The Spontanaeity of Love

Is Oswald saying that if you have to work at love it isn't love? "The evidence of our love for Him is the absolute spontaneity of our love, it comes naturally" -- Oswald. But what if it doesn't? Are we supposed to wait for it to "burst up in extraordinary ways"? What if human beings applied the same principle to their relationships with each other? Unquestionably, my love for my husband and my children does explode in exciting ways on occasion, but much more often, it takes the form of making sandwiches at 7:15 in the morning or trying to wrap my brain around homework on the mode, the mean, and the median at 9:55 at night.

I agree with Oswald that attempting to prove our love seems backwards and probably futile, but what about practicing love? Can't we practice being patient and kind, slow to anger, quick to forgive? and work at not being jealous or boastful or delighting when bad things happen to the people we don't really like? Why would it be wrong to hold the statements of Jesus or of Paul in front of us like a standard?

"The springs of love are in God, not in us" -- Oswald. Amen and amen to that. And I'm delighted that the Holy Spirit is responsible for manifesting that love in us. I'm just not sure that means we don't have to work at it.

The Graciousness of Uncertainty

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure," I John 3:1-3.

It is not yet clear what I will be.

What You Will Get

Argh! Some days I find Oswald downright frustrating. Like today. . . If I abandon my life to God, I will be surprised and delighted, but I cannot want the surprise or the delight beforehand. If I am burnt out, it is because God has not given me life, but I am not supposed to desire life in any familiar sense. It is somehow wrong for me to long for the great things that God has promised throughout his word. My disappointments are due to my sin or my tendency to overcomplicate things. But . . . No questions allowed! Questions are a sign that I am holding back and not abandoning fully.

I'm sure I'm missing something (please feel free to comment), but today's devotional seems like a complete lose-lose to me.

What Do You Want?

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever really get it . . . Christianity, a personal relationship with God, God living in me.

Baruch was Jeremiah's scribe. He had just written these words: "For I am watching over them for harm, not for good; the Jews in Egypt will perish by sword and famine until they are all destroyed" -- just one sentence out of 44 chapters of doom and gloom. Baruch's response: "Woe to me! The Lord has added sorrow to my pain; I am worn out with groaning and find no rest." Seems like a fairly appropriate response, so I don't understand God's reply: "I will overthrow what I have built and uproot what I have planted, throughout the land. Should you then see great things for yourself?" Great things? He is buckling under the burden of working for a doomsday prophet.

Do I want great things for myself? I want the fruits of the Spirit -- peace, joy, patience, gentleness, self-control. I want the surety of God's presence. I want to live with purpose. Are these great things?

My question for Oswald: What's the difference between wanting "great things" and simply seeking evidence that an actual relationship exists?

I read a little bit about Mother Teresa and Dietrich Bonhoeffer last night -- two great saints who apparently underwent excruciating internal struggles.

Perhaps I never will get it, and perhaps that is not the point.

The Supreme Climb

Oswald's devotional today made me think of Luther's quote, "Sin boldly," which sent me off on a bit of a tangent -- a valuable one on this journey of mine, but I'll get to that in a minute.

First, Oswald's focus: be extreme in your pursuit of righteousness. If you're off the mark, God will correct you. He will curtail your misconceptions of him. Don't hover indecisively -- pursue your vision of God's calling full bore, but keep your eyes and ears open for his possible intervention. In my obsessive desire to "get it right," I too often hover and fret, wanting only to pursue the road that leads to success. Abraham had it wrong in the most appalling of ways. He believed the physical sacrifice of his son was required, but God honored his earnest, ill-conceived pursuit of obedience and intervened in such a way as to both save his son and reveal his true nature to Abraham.

Now, Luther. The full quote: "If you are a preacher of mercy, do not teach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary, sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner and let your sins be strong (sin boldly), but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides."

Now, I can see where this quote could be misinterpreted like crazy (Luther himself predicted it), and Romans 6:1 comes quickly to mind: "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" But Luther was way more familiar with Romans than I am, so . . . I did a little more digging, and came across these excerpts from a blog entitled "A Luther Quote to Wake up the Sleepers" by Internet Monk.

"Luther has an ability to make the Gospel as outrageous as possible and to chase the rats of legalism out of the closet before they make a nest . . .

"Since encouraging people to try and not sin is a major occupation of confused evangelicalism, Luther sounds strange. But it's clear what he means: we can't get caught in the trap of trying to generate our own righteousness, even in the name of obedience. Luther's encouragement to sin just to spite the devil is his provocative way of suggesting a Christian TRUST CHRIST and have confidence in justification by faith. So much so, that instead of living in a state of perpetual self-examination, we live with the freedom to be less than perfect."

(If you're interested in reading the rest of this blog, go here.)

In very different ways, I think Oswald and Luther are encouraging me toward the same goal: freedom. The goal is not to get it right. The goal is to trust that Christ has already gotten it right.

Instant in Season

"The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not" -- Oswald. Our best may seem -- and may indeed be -- way better when we feel inspired, but like the long-distance runner who comes in last, who gets lapped by the women in the lead, my uninspired effort, my dogged perseverance has value.

According to Dictionary.com, "fetish" means "an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or having magical potency; an object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect or devotion." I do tend to over-value my best moments, replay them in my head, and seek to repeat them. If I've written something good, I read it over and over and then feel the need to top it the next time. I would love to live with an ever-present muse, constant inspiration, to always feel that my ideas are crisp and sharp, to experience the spark as they bump against each other, but I have been writing for long enough to know that if I wait for the inspiration, I will never actually write.

"If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired" -- Oswald.

Lord, help me to do the task that lies nearest, to be faithful even when inspiration has evaporated, to do my best in the moment, and to trust you for the rest.

The Warning Against Wantoning

"Never court anything other than the approval of God . . . Jesus told the disciples not to rejoice in successful service, and yet this seems to be the one thing in which most of us do rejoice" -- Oswald.

I am terribly fond of quantifiable measures -- good grades, pay increases, compliments, positive evaluations, fundraising letters that garner a higher percentage of response than the year before, gardens visibly free of weeds, big healthy plants loaded with tomatoes, children who win awards and memorize Bible verses, successful grant applications, thumbs-up signs on my Facebook posts . . . The approval of God is so much less tangible. How do I know that I have it?

I think the right answer is that I know I have it because I am covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, and when God the Father looks at me, he sees his son. To his son, he said, "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased," and that approval is transferred to me. I know it because the Bible tells me so. Still, I frantically pursue other proofs of my value.

Help me, Lord, to let go of this need for external evidence. Help me to stop glancing at the measuring sticks and accept your grace.

The Worship of the Work

"There is no freedom, no delight in life; nerves, mind and heart are so crushingly burdened that God's blessing cannot rest." Sounds like a description of depression, but Oswald uses these words to describe what happens to a Christian who loses his concentration on God.

Dear God, you know me. You know my brain, the firing or misfiring of synapses, the seratonin and dopamine levels, and what psychotropic drugs actually do. You also know my soul and the longings within me. You know that I sometimes have trouble lifting my head, facing the day or seeing the beauty that surrounds me. You have given me good friends who care about me, and you have given me an intense, driving sort of nature. I believe that you have called me to this journey with Oswald and that child-like freedom is your plan for me. Please show me how to concentrate on you in such a way that I have joy and am not crushed by the burdens of this world. If that involves medication, Lord, please make that in-my-face clear. If it involves confession and surrender of hidden sin, again, Lord, don't be subtle with me. I might miss it. One of the good friends you have given me suggested today that I might be trying to force you into my plan -- demanding that you reveal yourself to me in a certain way. I don't want to do that -- sounds a bit crazy to demand anything from you actually -- but neither do I want to pretend to have a personal relationship with you when I don't. I'd like to be happy, Father, and to experience the freedom of which Oswald writes. Show me the way please.

Amen.

The Light that Fails

In one sense, this blog is my pilgrimage -- my pursuit of God -- but it is also a record of that pilgrimage, and as such, it is a record of my failures, my frustration, my desperate doubt. The world has seemed very dark to me of late, and good, trusted friends have suggested that I need to resume taking anti-depressant medication, that something is off in my brain, that my perspective is clinically skewed. They may be right. But here's my question: Is it possible that God can meet me here? Is it possible that God can answer the longing of my heart? Is it possible that I can throw before him my crazy, skewed view of the world and myself -- and find his grace truly sufficient?

The thing is, I don't want to just be OK -- saying and doing the socially acceptable thing, performing my tasks as wife, mother, writer, church lady in admirable efficiency or (since I never really was able to do that) with some modicum of normalcy. I want to look into the face of God and find him true. I want to look out on a crazy, mixed-up world and look in on my own crazy, mixed-up self with the eyes of God and see meaning and purpose. I want to love him with all my heart, mind and soul and be so transformed by that love that I am able to love my neighbor as well. I do not want to go through the motions of Christianity without an internal reality.

Oswald gives me hope that all of that is possible: "The one thing that remains is looking in the face of God for ourselves."

Now Don't Hurt the Lord!

Some days I read Oswald, and I am immediately aware of the nearly 100 years that separate us. Other days, I feel as though my soul has been laid bare to him, and he is writing an intimate missive to me based on what he saw there. Today is one of the latter kind of days.

"The mystery of God is not in what is going to be, it is now; we look for it presently, in some cataclysmic event," Oswald. Somehow it is now -- on this very ordinary of mornings when I slept on the couch because my husband was snoring and I was already slightly mad at him when we went to bed, so the snoring felt like a personal insult; when the overcast sky supercharges the new spring green of the grass so that it beckons me, "come out, come out"; when I dread going to work where I have exposed too much of my messy innards and want to take it all back; when my youngest went to bed in tears because she wants to quit track and she heard us say she was just a big quitter; when kisses will not fix the pain of growing up and trying to figure out who you are and who you are not; when my menopausal body tells me it is 85 but the thermostats reads 65. The mystery of God is now. In this. In me. Somehow.

Can a Saint Slander God?

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you may have noticed that I'm having trouble keeping up, and about an hour ago, I told my husband I wanted to quit. It feels like too much, I said. Life feels like too much.

At my husband's urging, however, I sat down to give it another shot, and I read: "Never let the limitation of natural ability come in. If we have received the Holy Spirit, God expects the work of the Holy Spirit to be manifest in us." I very much fear that I have slandered God. I have complained that he demands too much of me, and I have accused him of leaving me in the lurch. Like the servant with the one talent, I have heard rumors of his expectations, but I have questioned (even scoffed at) his reputation as a master who supplies all that his workers need to accomplish the task. I have not see him as the ultimate Boss, who invests and invests and invests in his people.

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes,' in Christ. And so through him the 'Amen' is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come," 2 Corinthians 1:20-22.

My capacity is measured by his promises.

Is It Not in the Least Likely?

"Never get tired." The best parenting advice I ever got. We all laughed at the time -- as the young often do at the wisdom of the old. I could not have known how great a temptation it would be to give into the tiredness. This is not "tired" as in sleepy, ready for bed. No, this is "tired" as in weary, done, used up. Tired as in zombie-like, just putting in your time, going through the motions -- physically present, but mentally, emotionally, spiritually absent. No longer engaged with the world around you. Empty cup tired.

I don't know if Joab was tired like that, but I think it's possible. And perhaps in his tiredness, he relied on former strength -- the grace of yesterday. The thing is, we all need a daily serving of grace.

"So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall," I Corinthians 10:12. And by "be careful" I think God means, look up. Remember from where your strength comes.

Readiness

Are we supposed to doggedly pursue our dreams or wait for the burning bush? Our self-help culture drives the former message in layers upon layers of multi-media marketing: "Go for it. Just do it. Follow your dreams. Make it happen. You won't get anywhere without planning." Oswald leans toward the latter -- only, while we are waiting, he writes, we should be contently serving in whatever menial capacity we find ourselves.

"We are so busy telling God where we would like to go." That's me. I want to be a writer, God. No, a real writer. I want to write books and be invited to do readings and go on Oprah and make some actual money so that Frank doesn't have to work so hard and our kids can go to college and we won't be buried under herculean piles of debt and I want to be wise and respected and seen as an expert on something and go to Europe and experience the larger culture and marvel at your beauty in the middle of the Pacific . . .

Here am I. Here am I. I am somewhere. I am in a house on North Karen in Spokane, Washington, a comfortable house with a gurgling stream and an out-of-control garden. With a husband and two daughters left at home. I am a writer for a Mission, a place with hundreds of stories to tell and everyday pictures of God's grace. I am on a pilgrimage. In search of the meaning of my life. In search of God.

I am somewhere.

Neck or Nothing

What does that title mean? Anyone? Jump in up to your neck? Just wondering.

I'm not sure how much this has to do with Oswald, but I spent my day in traffic school today. One of the instructors told the story of his son's death in a traffic accident. His son was 11 years old and delivering papers on his bicycle. The year was 1991 when the Spokane Chronicle was delivered in the afternoons. A man going 25 mph in an alleyway hit his son, who came out from between two buildings, and drug him for several more feet before he was able to come to a stop. The boy died several days later. The speed limit for alleys in Spokane is 10 mph. Calculations after the accident showed that at only 5 mph slower, the man would have been able to stop in time. The reason I'm relaying this story here is because of what the instructor said about the man who killed his son: "You need to understand that this was not a bad man. He was just a man like you and me. Every day for years he had driven down that same alley on his way home from work. He probably went 25 mph every day, but this day, my son popped out in front of him." He didn't mention forgiving the man (it wasn't really relevant to the lesson at hand), but I was struck by what a perfect picture of forgiveness he had just described. While this man's negligence had stolen his precious boy's life, the instructor realized that he was capable of causing the same tragedy himself. I was reminded of the parable of the ungrateful servant, only this servant didn't grasp the neck of the man so indebted to him and threaten his life. He forgave him.

I was in traffic school for going 47 mph in a 35 mph zone, and suddenly, the gravity of that strikes me in a whole new way.

Can You Come Down?

"We have to learn to live in the gray day according to what we saw on the mount" -- Oswald.

This, I think, is the great challenge of my life -- perhaps everyone's life -- to live in the mundane world of the everyday, never losing sight of the divine, believing that God is as real, as relevant, as powerful, as involved, as loving and as breathtaking as he as ever been. My God created a flower that looks like a bleeding heart. He spit into the dirt and gave a man his sight. He washed his disciples' feet and broke his own body.

Even when my life seems like nothing more than a series of meaningless events, it is still a life in which the Creator of the universe is present and active. I've just got to keep looking up -- even on the gray days.

The Relapse of Concentration

Oswald doesn't mention what King Asa did in the very next chapter of II Chronicles. When the king of Israel attacked Judah, Asa took money from the temple treasury to bribe Ben-Hadad, king of neighboring Aram, into partnering with him in a fight against Israel. Asa didn't turn to God. Rather, he stole from God to gain help from an earthly king.

In chapter 15, Asa was said to be faithful to God in the main; his only failing was that he left the "high places," the idolatrous shrines. In chapter 16, however, when trouble came, he forgot God and looked elsewhere for help.

God's response to Asa: "Because you relied on the king of Aram and not on the Lord your God, the army of the king of Aram has escaped from your hand. Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, he delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will have war," II Chronicles 16:7-9. Pretty stiff consequences.

Is this the danger in my life? If I leave areas of sin unattended, might they become like the yeast that spreads and cause me, in a moment of urgent need, to seek help from other gods?

I am really challenged by Oswald's call to diligence. How often do I tell myself that I deserve a break, a moment of escape? Oswald's reply: "You no more need a holiday from spiritual concentration than your heart needs a holiday from beating. . . You cannot have a spiritual holiday and remain spiritual."

Inspired Invincibility

Oh my goodness. How often have I said, "Oh Lord, let me be like other people"? Too many times to count. Mostly because I want to escape my own weakness -- my introspective nature, my obsessive concern over the impression I have made or perhaps the lack of an impression, the seriousness of my approach to life, my inefficient use of time, my tendency toward depression, and my inability to keep my mouth shut when I should.

Yesterday I experienced my weakness meeting God's strength. I had planned to call in sick to work. I was an emotional wreck -- one word/one thought away from tears at any given moment. But there was a meeting I couldn't miss, so I went in, and just as I feared, I could not keep my act together. My personal messiness was spilling out all over the place. Shoot! This was not the professional, got-it-all-together image I wanted to portray. But God met me in my brokenness in a way that my makeshift togetherness does not usually allow.

I work for a Christian organization, and people prayed for me -- deep prayers for healing and blessing. I truly felt loved, and while I wouldn't say I experienced immediate healing, I was able to press through my writer's block, and my perspective, which had been severely skewed, began to realign.

I'm not sure my personality would qualify as the burden of which Oswald speaks, but I am beginning to believe that I am best able to experience God's peace and joy and light through my brokenness. Rather than seek to trade it, disguise it or medicate it away, perhaps I should embrace it.

What to Do under the Conditions

It's hard to imagine that the timeliness of today's devotional is coincidence. Of course, it's been sitting there on April 13 for the past 75 years, but still, I choose to believe that God brought me to this place on this day and gave me these words.

I had my first suicidal thoughts in high school. I wrote a story about them.

I went to see my first counselor for depression after my miscarriage in 1987.

I took my first psychotropic drug -- Prozac -- after my mom died in 1991.

I was hospitalized for severe depression in 1998, just before my youngest child turned 1. The psychiatrist told me I would need to be on anti-depressants for the rest of my life, and I resigned myself to that idea. I was pretty sure that to function as a mother of four children with my particular temperament, I needed help. I did not want to risk their welfare in a drug-free experiment with my life.

Last fall, as my second child prepared to go off to college and my book group was reading Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris, I decided it might be safe to venture into the experiment. It seemed possible -- perhaps even likely -- that at least part of my problem was spiritual. And so . . . I went off the drugs, and a few months later, I started this blog. Several months have gone by almost miraculously well. I have not felt hopeless. I have been energized by this pursuit of a relationship with the God I have claimed to know all these years. My mood swings have been well within the normal range, and while there have been days when staying in bed was tempting, I have managed my life fairly well. Until now.

My sister-in-law saw it first and gently questioned me about the wisdom of this no-drugs path I had chosen. While I appreciated her observations, I didn't see the signs myself. BAM! Ever walk full force into a glass door? I didn't see it coming, but it knocked me on my fanny. Looking back, I can see it started with the increasing difficulty I have had in putting words on paper. As I have rather philosophically mentioned before, my worth is tied up in my ability to write, as is my livelihood, but this past weekend -- with a deadline not just staring me in the face but boring holes through my skull -- I could not write. Hours of fretting, brainstorming, trying and trying again did nothing. The words would not come. Forget philosophy. I seriously started to worry that I might have brain damage from drinking too much coffee and not enough water -- that or early onset Alzheimer's.

And if I could not write . . . Well, I'm not good at very many things. I am a very bad housekeeper and an even worse organizer. I have trouble keeping dates straight. I care about people, but I hate talking on the phone, so I don't stay in touch very well. I tend to speak my mind a bit too directly to have very many friends, and I'm seldom politically correct. I love my children, but I cannot remember the last time I tried to discipline them and they have inherited a fair share of my weaknesses. I want to be a good wife, but I'm often just too tired. I love to garden, but weeding gets away from me, and I tend to like things a bit more out of control than other people find attractive. No matter -- I've always been able to fall back on this one thing that I could do well, and pathetic as it may sound, it has almost been enough.

But if I cannot write, I am not special. I am nothing.

Enter Oswald: "If we undertake work for God and get out of touch with Him, the sense of responsibility will be overwhelmingly crushing; but if we roll back on God that which He has put upon us, He takes away the sense of responsibility by bringing in the realization of Himself."

I have been asking and asking over the past few days: What does it mean to have Christ alive in me? Well, partly, I think it looks like this: me collapsing and finding him there.

Moral Dominion

"Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift of God" -- Oswald.

God alive in me. I confess I have no idea what this means. And I'm not alone. Since Oswald has been on this topic for a few days, I've been asking around. We Christians use the terminology pretty freely -- God abiding in us, Jesus in our hearts -- but we're short on explanations. After my friend Jess and I talked about it, however, she called her pastor dad, and he directed us toward the illustration of the temple. Our bodies are the temple, and God now dwells with us as he did the high priests in the holy of holies. Our flesh is like the veil that separated the holiest place from the next chamber, and as we die to ourselves, the veil is torn, revealing the nature of God in us. A lot of appropriate mystery still surrounds that explanation, but I feel myself moving in the direction of understanding.

I also found this quote on Scotty Smith's Facebook page which seems tangentially relevant: "God doesn't love us based on how much we are like Jesus, but based on how much Jesus is like Jesus. Which is just another way of saying that God loves us as much as he loves his perfect Son, for he has hidden our lives in Christ." This time it is me who is in Christ, which is a little easier for me to grasp. I can see myself hiding there, literally clinging for dear life.

Moral Divinity

The Scripture passage at church this morning was from Luke 24 with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. In the sermon, the speaker focused on verse 16: "But they were kept from recognizing him." He wondered aloud why that would be, why so often in Scripture truth seems to be veiled or people are told not to tell what they have seen, and he posed a possible answer: In order to really get something, we often need to work for the answer. Immediately, I thought of yesterday's blog and my frustration over what I view as a lack of clarity on the subject of sanctification. Today's devotional is similar in nature -- Christ's imputed holiness. If we are truly dead to sin and Christ lives in us, we ought to be like him. There should be a family resemblance. My question is basically the same as yesterday: Why don't I feel like I am dead to sin or that sin is dead to me? Why does holiness not feel like a more natural fit? Why do I so often chafe against what I am called to be and do?

My favorite lines from Oswald today were these: "The Holy Spirit invades me. He takes charge of everything." "Invade" sounds like an alien life force, and isn't that what the Holy Spirit is? The divine nature taking over. I'm all for it. I want to be infused with energy and enthusiasm and love for my fellow man. I don't want to try to summon up holiness from the leftover dregs of my daily life.

So, here's what I've got: God seems to be calling me to figure out what sanctification means for me. I'm going to have to work at it, question, shout, wrestle, meditate, listen and watch. I must have a part in my own sanctification, but I'm not sure what that is. Oswald says that I need to walk in the light and obey all that God reveals. I will attempt to do that -- knowing that the actual holiness is all about a divine takeover -- not something I can conjure up myself.

Moral Decision about Sin

I'm feeling pretty angry at Oswald and Paul right now -- and I guess, if I'm honest, God -- for not making this subject of sanctification a whole lot clearer.

"Dead to sin" -- That sounds pretty much like sin is powerless over me. Like no amount of hip-swishing, eye-batting or sweet-talking is going to persuade me to come along for the ride because I am dead to sin. Just as before I was dead in my sins, incapable of saving myself, incapable even of choosing God without benefit of a brand new heart . . . Just as I was dead, dead, dead to righteousness, I should now be dead to sin. (Interesting how much power those little prepositions have.)

The thing is, that is not the case for me, and Paul, only one chapter later, writes: "For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish," Rom. 7:19. How is that consistent with being dead to sin? What kind of word games are we playing here?

For his part, Oswald's words seem to indicate a need for more than one trip to the altar, more than one baptism: "Make the moral decision that sin in you must be put to death." Didn't I make that decision and leave the matter in God's hands when I said, "I'm a sinner in need of the forgiveness only you can give." Didn't the Holy Spirit enter into my life at that moment and begin the process of putting sin to death in me? Oswald's words also imply perfection -- as if with one fell swoop, my love affair with sin could be completely washed away and replaced by the living Christ. The troubling thing is that Oswald's words echo Paul's (whose words, by nature of inclusion in the canon of Scripture, I believe to be God's own): "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."

Does Christ live in me? I have to take that one on faith. I do not sense him moving about. I do not hear him. I do not feel him in any tangible way. My feelings, in fact, tell me that I am alone and that I am anything but dead to sin. I know, I know, never trust your feelings.

Have I Seen Him?

I interview people for a living, and for the most part, they tell me stories of radical life change. Most of them are recovering addicts. Most, but not all, were addicted to a substance -- drugs or alcohol. Some were addicted to work or relationships or thrills or food. Most attribute their new lease on life to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. I usually try to get them to elaborate on that idea: How did accepting Jesus change the abuse you were running from? How did Jesus impact your addiction? Those are not usually easy questions for them to answer, but this sentence in Oswald made me think of those interviews: "When once you have seen Jesus, you can never be the same, other things do not appeal as they used to do." And perhaps other things do not gnaw away and consumer you as they used to do either.

I think I am often trying to see Jesus through my interviewee's eyes because they seem to have experienced him in a way that I have not. I want to see Jesus . . . and to know that he has seen me.

His Resurrection Destiny

I wonder what Oswald Chambers and Mike Yaconelli would think of each other? Perhaps they are great pals in heaven. Who knows. But I have trouble reconciling the blatant, honest transparency of Yaconelli, with which my soul so identifies, with Oswald's unbending call to righteousness. Can both be true? Can both be profitable? Can the two men coincide side-by-side in my mind as teachers of the truth?

Oswald: "Thank God it is gloriously and majestically true that the Holy Ghost can work in us the very nature of Jesus if we obey Him."

Yaconelli: "Messy Spirituality unveils the myth of flawlessness and calls Christians everywhere to come out of hiding and stop pretending."

The "very nature of Jesus" vs. "the myth of flawlessness."

Oswald: "His resurrection means for us that we are raised to His risen life, not our old life."

Yaconelli: "Messy Spirituality is the scandalous assertion that following Christ is anything but tidy and neat, balanced and orderly. Far from it. Spirituality is complex, complicated, and perplexing -- the disorderly, sloppy, chaotic look of authentic faith in the real world."

"His risen life" vs. "disorderly, sloppy and chaotic."

Oswald: "We can know now the efficacy of His resurrection and walk in newness of life."

Yaconelli: "Spirituality is anything but a straight line; it is a mixed-up, topsy-turvy, helter-skelter godliness that turns our lives into an upside-down toboggan ride full of unexpected turns, surprise bumps, and bone-shattering crashes."

"Newness of life" vs. "helter-skelter godliness."

I don't know. Perhaps it can all be chalked up to the separation of generations. Oswald died in 1917. Yaconelli died in 2003. A world of change separates them. Or perhaps Oswald was speaking in ideal terms while Yaconelli was writing pragmatically. One makes me feel guilty more often than not. The other screams freedom and causes some tired thing within me to perk up its ears.

I don't know, but I honestly believe the words of both men have merit. I will continue the walk with Oswald, but I will let Yaconelli whisper words of encouragement in my ear.

Why Are We Not Told Plainly?

"An obstinate outlook will effectually hinder God from revealing anything to us" -- Oswald.

About what things am I obstinate -- stubborn, adamant, contrary, dogmatic, opinionated, relentless, intractable? Probably the most damning answer is people. Once I've formed a negative opinion of a person . . . How does the quote go? His good opinion once lost is lost forever. Mr. Darcy. Hm-m-m-m. He turns out to be the hero, but I'm not sure the model works in real life. In fact, everything Oswald described last week about intercession would suggest otherwise.

If I were to be the opposite of obstinate -- amenable, flexible, submissive, yielding, open-minded -- what might God reveal to me? Nothing less than the mind of Christ.

The Collision of God and Sin

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed," I Peter 2:24.

And what does that healing look like?

My friend Jessica recently loaned me a book, Messy Spirituality by Michael Yaconelli. I read the first few pages like an excerpt from my own soul, and my blog today is simply a few of those excerpts, a picture of what I think earthly healing, non-glorified, this-side-of-heaven healing might look like, at least for me.

"For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a godly person. Yet when I look at the yesterdays of my life, what I see, mostly, is a broken irregular path littered with mistakes and failure. I have had temporary successes and isolated moments of closeness with God, but I long for the continuing presence of Jesus. Most of the moments of my life seem hopelessly tangled in a web of obligations and distractions" (p. 10).

"What landed Jesus on the cross was the preposterous idea that common, ordinary, broken, screwed-up people could be godly! What drove Jesus' enemies crazy were his criticisms of the 'perfect' religious people and his acceptance of the imperfect nonreligious people. The shocking implication of Jesus' ministry is that anyone can be spiritual.

"Scandalous? Maybe.

"Maybe truth is scandalous. Maybe the scandal is that all of us are in some condition of not-togetherness, even those of us who are trying to be godly. Maybe we're all a mess, not only sinful messy but inconsistent messy, up-and-down messy, in-and-out messy, now-I-believe-now-I-don't messy, I-get-it-now-I-don't-get-it messy, I-understand-uh-now-I-don't-understand messy.

"I admit, messy spirituality sounds . . . well . . . unspiritual.

"Surely there are guidelines to follow, principles to live by, maps to show us where to go, and secrets we can uncover to find a spirituality that is clean and tidy.

"I'm afraid not.

"Spirituality is not a formula; it is not a test. It is a relationship. Spirituality is not about competency; it is about intimacy. Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection" (pp. 12-13).

Communion with God. The point of the cross. The point of the incarnation. Oswald described the cross as "the point where God and sinful man merge with a crash and the way to life is opened -- but the crash is on the heart of God."

His Agony and Our Fellowship

"We can never fathom the agony in Gethsemane, but at least we need not misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and Man in one, face to face with sin" -- Oswald.

Son of God -- As God, our Savior is eternal. He was there at the beginning of time when the world was created. He has no end. He is perfect, sinless. More, he finds sin abhorrent, detestable. Throughout his life on earth, he was in unhindered communion with God the Father and able to represent his mind, heart and will without error. More, he, the Father and the Spirit were/are One. As God, he knew what was ahead of him in the last days of his life. He knew of Judas' betrayal. He knew his disciples would scatter. He knew Peter would deny him. He knew what kind of death awaited him, and he knew the sins of every man ever to live -- past, present or future -- would be placed on him. Murder, rape, child molestation, envy, hatred of God, conceit, idolatry, betrayal -- he, who not only knew no sin but could not abide it, became identified with the worst we have to offer.

Son of Man -- As man, our Savior was mortal, able to die. He was subject to the frailty of the human body and felt exhaustion, pain, thirst, hunger, tears of sadness, and agony of the soul. He was subject to temptation but did not succumb. As man, he experienced the human condition -- knew every emotion and desire common to man -- and, hence, was/is able to serve as a mediator between us and God the Father.

Matthew 26:38 (in Gethsemane): "Then he said to them, 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.'"

In Gethsemane, Jesus does battle with Satan and the powers of darkness. We can be certain that Satan brought everything he had to bear against Christ in that hour. For his part, Jesus, the warrior, prayed. And Matthew Henry's commentary on this passage helped me to see that God the Father answered his prayer:

"But what answer had he to this prayer? Certainly it was not made in vain; he that heard him always, did not deny him now. It is true, the cup did not pass from him, but he had an answer to his prayer; for He was strengthened with strength in his soul; and that was a real answer, Luke 22: 43. In answer to his prayer, God provided that he should not fail or be discouraged."

Those Borders of Distrust

Easter Sunday. I went to two church services today. Throughout the first -- a sunrise service -- I was deeply troubled by the hardness of my heart. The pastor's words made sense to my head, but this Christ he preached -- the one who died and rose again that the chosen might have life eternal -- seemed distant, impersonal, again a historical figure about whom I could affirm the facts -- he was born of a virgin, lived, performed numerous miracles, died and rose again -- but with whom I seemed to have no personal connection. I felt completely isolated from the people around me who clapped and shouted, "Amen." I wondered if I could possibly have anything in common with them.

The second sermon was more personal for me. Pastor Don preached on the resurrection of Lazarus and how Christ brings us all back to life from spiritual and emotional death. But the moment of real connection for me was when we sang "Breathe" by Michael W. Smith. These words struck me as absolutely true: "And I'm, I'm lost without you. I'm desperate for you." Maybe that was what was missing from the first service for me -- an acknowledgment that we are all desperate for him.

I do not yet have what I seek, but I'm sure the search is vital. I am lost and lonely and desperate. I am oh so tired of trying to be good enough, of measuring my worth by the nods and affirmations, or conversely, the criticisms of other people. Life does not make sense without a personal God who guarantees my worth. I think this is my day, this is my moment. I think God is doing exactly as Oswald suggested: ". . . pointing out that I have not been interested in Himself but only in His blessings." I do love his blessings. I love feeling good. I love health and laughter and happy children. I love gardens and color and foot rubs and coffee with a friend. I love book group and Christmas morning . . . but loving these things is not the same as loving him, and in and of themselves, they are not enough.

I have a wonderful life -- full of his blessings -- and still, I am desperate for him.

If Thou Hadst Known!

" . . . because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you," Luke 19:44b.

Please, Lord, do not let me close my eyes to my day, my moment, the hour of your coming to me. Help me to recognize the strange gods in my life for what they are -- not friends but enemies, not good things but idols, lovers who would woo me with promises and keep me from you. And when my eyes are open and I see my lovers for the traitors that they are, help me, Lord -- compel me -- to turn aside, to turn 180 degrees and run into your arms. Help me, Lord Jesus.

The Glory that Excels

"The one concentrated passion of the life is Jesus Christ. Whenever you meet this note in a man, you feel he is a man after God's own heart" -- Oswald.

This I do not have. And I do not know how to get it. I am not passionately in love with Jesus Christ. I want to be, but I do not know how to connect with him other than this feeble search for thoughts and ideas. It is as though he is an historical figure -- one who revolutionized history, yes -- but still a figure from the past. I know he lives. A living Christ is central to the faith, and I will sing of his resurrection this Sunday. But knowledge is not relationship. I'm not even sure that faith is relationship.

Oswald wrote that when the scales fell from Paul's eyes and he received his sight, he also "received spiritually an insight into the Person of Jesus Christ, and the whole of his subsequent life and preaching was nothing but Jesus Christ." He received it. It was given to him. He wasn't even seeking it. Paul was a Christ-hater, devoted to arresting his followers. That description of heart change sounds like what I would describe as salvation, but does salvation always leave the saved one in love with his Savior? If so, what is wrong with me?

I am like Martha who was busy with many things. Can I be a wife, a mother, a writer, a friend and still be like Mary who knew the best thing was to sit at the feet of Jesus? Is my heart beyond softening? Do I still have scales on my eyes?

How, Jesus, do I become a woman whose one concentrated passion is You?

Heartiness Versus Heartlessness Toward Others

"If once the burden and the pressure come upon us and we are not in the worshiping attitude, it will produce not only hardness toward God but despair in our own souls" -- Oswald.

How many times have burdens and pressures created despair in me -- and, if I am honest, hardness toward God, as well? Hardness toward God manifests itself in my life as a sort of fatalism. God's gonna do what God's gonna do, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. A cold view of sovereignty that does not acknowledge his plan as a loving one. Neither does it do much to motivate intercession.

"A heartless Christian must be a terrible grief to our Lord" -- Oswald.

Oswald's words to me: Stop grieving God. Find your heart. It is in there somewhere. Give it to God. He will hold it ever so gently and protect it ever so fiercely, and your relationship with him will grow into a living thing. At this point in your life, you cannot afford to worry about anything else. Tears at work, failure, writing a book, winning approval and recognition, offending people -- these are mere trifles compared to the welfare of your heart. You have energy enough for this thing only. Find your heart. From there, life will grow and change. You will be able to love others and begin to have Christ's view of them, but first things first.

I think, perhaps, the way to the heart is strange. Tonight, at our church's Maundy Thursday service, my daughters washed my feet, and as they washed my feet, they spoke words of affirmation to me -- what they loved and admired about me. Their words, their actions, did not go to my ears or my mind; they touched my heart. I washed the feet of an elderly woman to whom I have only spoken passing greetings at church, and in the act, I felt such tender compassion for her. Again, my mind was circumvented, and I had a sense of my own heart.