Thankful for a Great View

My daughter was in conflict.  She was eager,  she said, "dying," to get back to a church mission project at a child development center,  but not willing to ask for time from work as a swim coach, as she is the only coach comfortable with the little boy on the team who has autism.  She likes coaching him and they have made some real progress in the pool. 

That is some dilemma. 

It's something to see God at work in your kid, recognizing this is not some inherited trait, like her height (paternal) or her stubbornness (also paternal) or her tears over sad songs (maternal) or her love of ice cream (both ma and pa gene pools generously contributed). 

Nor is it the result of some whiz bang parenting trick that I read, applied and presto!  Results! 

It's her responding faithfully and actively to the grace given her by God. 

I don't count myself as naive, I think there will be moments, perhaps seasons, which lead to different blog entries. 

For now, today,  it's a glorious thing to see from the front row of life.

How Can We Score Spiritual Maturity?

The following article comes from Scot McKnight's  Jesus Creed  blog (excellent work, brilliant scholar).  McKnight features a summary of George Barna's latest work, Maximum Faith.  The following excerpt is Barna's stepping stones on a faith walk.  The percentages represent where people step, and then stop on the journey toward maturity or what Barna calls "wholeness".

1. Ignorance of the concept or existence of sin. 1%


2. Aware of and indifferent to sin. 16%


3. Concerned about the implications of personal sin. 39%


4. Confess sins and ask Jesus Christ to be their Savior. 9%


5. Commitment to faith activities. 24%


6. Experience a prolonged period of spiritual discontent. 6%


7. Experiencing personal brokenness. 3%


8. Choosing to surrender and submit fully to God: radical dependence. 1%


9. Enjoying a profound intimacy with and love for God. 0.5%


10. Experiencing a profound compassion and love for humanity. 0.5%


McKnight then concludes with this question and summary from Barna:

What do you think of this schematic display of spiritual progress? Anything to add? subtract?
Barna thinks most are in a “mindless mutiny” and in a “hopeless meandering.” And he thinks many, many stop on the path. He sees five paths:


1. Moving sequentially: some go from 1 to 10. Others try other methods.


2. Settling for religiosity: some get to stop #6 and choose to settle for #5.


3. Exploiting cheap grace: they get to #6 and revert back to #2.


4. Becoming angry with God: they go through #6 but when they get to #7 they become angry with a God who would subject them to such a process of testing, and they often return as well to #2.


5. Traveling the biblical path: they leap from #3 to #7 and move onwards.

Now back to Carol's thoughts:  how is this analysis helpful, is it even relevant (would love your thoughts on that question)?  I think too often we live as faith is a concept--which we agree or disagree,  not the reality of simply who we are.
It's an important distinction, because holding faith hostage to a concept keeps us in control.  We manage it--with varying degrees of sincerity (victory in church speak).    Barna's categories and data seem to look at the concept side of faith, unless we dig into the nature of his descriptive and the idea of wholeness. 

Wholeness should not stop at  the absence of sin, described in Barna's categories 1-5.  Categories 6-10 are wholeness in experiencing the presence of the Holy Spirit.  The second segment of categories describe the reality of  living, breathing, feeling, valuing,  acting and reacting in concert with the real presence of Christ.  It's what Friday night and Monday morning look like when the reality of faith--the indwelling--is obvious and in control.  Not mystical but practical. 

Barna's works points to the beautiful truth that faith is not just the absence of sin but the presence of a power that moves and sees and cares about all things with love.

So, where do you "stop" on the path?  Do you think the Barna description is helpful or tripe?

You Are Just Like Your Mom---Bleh!

24-hours ago I was driving home my daughter from getting her wisdom teeth removed. Her face was tear stained and swollen.


The dental nurse who assisted the doctor in the procedure looked at me, smiled and said, “she is just like her mom.”

I was not a compliment. I had my teeth pulled 2 years ago and had to be sedated. A lot. My eldest panicked in ways familiar to the maternal family line.

I paused to consider two things. The power of inheritance, legacy and our ability or inability to control the impact of a harmful legacy. When I see my inadequacies in my daughters, and how it limits them, I wonder how can I encourage them to limit the limiters? I am reading a book that says a huge mistake we naturally make is to try and build up our weaknesses instead of building our strengths.

I was sick to see my weakness so strongly expressed in the next generation. I had intentionally worked to downplay my anxiety and encourage (build up) my daughter as she experienced what for me was a trial. So do I have to settle for her just being like her mama in this regard (and why did they not inherit my love for a well made bed)?

One of the lessons is the blessing that comes from perspective, and as uncomfortable as my eldest is right now, she is also experience the boost of confidence that comes from going through something hard, knowing it’s worth it in the long run. Will that benefit take the edge off of her fear?

She can’t be something she is not, and she is not like her daddy confronting painful treatments or procedures with a bring-it-on- approach, but is, instead like her mama, a wee bit wound up. I am not convinced I can unwind those genes but I am now acutely aware of what my personal weakness looks like in my child—it’s a bit disturbing to see.

John 8:36 says, “so if the Son sets you free you will be free indeed.”

I can’t free her from the all too familiar traps that trip me up, but I can point her to the one who can. She, like her mama needs to learn to trust and lean on faith to free up from the temptation to yield to fear. That truth is best legacy I can leave with her.

Encouraging her to respond differently than my typical response won’t work, but encouraging her to respond faithfully first might just yield something that looks unfamiliar and so much better.

Living A Better Story

Donald Miller wrote in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: 
     "So I started obeying a little. I'd feel God wanting me to hold my tongue and I would. It didn't feel natural at first; it felt fake, like I was being a character somebody else wanted me to be and not who I actually was; but if I held my tongue, the scene would play better, and I always felt better when it was done. I started feeling like a better character and when you are a better character, our story gets better too. At first the feeling was only about holding my tongue. And when I learned to hold my tongue a bit, the Voice guided me from the defensive to the intentional.
     God wanted me to do things, to help people, to volunteer or write a letter or talk to my neighbor. Sometimes I'd do the thing God wanted and the story always went well, of course; and sometimes I'd ignore it and watch television. But by the time I really came to believe the Voice was God and God was trying to write a better story. And besides, nothing God wanted me to was difficult.         
     Until..."
 
     It's a great book, I don't want to call it a must read, that seems presumptuous but it is wonderfully written and has an truly original perspective.  If you love to read or write this is as must read as it gets.
     That said, back to the excerpt.  Obedience.  People equate faithfulness with obedience and I hesitate a bit, I think that a faith which lives itself out by following rules leads to legalism and self righteousness and then failure. 
     It is a New Year's Resolution or I am Willing Myself to be better religion.
     Miller points to two interesting parts of obedience:  first, listening to God and following that, when the character does that (obeys),  the story gets better.  
     It hit me:  legalism is not obedience--willing oneself is not obeying anyone but self.  Obedience is hearing, attending to and then following what Miller calls the Voice.  The story would not get better if I take a legalistic or self will approach, but if I listen to God, discern His will from prayer, scripture, worship and I have a posture ready to give then not only will I be obedient, my story gets better (note, not easier--Miller has great thoughts on our pursuit of comfort). 
     I love the line, "sometimes I'd ignore the voice and watch television" again, what I am listening to and what am I paying attention to.?
     I just listened to a podcast of a sermon from Andy Stanley of Northpoint Community Church.  He asked, "when was the last time you saw a love scene in a movie between two married people?  I know it's almost ewww, yuck like watching your parents."  
     Stanley's conclusion:  we pay lots attention to and then fantasize about the love scene between unmarried people we find attractive but then are shocked, outraged that someone acts out in real life, that which we seek for entertainment.  
     We are shocked at the real world destruction that comes from listening then acting on a voice that is not God, because in the movies such behavior is fun with a cool soundtrack and hair/make up artists and costume designers.  It has the illusion of being worthy of watching, but somehow we are supposed to know not do what we pay to watch.
      Putting the two points together, if I follow what I focus on, then first I need to focus on that which is true and worthy.  Then, I need to follow it.  That is obedience, it's not complicated, but its not always entertaining.   Good stories are not amusements--but they are rich and interesting and have a lasting quality that I want.
     Monday morning coffee and comfort with obedience.  I think it's going to be an interesting week.

A Faithful To Do List

What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith, but has no deeds? James 2:14

There is an ongoing discussion among friends as to the wisdom of works/deeds--busyness, activity.  Sometimes this discussion is about balance, sometimes about wisdom, sometimes about priorities, sometimes about pride or guilt or exhaustion.  Always there is a measuring scale:  doing too much, not doing enough.  What is right?  Where do I go wrong?

The one thing that is clear to me, I am to be active.  Not just a flurry of activity (dusting light bulbs) but active, as in--wait for it--not passive.  

James makes this point simply, faith without deeds (ergon:  enterprise, a product of one's hands, something accomplished) is of little value.

There is a connection between what I do and what I believe (faith/pistis--a firm conviction of truth).  Do I make that connection in my approach to what I do?

I wonder what Christ's opinion is on what I do with what I have?  Would he consider the way I spend my time wise, frenzied, selfish, generous, petty, focused on others or focused on myself?

Turn James' instruction around: deeds without faith is of no value.  The Message translates it more bluntly: Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything?

If doing, and believing are connecting to get me somewhere, well then where?  What am I traveling toward, the destination for the path of ergon? 

I think the purpose is that what I do should be marked by who I am, what I believe.  Whether that is tending to dusty light bulbs or tending to two daughters in my charge or tending to the needs of my church, or another church (gasp) or a neighbor or the local PTA or an orphanage in Africa or at a neighborhood swim meet or at a job.  Big, small, secular, faith based:  these are secondary concerns--primarily, am I active and in my activity is my faith obvious?

I  think Philip Yancey describes the destination of deeds well in changing motivations:  "Previously my main motivation in life was to do a painting of myself, filled with bright colors and profound insights so that all who looked upon it would be impressed.   Now, however I find that my role is to be a mirror to brightly reflect the image of God through me. Or perhaps the metaphor of stained glass would serve better, for after all, God will illumine though my personality and body."   excerpt from Open Windows

Words

"Words matter because they represent persons.  Because words represent persons, how we respond to words matters.  This means when our neighbors speak, we listen.  Love listens."  Scot McKnight, The Blue Parakeet.

Last night I sat, taken up with one statement of faith after another (14 in all).  Really, just taken up with the experience of listening to these men and women stepping into a servant's role with enthusiasm and humor and humility. 

What caught me was the beauty of the personal stories and the soundness of their theology.  To a person, they pointed to God as the initiator.  To a person they spoke of people who were used by God to inspire, love and nurture them. 

There was a really bad, awkward moment, when I thought, "man, my statement of faith last year was no where near this moving or well thought out.  Mine was lame."  Then,  it thankfully occurred to me that this moment was for my benefit but was not in fact about me.

As I considered people's pain and joy, love and rejection and looking at it all through the lens of faith and salvation I thought of the immense value of life and the greater value of grace. 

I loved listening to it all with love.