning an argument.  It becomes expedient for us to exaggerate, mislead, or even lie about our own spiritual journey if our story is not seem “dramatic” enough to impress.  We see ourselves as God’s salesmen, more concerned about conversions than the truth. We pretend to be happy when we are not, so others will be persuaded to believe like us.  We exaggerate the changes God has made in our lives, excusing it as a “better witness” than the truth.  We manipulate others by seeking friendships with those who can give us political advantage.  This is no witness at all. Those who we hope to impress usually see through this and are turned off by it. 

Our real witness comes more from how we live in our daily lives, not what we preach.  It is how we display in the public arena our inner, faith-shaped nature, in Christ. 

A flower bears witness of the beauty of God;  a thunderstorm bears witness to His power--yet neither says a word to us. They glorify God by who they are, not by what we do.  When what we are and what we have experienced is lived out before the world, then we are witnesses to the transforming power of God.

The virtues of witness—Sincerity, Love, and Service..   

“Sincere” comes from the Latin phrase “sine cere” meaning “without salt.” Merchants who sold marble for carving would often cover up flaws in the stone by rubbing salt over the cracks. The salt was indistinguishable from the marble, so it hid their imperfections. But when xposed to water or a stonemason’s hammer, the cracks would open and the stone was ruined.  A “sincere” stone was a piece where the cracks were revealed and there was no attempt to hide.

In I John,  the apostles begins by saying that “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. “

There is no deception in God; no attempt to hide, cover or deceive.  He tells us that we should “walk in the light”---that is walk with no attempt to pretend or deceive, just like God does with us. 

When we walk in sincerity, we live out our faith in the world around us. We do not pretend to agree with things we do not agree with. We do not put a smiles on our faces when we are really hurting. We completely reject the false doctrine of “Fake it till you make it.” 

A sincere person is one who’s head, heart, and actions are one. If they find that their feelings and understanding are out of sync, the seek to change one or the other.  If they are living at a standard that is below what the believe,  they change the way they live.

In Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus, one of the characters seeks to describe what made Spartacus a great leader. He says that unlike all other men he had ever known,  Spartacus was the same, no matter where you saw him. His personality did not have sides to it, but it was a transparent representation of his essence.  This is what John means by “walking in the light,” to have such a personality that nothing is hidden from other, or needs to be. 

When we do this, we are automatic witnesses.  People see God in us, and either react by acceptance or rejection of Him.  Either way, we put the focus on Him. 

We are witnesses to Christ only to the degree we cultivate transparency in all our dealings with others.

Love is the second virtue of witness. We must genuinely love God and love others. 

Love of God, love of self, and love of others are not necessarily separate.  If we love God, and we believe God loves us and others, then our love of others is an extension of our love of God.

Once we have made Christ our ultimate concern we have made the choice to be compassionate. We simply have no choice after that.  It is what Christians do.  Jesus makes this abundantly clear in Matthew 25:21-46.  The gist of His statement is found in this passage 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Christ identifies with the suffering. For that reason, He claims that serving them is serving Him.

If God loves us and we love God, how can we then hate ourselves? If we love Christ and Christ loved the world, how can we hate it?  For a Christian—or anyone who believes that God is loving—then acts of loves are actually acts of witness and worship. 

In order to develop a greater love of God and others, we must then do it in the context of the larger world.  In helping the poor, sharing the good new of Christ, and speaking out against injustices, we are witnessing to something we ourselves have experienced.  Loving becomes the supreme act of witnessing to God’s love. 

We do not get involved in social concerns and welfare because we want to persuade or because we are trying to prove something, neither are we substituting worldly relief for eternal salvation. We do it because we care—really, genuinely care about the suffering of God.  Christ, whose whole life on earth was one great display of empathy, expects His followers to share His empathy to the world.  That is why He sent us out to heal the sick, feed the poor, cast out demons, and to give help where we can.  It is part of His nature that we do so. 

Service.  Donald Whitney observed “When God calls His elect to Himself, He calls no one to idleness.  When we are born again and our sins forgiven, the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience, according to Hebrews 9: 14, in order for us to ‘serve the living God!’ ‘Serve the LORD with gladness’ (Psalm 100: 2, NASB) is every Christian’s commission.”[1]

Service is an expression of who we are in Christ.   Idleness and laziness is a retreat into self from the world.  It assumes that we have no reason to leave anything behind, or obligation to care.  We may empathize but we do not act, because we fear the hassle it will bring. 

In order to be of service, we must realize that we cannot serve everyone all the time. But we should start by serving those nearest to us first—our family, coworkers, and neighbors.  Jesus defines neighbors as those whom God leads across our path. 

Witness is depends on our submission to Christ, which is why witness and submission must always be kept balance. We cannot just hide in our cloisters all the time, and stay still before the Lord. We must also be willing to get up and represent Him in this world. 

Let me know what you think.  

How do you show your faith in the world around you? 

Why do you think it is sometimes hard to be a witness for Christ? 

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.   Or (even better) share it and subscribe for more of the faith matrix blog.  

 

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[1] Whitney, Donald S.  (2012-01-05).  Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life with Bonus Content (Pilgrimage Growth Guide) (Kindle Locations 2259-2263).  Navpress.  Kindle Edition.