Perspective: Followers of a Servant

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Followers of a Servant

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Mark 10:45 (NRSV)

What if there's a bigger picture?

What if I'm missing out?

What if there's a greater purpose

I could be living right now

Outside my own little world?

From "My Own Little World" by Matthew West

One day, some people brought a blind man to Jesus, begging Him to restore the man's sight.  Jesus anointed the man's eyes with His saliva, placed His hands on the man, and then asked him if he could see anything.  The man replied, "I can see people, but they look like trees, walking."  Basically, he was able to see again, but he was still extremely nearsighted.  Jesus placed His hands on the man a second time, and then the man was able to see clearly.¹

Assuming that Jesus is indeed the Son of an all-powerful God, does it seem strange to you that He would have trouble restoring the man's sight?

Sometime after that, when Jesus and the Disciples were traveling together, the Disciples got into an argument about which one of them was the greatest.  When Jesus confronted them and asked them why they were arguing, they weren't very eager to tell Him.  He then said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all."²

Later on, two of the Disciples asked Jesus for the privilege to sit at His right- and left-hand sides after He is inaugurated as King.  The Disciples believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah who would restore Israel to its former glory and usher in an age of peace, and these two wanted positions of power and honor when that time finally came.  Understandably, the other Disciples were angry with them for their attempted power grab.  Apparently Jesus' previous lesson about greatness had not yet sunk in for any of them.³

Jesus told the Disciples that they should not aspire to be like the rulers of this world who constantly exalt themselves over their subjects.  Again, He says to them, "Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all."  He then tells them that He, the Son of God, did not come to be served but rather to be a servant and to give His life for the sake of others.⁴

Perhaps Jesus' apparent difficulty in getting the blind man to see clearly is actually symbolic of His difficulty in getting the Disciples to clearly see important truths about the Kingdom of God.⁵  In the same way that Jesus had to place His hands on the blind man more than once before he could see clearly, Jesus had to tell the Disciples more than once about the nature of true greatness.  We've all heard Jesus' strange sayings about the Kingdom of God - that "the first shall be last" and that to be great is to be a servant - but I suspect that, like the Disciples, most of us don't really take it to heart.  We smile and nod when we hear such things, but I doubt that most of us really believe that true greatness is servanthood.

Jesus put this principle on display most vividly on the evening when He shared His last meal with the Disciples before He was arrested by the religious leaders.  During supper, Jesus surprised the Disciples when He stood up, took off His coat, tied a towel around His waist, poured some water into a bowl, knelt down, and washed their feet.  When He finished washing their feet, He reminded them that disciples are not greater than the one they follow.  In other words, if He wasn't too good to serve people in such a way, then neither were they.⁶

Later that night, Jesus said, "Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father."⁷  So often Christians talk about Jesus as if He was merely playing the part of a servant to be an example to us, and they speak as if God is actually greatest narcissist in the cosmos.  What if Jesus was not pretending when He knelt down to wash His disciples feet?  What if that really is what God is like?  At the end of the book Uprising, Erwin McManus writes,
The way of God is the path of servanthood.  This is not a test to see if we deserve better.  It is God offering us the best of Himself and the best of life.  God calls us to the servant way because God is a servant.  Sounds like heresy doesn't it, to call God a servant?  It seems demeaning to call the Creator of the universe something so common and so low.⁸

Have you ever done a good deed for another person, only to feel as if you were the one blessed by the experience?  It didn't quite seem fair, did it?  After all, you did what you did so that the other person would be blessed.  It seems unfair because we are so used to living in a world structured as a zero-sum game.  In order for some to win, others must lose: the equation must always be balanced.  You went out of your way for someone, intentionally making yourself the loser so that the other person would be the winner, yet your plan backfired because you ended up winning.

Believe it or not, if you have ever been in such a situation, you have actually experienced life in the Kingdom of God.  The Kingdom of God is not structured as the world is now: it is an altogether different kind of game.  It is totally unbalanced, for there are no losers but only winners.

It is difficult to see the greatness of being a servant when we are stuck in a zero-sum, "either-us-or-them" mindset.  If we want to follow Jesus in the path of servanthood, then we must change the way we understand reality.  McManus writes,
Is it possible that the reason the servant will have the primary place, that the least will share in God's greatness, is that here is where God has been all along?  If we push ourselves to the top, we are pushing ourselves away from the presence of God.  When we move ourselves to the place of servanthood, we join God in His eternal purpose.  When we serve others, we look strangely like God.⁹

Many Christians, like the Jewish people in Jesus' day, understand themselves to be chosen by God, but so often we forget that to be chosen by God is to be chosen for a purpose and not for privilege.  The two Disciples who jockeyed for positions of leadership in Jesus' kingdom didn't realize that it takes a servant to be a true leader, for leadership is in itself a form of service.  A leader is not merely someone who gets to call the shots: a leader bears a great responsibility for the well-being of the people she leads.

If we claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ, we must open our eyes to the fact that we are called to serve, for we are followers of a servant.  We must not be blind to the ways of the Kingdom of God and stuck in old ways of thinking.  We are gifted so that we may give, and we are blessed so that we may be a blessing.


Notes:

1. Mark 8:22-26 (NRSV)
2. Mark 9:33-35 (NRSV)
3. Mark 10:35-41
4. Mark 10:42-45 (NRSV)
5. J.R. Daniel Kirk and E. Scott Jones.  "Mind = Blown."  Homebrewed Christianity's LectioCast, 10/19/2015.
6. John 13:1-17
7. John 14:9 (NRSV)
8. Erwin Raphael McManus.  Uprising: A Revolution of the Soul.  2003, Thomas Nelson Publishers.  pp. 250-1
9. Uprising, p. 251

Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles was painted by Meister des Hausbuches around 1475.

Introspection: Fake It 'til You Break It

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Fake It 'til You Break It

Let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no.

Matthew 5:37 (CEB)

I hold my breath as this life starts to take its toll

I hide behind a smile as this perfect plan unfolds

From "Away from Me" by Evanescence

In May of 2009, I took a week off from work to do some home repair in another town, as a part of a regional work-camp ministry of my denomination.¹  When I returned to the office after Memorial Day, I learned that the company for which I worked, which had recently bought another company, was consolidating offices and moving all operations out of state.  Most people would have considered such a revelation to be bad news.  I, on the other hand, considered it an answer to prayer.  I hated my job because I was ashamed that I worked for a casino vendor.  I had been praying for months that God would somehow get me out of it, and I finally had a legitimate reason to leave.

At that time, I wanted nothing more than to get out of my job, but it seems that my job didn't want to get its claws out of me.  Not long after I learned about the company's impending move, I received a call from my supervisor.  He asked me if I would meet with him and our boss at the company's new headquarters to discuss the possibility of my relocating.  I told him I was not at all interested in moving, nor was I interested in hearing any offers.  I thought the matter was settled.

I was wrong.  Not long after the first call, my supervisor called me again, and, once again he asked me to meet with him and our boss at the new location.  I asked if the reason for the meeting was something we could discuss over the phone.  He said it wasn't, so I had no choice but to drive two hours to the company's new location in the next state over.

My boss, who was already aware that I was unwilling to relocate, asked me if I would be interested in working from home temporarily.  This was not what I wanted to hear.  I had been given a way out of my job, but my job was trying to suck me back in.  To be perfectly honest, the arrangement was feasible, though it would have been impractical.  The light at the end of the tunnel was growing dim, so I responded with the only excuse I could find.  I said that, living with my mother, I would not have enough room at my house for the equipment I needed to do my job.  My boss was a bit surprised with my response.  He offered to rebuild the setup I had been using, and I told him that there still wouldn't be enough room for it.

Sometimes you just have to put your foot down and stop the merry-go-round.

My boss told me that my last day would be July 31.  He also said that I might be asked to work from the new location during my last week or two.  As you can probably tell, I wasn't very keen on traveling.  Typically what got me through the workday was the knowledge that I would get to go home in a matter of hours, so I didn't really want to start living out of a hotel, even for a couple of weeks.  In fact, during my interview, I specifically asked if the job would require any travel, and my boss told me that it was not a "road warrior" job.  For some reason - perhaps I was just being honest - I told him that I didn't really want to work at the new location.

With that comment, my boss had apparently had enough.  Since he had already effectively terminated me, he was left with no other response but to tell me exactly what he thought of me.  He told me that he was shocked that a programmer of my caliber would be so uncooperative.  He told me that he was very disappointed in me and that I needed to think about that.

Believe me when I say that I've thought long and hard about what a no-good, dirty, arrogant, self-important, self-centered, foul-tempered, mean-spirited, uncouth, unprofessional, disloyal, dishonest, money-grubbing, slave-driving, bottom-dwelling piece of work he is.²

But at least I'm not bitter.

I think a large part of my problem back then was the fact that I wasn't being completely honest, with myself or with others.  That day, I was less than forthcoming with my boss, but that ugly confrontation was just the result of a history of dishonesty.  Everybody in my life knew that I wasn't happy with my job, but, around my superiors, I played the part of a good employee.  When I accepted that job, I hadn't honestly thought through my feelings about working in the gambling industry, because I was too worried about getting a job.  When I was in college, I wasn't completely honest with myself about the fact that I didn't really want to be a computer programmer.  I just focused on graduating so that I could get a job that would pay the bills, which is what I was supposed to do.

Recently I've come to realize that what happened with my first job has been a repeating pattern in my life.  Basically, I have a tendency to float my way into a bad situation and to stay in it far too long, and eventually I will have to fight my way out, at least emotionally.  The details vary from time to time, but the pattern follows a general progression.

1. Because I'm living without intentionality, I float into a situation in which something is expected of me, and I stay because I have people-pleaser tendencies.  It's not like I have anything else going on in my life, so I don't exactly have a good reason to say "no."

2. As more and more is expected of me, I become unhappy.  I hide my feelings - from others or even from myself - because I want to do the right thing and, more importantly, because I don't want anyone to hate me.

3. I become depressed because I feel stuck.  My depression manifests itself as irritability or outright anger.  By this time, obligation has given birth to resentment, and I wonder why I have to put up with this crap when nobody else does.

4. Inevitably the time comes when I can no longer pretend to be happy.  I finally decide to extricate myself from the situation, and I end up hurting people, disappointing people, or letting people down.

I have a friend who lives by the adage, "Fake it 'til you make it."  I think my way of life can be described as, "Fake it 'til you break it."

A couple of years ago, because of pressure and meddling from other people, I ended up in a relationship that wasn't right for me.  It had not become romantic, but I knew that the other person had feelings for me that I didn't have for her.  When I could no longer fake a smile, I broke things off with her.  I ended up hurting the person I least wanted to hurt - probably the most innocent person I have ever met - and I hated myself for months afterward.  She forgave me, but, in some sick way, I think I would have felt better if she resented me.

Another part of my life in which I wasn't fully honest about my feelings was my involvement with my church - the church I had attended for my entire life.  Despite the fact that I was heavily involved in the church, serving on the Church Council, teaching Sunday school somewhat regularly, and even preaching occasionally, I wasn't very happy about being there.  It is not easy to be the only young person at a very small church.  For me, it was a lonely existence, and I felt as though the future of the church was on my shoulders.  In the last year or so before I finally decided to leave, my attitude had grown worse and worse.  I think that others in the church, including the previous pastor, suspected that something about me was amiss.

The size of my church's congregation had been in decline since long before I was born.  The church had been focused inward for far too long.  Younger people left; older people passed away; and, every now and then, someone would become angry with someone else and leave.  Eventually, I was the only young person left.  Late last year, when the Church Council began discussing our pastor's upcoming transfer to another church, I remember saying that we needed a pastor who would light a fire under our seats, figuratively speaking.  Six months later, we were assigned such a pastor - the ambitious type we desperately needed - but it turns out that I was the one who could not take the heat.

After the new pastor arrived, I started to become increasingly nervous, and I started having stomach problems on Sunday mornings.  In my time on the Church Council, I had seen firsthand how resistant to change the congregation was, and, after a failed partnership with a local homeless ministry last year, I began to feel that any progress in the church would depend on me.  I felt that more and more would be expected of me when I didn't really want to be there.  I was lonely: I wanted to be with people my age.  I felt that my church needed more from me than I could give, yet, at the same time, I felt I needed more from my church than my church could give.

For nearly five years, I had been attending a mid-week Bible study at a large church downtown.  This Bible study group, like the collegiate ministry I attended before it, gave me the opportunity to connect with other people my age.  When a number of core people left the group for various reasons and I began to see that the future of the group was uncertain, I feared that I would soon be further isolated from my friends and my peers.  I finally made the difficult decision to leave behind the church I had been attending ever since I was in my mother's womb and to start attending church with my friends.

I started drafting an email to my pastor and my lay leader, and, after I had been attending my new church for a few weeks, I decided it was time to send it.  One Monday morning a few weeks ago, I got out of bed, showered and dressed, clicked the "send" button, drove to work, took an Imodium, and waited for everything to hit the fan.

I think I expected the people from my church to react to my decision to leave in the same way that my former boss did six years ago.  Though there was no grace to be found in a godless industry, other people in my life have been gracious to me.  In moments when I was reminded that I am no better than those I've resentfully judged in the past, people showed me more grace than I showed myself.  I've been forgiven by people who, in my opinion, had every right to resent me.  It is a humbling, sometimes painful kind of grace.  Though I felt I was abandoning my church when my church needed me the most, nobody held my decision against me.  My pastor, my lay leader, and my mother all understood how I felt.

I am grateful to the church in which I grew up for giving me the space to grow spiritually, but now I need to move on.  I am keeping the congregation in my prayers as they look toward the future.

According to Rob Bell, "You can't say no until you've said yes."  In other words, once a person has figured out what is truly important to her and has fully invested herself in it, she is free to say no to all the things that would distract her from it.  It is better to passionately do a few things well than to spread oneself thin by doing many things out of guilt or obligation.³  I guess the key to saying no is to find a yes.  I'm still figuring out what is truly important to me, but, hopefully, I'm zeroing in on it.

More than once in my life, I have seen how important it is to live with intentionality and to have clearly defined priorities, or else I will float into undesirable situations.  More than once, I have also seen how important it is to be honest about my feelings, to myself and to others, so that I don't stay in situations that are no longer right for me.  I hope that I have finally taken these lessons to heart.  May you, the reader, also see the importance of intentionality and honesty in your life, and may you not make the same mistakes I have made.


Notes:

1. http://www.salkehatchie.org/home/
2. Quoth Clark Griswold, "Where's the Tylenol?"
3. Rob Bell.  "One Thing."  The RobCast, Episode 1, 01/11/2015.

The photograph of the broken glass is public domain.

Perspective: Jesus and Socrates

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Jesus and Socrates

How a Philosophy Class Strengthened My Faith

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Galatians 5:14 (NRSV)

I believe that Love is the answer

I believe that Love will find the way

From "I Believe" by Blessid Union of Souls

It was just over twelve years ago when I began my freshman year in college.  At the university I attended, the seniors always had the first opportunity to register for classes, for they were the ones who were scrambling to complete all of their academic requirements in time to graduate.  The freshmen, on the other hand, had to battle it out for the seats that remained in whichever classes hadn't been filled to capacity after everyone else had already registered.  When I registered for my first term during orientation, my adviser suggested that I pick out as many as twelve classes to be sure that I got the three I needed for the term.  A few days later, I found myself registered for one of the classes toward the bottom of my list, an introductory course in western philosophy.

Before I took this course, I didn't know very much about the realm of philosophy except that it was supposedly very difficult, but I found the course to be surprisingly enjoyable.  The class taught me to think about things in new ways, and the reading assignments proved to be welcome diversions from the headache-inducing calculus problems and Java programming assignments that made up the rest of my coursework.  I enjoyed the course so much that I took another philosophy course with the same professor during my sophomore year.  Maybe I would have majored in philosophy had I not been so worried about finding a job after college.

At the beginning of the course, the class studied some of the writings of Plato, a Greek philosopher who lived four hundred years before the time of Christ.  Plato wrote primarily in dialogues - or conversations - between his teacher Socrates and other people.  One that stands out in my memory is a dialogue between Socrates and a friend named Euthyphro.  Socrates is awaiting a court trial because someone has accused him of corrupting young people with his teachings.  On the way to court he meets Euthyphro who is bringing murder charges against his own father.  Because of the complexity of the case, Socrates asks Euthyphro how he can be sure that his actions in pressing charges are righteous.  The two then engage in a discussion about the nature of righteous actions.

Socrates is seeking the Form of all righteous actions.  In other words, he wants to know what makes certain actions righteous.  Euthyphro suggests that any action loved by the gods is righteous and that any action hated by the gods is wicked.  After the two work their way around the fact that the various gods in the Greek pantheon have different values, as evidenced by the fact that they are often in conflict with each other, Socrates decides to dig deeper.  He asks, "Is the pious being loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is being loved by the gods?"¹  In other words, are certain actions considered righteous because the gods appreciate them?  Or do the gods appreciate certain actions specifically because those actions are righteous?  This question is known to philosophy nerds as the Euthyphro dilemma.²

Though some Christians have a tendency to portray philosophy professors as antichrists hellbent on destroying the faith of young people,³ my philosophy professor was a devout Catholic who had no problem speaking in Christian terms.  When he presented the Euthryprho dilemma to the class, he asked, "Is something good because God says so, or does God say so because it is good?"

This question would ultimately change the way I approach matters of faith.

In general, Christians understand the Bible to be, in some way, the inspired word of God.  From the Law of Moses, to the words of the prophets, to the teachings of Christ, to the letters of early Christian saints, the Bible contains many rules, guidelines, and discussions concerning morality.  In debates about moral issues, many Christians will cite passages of the Bible and say, "The Bible says it; I believe it; and that settles it."  Because of my brief encounter with philosophy, such an answer is no longer good enough for me.  I want to know why the Bible says what it does.  I want to know why God loves certain actions and hates other actions.

The Euthryprho dilemma offers us two options, both of which seem somewhat problematic to me.  One side of the dilemma suggests that God decides what is righteous and what is wicked.  Many Christians would be just fine with such a concept, but, to me, it makes the difference between right and wrong seem somewhat arbitrary.  I am reminded of a certain American president who said, in the midst of a scandal, "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."  The other side of the dilemma suggests that there is some standard of righteousness that exists apart from God.  If this is the case, then God would have to be bound by this standard in order to be truly righteous.  Can a sovereign God be bound by a standard that the same God did not create?⁴

With such brain-liquefying questions, is it any wonder that St. Paul would warn his readers not to be taken captive by philosophy?⁵  Is such questioning actually productive?

Personally I think that philosophy has something to offer the Christian faith.  Paul also encourages his readers to "test everything" and to "hold fast to what is good."⁶  Testing everything includes testing matters of faith and religion.  I believe that philosophical inquiry, as demonstrated by Socrates, is one way to test everything to find what is good.  Despite Paul's warning, I believe that philosophy has actually strengthened my faith, for, as I pondered these questions, I realized that Jesus actually answered Socrates's question a few centuries after Socrates asked it.

One day, a scholar of the Scriptures approached Jesus with a philosophical question of his own.  He asked, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?"  There were 613 commandments in the Jewish Law, and this scholar wanted to know which of these commandments Jesus considered the most important.  Jesus replied,
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind."  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."⁷

Jesus then made a rather bold statement, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."⁸  Basically, Jesus said that anything the Jewish Law commands or any exhortation from the ancient prophets stems from the commandments to love God and to love other people.  Perhaps one could even go so far as to say that all God really wants from us is to love, that all God was trying to achieve by giving the Law and speaking through the prophets is to teach humanity how to love.

Perhaps love is the answer to Socrates's inquiry: perhaps love is what makes an action truly righteous.  To use the philosophical lingo of Plato and Socrates, perhaps it could be said that love is the Form of all righteous actions.

Love might very well be the litmus test to determine whether or not an action is truly righteous; however, naming the standard of righteousness does not completely solve the Euthryphro dilemma.  We can still ask ourselves whether love is something God defined and created or something apart from God to which God must be bound in order to be righteous.

I do not know if the early Christian theologian St. John was familiar with the writings of Plato, but I believe that he actually offers us a solution to the Euthryprho dilemma.  In a letter addressed to the early Church, he writes a lot about love, the standard by which all actions are judged as righteous or wicked.  He argues that, if a person loves, then he or she knows God and that, if a person does not love, then he or she does not know God.  He then makes a very provocative statement about God:

God is love.⁹

Perhaps the standard of righteousness is neither something created by God nor something existing apart from God.  Perhaps the standard of righteousness is the very nature of God.¹⁰

Many have turned to the Bible in their pursuit of what is right and good, resulting in an obsession with all things "biblical."  If you browse the religion section of your local bookstore, you will find books about biblical leadership, biblical marriage, biblical gender roles, biblical worldviews, biblical finances, biblical politics, and even biblical weight loss.  To seek merely what is "biblical" is to fall short of the goal, for all things biblical are meant to point us to all things loving.  According to Jesus, all religious instruction is meant to teach us how to love, and, according to St. John, when we learn how to love, we come to know God.

In some Christian circles, older folks try to "prepare" young people so that, when they step out of the safety of their bubble into academia, their faith won't be destroyed by religion or philosophy classes.  When I went to college, taking such classes actually strengthened my wavering faith.  My brief love affair with philosophy taught me to approach my faith in fresh new ways and helped me to find a reason to keep believing.  In fact, it might be one reason I am still a Christian today, for it has helped me to keep my focus on what is most important.

Love is the answer,

and God is love.


Notes:

1. Plato.  Five Dialogues.  Translated by G.M.A. Grube and revised by John M. Cooper.  2002, Hackett Publishing Company.  p.1-20
2. See Wikipedia: Euthyphro dilemma.
3. I think about a certain film that shares a name with a certain Christian pop song.
4. See Wikipedia: Euthyphro dilemma, section: Explanation of the dilemma.
5. Colossians 2:8
6. 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 22:34-39 (NRSV)
8. Matthew 22:40 (NRSV)
9. 1 John 4:7-8
10. This was essentially the conclusion reached by Christian philosophers like Anselm, Augustine, and Aquinas.  See Wikipedia: Euthryphro Dilemma, section: False dilemma response.

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by Wikipedia user DIMSFIKAS is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.  The statue of Socrates is located in front of the Academy of Athens.

Introspection: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

A Missing Piece of the Puzzle

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (NRSV)

How many times have You heard me cry out

"God, please take this"?

How many times have You given me strength to

Just keep breathing?

Oh, I need You

God, I need You now

From "Need You Now" by Plumb

As I noted previously, not long ago, I asked my friends to pray for me, because I felt that some things in my life needed to change.  Since then, I've learned how important it is to beware when making such a request.  A lot of good has come into my life, but also a lot has changed.  I have made the difficult decision to leave the church I've attended my entire life to go to a larger church where I can be with my peers.¹  I have also had to take on a greater leadership role in the Bible study group in which I've participated for the last five years.  In the midst of these changes, I've felt anxiety about numerous things, including the future of my Bible study group and of the church I'm leaving behind.  The anxiety, joy, and uprootedness of my life has put me on an emotional roller coaster.

As far as I can remember, I have always been prone to anxiety.  A few years ago, I came to the conclusion that worry must be some sort of addiction, for it makes no sense that a person would willingly do something so utterly unpleasant.  I'm starting to think that maybe worry is not an addiction but rather a withdrawal symptom.  I think that maybe control is the substance to which the worrier is actually addicted.  Though we do have a limited measure of control in our lives, we are all subject to forces beyond our control, both natural and supernatural.

Lately I've been convicted about my lack of trust in God.  Though I believe that God loves me and has acted mightily in my life in the past, I typically fall into one of two ways of thinking.  Sometimes I think that God is rather uninvolved in my life, leaving me to fend for myself.  Other times I fear that what God wants for me something I really don't want for myself.  The idea of turning things over to God always makes me nervous, because I am afraid that my hopes, dreams, and desires will end up on the proverbial chopping block.  I'm starting to wonder if maybe the first things I need to turn over to God are the things I actually want God to take away from me - things like anxiety.

At the Christian school I attended for many years, I heard over and over again about the importance of spending some quiet time with God in the morning, but I never imagined myself actually doing this.  I have never been a morning person, and historically my mornings have been a mad dash to get ready for the day and to get out the door on time.

A little over a year ago, I started making it a practice to read a Bible passage from the daily Lectionary every morning before going to work.  I do this to start my day off on a positive note, to give myself something on which to meditate throughout the day, and to give myself a reason to write after work.  I've thoroughly enjoyed this new practice, but, to be honest, it has been a bit of a struggle for me.  I had to start setting my alarm clock to go off little bit earlier in the morning, and I've had to fight harder against the gravitational pull between my head and my pillow.  On my worst mornings, reading my Bible becomes one more thing I do hurriedly before brushing my teeth, grabbing my personal effects, and heading out the door.

I have come to realize that there is a missing piece of the puzzle, something else I need to incorporate into my morning quiet time.  Perhaps, before putting something into my mind, I need to first get some things out of my mind.  I think my anxiety is a symptom of a lack of trust in God, but, at the same time, I think my lack of trust in God is related to a lack of prayer in my life.  In studying the Psalms, the prayer book of the Hebrew people, I see how David and the other Psalmists routinely turned to God in the midst of their troubles.  Their first reaction to trouble is to pray.  My first reaction is to worry.

I have learned a lot about prayer over time.  After taking a class on prayer last year, I have become pretty good at writing prayers, but I'm not very good at praying regularly.  To be honest, prayer is something that still leaves me mystified.  If God knows what we need better than we do, then why do we need to ask?  Do our prayers actually cause God to take action in a particular way?  Years ago, I prayed to God every morning about a bad job situation, and, months later, I was provided a way out.  Did God act because I prayed?  Or would the same events have happened regardless of whether or not I prayed?  To be honest, I don't really know, but I'm thankful to God anyway.

I always cringe a little bit when I hear somebody say that "prayer works."  I don't think prayer is ineffective, but sometimes I wonder if we confuse prayer with magic.  Using the right words to convince supernatural forces to do one's bidding is not praying, but rather casting a spell.  We might end our prayers with the words, "In Jesus' name I pray," because Jesus said, "If you ask anything of the Father in My name, He will give it to you."²  We might begin a prayer with, "Dear Heavenly Father," and throw in, "if it be Thy will," a few times, hoping to make God more receptive.  I speak from experience in this matter.

As I see it, to pray about a situation is not to try to get God to give us the outcome we want.  To pray about a situation is to put the situation fully into God's capable hands and to trust in God regardless of the outcome.

Though I believe that prayer has the potential to change our circumstances, I believe that prayer changes us more than it changes our circumstances.  According to preacher Brian Zahnd, "The primary purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what you want Him to do, but to be properly formed."³  God is always at work in the world.  I believe that, when our hearts are in the right place, we give God the opportunity to work through us and not in spite of us.  In the words of one early theologian, we become "partners with Christ."⁴  Prayer changes us, and, when prayer changes us, we become the agents through which God can change the world around us.

I don't fully understand how prayer works, but I know that I cannot keep living with anxiety.  Anxiety is not something I can conquer by myself, and so many things that give me anxiety are things I cannot control.  I have no choice but to trust in God, to trust that God really does work out all things for good.⁵  In the last few days, I've started taking a few minutes each morning to pray, specifically to turn over to God all sources or potential sources of anxiety in my life, so that I may live in the present moment.  Once again, I've had to set my alarm clock to go off little bit earlier, but it's a small price to pay for the peace I hope to find.

Lately my life has been a roller coaster ride full of joy, anxiety, uncertainty, and discouragement, but I take comfort in the knowledge that God has a purpose for me in the midst of it all.  I think that God has a purpose for each of us, amid the rise and fall of the tide.  There are things in our lives we can control, and in such matters we are invited to seek wisdom from God.  There are other matters in which we must choose to either trust in God or worry ourselves sick.  God is always at work in this world, and, even if everything crashes and burns all around us, we can trust in God to bring something good out of the wreckage.


Notes:

1. More about this decision will likely follow.
2. John 16:23 (NRSV)
3. Brian Zahnd.  "You Are What You Pray."  Brianzahnd.com, 05/27/13.
4. Hebrews 3:14 (CEB)
5. Romans 8:28 (CEB)

Praying Hands was drawn by Albrecht Dürer around 1508.