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 Elephant in the Room

This is the second in a series of "rants" about the state of the evangelical church today.

The “the elephant in the room” of the evangelical church is this--In spite of sincere efforts to convert the culture to our side, we have managed to alienate most of it.  This group includes a sizable number of our own children, friends, and neighbors. We are focused on converting the culture, but at the moment the culture seems to be doing a far better job of converting us. 
I’ve been an evangelical for roughly half a century. My experience has encompassed Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Salvation Army churches. I cannot tell you how many sermons and articles I have read about the need to tell others about the Gospel. Even so, there is far less practice of Christian virtues among evangelical Christians than there were fifty years ago.  The moral, ethical and spiritual teachings of the church have much less impact on the way people live today, in and out of the church. It does not take a prophet to foretell a future of evangelical churches if these trends continue. Millennials are the least religious generation in American history, and the ones coming after them will be even less interested, if this trend continues. 
The elephant in the room is this—that modern evangelicalism is still about five miles wide, but it is only about an inch deep.  Most people in church leadership acknowledge this, but there is great debate as to what to do about it.
Speaking of elephants, do you remember the old story about the four blind men who stumble across an elephant on the road?  Each one touches a different part of the beast and comes to a different conclusion.  One blind man touches the ear and thinks it is a banana leaf; another touches the leg, and thinks it is a palm tree; a third touches the tail and thinks it’s a rope, and the fourth, touches the side and thinks it is a house.   Each one, seeing part of the beast comes to a logical conclusion it’s nature, but none of them see the whole.
Let me suggest that when it comes to the shallowness of modern evangelical Christianity, we fall into the same kind of trap. Each of us, coming at the problem with our preconceptions and perceptual biases, recognize the need for change in the church, but none of us see the whole picture.  We see a part of the elephant, but not the whole.
One tradition within the modern evangelical church examines the head of the elephant and concludes that there isn’t much there.  They perceive the problem to be the modern Christian mind.   They look at the theology of the modern evangelical church and see it as woefully inadequate.  In appealing to the broadest possible common denominator of people, we have dumbed down Christianity to the point where it loses all appeal to people above junior high school level. 
Mark Noll once writes that the problem with the evangelical mind is that there isn’t much of an evangelical mind.  For more than a hundred years, evangelicals have not been known for the depth of their intellectual thought.  Most evangelicals know very little about the faith or history of the church beyond the basics. Many hunger for the greater intellectual depth. This I believe is the reason for the growth in interest in Calvinism, Puritanism, the early church Fathers, and even Thomas Aquinas. There is a growing hunger for a deeper grounding in the rigorous thinking of older generations.
Another tradition touches the heart of the elephant and finds it barely beating. These are the pietists, Pentecostals, and charismatics. They aren’t worried much worried about the mind as they are the passion of the church. The evangelical church concerns itself with doctrinal conversion and skips heart conversion.  The Holy Spirit has been replaced by business-school planning techniques.  The church talks endlessly about developing leaders but hardly at all about following the leadership of the Spirit.  Modern evangelicalism has bought into a practical deism that says God gave us commandments but left us alone for us to come up with our own practical plans on a daily basis.  We have no faith in a real, living Christ who can lead us day by day by the power of the Spirit. We would rather trust in our own planning an cleverness than to rely on a daily leadership and power of the Spirit.
We know God through His word. But His Word was given two thousand years ago. We fail to recognize the living presence of God in our lives right now. 
A third tradition stumbles upon the trunk of our elephant—the practical, working part of the animal—and realized it is weak.  They conclude that there is too much talk and not enough action. They conclude that evangelicalism has concentrated more on souls the souls of people, but neglected the poor and needy.  Our outward lack of human concern seems to be the problem.  Not only that, but evangelicals have failed to recognize that their own lifestyles are heavy on consumerism and consumption and short on simplicity and sacrifice. If we are not willing to live like Jesus, we will never be able to attract people to Jesus.
The fourth tradition stumbles on the elephant and notices that its feet are not rooted in the ground. If our desire to be contemporary and new,  we have lost sight of the importance of history and tradition.
One valid criticism of the modern megachurch movement is that megachurches frequently do not last for more than one generation. That is because they are usually based on the personality and initial vision of their founders. Once the church leadership passes, there is nothing to sustain it.
Traditional churches are no nearly so personality-driven. They are rooted and grounded in the past, freeing them from the tyranny of the present.  They are like oak trees instead of flowers. Flowers are prettier, more attractive and fast-growing, but they don’t usually last for more than a season. Oak trees last for a long, long time.
I once asked a class of students to trace their church historically back to Christ and the apostles.  One student wrote that Christ founded the church and passed it on to the apostles.  Then the true church was lost for nineteen hundred years until her pastor came along and rediscovered it.  I wanted to ask her if that meant that Luther, Calvin, Francis of Assisi,  Mother Theresa and Billy Graham were all going to Hell.  I fear would be.
People seek connections with something larger than themselves, that will last for more than a generation. That is why a growing stream of believers are leaving evangelical for Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican. Traditional Reformed and Messianic Jewish groups.  There is a longing in many evangelicals to connect with something classic and timeless, that was not invented yesterday.
Regarding these four traditions, it is not my intention to condemn or criticize them, any more than it is to criticize those who are not part of any of them.   But the elephant in the room remains, and each of these four traditions has correctly discerned a part of the problem. I am just not convinced though that any of them see the whole picture, any more than I claim I do myself.  The shallowness of modern evangelicalism is not in one area of life but affects the head, heart, actions, and traditions.
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about evangelicalism as a culture that is complete in itself, but as a piece of a larger mosaic called the Body of Christ, which includes many perspectives and approaches. In our day,  it is not one part of the church that is threatened by secularism but all of it.
The elephant in the room is this—that we have forsaken the imitation of Christ, and made Christ into an imitation of ourselves.  We have not focused upon the totality of life built around Him and made our own interests primary in our lives.
The process of sanctification or theosis is the process of becoming like Christ in every way, in our head, heart, hands, and habits.  It isn’t a question of where we have failed be like Jesus, but whether we are seeking to succeed. We will never be perfect, nor should we expect to be. But that doesn’t mean we should stop seeking to be like Him in all ways. If we lose sight of Jesus and just focus on our own failings, we will continue to do them over and over again. But if we keep our eyes on the totality of Christ, we are in a better place to become more like Him in every way. 
This blog, the Faith Matrix, has been making the case that we need a balanced approach to the Christian life cannot just grow in one place--we must grow at all.  We need to study pray, work, and seek the wisdom of the past. Instead of emphasizing our distinctive, it is time to start learning from one another, if we ever see the whole of what it means to follow Christ. 

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The Limits of Heritage

Since I’ve passed my sixty-fourth birthday,  I find myself doing what I swore I’d never do.  I am becoming nostalgic.  I love the music of the past, the items of the past, even the toys of my past.  Nowadays, the only place I find those things are in antique stores. 

That love of the past is nostalgia. It’s purely personal and depends on when I was born, where I was raised, and by whom.  

Nostalgia is a constant danger to Christians.  It is a form of perception bias that makes us think what we loved in the past is somehow qualitatively better than what there is today.  It causes us to judge more harshly the people and trends of today.

In one church I pastored, an old-timer shared a story he heard from his fathers about their church bought their first musical instrument—an organ.  There was a long, hard, and angrily debated.  When it was over, one of the elders shouted, “you can keep the Devil’s squeezebox!” and stormed out of the church, never to return. Today, the thought of an organ being a worldly instrument is far out of their minds—its music has been sanctified by nostalgia.

The old songs of today were the new songs of yesterday and were opposed by the people who thought they were dangerous innovation. Isaac Watts was savaged by his contemporaries for ruining the metrical psalms.  Choirs were looked upon as sinful by many churchmen of the Middle Ages.  Perception bias based on nostalgia keeps us anchored to the past and prevents our moving in the Spirit.

Think of tradition as the tail of a kite. It gives weight and stability in a hard wind, but if it is staked to the ground the kite will never soar.  Think of it as an anchor. An anchor is very important, but we must raise it to move. It’s important to understand the difference between a living heritage and pointless sentimentality.  Tradition is an enrichment to our faith. Traditionalism is an idol and competitor to faith. 

Tradition worship is a constant danger to Christians.  Those who worship tradition seldom realize they are doing it, or that there is anything wrong with it.  Traditionalism is when we cannot tell the difference between the house we worship in, and the church itself.  Traditionalism is when we believe all worship music must be in some traditional style, or that church building must have the same architecture, or that people should dress a certain way in worship.   It confuses cultural bias with faithfulness. It is when we cannot imagine that someone outside of our tradition can love God as much as we do, or that God can be pleased with people who look or sound differently.

We shouldn’t assume, however, that this is a problem only with “traditional” churches.  The tendency to confuse form with faith is at least as pronounced among “contemporary” churches as it is among the old-school churches.  The contemporary “seeker-sensitive” church has already become a tradition, and those who have grown up in it naturally assume that their worship style is “blessed” while old-fashioned traditional churches are not, based on their own biases and prejudices. In many contemporary churches, worship style is as heavily regimented as it is on old Protestant churches. 

Music is the language of the heart, but it is not a universal language.  If we use a musical language that is not understood or appreciated by those who listen, we may as well be praying in tongues.  We need to constantly remind ourselves that just because we understand or appreciate a musical or worship form does not mean it is bad, nor should we insist that people who cannot understand our musical language to be required to agree that ours is better.  To say that traditional or contemporary music is more “godly” is like saying that English is a better language than Spanish.  Our insistence on the spiritual superiority of whatever we enjoy is the sign of spiritual immaturity.

No matter how much we love the past, we still must live in the present. That means sometimes we must leave there safe place of our heritage and start something new, or reform it. Traditionalism can sometimes lead us to hang on too long to a church we should have left.   If our denominational has changed, or if we have, it may be to our mutual advantage to part.   The argument that “this has always been my church” is a weak one since the church never did belong to us.

A man once approached Jesus and offered to become a disciple.  He said he would follow him anywhere, once he had buried his father. Jesus’ response was gruff and brutal.  “Let the dead bury the dead, come and follow me.” Jesus wasn’t being unloving—He was just clarifying priorities.  If we cannot love God more than our past connections, we cannot be His disciple. Most of us may never be called upon to leave our family behind, or even the comfort of our church, but if we are we must be willing to go.  Our heritage and our faith may travel far together, but sooner or later our paths will diverge. Sometimes God will say, “leave your father and mother, and follow Me.”  When He does, we must throw aside nostalgia and be ready to go.

Do you lean towards the past or towards the future?  Are you ready for new things, or do you want to hold on to the old?  

How do we separate what is actually God’s working in the past from our feelings of nostalgia?  Are you willing to embrace new thoughts and ideas?

Write a comment and share. I’d love to hear from you.

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.  

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[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 Disciplines of Being in Community

The disciplines of Community

In my section of the country, sports is huge. Sports pennants fly from antennae flagpole, team logos show up on lawn ornaments. I’ve even seen coffins with Tiger paws on them! 

Fandom is a form of self-definition.  It is part of who people say they are.  “I’m a Panther’s fan,” or “My team is the Bulldogs.”  They see themselves as belonging to a community of fans, and feel obliged to publicly declare it by going to games and flying the flags.    

Faith identity is similar.  To grow in faith, we must find means to regularly connect to our community of faith.  Here are a few regular practices than can help us keep our faith connection.

The first is public worship.  Psalm 122 begins “I was glad when they said to me “Let us go up to the House of the Lord.’” Our joy does not only in worship, but with being with fellow worshippers.  There’s joy in being with other who share our faith. Their faith builds ours.  Heb. 10:24-25 reminds us, “let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.”

Public worship recreates on earth the reality of heaven, where the saints gather around God’s throne. If our main preoccupation there will be worship, it should be part of our life on earth.

Public worship isn’t about liking the music or the pastor, nor is it about the energy level of the room. An crowd can be swept away by emotion and still be wrong, like a Nazi rally or a lynch mob. Neither should we assume that a quiet, boring service is without God.  Stillness is a true and integral part of worship.  The real focus of worship is God, not professionalism or excitement.  “Worship” is about declaring God’s worth. Any worship which focuses mainly on ourselves, our feelings, of our desires doesn’t do Him justice. Any worship that lifts Him up is pleasing to Him.

A woman once left our church to join an exciting new church down the road.  She gushingly described it to me “They’re so much more alive there!”

I was a bit perturbed by this, so I asked her. “Have you ever seen a sponge?”

  “Of course,” she said warily.

“A sponge is an animal, just like a cheetah or a bird.  Both the sponge and the cheetah are equally alive. If God delights in both in both, why can’t He equally delight in churches that seem different?  It’s the Spirit within, not how we see them that makes us alive in Christ.”

True public worship isn’t about the show, but the condition of our hearts.  We can worship in any congregation if we remember that we are there to honor God. 

The second is congregation participation.  Public worship is only one part of what it means to be in community. For the rest, we are going to need a smaller group. 

Community requires mutual sharing.  It cannot be done by staring at a jumbotron screen in a megachurch, at a priest in a cathedral, or the back of our fellow worshippers’ heads.  We must meet face to face.  For this we need a congregation, not a crowd. A congregation is where each person contributes something, where we share affection, concerns, gifts, and problems. 

If the only time we meet with other Christians is to listen to professional musicians and speakers, we miss something fundamental.  We need to have be actively involved in other peoples’ lives--and the more different, the better.

The tragedy of modern church is that they have become institutional ghettoes where people gather with people who are just like themselves.  In ancient times Christians of all kinds met together—rich and poor, young and old. Young people were taught by the old, who were a visible example before them.  Old people were helped and encouraged by the young, who energized them with their excitement for life. 

The modern church is divided into groups by age, class, race, and temperament. We have allowed the church to be run by professionals, not by ordinary Christians. Most of the time, these groups have little to do and less to say to each other.  Young people are not encouraged to speak to old, nor will old people give ground to the needs of the young. The only communities we participate in are the same communities that would exist with or without Christ—fellowships of socially compatible people who may as well have interchangeable heads and bodies. 

In the original Christian communities, people with diverse backgrounds and talents shared what they had.  All contributions were welcomed.  All opinions were valued.  All people’s needs were mutually respected.  They bonded together through mutual love of Christ, not social connections.   

We don’t have to wait for our congregation to become more diverse--we can start by simply showing up to events where people gather who aren’t like us.  We can pray for all our congregation, not just our friends. We can go to nurseries and nursing homes; help in youth groups and soup kitchens--even more we can simply talk to one another with love and respect

We can volunteer—but not because we are needed.  We volunteer to be with others.  Even if we have nothing to contribute (which is hardly ever the case) we still need to be in community. A community is more than just a work team—it’s a necessary part of living.

The third is cultivation of soul friendships.  Soul friendships are people with whom w share our souls.  Soul friendships are necessary both for ourselves and to help others in their spiritual journeys.  They are also missing in an overwhelming number of Christians’ lives.

David Benner writes:

“The principle reason friendship is so undervalued is probably that too few people have ever experience a significant, enduring friendship.  All but the hermit have acquaintances.  But typically such relationships involve no more than a passing connection. . . The coin of friendship has been continuously devalued by being applied to those lesser forms of friendship.

“Relationships between acquaintances involve little of the intimacy, trust commitment, and loyalty of real friendships.  Friendships may grow out of these more casual relationships but are not the same. . .

“Friendship is one of God’s special gifts to humans. Remarkably, friendship is one of the terms God uses to describe the relationship He desires with us. Friendship is therefore no ordinary relationship.  We cheapen it when we reduce it to mere acquaintanceship.”[1]

Larry Crabb goes even further: 

“Churches . . . have become as dangerous to the health of our soul as porn shops.  People leave both superficially titillated and deeply numbed.  Religious events can be as irrelevant to real life as cocktail parties at country clubs .  .  .

 “Most people tuck their soul out of sight and try desperately to ignore that something is missing they can’t supply. We speak few words that come out of an honest look at our soul, and few words that are spoken to us that inspire the courage to take an honest look that give us the hope and painful authenticity would lead us to real life.”[2]

Finding a soul friend is easy--we simply listen to them rather than talking about ourselves.  Then we share our stories, sharing honestly our thoughts, dreams, hopes and desires. In this way, we develop a soul-to-soul bond that may endure a lifetime.

Finding a friend may seem hard, but that’s mostly because of the limitations our culture imposes.  We think that soul friends are people with whom we have things in common.  Not only is this untrue, it’s also limiting and degrading. A friend doesn’t have to look like us, think like us, or share our age, gender or education. What make a friend is the mutual bond of trust we share.      

A fourth is forgiveness and reconciliation Unkind words, misunderstandings, little suspicion and minor slights collect in a community like plaque in our arteries unless we periodically purge them through forgiveness.  But when we let go of them , we experience the free flowing of love of the community.

Forgiveness is not pretending there was no injury, but a choice not to seek redress or revenge.  Forgiveness is letting go of the past so we can go on living in the present.

Reconciliation is a restored relationship. For this to occur, there has to be a recognition that someone has been hurt.  Both the hurter and the hurt should sit down and discuss it, bringing the pain out into the open. Hopefully, both sides can agree to forgive past transgressions and time will do the rest.  A mutual desire for community will in time overcome our hurt for past wrongs.

Reconciliation always takes longer and is harder than forgiveness.  Sometimes, reconciliation isn’t possible to restore the same level of trust. Nevertheless, it should be attempted, for the sake of the greater community and our own well-being. Having a friend is better than losing a friend; nothing is accomplished through continued animosity. Division within Christ’s body are destructive, and deprive us of the benefits of community. That is why it is always in our best interest to make peace.

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[1][1] David Benner Sacred Companions: The Gift of Spiritual Friendship and Direction,  IVP books, Downer’s Grove, Ill., 2002,  pp. 61-62.

[2] Larry Crabb Soul Talk, Integrity Publishers, Nasshville, Tenn.,  2003,  pp. 16-17

The limits of Self-awareness

The limits of self awareness are better shown than told.   Pay attention to these three pictures.

Self awareness does not do us much good without God awareness.  When we obsessively pull up our roots to examine them.  we turn our face from the Son, the source of all our strength.
Examine yourself regularly. But in the meantime, keep your face turned towards the light of the Son.

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: 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.