Do not wait; the time will never be “just right.”
Start where you stand,
and work with whatever tools you may have at your command,
and better tools will be found as you go along.
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.
God is awake.
Victor Hugo
The gospel of justifying faith means that while Christians are, in themselves still sinful and sinning, yet in Christ, in God’s sight, they are accepted and righteous. So we can say that we are more wicked than we ever dared believe, but more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope — at the very same time. This creates a radical new dynamic for personal growth. It means that the more you see your own flaws and sins, the more precious, electrifying, and amazing God’s grace appears to you. But on the other hand, the more aware you are of God’s grace and acceptance in Christ, the more able you are to drop your denials and self-defenses and admit the true dimensions and character of your sin.
Timothy Keller, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: Living in Line with the Truth of the Gospel
It’s weird to go back and see what God was doing in our lives a year ago. To see the questions I was wrestling with. Go back and look. Look how many of those things He’s ironed out.
It’s been a good year since the ultimatum exactly a year ago today. A very, very good year.
Maybe it’s because it’s all in the same month, but I can’t help but compare the grief and mourning over losing Elise to this latest, now-one-year-old loss. The comparison is revealing, and it helps me understand and express what needles me about the way conservative Evangelicals at large talk about ourselves, our trials, our humanity, and our God.
“They” say that losing a child is so hard because our culture lacks the words to express the grief. When you lose a parent, you’re an orphan. When you lose a spouse, you’re a widow(er). But there is no word to describe you when you lose a child. The tragedy is that unthinkable.
I’ll say it again — we as (former) fundamentalists don’t have a way to talk about leaving. We’re told to simply shut up. “Get over it. There’s nothing you can do about it anyway! You’re gonna get bitter if you keep talking about it.” It’s another kind of denial of the problem. And if you deny the problem–the sadness, the loss–exists, it simply stalls your healing.
I firmly believe that the Spirit is working here in Greenville. I can feel it. I told a friend awhile back that it feels like pre-term labor around here. That the contractions get closer and closer and closer, but . . . they . . . stop. Practice labor. Getting the Body ready for something, but we just don’t know what yet.
But it’s coming.
A sentimental trip to Missouri this month. The last trip we took a year ago was in the middle of document-writing and ominous email-receiving communicating “some concerns.”
We had no idea what was ahead for us back then. Something was looming, but we didn’t know enough for certain to burden our Missouri family with the details. On my sister-in-law’s fridge we found two lists that nailed it — the entire message of Grace and the Gospel. Grant took one list for his blog today, and the other one follows here. They were a comfort and an affirmation to find way back when, and they are still a sweet reminder to see how God has carried us through this remarkable and scary year.
My True Identity in Christ
- You are justified and redeemed (already)–Romans 3:24
- Your old self was killed (crucified)–Romans 6:6
- You are not condemned. (My performance is condemned when I don’t trust in His life through me, but God does not condemn the performer, just the performance.)–Romans 8:1
- You are free from the law of sin and death–Romans 8:2
- You are accepted. (All my life I’ve sought to be accepted. Now I am!)–Romans 15:7
- You are sanctified (holy, set apart)–I Corinthians 1:2
- You have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption. (I am ransomed–restored to favor)–I Corinthians 1:2
- You are always led in His triumph (whether it appears so or not)–II Corinthians 2:14
- Your hardened mind has been removed–II Corinthians 3:14
- You are a new creature. (Even though I don’t always feel or act like it.)–II Corinthians 5:17
- You are the righteousness of God. (You can’t get more righteous than this.)–II Corinthians 5:21
- You are liberated–Galatians 2:4
- You are joined with all believers (not inferior to anyone)–Galatians 3:28
- You are a child and an heir–Galatians 4:7
- You are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Heaven–Ephesians 1:3
- You are chosen, holy, and blameless before God–Ephesians 1:4
- You are redeemed, forgiven–Ephesians 1:7
- You have obtained an inheritance–Ephesians
- You are sealed with the Spirit. (Imagine the real you sealed up in the envelope of God Himself.)–Ephesians 1:13
- You are alive (formerly a dead spirit)–Ephesians 2:5
- You are seated in Heaven (already)–Ephesians 2:6
- You are created for good performance. (And I can let Christ live through me to perform it.)–Ephesians 2:10
- You have been brought near to God–Ephesians 2:13
- You are a partaker of the promise–Ephesians 3:6
- You have boldness and confident access to God (not slinking as a ‘whipped dog’)–Ephesians 3:12
- You were formerly darkness, but are now light–Ephesians 5:8
- You are a member of His body (not inferior to other members)–Ephesians 5:30
- Your heart and mind are guarded by the peace of God. (Peace is knowing something, not always feeling it.)–Philippians 4:7
- You have all your needs (not greeds) supplied–Philippians 4:19
- You are complete (perfect)–Colossians 2:10
- You are raised up with Him–Colossians 3:1
- Your life is hidden with Christ in God–Colossians 3:3
By Robert Louis Stevenson
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside–Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown–
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!
We are very busy in our new yard. We swing. We recite poems about swinging while we’re swinging (part of a formidable list, yes?). We count sprouts. We write in our field journal. We get very, very dirty. We play with the home-made floam that’s too messy for inside. We play baseball and terrier soccer. We water new sod.
And while the lack of scrubby has scared off our goldfinch family, we have found some other wildlife. Bugs. Grubs. Worms. And . . . a small brown rabbit whose clothes got stuck in our yellow hose. . . .
Presently, we put up his jacket and shoes in the carrot patch so he could find them again. No rabbit pie for this Lewis home (other Lewises prefer their rabbit dredged in flour and browned and then baked. I prefer mine with skin on and hopping through the yard.).
The home-made topsy-turvy tomatoes just gave me their first ripened fruit this morning. Our Kouza is gorgeous still. The sunflower house is sprouting. And the summer bulb bed is ready to pop.
We can hardly resist calling the yard a metaphor for the previous year. I prayed a long, long time ago about fixing it, saying, “Okay, Lord, all I know is when it gets done, it’ll clearly be straight from You.”
The whole thing makes us smile as we have our daily PB&J picnic. It really is a stone monument to how the Lord has helped us thus far.
Amen!
John Piper explains Romans 1:14-15 this way:
Grace does not make you a debtor to God; but it does make you a debtor to others who need grace just as you did.
That mutuality among believers is beautiful to feel and to see. Just look at this one example. I can’t stop smiling about it.
The other women rushed home, but Mary stayed behind. How could it be true? Jesus was definitely dead — how could he be alive?
Just then Mary heard someone else in the garden. Perhaps it’s the gardener, she thought. He’ll know where Jesus’ body is.
“I don’t know where Jesus is!” Mary said urgently. “I can’t find him.”
But it was alright. Jesus knew where she was. And he had found her.
“Mary!”
Only one person said her name like that. She could feel hear heart thumping. She turned around. She could just make out a figure. She shaded her eyes to see . . . and thought she was dreaming.
But she wasn’t dreaming. She was seeing.
“Jesus!”
Mary fell to the ground. Sudden tears filled her eyes and great sobs shook her whole body, and all she wanted in that moment was to cling to Jesus and never let him go.
“You’ll be able to hold on to me later, Mary,” Jesus said gently, “and always be close to me. But now, go and tell the others that I’m alive!”
Mary ran and ran, all the way to the city. She had never run so fast or so far in all her life. She felt she could have run forever. She didn’t even feel like her feet touched the ground. The sun seemed to be dancing and gleaming and bounding across the sky, racing with her and shining brighter than she could ever remember in the clear, fresh air.
And it seemed to her that morning, as she ran, almost as if the whole world had been made anew, almost as if the whole world was singing for joy — the trees, tiny sounds in the grass, the birds . . . her heart.
Was God really making everything sad come untrue? Was he making even death come untrue?
She couldn’t wait to tell Jesus’ friends. “They won’t believe it!” she laughed.
She was right, of course.
Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name
Fundamentalists often hear and repeat, “My Bible is all I need.” And while I understand and affirm the sentiment that God’s Word is well. . . . GOD’s WORD, the expression is full of hubris. It’s not that God’s Word is incomplete or inaccurate or insufficient. We are. It’s the old four blind men and the elephant problem. If that Eastern example doesn’t do it for you, there’s always good ol’ Francis Bacon. In sum, idols distract us. We’re blinded by our infirmed humanity (idols of the tribe), our idiosyncratic personhood (idols of the cave), our reified culture (idols of the marketplace), and our inadequate education (idols of the theatre). One way of seeing around those idols that stand in our way of understanding God’s Wor(l)d is through a iron-sharpening looking outside of ourselves. Otherwise, we just see ourselves in Scripture instead of seeing God. That’s why God gave us the Church — to edify each other and point out our blindspots. We’re not islands unto ourselves. Or we shouldn’t be!
And that’s what these books did for me. Reading them is an Ebenezer — a monument to seeing my presumptions and my own microculture as badly flawed. All these books are, ironically enough, within the conservative Evangelical hermeneutic. I have some mainline liberal Protestant friends who read them and were left with only a “meh!” These don’t speak to them. But they do speak to us and are eye-opening, earth-shaking, Church-building, and Christ-centered.
I got into trouble for reading and for talking about these books. So if you want to upset the Powers that Be, read them. If you’re content with things as they are, avoid them like the plague. Trust me.
Heartfelt Discipline by Clay Clarkson. Clarkson set out to prove that the usual punitive advice that circulates in conservative Evangelical circles is from Scripture. He found out otherwise. That negative testimony is pretty persuasive. His basic argument is that if you take the rod verses totally literally (and I’m not saying that Proverbs are intended to be absolutely literal. I mean, does a stitch in time literally save nine?), then you would beat with a rod on the back (not with a hand on the bottom) of a na’ar — 5-20 (some say 15-20) year old boy (and not on an eight-month old baby!!!).
Grace-Based Parenting by Tim Kimmel. Kimmel is a great alternative to the punitive monopoly in Evangelical parenting advice books. He’s experienced, logical, and biblical. He asserts that all children need a secure love, a significant purpose, and a strong hope. They need the freedom to be different, vulnerable, candid, and to make mistakes. All that’s only possible with Grace as a guide. I can’t say enough good about this book. I found myself seeing God and my responsibilities to my sons in a whole new way.
Why Christian Kids Rebel by Tim Kimmel. Here Kimmel scared me. I saw so many of my students in his words. It changed the way I talked and interacted with them. He describes Compulsory Christianity (where the religious practices become a hobby for the family. Like that pirate family on Wife Swap.), ClichĂ© Christianity (the kind of life foregrounded in Christian education, according to Kimmel. “The problem lay in the fact that everything about the school was designed to prop up your ability to appear spiritual. With very little effort, you could act and talk ‘Christian.’”), Comfortable Christianity (an easy Prayer-of-Jabez kind of focus on material acquisition and loss), Cocoon Christianity (a.k.a. The Village. Shyamalan showed us how well that worked.), and Compromised Christianity (A parent living under the veneer of a top-notch Christian but who abuses his family and drives them away from the faith. Notice that the compromise is not in whether or not the family watches movies or plays video games, but in whether the mom and dad see themselves as needing a daily dose of the Gospel as much as their kids.).
What will always ring in my memory is his chapter on the Prodigal Son. I had never heard the story explained in that way. God, as the perfect Parent in the story, acts differently than the Clueless parent, EMT parent, or the Special Forces parent. It really hits “home” when Kimmel points out that in contrast to God’s way of parenting us and welcoming us back after our sin, “some [prodigal] kids never go home because they can’t recall their parents dealing with them in understanding, patience, and grace” (66).
And I saw so much of a very familiar discipline system in his critique of “Special Forces Parenting”:
Families don’t live in war zones. If there were any kind of zone a family should be living in, it would be a grace zone. Unfortunately, if Special Forces-type parents aren’t careful, they can create a war zone in their child’s heart.
There was a time when this autocratic style of parenting actually worked. The gears of industry and the wheels of commerce turned under the inertia of an autocratic system. . . .
Special Forces parenting makes a lot of noise, offers up a lot of threats, and tries to rule by intimidation. When it’s time to deal with a problem in a child’s life, these SF parents love to pull out the heavy artillery and often turn to some form of punishment. Unfortunately, that tends to miscarry with overuse. That’s because punishment is one of the least effective forms of correction. Why? Lots of reasons.
Punishment is more about getting even or balancing the score than it is about correction. It’s also about communicating who is boss. But it is ineffective because it’s not the way our world deals with short-comings. . . .
As we’ll see in the story of the prodigal son, the most effective form of correction is consequences. And the more natural the consequences, the better. That’s the way the real world operates, that’s the way God operates, and that’s the method most helpful to rebellious kids in figuring out why what they are doing is unacceptable.
Another reason why the autocratic control of a Special Forces parent doesn’t work well over time is because it conditions children to respond to outside voices and forces in their lives. They get a little bigger and a little older and it’s easy for them to start submitting to the barking orders of overbearing boyfriends or girlfriends or the outspoken voice of the crowd. I guess you kind of figured out that Special Forces parents make it easy for their kids to find their way into rebellious lifestyles. (56-58)
Families Where Grace is in Place by Jeff VanVonderen. This book jarred us both from the unbiblical errors and extra-biblical extremes that run rampant in our previous life. Most startling is VanVonderen’s rather matter-of-fact correction that the Bible doesn’t say that I’m supposed to make my husband love me, nor is he supposed to make me submit. I have my responsibility to submit, and he has his responsibility to love. That’s our division of labor, so to speak.
The same goes with parents and children. My responsibility to not provoke my sons to wrath is actually greater than their responsibility to obey/honor me. I can’t make them honor me, but I need to act honorably. VanVonderen was the first for me that made that very simple, mind-blowing point.
Tired of Trying to Measure Up by Jeff VanVonderen. In talking about this book, I might even say “it all started with reading VanVonderen.” It still makes me giggle that whenever I mention this title to anyone inside fundamentalism (even those at the very “top”), the reaction to the title is always the same — a jaw-dropping, eye-rolling, sighing, empathetic, but sardonic laugh that says “Ha! Somebody gets it!”
This book got me into some deep trouble. It so poignantly speaks to the problems in our former life that I bought a dozen copies and had them stacked on my desk, ready to give away to the next frustrated student or colleague that unloaded on me (and yes, I gave them all away quite quickly). Once this got up the food chain, the Powers that Be weren’t pleased. The Gospel is usually unsettling.
On October 16, 2006, I was told to stop recommending this book. I agreed. I said, “I figured you would ask me that, and I’m okay with that. I’ll just point people to Romans and Galatians instead.” Tee-hee. My little joke got lost, I think. Later I was told that VanVonderen had “very dangerous theology.” In response to that declaration, I smiled and said, “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.”
Go see and read for yourself why it would be unsettling or dangerous. Fact is, it’s pretty standard stuff for the rest of Christendom. It’s fundamentalism that’s out-of-sync with the Bible. That fact alone might make you stop reading me. I understand. I remember that feeling too.
Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by Jeff VanVonderen and David Johnson. I’ve heard from other believers around the world that many autocratic Christian leaders despise this book. Of course they do! I read it the first time in a rather cursory fashion. I’ll admit it, I first came to the book trying to deconstruct the definition of “spiritual abuse.” Some descriptions just sound like bad management — something that could happen at Disney or Microsoft. But I found in VanVonderen and Johnson, who coined the term, a very substantial case. I was still in denial though. Not here, right? No, no. . . . not here. Please, please not here.
On the second reading though, I wept.
Soul Survivor by Phil Yancey. Yancey is hands-down an excellent writer. He’s just a joy to read. And this is the first book of his I read in the Fall, 2006, thanks to my old buddy’s recommendation. While he introduced me to Chesterton and Dostoevsky, I couldn’t shake his rebuke of Southern conservative Evangelical organizations for never repenting of their racist sins of the past. Sigh. . . .
What’s so Amazing About Grace? by Phil Yancey. Yancey at his finest. Babette’s Feast is now one of my favorite films after Yancey explained its mirroring of Christ’s gracious love feast within a harsh, cold, unhappily pious world. In the middle of all our abuse in that last year, I couldn’t forget Babette’s culinary demonstration of grace. If you can only read one chapter, though, read the “The New Math of Grace.” God’s calculator defies any one that we create. Ironically enough, Yancey says he got in trouble for the chapter/article as well. We Christians are so protective of the status quo.
With these books, I found a story of redemption in Scripture that I had never heard before. And I realized that the Church had been proclaiming this Good News for millennia, independent of my sliver of Christendom. I discovered the Gospel anew.
And that led to another book. . . . But we’ll talk about that in a future post.
Technorati Tags: Phil Yancey, Jeff VanVonderen, Tim Kimmel, Clay Clarkson, David Johnson, Francis Bacon
Thanks to my hubby’s generous Christmas gift of an mp3 player, I’m obsessed with podcasts. And thanks to TulipGirl, I’ve found a new source for downloads. In this first (for me!) podcast, a little factoid popped up that can be a compelling retort to some who say I’m a little too optimistic about the Christian life. ;)
You know Old Hundreth, right? The first stanza looks like this:
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell;
Come ye before Him and rejoice.
It’s based on Psalm 100, of course. But notice the stark change between William Kethe’s words and David’s:
1 Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!
2 Serve the LORD with gladness!
  Come into his presence with singing!
Uh. . . . Those two don’t match. Why? Why did Kethe change it? We serve with gladness – mirth, joy! The Vulgate chose lætĂtia. Luther uses Freuden. And Calvin is practically giddy!
Shout joyfully to praise the Lord,
all you who dwell upon the earth.
Worship the Lord with happy heart;
before him come with songs of joy.
So I think the better, more historically astute question is, why did we all get so crabby? Optimism about the Gospel is a good thing and, I would argue, a Biblical thing. What happened?
This was such an encouragement to me. For Jerry Bridges to admit that he was wrong in the past. For him to say that conservative Evangelicalism has lost its proper focus. And for him to articulate the same thing that Grant and I have been saying over and over and over again to our students and friends and . . . . well, everyone! This is what we put our necks on the line for! To foreground the Gospel in every interaction and conflict and struggle!
It’s a must-read!! Read every word.
And it’s just nice to have some company. :)
I prayed that God would use the Bible to guide my conduct. Then I began diligently to seek to obey it. I had never heard the phrase “the pursuit of holiness,” but that became my primary goal in life. Unfortunately, I made two mistakes. First, I assumed the Bible was something of a rulebook and that all I needed to do was to learn what it says and go do it. I knew nothing of the necessity of depending on the Holy Spirit for his guidance and enablement.
Still worse, I assumed that God’s acceptance of me and his blessing in my life depended on how well I did. I knew I was saved by grace through faith in Christ apart from any works. I had assurance of my salvation and expected to go to heaven when I died. But in my daily life, I thought God’s blessing depended on the practice of certain spiritual disciplines, such as having a daily quiet time and not knowingly committing any sin. I did not think this out but just unconsciously assumed it, given the Christian culture in which I lived. Yet it determined my attitude toward the Christian life.
Performance-Based Discipleship
My story is not unusual. Evangelicals commonly think today that the gospel is only for unbelievers. Once we’re inside the kingdom’s door, we need the gospel only in order to share it with those who are still outside. Now, as believers, we need to hear the message of discipleship. We need to learn how to live the Christian life and be challenged to go do it. That’s what I believed and practiced in my life and ministry for some time. It is what most Christians seem to believe.
As I see it, the Christian community is largely a performance-based culture today. And the more deeply committed we are to following Jesus, the more deeply ingrained the performance mindset is. We think we earn God’s blessing or forfeit it by how well we live the Christian life.
Most Christians have a baseline of acceptable performance by which they gauge their acceptance by God. For many, this baseline is no more than regular church attendance and the avoidance of major sins. Such Christians are often characterized by some degree of self-righteousness. After all, they don’t indulge in the major sins we see happening around us. Such Christians would not think they need the gospel anymore. They would say the gospel is only for sinners.
For committed Christians, the baseline is much higher. It includes regular practice of spiritual disciplines, obedience to God’s Word, and involvement in some form of ministry. Here again, if we focus on outward behavior, many score fairly well. But these Christians are even more vulnerable to self-righteousness, for they can look down their spiritual noses not only at the sinful society around them but even at other believers who are not as committed as they are. These Christians don’t need the gospel either. For them, Christian growth means more discipline and more commitment.
Then there is a third group. The baseline of this group includes more than the outward performance of disciplines, obedience, and ministry. These Christians also recognize the need to deal with sins of the heart like a critical spirit, pride, selfishness, envy, resentment, and anxiety. They see their inconsistency in having their quiet times, their failure to witness at every opportunity, and their frequent failures in dealing with sins of the heart. This group of Christians is far more likely to be plagued by a sense of guilt because group members have not met their own expectations. And because they think God’s acceptance of them is based on their performance, they have little joy in their Christian lives. For them, life is like a treadmill on which they keep slipping farther and farther behind. This group needs the gospel, but they don’t realize it is for them. I know, because I was in this group.
“Gospel-Driven Sanctification,” Jerry Bridges