Thoughts on Life

Some years ago, I wrote an article on the essence of humility. I talked about the fact that humility is a matter of facing reality - the reality that, left to our own devices, we don’t do life very well. Hence the need for a higher power, or a saviour, to get us out of our mess.

To me, humility is about being self-forgetful. How hard is that? I find that the more I think about it, it is an issue of trust. When I don’t forget myself in the sense that Jesus meant, I am clinging on to my way of doing things and therefore not trusting. This elusive thing called humility is about not focusing on yourself.

Becoming Christlike has nothing to do with navel-gazing and everything to do with gazing on Christ and seeing reality through the fog of life. The irony though, and what catches many of us out, is that, as soon as you think you’re becoming more humble, you’re not, because you’re focusing on yourself again.

Humility really is about denying yourself. Humble people never think of themselves as humble. A friend once said to me that the closer you are to God, often the more you will be aware of your imperfections. Christian psychologist Larry Crabb says that if you ask a mature person when they last sinned they will smile the smile of a broken but healing person.

In my sermon, ‘Free to Love!’, I talked about the issue of repentance and how that word has such negative connotations. If you’re like me, you probably immediately think of someone yelling from a pulpit with his finger pointed straight at you shouting “Repent!”

Unfortunately the attitude that that image represents is quite accurate of many Christians. And, I have to admit, it has been true of me on too many occasions.

Fuzz Kitto has reminded people a few times that real repentance is not about repenting ‘from’ but it is about repenting ‘to’. The following story of the legend of Odysseus and the Sirens illustrates it better than I ever could.

Odysseus and his crew needed to get somewhere in their boat, but they needed to sail past an island which no one had ever passed before. The reason that everyone had floundered on this island was because of the beautiful seductive voices of the sirens on this island. When they would sing of their promises of wisdom and knowledge, no man could resist and they would turn their ship toward the island and be wrecked on the rocks.

So Odysseus needed a way to get around this. He was advised to have his crew lash him tight to the mast of his ship, and then to plug their ears with beeswax so they couldn’t hear the sirens’ song. Odysseus was determined that they were not going to be seduced. He told his crew that when he heard the singing, even though he would be desperate for them to unleash him and let him be lured over to the sirens, they were not to let him. And so they made it through. But Odysseus was exhausted from his efforts at resisting the sirens’ song.

Odysseus then realised there must be a better way. So he took with him Orpheus, who had the sweetest voice in all the land. And when they were approaching the island from where the sirens’ song could be heard, they heard the sirens starting to sing, luring them over. But then Orpheus started to sing, and Orpheus’ voice was more beautiful than that of the sirens, and Odysseus and his crew made it through unscathed.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth walked the dusty roads of the Middle East living out the same message. The common people heard Him gladly because in Him they found not condemnation but acceptance. In Him they heard words of life, words spoken for them. And in Him they saw a life lived in sacrifice and service of others. After His resurrection, His followers became so enamored by His message that they turned the might of the Roman Empire upside down. They no longer had to try to prove themselves. They knew that something new had happened, and they devoted their lives to sharing this love with everyone around them.

The message of Jesus is about finding a better way. It is about repenting ‘to’. It is coming to see how attractive following him is that everything else fades into insignificance. God help me to be more like that.

I was moved the other night to go back and have a look at Larry Crabb’s excellent book Connecting. This is the book that had the potential to cost Crabb his career as a counselor. In it, he talks about the power of emotional healing that takes place when people relate to each other as Christ relates to us. And the best place for this to happen is in safe community with other like-minded people. The counseling relationship, while extremely valuable, cannot substitute for a community of people loving each other and speaking into each other’s lives.’

The reason I mention this is because I was with a group of friends the other night, and as we shared deep parts of our lives, I came to see how much I was able to relate to particular aspects of what they were sharing. Why is it that just one small sentence that someone shares about their life can stay with us for years? When I have listened to some sermons over the years, there is often one line that will stay with me, that will resonate with me, even though I couldn’t tell you what the subject of the sermon was.

The reason that such relating touches us so deeply is because we connect; we relate, we nod with a knowing when we hear what that person is saying. We can say “that’s exactly my experience”. That’s why Jesus told stories of everyday life to explain the kingdom of God. He never actually defined what the kingdom is, he just always said “it is like…”.

Connecting is the essence of life. When we connect with someone, or something that someone says, we know we have touched something of what life is really all about; something that goes deeper than all the everyday stuff that we think is hugely important. I think I might go back and read through Crabb’s book again. I suspect there will be a few lines that stay with me for years.