Pain

There have few times in life when I have felt closer to God than when I have been in need. What is it about loneliness, fear, and becoming keenly aware of our own depravity that compels us to run to him (I guess when I say us, I mean Christians, though I know this is what brings some people to God in the first place)? Christians, through history, have found purpose in these things. Soren Kierkegaard, for example, thought it necessary to forsake all things pleasurable and to embrace despair. This, he said, would cause in us a crisis that would lead to faith in God. Only with this faith, he said, could life have any meaning. Honestly, it sounds a little like Buddhism, but I do agree that there is purpose in suffering. Read I Peter 5:10:

"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

That seems manageable, that God would allow us to go through pain so we can grow; but then I read passages like Acts 9:14, where God says of Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Wow. Here God is saying directly that he will put his servant through untold hardhip. At first sight, it's hard to digest. We forget, though, that this same man ended up writing most of the New Testament and, time and again, expressed joy in Christ. It's heartening to know that God can use the results of our sin (pain) to fashion us to become more like him. There's purpose in that. Thanks for reading.

Faith

Ravi Zacharias tells a story of his visit to a museum in England, dedicated to Paul Bunyan. At the end of his tour of the museum, he speaks to the clerk and asks "Isn't it amazing that a mender of pots and pans has won such worldwide acclaim?" Her response was that she had never read the work. Ironic, he claims, that someone could work in a museum dedicated to a man whose single most popular book she had never read. Speaking of Jesus' message, his point was that we can be so close to such crucial truth, and yet ignore it or treat it indifferently. He goes on to quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries."

Though he was talking about all humanity, the same oversight can be found in Christians. I don't believe this is intentional, for the most part. My own experience has told me that it's a result of amnesia. We forget what God has done for us, and lose that sense of awe that drives our faith in him. That kind of faith, admittedly, can often be an emotional one that Jesus demonstrates as shallow and perishable (Mark 4:16-17). To reside in a faith with little awe for God, however, could be much worse. It's a faith that fades by degrees. Peter warns of this with the following words:

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith [...he lists several expressions of faith]. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins."

Our knowledge of God's truth, he says, is inextricably tied to the practice of our faith. My first response to this is that it smacks of legalism, telling me that my faith depends on what I do rather than on my unearned position in Christ. I think, though, that this is a misguided attitude. Our motivation for practicing our faith is not salvation (whether earning or keeping), but growth: consistent cultivation of a faith that leads to life. Listen to Paul's words in Romans 8:6: "The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." We find that life and peace by practicing the lifestyle Jesus demonstrated and taught. I'm certainly not there, but I want to be. This is why I'm going to commit to being more deliberate about my prayer life. Usually, I spend a paltry few minutes per day praying, usually uttering the same prayer, usually relating to myself. I'm going to commit, for the next five days (a low goal, I know, but it's a start), to praying for one specific person every day. I don't know who that is yet, but I will. Thanks for reading.

Privacy

Why is privacy so important to us? I think it's because we're afraid. We build our lives, compartmentalizing work, play, political and religious beliefs, and (especially) our faults in separate rooms of the same home because we can't imagine losing what we've gained. We gladly invite the appropriate guests into the family room of work or play, but prevent them from seeing the messes of our respective pasts that we've left in our respective bedrooms. The problem with building something, anything, is that there will always be something to threaten it. I believe that threat, real or (more likely) imagined, produces in us a defensiveness that stands anathema to meaningful relationships. So we build walls around our lives, walls that have signs clearly displayed and telling others that it's not their place to ask about who we are. What's interesting is that these walls are fortified by the added benefit of making our house look better than it actually is. No one really knows what behind them, which adds a sense of mystique that temporarily sustains our egos.

By that, I mean others look at us and see what appears to be a life of significance and happiness. They don't see the bad, because we don't let them. The tragedy is that they really don't see the good, either, because we don't let them. While this way of life seems secure, you begin to find that the things you've gained (whether accomplishments or actual things) are meant to be shared. Your faults are meant to be shared. Your achievements, talents, and beliefs are meant to be shared; but I think we find the opportunity cost of sharing them with others so high that we'd rather be lonely. The result, at least for me, has been an effort at deconstruction, reluctantly taking down the signs and letting others into the room to see where the mess is. Ironically, it's when we do this that we're surprised to hear them say, "Hey, this looks kind of like my room." It's a process that involves faith and courage, two sides of the same coin. I've grown, and although I've sacrificed some of my privacy, tearing down some of these walls and inviting others to see my faults, I find more confidence in myself than I ever could have protected behind these walls. I'm glad they're falling, and I'm being more conscious to continue to tear them down. Thanks for reading.