Thoughts on Life

Over the last year or so I’ve been realising how everything in life is related to our relationships, whether we realise it or not. All of our interactions are either constructive or destructive for our relating. That’s why life is so difficult. I thought of saying during a sermon once that life is easy until you have to relate to someone!

It is for this reason that doing our best to get our relationships to work is the most important thing we can do with our lives. Now, getting our relationships to work doesn’t necessarily mean they will be easier, but it does mean we will be more at peace. There is not much we can control in our relationships, but we can control the way we come across, with the help of God’s Spirit within us and with the help of others who love us enough to speak lovingly into our lives.

What we can’t control is how others relate to us. We can try to manipulate our relationships to get people to be nice to us or like us, but when we do this we will always know, deep down, a sense of distance from those people. That distance will be because we are actually trying to use them to make ourselves feel better. Whenever we are doing this we are not loving, and whenever we are not loving, we are not living as God intended and therefore not joyful.

Probably no one has brought this across better in my thinking than Larry Crabb, director of New Way Ministries. Crabb has written numerous books over the years, but the two that have impacted me the most are Understanding People and Inside Out. The first was given to me by a friend in 1987. When he gave it to me I remember feeling offended because it came across like he was giving it to me because I didn’t understand people. So it was like, “Here, maybe this will help.” I felt like my friend thought I had no clue about relating to people when my greatest desire in life was to be Christ-like and my friends were not serious enough about it. I thought he was being arrogant. I may or may not have been right.

Finding Inside Out was a different story. There are very very few times in my life where I can say with confidence that I thought God specifically led me to something. In fact, as I write, I cannot remember any other occasion apart from when I found this book in Keswick Christian bookstore in the centre of Melbourne in late 1988. Flicking through it in the bookstore that day, I experienced the sense that this book was written just for me and that the only way I could describe how I found it was and is that God led me to it.

Over the years I have read both books a number of times, mainly going back to certain sections rather than re-reading from cover to cover. Inside Out in particular spoke directly to everything I was going through in the way I was relating and the way I wanted to relate at the time, and it still does today. One of my greatest desires in life has been to find a group of people to relate to, be committed to and grow with in the way that this book suggests. I am convinced it can bring about the genuine change every human being desires in their heart of hearts. For many years now I have been part of something approaching a group like that and it has been life-changing.

Since Crabb wrote Inside Out, many Christians have benefited from putting its principles into practice. They have found genuine change and life in Christ - the abundant life that Jesus promises.

The more we grow in relating as Christ does, the more fully human we become. It was St Irenaeus who said that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. The more alive we become, the like Christ we become. The Jesus we see in the Gospels is the most fully human person who has ever lived. He lived the perfect human life. He was the embodiment of God’s design for humanity, and we give glory to God and know the most intimate joy with the God of love the more like Christ we become.

When we look at the way Jesus relates to everyone, it is always with love. Sometimes it is gentle love and sometimes it is extremely tough love. But it is always infinite love, always done with the greater good of the other in mind. It is done with what Tim Keller calls the freedom of self-forgetfulness.

This way of relating is also what changes the world. It is not just something for our inner lives with no other effect than giving us the joy of living. It’s inevitable effect is that gives itself away for others. That is the very nature of love. It cannot be kept unless it is given away. “It leaves you baby if you don’t care for it.”

Relationship changes everything, for good or for ill. If it changes things for ill then it is not really relationship; it is the opposite: the lessening of humanity. Following is how one person describes how relationship changes the world:

“If we, as followers of Christ, are to fulfill His established law then we ought to carry each other’s burdens. If I were to help an elderly woman carry her groceries from her car into her home, the first thing I would need to do is get close to her. If I truly wanted to help her I would have to go to her. I wouldn’t merely stand on her lawn and instruct her from afar on the proper technique for lifting her heavy bags from the vehicle, or chastise her for trying to carry too much or too little, and then stand by hoping she fared well enough to make it safely into her home. No! I would rush to her side, make sure she was sturdy and stable, then pick up and carry groceries on her behalf. Why? Because I am strong, capable, and have been given the ability to do so.”
- Rachel Britz - (http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/op-ed/worthy-burden-compassion)

I had a read of Tom Wright’s John for Everyone this morning. I looked at John 3:1-13 which is the passage about being born again. As I read it and Wright’s explanation of it, the truth of what the good news really is dawned on me again. We don’t need to be born again so we will get into heaven when we die. Jesus didn’t come down from heaven to show us how we can get there with Him. The good news is that, ultimately, heaven is coming here, and that has already started in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus coming down from heaven was the beginning of heaven coming here, the beginning of the new creation, of the new heavens and the new earth.

This passage has been among the most loved of Christians – particularly evangelical Christians – for years, and rightly so. John 3:3 is one of the verses you learn when you learn the ‘four spiritual laws’ (something else which gives a twisted understanding of the Gospel).

I firmly believe in the need to be born again. After all, Jesus did say it, so we can’t just dismiss it. But we need to understand what Jesus really meant, and in what context He was saying it when He had His famous conversation with Nicodemus. Like everything when we read Scripture, we need to look at this passage in context. The whole context of Scripture is that it is a story, the story of God’s salvation plan, yes, but more than that, God’s redemption plan for, not just humanity, but for the whole of the created order. Jesus said “Behold I make all things new.” (Revelation 21:5, emphasis mine). And so it is in that sense that when Jesus talks about the need to be born again, He is talking about our need to be born of the Spirit of God to be able to do the works of God. This is what transformation is all about.

As well as all this, Wright makes the wonderful point about how Jesus is the ladder between us and God, about He bridges the gap for us. When I learnt the four spiritual laws, we were always shown how, because we were sinners (Romans 3:23 – all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God) and can therefore not save ourselves (read: get into heaven by our own efforts) - Jesus died for our sins in our place so that we can now be saved because of Him (read: we can now get to heaven because of what Jesus has done). But listen to what Wright says about this, about the real, Biblical reason that Jesus is the ladder between us and God:

“he (Jesus) is now the ladder which joins the two dimensions of God’s world, the heavenly and the earthly. If we want to understand not only the heavenly world, but the way in which God is now joining heaven and earth together, we must listen to him, and walk with him on the road he is now to take.”

This is the reason that Jesus is the ladder between us and God. As Wright says elsewhere in John for Everyone, it’s like Jesus is saying, “if you follow me you will see what is like when heaven and earth are open to each other”. Jesus did indeed die for our sins, but not so we could get a ticket to a heaven in the sky. It was so we could indeed be saved, but saved in the sense of being part of the new creation with Him. Our hearts will be transformed, we are no longer condemned, and we are free to live for and with Jesus and His followers to help make the whole created order right again. This includes our hearts, our attitudes, our whole inner being, society, the environment, our finances, our economics, our legal system, everything. As Eden Parris sings, Jesus has come “to banish the night and to make all things right, to colour the earth with his song.”

The Gospel is bigger than we ever thought. Jesus always has something new to show us. It is anything but a dull, boring life. The life of following Jesus is the life of the ages; it is what eternal life really is.

In the U2 song, Peace on Earth, Bono sings of his frustration about our constant talk of peace without it ever really happening. Peace, peace when there is no peace is the cry of the prophet he is echoing. All around we see power corrupting and people in power getting their way at the expense of those with no power. Over and over again it happens.

I have no trust in political and economic systems. Ultimately I trust more in Jesus, whose power did not corrupt and through whom our desires for power are redeemed. John Smith asked a question many years ago which is a challenge for everyone who claims to be a serious follower of Jesus. The question is this: who are your friends and who are your enemies? The point he was making is that, when you look at the life of Jesus, His friends were overwhelmingly the powerless, the marginalised and the oppressed. And His enemies were overwhelmingly the rich, the powerful and the oppressors.

If our friends and enemies are the same type of people who Jesus had as friends and enemies, then chances are that we are following Him and can claim the name ‘Christian’. If our friends are the rich and powerful, and our enemies are the poor and powerless, then it is pretty much certain that you are not following Jesus and cannot legitimately call yourself a Christian. Harsh words, but I defy anyone to tell me that what I am saying is not Biblical.

Another question that John Smith has asked is along similar lines. It is a study of Jesus’ encounters with the powerful and the powerless, and whether they were positive or negative encounters. Not surprisingly with Jesus, His encounters with the poor and powerless were overwhelmingly positive, while His encounters with the rich and powerful were overwhelmingly negative. Jesus was constantly in trouble with the authorities, and at the same time, the common people heard Him gladly (Mark 12: 37).

Until the day Jesus returns there will be injustice and abuse of power in this world. Humanity is too sick to change itself on its own. Martin Luther King Jr knew this. On the day that President Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, King told his wife that the same would happen to him one day, because society is too sick to know any better. Tragically, this great prophet of the 20th century was right, cut down himself only five years later, one more person who stood up for the powerless being silenced in the ultimate manner.

I feel a deep sadness and frustration when I see the powerful abuse their power at the expense of the powerless. A clearly guilty white collar worker gets off because he can afford the best lawyers; executives give themselves huge bonuses while they decry any request for a pay rise by those lower down as dangerous for the economy, and politicians share the perks of office while their constituents struggle each day to make ends meet.

Who can we believe in any more? Who is trustworthy? And here is where I point the finger at myself. Am I trustworthy? Do I abuse my power to get what I want at the expense of those who don’t have the resources that I do?

It is at the times when I hear of power being abused that my faith in Jesus is strengthened. He is the only one who is ultimately trustworthy; He walked His talk, He lived out the courage of His convictions, and when abused Himself, He continued to show the way of love. In Him is our trust ultimately not misplaced. In Him is our only salvation.

Recently I’ve been thinking about how attractive the idea of surrender is to me. I wrote in a previous post how I seem to spend most of our lives clinging on to control when the fact is that I cannot do life on my own. Surrender is the way to freedom. The way to life is in giving up - giving up control and the idea that I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, to quote William E. Henley.

I have no power to live life the way I want to live it, and so I submit to Christ in full surrender. But the more I realise that this is the way to life, the more I find myself resisting. For me, it is a matter of trust; trust that God really is good and that the life God wants for me is not too good to be true. Just like Peter who, when Jesus had just demonstrated the outrageous grace of God, could only say “go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5: 8), I don’t believe I deserve the grace that God gives. And truth be told I don’t deserve it. No one does. But give it He does, and when I accept it, I enter into that life that is truly life, where I am free from having to perform, free from having to strive, where I am free.

Paul said “when I am weak then I am strong” (II Corinthians 12: 10). True Christianity never aligns itself with power. It always aligns itself with weakness, with failure, and with powerlessness. Richard Rohr, as usual, sums it up brilliantly:

When Christianity aligns itself with power (and the mindset of power) there’s simply very little room for the darkness of faith; that spacious place where God is actually able to form us.

So when we speak of paradox, I’m trying to open up that space where you can “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10: 31), because YOU are not in control. That is always the space of powerlessness, vulnerability, and letting go. Faith happens in that wonderful place, and hardly ever when we have all the power and can hold no paradoxes. Thus you see why faith will invariably be a minority and suspect position.

Surrender, faith, and paradox. The combination that gives the life that transforms our hearts, and then transforms the world.

U2’s song Moment of Surrender has a line which simply says “to be released from control”. It is yet another line from a U2 song which has hit me like a brick.

Just about everything we do in life is designed to keep us in control of our lives. But the life of the cross is about relinquishing control to the only one who is ultimately trustworthy. Oh to be released from control on that day when we will have new bodies and new minds in the fully consummated kingdom of God.

I realised this morning that until my dying day I will be forever having to surrender the desire, no, the demand, to control my own life. CS Lewis described himself at his conversion as the most reluctant convert in all England. I think many of us can relate to that. Through the years of our lives we are constantly backing away from our hell instead of marching on our knees into heaven.

The paradox of the way of Jesus is that life is found only when we die to ourselves. The life of surrender is the life if victory – victory in defeat as Irish singer Sammy Horner puts it. God help me to surrender all to You every day.

A recent daily reading from Richard Rohr is another classic. It looks at the question of why Jesus commands us to love and tells us to look beyond ourselves for our own good. Here is some more of what Rohr says:

“We must learn to move beyond ourselves, to set limits on our own needs and somehow to meet other peoples’ needs. We actually need to do this for our own good! That’s why Jesus commanded us to love—to get us started. So love is not a feeling, but a decision, yet a decision that increases our inner freedom each time we do it. You will know this only after you act on love.

“Jesus didn’t say when you get healed, love; when you grow up, love; when you get it together and have dealt with all your wounds, then love. No, the commandment for all of us is quite simply, “Love!” Once we know it is not a feeling, but a grace empowered decision, we can all do it. And each time it is a growth in freedom—and flow.”

As I read this I thought of the issue of how many many Christians, including Christian counselors, bring across the unBiblical message that you cannot love others until you love yourself. I wrote about this in an article a couple of years ago. The point that Rohr makes and which I didn’t make in my article, is that love is a grace-empowered decision. We are only able to love because of God working in us. We love because He first loved us (I John 4: 19).

Those Christians who say you can’t love others until you love yourself take grace out of the equation, take God out of the equation by assuming that love has to be done in our power and that we need to get ourselves together before we are able to love others. I believe this is such a serious issue in the Christian church as to be a heresy. As I read elsewhere recently, the Gospel of Jesus is about self-denial, not self-fulfillment. The Way of Jesus is only by denying ourselves, taking up our cross and following him.

Jesus said that we must become like little children if we are to enter the Kingdom of God. I went on a church camp a few weekends ago and I was given this lesson a number of times by the little children who were there. Their sense of play and trust and sheer joy at what we ‘grown-ups’ call the simple things, was something to behold. As we were leaving, one little 4-year-old girl looked around at us and said in all seriousness, “Drive safely”. It was beautiful.

Sometimes we just need to hear the simple things. Amidst all our talk about how faith relates to culture and how Jesus is relevant to a postmodern society, sometimes we just need to hear the words, “God loves you”. The great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, when once asked what the greatest observation he had made over his career was, simply quoted the words of the old children’s hymn, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so”. Sometimes that’s all we need to hear. And sometimes all we need is someone to be there and listen and empathise when the going gets tough for us, and then suddenly life becomes a little bit easier to deal with again. I thank God for the friends in my life, the ones who care, the ones who will call just to ask how I’m going.

In a dog-eat-dog world where we’re constantly given the message that what goes around comes around – the message of karma – Jesus offers a different way. He offers the way of grace, where we get what we don’t deserve and we don’t get what we do deserve. Among Jesus’ first words to the woman caught in adultery were “neither do I condemn you” (John 8:11); and when Peter was struck by the compassion and grace of Jesus after their amazing catch of fish, all he could think of was how this man could be so gracious to him who saw himself as such a sinner (Luke 5:1-11). But Jesus said “No, now you are going to catch people”.

We don’t need to get all our problems sorted out before we follow Jesus. He calls us to come on the journey just where we are. At what is commonly called the Great Commission, it says that some of them worshiped him but others doubted (Matthew 28:17). But He didn’t say to those who doubted, “Sorry, go and get your life sorted out and then you will be qualified to go to all nations and make disciples”. No, He sent them all out anyway.

The good news of the Gospel is that you are loved. The Gospel is all about Jesus. He is the sunshine in the darkness. The more we walk with Jesus on the journey and receive His love for us, the more we find ourselves able to deal with the vagaries that life throws at us. We become more resilient and able to deal with life on life’s terms, rather than quietly demand that life treat us on our terms.

God teaches us to get up again when we fall. We are not condemned to stay down in the mud wallowing in our own self-pity. This is what repentance is all about. God’s call to repent is not a fear-based ‘change or else!’ demand that is placed upon us. It is a quiet wooing, much as a lover woos the beloved. It is a beckoning to come to where the grass is greener, to “come and see”, as the Lord told two disciples (John 1:39). Australian Christian teacher Fuzz Kitto, says that this is a ‘repenting to’ rather than a ‘repenting from’. It is seeing something better in Jesus than what we have been doing with our lives.

Jesus came for the lost, sick, world-weary people like you and me. ‘Just as I am’ – as the old hymn puts it – is the way we are to come to him. Just as I am, in all my doubt, all my shame, all my pain, and all my sense of unworthiness. We are not shoved out of the way; we are instead embraced, and though like Peter before us, we will probably at first be unable to cope with such love, yet He bids us come and follow and find the life that you have always been searching for.