The Perfect Prison

I grew up with a father who abhorred mistakes. His pastor put it nicely at his memorial service by saying my dad set the bar high. He was unwilling ever to admit when he was wrong and expected people to measure up.

Measuring was one way he sought to achieve perfection. My husband, Jim, and I still chuckle at Dad’s irritation when his carefully measured milk usage was thrown awry by our “careless” pouring of milk on our cereal. When I began making yogurt from scratch, which uses a half-gallon of milk, Jim started teasing me about the “milk count,” because of my hesitation to use milk for other purposes. A gallon of milk neatly made two batches of yogurt. My dad’s obsession with milk measurement had become mine as well.

With the comings and goings of family during the holidays, I gave up that obsession and discovered how limiting it really was. When I was no longer trying to make things come out perfectly, I discovered I could fix a cup of hot chocolate or enjoy chai tea with milk that didn’t have to be so carefully monitored.

Before you dismiss this post as just the exposé of a dysfunctional family, I invite you to consider what in your life is holding you prisoner to perfection. Lent is a good time to reflect on that question. Where are you trying to measure up so hard that you cannot be free to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate (figuratively or literally)?

Perfection is a prison that prevents us from living a full life. If you don’t believe you are imprisoned by it, consider how much effort you put into making a good showing in some area of your life. How is that effort robbing you of the joy and freedom to simply be yourself? Are you creating a prison for others by expecting perfection from them?

Jesus offers us grace, grace to break the bars of perfection’s prison. Grace doesn’t make sense, cannot be measured and thrives in imperfection. To admit our need for such grace is to recognize that we are not perfect and it’s okay that we aren’t! May we accept that grace this Lent both for ourselves and for others.

Approaching Lent Realistically

I am about Lent like some folks are about Christmas. I begin thinking about it weeks in advance, gathering and considering various ideas for what I may give up or take on as a discipline during the weeks leading up to Easter. The discipline of laying aside or taking on offers a constant reminder that Jesus laid aside his divinity and took on the cross and causes me to worship more honestly during Lent.

I approach Lent with expectancy, for I know that if I am faithful and have the right attitude about my Lenten discipline, I will have the opportunity to deepen my relationship with Christ, and possibly make a permanent behavior change that removes an obstacle to intimacy with God.

Last year was likely one of the most difficult seasons of Lent for me in recent years. I committed to several different practices, thinking I had “progressed” in my growth sufficiently to “succeed” with a larger commitment. Even though I was faithful outwardly, my attitude was horrible! I complained almost daily. I provided a new example for Paul’s list in 1 Corinthians 13:1-2: If I give up many things for Lent, but have not love, I am just a whiny complainer that no one wants to be around.

Looking back, I realize that I had an inflated view of myself. Last year’s Lent showed me how feeble and weak I really am. I began Lent with all the bluster of Peter when he said he would never desert Jesus and ended up feeling more like Peter when the cock crowed and he realized his failure to be faithful.

Psalm 103:14 says:

For he knows how weak we are;
                     he remembers we are only dust.

God knows I am weak. The question is: will I recognize and accept my weakness? For when I truly recognize my weakness, what Jesus did as a fully human being takes on greater significance. This year, I come to Lent a bit more humble than last year. I hope that I will remain faithful in my discipline, but more than that, I hope I will practice my discipline with humility and gratitude and love.

Loving God for God's Sake

Why do you love God? Is it because God has blessed you, healed you, or answered your prayer in some other way? In short, is it because of something God has done for you?

I heard someone describe how blessed they were because when a tree fell in one of our recent winter storms, it did not hit their house. I’ve said similar things and heard similar proclamations for most of my life. We claim God’s blessing for ourselves in all sorts of situations where things have gone well for us. But what if we do not experience a favorable outcome?

The book of Job offers an insightful rejection of the simplistic explanation that bad things happen as a direct result of unfaithfulness. Yet even with biblical refutation, we are often guilty of tying blessing or lack thereof to God’s favor or disfavor. When we do that we lose sight of the truth that God’s love for us is unconditional and not tied to our behavior.

Do we love God for what God has done for us or simply because God is God? Habakkuk provides us with a beautiful example of what it means to love God simply for God’s sake:

Though the fig tree doesn’t bloom,

   and there’s no produce on the vine;

though the olive crop withers,

   and the fields don’t provide food;

though the sheep is cut off from the pen,

   and there is no cattle in the stalls;

I will rejoice in the Lord.

   I will rejoice in the God of my deliverance.         

                                                                                                Habakkuk 3:17-18

To love God for God’s sake, in whatever circumstance we are in, is recognition and acceptance of God’s unconditional love for us. As we accept that God loves us unconditionally, we then can turn our hearts to God, loving God for who God is, not what God does for us.

Homecoming

Home is where the heart is. I experienced that last week. I went home to a place I’ve never been before, but I knew for certain I was home a short time after my arrival.

I traveled to Woodworth, Louisiana to a Five-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. I’ve never been to Woodworth, but at the opening Eucharist on Sunday afternoon, I knew that my heart was at home in this community of pilgrims, even though I did not know but a handful of them.

From 2009 until 2011, I was part of a Two-Year Academy for Spiritual Formation. Every quarter for two years, I spent a week with people from all over the country. While we were together we lived by a schedule, patterned after that of a monastic order. The daily rhythm of worship, study, silence and community time from my two-year experience was so ingrained in me that I immediately fell easily and naturally into the schedule last week.

In addition to the familiar schedule, liturgy connected the community as we gathered daily for Eucharist, and morning, midday and night prayer. As we shared familiar and new words of prayer and praise, I experienced the nearness of God’s kingdom. And I was at home.

Jesus said, in Matthew 6:21, Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. My return to the rhythms of Academy reminds me that my treasure is not found in a place or possessions. My treasure is found in the body of Christ, lived out in koinonia, a community of intimate spiritual communion and devotion to each other and to God. With such a treasure, home can be found in a multitude of settings.

Do you hunger for such a home? Does yearning for Christ propel you into koinonia with others?

I invite your comments in response to these questions. If some of us are searching for a community of accountability and devotion to each other and to God, we might be able to birth such communities either in person or via technology. I look forward to your responses!

Knowing We are Loved

I’ve been reflecting over the past weeks about holy longing. And while I believe that relationship with God is superficial without yearning and desire, the panting love described in Psalm 42:1, I haven’t really talked about how to get to the place where you are so caught up with desire for God that you long for God. Not for God’s actions, but for God alone. (There is a big difference in seeking God because you simply desire the presence of God and seeking God because you want God to do something).

What I have grown to realize for myself is that for me to desire God, I have to know in my heart of hearts how much God desires me, just the way I am. God’s unshakable love for us, when we can finally accept that, opens us up to return that love. We can talk all day long about how “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so” but there is a big difference between saying it and really, truly believing it, believing it to the point that we finally realize that we don’t have to DO anything for God to love us.

No matter how much we may say we believe we are saved by faith, not works, many of us live in a fear-based relationship with God. We fear that we don’t measure up, that we are not lovable by God unless we act a certain way. Maybe we don’t believe God loves us because we know what we have done or failed to do. I expect it is nigh on impossible to be passionately in love with a God whom you believe is ready to zap you for not “measuring up.”

When I was part of the 2-Year Academy for Spiritual Formation, I remember Dr. Roberta Bondi telling us that God does not love us in spite of ourselves. God loves us because of ourselves. Take some time this week and see if you really believe you are loved by God. Look at your actions for God. Are they motivated by love or by fear? If you are having a hard time truly believing that God is crazy in love with you, spend some time this week pondering Romans 5:8: But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Can you believe that God loves you so much that God would die so you would not have to live with the fear of condemnation?

Holy Desire

“The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people.”  A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

What images come to your mind when you hear the word “desire?” Our possession-laden, sexually-oriented culture influences our thinking around the whole notion of desire. We desire a lot of things, but do we desire God with a single-minded, panting desire?

Last week, I referenced Psalm 42:1: As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. Do you pant for God? A.W. Tozer speaks of acute desire. What I take from these words like “acute” and “panting” is that our desire for God is to be all-consuming, not an add-on to an otherwise busy and complicated life.

Even within the church, we get so caught up in activities that we can become dislocated from the heart of Christ. Speaking about the church, Tozer says, “The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart.” I wonder if we miss the boat within churches by pasting on more activities instead of teaching people to be attentive to the longing of their hearts.

We are created to long for God, to find our rest and fulfillment in God. When our heart’s desire is God, our action flows from the inner well of deep love and devotion to God. Living with such desire, we can surrender control to God, embrace the rest that Jesus offers, and know the peace that Paul speaks of in Philippians 4:7: Then, because you belong to Christ Jesus, God will bless you with peace that no one can completely understand. And this peace will control the way you think and feel.

Lukewarm or Longing?

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

                                                Psalm 42:1-2a

Have you ever been really hungry or thirsty? So hungry that all you can think about is finding something to eat? So thirsty that everything in you is focused on finding water to drink?

In college, I was part of a 6-week summer study tour of Europe. Our group boarded a train for a 14 hour nonstop ride between two cities. We were unaware that the train we were on had no food service and none of us had brought anything to eat.  All we could talk about after the first five to six hours was how hungry we were. We were totally focused on our hunger to the exclusion of anything else.

When I read the verses above, I think about that train trip. I believe it gives me a glimpse into the type of longing the Psalmist describes, an all-consuming longing that becomes the sole focus of one’s attention. Contrast that intensity of desire with another degree of desire: I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.  (Revelation 3:15-16). Being lukewarm denotes indifference, not longing. We were not lukewarm about food on that long train ride!

So which is the more accurate description of your love for God? Do you ache for deeper relationship with your Creator, or is relationship relegated to a ten minute devotional in the morning and prayer when you are in a jam?

I enjoy reading the works of some of the enduring church leaders, folks such as Augustine of Hippo, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich. You would be hard pressed to find any lukewarmness toward God in their writings. In fact, the way they often describe their love for God would make some modern Christians blush! They describe their love for God with all the heat and passion of an erotic novel.

Hear these words of St. Augustine: You called, you cried, you shattered my deafness. You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness. You shed your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace.

Does this describe your relationship with God? I know that reading the works of many of the early church leaders challenges me to reflect on my love for God, to evaluate where I am on the scale between lukewarm and longing. I pray to have a burning love for Christ, where Christ is all in all, not a lukewarm indifference toward God that gets lost in competing priorities.