Beginnings and Living [the Resurrection]

Eugene Peterson, in his book Living the Resurrection, writes

As a culture, we are great at beginnings.

Change

Change happens fast.
Not long ago I was walking quickly from one room to the next, excitedly thinking about something and not looking where I was going, and in a matter of seconds I had sprained my ankle.  Almost more than the pain, the realization that my prospects for the next few days (and potentially weeks) ahead had changed hit me like a blow.  How much more so for people in serious accidents must be the overwhelming feeling of sudden and irreversible change.

The incident just recounted happened to take place on Holy Saturday, and I soon found myself reflecting on the rapid changes the disciples saw during that eventful week we celebrate each year:  Jesus enters Jerusalem, triumphant king, masses of people going crazy and shouting their joy at his arrival.  Then, a few days later, they celebrate the Passover together and he breaks with the traditional teaching to say that he is the one that fulfills centuries of Passovers, that this piece of matzos is his body, this cup is his blood, that even the events of the Exodus point to him, their teacher sitting there with them.  Yet that very night, he is arrested, tried, and taken to die a horrendous death, the same crowds of Jerusalem yelling "crucify him"!  And only a week after they had entered the city to the welcoming shouts of the people, they find themselves huddled in a room behind locked doors, fearing that they too might follow to death the man they had thought to be the promised deliverer.  How might they have felt?

Fortunately God had one more change planned:  Christ arose, death swallowed up in life, darkness lost in light, sin and evil defeated by the wisdom and love and goodness of God; the cosmos was changed irrevocably by the power of God.

Yet in the past weeks I have come to realize that change also takes place slowly.  
Our bodies heal slowly.  The miracle of plant life, hidden beneath the frozen grays and dead browns of winter, emerges slowly each day.  Spiritual growth takes time; in fact it will take our whole life.  It takes time and discipline to enter the fullness of life Christ freely gives.

There seems to be a relation between both kinds of change - slow and fast.  For a plant, it takes weeks and months of waiting, of sun and of rain, before the blossom emerges and all of a sudden its appearance is transformed.  The slow change, initiated by the sudden fall to earth of a seed, results in another quick change, an unfolding of color.  Likewise with our spiritual life, the two are inextricably linked.  I leave you with this thought, and with the challenge to think on it and to persevere with the small changes asked of you.

imagination

Lord, let my life be orderly, regular, temperate; let no pride or self-seeking, to covetousness or revenge, no little ends and low imaginations pollute my spirit and unhallow my words and actions.
-Jeremy Taylor

This prayer resonates with my prayers lately that God would enlarge my imagination of who he is and what he wants to do.  We are so limited, I have been realizing, by our lack of imagination.  The beautiful thing is that God wants to help us in this.  Just look, for example, at the whole old testament, which helps us understand his plan that was fulfilled in Christ!  We worship a God who delights to help us grasp who he is.

I challenge you to seek bigger vision of what God wants to do, and of who he is.  God has surprised me even this week in the ways he is answering this prayer.  I am excited about what he will teach me in the week (and years!) ahead.  What a good God we worship!

Spiritual Discontent

As Christians, we are supposed to be satisfied and content.  Not only does God's presence satisfy us (See, for example, Psalm 17:14), but through his works he has given us everything we need - and so much more!  And yet...

I propose that on another level, at least at some times, it is a good thing for us to be discontent.  Many times in the bible we see  people expressing their discontent with the injustice and evil  and sin in our world.  Certainly this is in line with God's perspective.

But there is yet another kind of spiritual discontent.  This is when we are unsatisfied with our own spiritual state.  We begin to expect more of God and, as a result, we expect more of ourselves.  Discontent such as this drives us to vulnerability and to more earnest waiting on God.

In all of our spiritual discontent, I pray along with the apostle Paul in high expectation:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength...

Ephesians 1:17-19

How have you experienced spiritual discontent in your own life?