Journey toward Wholeness

There are things about me that I sometimes wish would just magically be changed.  Vices, struggles, characteristics of my fallen state that I would rather not have to deal with.  There are powers that rage within me that reek havoc for myself and the people I care about.  Why was I made this way?  Why can't I pray my way out of this difficult condition of the body, mind, or soul?  I even become frustrated and angry with God that I'm not "fixed" when I ask to be.  Shouldn't God be just as interested in delivering me from human weakness as I am?  But I'm finding that the Lord doesn't always heal and transform me according to my specifications and timetable.  My creator's idea of making me whole might even be more advanced and informed than mine!  He knows my inner-workings, my intricate design, my inside and out.  Sometimes this means that I need to expand my expectations of what God's healing might mean for me.  It might not include an instant and drastic miracle with satisfying before and after photos.  It may not even look like a steady improvement between what I was and what I will be.  God's ministry to me may hurt, it may require deeper faith, it may demand a higher level of humility, discipline, or inter-dependence with others.  God may not give me easy solutions to a complex issues because my journey to wholeness may bear more fruit over the long haul than in the short term.  And while I believe that we will be made whole in the blinking of an eye at Christ's triumphant return, perhaps it is more important in this life to follow in faith the wisdom of an eternally Great Physician than to be set on experiencing the perfect health we're so intent on achieving.

Lean On Me

"Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ" Gal. 6:2

In the church, we like to appear as if we have it together.  I've never seen a place where it's more important to people to APPEAR perfect.  The reasoning ends up something like this - If Christians have come into contact with the God who desires us to be whole and who is capable of anything, then it only makes sense that we should be "put together" if we have put our faith in Him.  If we appear that we are not "put together", it would not only reflect our failure in faith, but perhaps even God's failure to make us whole.  So even when we are broken, lacking, and mired in life's struggles, we choose to look like Jack and Jill the perfect church-going saints of the neighborhood.
This flawed approach to our self-presentation within the church is not only dishonest, it stops short the power of grace in our lives.  The scriptures are clear:  we are sinners, weak and poor, in need of a strong and righteous God who comes to us in Jesus Christ.  This fundamental identity as needy and dependent people who are redeemed by the Savior is the basis for being members in the church of God.  The point at which our neediness for and dependency on God becomes masked by a masquerade of normalcy is the point at which we remove ourselves from the penetrating reach of transformative grace.  But when we come in the raw - placing our insufficiencies, insecurities, and indiscretions before others who bear the same - we leave room for divine love to redeem and save.  To bear one another's burdens suggests that we all have burdens and that the purpose of the church is to have a place - not to hide or deny them - but to share them.  This can only be done in the context of a community of trust, respect, and mutual knowledge of the endless affection of an eternal God.  But when it is done, when we lean on the Spirit of Christ in one another, we experience a release from the bondage of having to maintain a false sense of achievement and an invitation to the freedom of boasting in nothing but Christ crucified.  Not only that, but we become an image of the invisible God to a world where masks are more naturally displayed than the truth of our faces.

Please swallow your pride
If you have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won't let show

Power Made Perfect

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9

Could it be that God can use my weakness more effectively than my strength?  That it is actually through the exercising of my weaknesses that I develop a true dependence upon the ability of the God rather than the ability of myself?  That what God asks of me is not to be good at anything but relying completely on Him?

Recently, I've felt a strong calling to work on things in life and ministry that I am simply not good at doing.  I sense a divine urging to pursue ends that require gifts and strengths that I lack.  I am not good at following an effort through from beginning to end.  I'm not good at building personal relationships past the surface using my own initiative.  God is calling me to follow some things through and to build some relationships beyond the surface.  The thing is, if I were to answer that call and follow that urging, I would either need to be given gifts that I do not currently posses, or watch God accomplish what I cannot naturally accomplish myself.  I am uncomfortable with this.  I enjoy doing things I'm good at that come to me without much effort.  What I would rather do is play off of my strengths: work to make the environment ripe for me to accomplish things out of my power rather than my weakness.  I don't want to deal with the frustration, impatience, and discipline that come with doing things I'm not particularly good at.  

Spiritually, this line of reasoning translates that I would rather be dependent upon myself than upon God.  Whether I do something because it's easy for me to do or because I'm forcing myself to do it, I'm not depending on God.  The only way I can move into obedience is to enter the trenches of faith and have the active trust to rely on God with every step.  If I'm called to follow through on some tasks or relationships better, the key is not pressing my will into action - it's meeting the Spirit of empowerment in a way that will allow God's power to be made perfect in my weakness.  This looks like prayer.  It looks like partnering with people who stretch and teach me to rely on God.  It means being willing to humble myself and wait for God to work according to God's own prerogative.