Romans 1:17

This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight.  And now we see, it begins and ends in faith.  As the Scripture declares, “The righteous will live by faith.”

So, the person in right-standing before God by trusting Him really lives.  To live by faith means to be guided by things unseen and not yet.  It means trusting God’s way instead of making our own way.

I need to reflect on my “assignment” as Paul did so as to live by faith.  I know I am called by God into a life with Christ.  I am sometimes unfocused by its broadness and context because it does mean my whole life.  Yet, I need to find ways to apply it specifically.  This includes my call to godly motherhood, which gets diffused by parenting adult children.  I am called to be a godly wife to a husband who is balanced and wonderful.  I sometimes don’t know how to offer myself to a person who is completed and stable.  For both these roles, I just want to be my best self in Christ so I can be a blessing.

Then there is that call into the world, which can become more problematic for me.  I feel like I hold answers and then I feel like I have nothing.  What is the urgent task of apostleship that Paul feels?  I used to think that it was calling others to the obedience that comes by faith.  I doubt as much as I desire to fulfill my own tasks. What do these moments mean?

Then I remember:  “Wait upon the Lord.  Be strong and of good courage.  Wait upon the Lord.”

How profound! The answer cannot be found in me.  The answer is in the Lord/on the Lord/The Lord.  The Lord of the universe has an (the) answer for me and cares about me enough to give it.  Am I willing/patient/ready enough to hear it?  That’s why we are instructed to wait, so as to develop readiness for the answer.  “Take heart,” the King James says rightly – ready the will to hear the answer.  Then Paul gives more direction in Philippians, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do as he please.”  I will let God do His work!

Amen – Make it so!

If we are to be spiritually formed

in a way that leads us to God,

we want to finally and thoroughly keep God at the center. 

What does God reveal about himself in this passage?

What does God most want for us?

Romans 1:1-7

Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will have obedience that comes by faith, bringing glory to His name.  You are among those who have been called to belong to Jesus Christ, dear friends in Rome.  God loves you dearly and has called you to be his very own people.  May grace and peace be yours from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (verses 5-7)

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What is obedience that comes by faith?

I assume this is to be distinguished from obedience that comes from fear of retaliation or self-serving gratification.  Obedience  out of fear might cause someone to just obey in accordance with the letter of the law, and not engage in its spirit to serve the purposes of God.  It would cause a hedging obedience - just enough to stay out of trouble - and not a heart-felt desire to please God in obedience.  Obedience for self-serving purposes would be to obey in order to justify oneself or prove oneself worthy.  The credit for obedience would be expected for the one obeying.

So, then what is obedience that comes by faith?  It would be driven by the desire to please the One who set the standard, to show Him and the standard to be righteous and worthy of obeying.  It might also be a gratitude response.  If God wants it, He can have it, whether I see the necessity of the obedience or not.  Whether it's easy or not; whatever diligence it might require of me.  God says it, so I do it! 

My personal example is one I have given many times.  I love my husband.  My husband hates onions.  So, I don't cook with onions.  In fact I love onions, but gladly deny myself cooking with them because of the request of the one I love.  In fact, because dried onions are often hidden in many products, I have to be diligent about reading labels.  I wouldn't want to ruin his meal by their addition.  I wonder if I am so diligent about God's requests so as not to accidentally offend Him?

What is your act of obedience that comes by faith?

What is a grateful response?

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What is the impact of being identified as the object of God's love?  In fact,  He loved me so much that He wants to identify me as one of His and join me in the people group He has gathered together.  I see this as an opportunity to take on God's defining character trait of love.  It is so defining that it drives my identity into the people group of those who share that character trait.  Just like I might identify with my college team or my family, it provides definition for me.  It gives me a sense of belonging and pride;  it might even direct my path.

How does love become a defining character trait for you?

How do you identify with God's people?

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If we are to be spiritually formed in a way that leads us

to God, we want to finally and thoroughly keep God

at the center.

What does God reveal about himself in this passage?

What does God want most for us?

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The Romans Road: Spiritual Formation on the Journey

The book of Romans was written by the apostle Paul and has served as the source for the core of theology for Christianity.  God was deliberate in tapping this educated man who developed a passion for Jesus Christ so that the basis of the living faith could be systematized.  It was important for consistency  in faith practices.

I would like to invite you to a different journey along the Romans Road.  I have found that when on a pilgrimage, the journey is often as significant as the destination.  While Romans offers us a theological destination, I have found it to be significant in the formation of my daily living, too.  And not just in the final declarations and summations of the faith.  The book of Romans also is rich in spiritual formation, especially when we can keep God at the center of the discussion about what He wants for us along the journey.  

Are you ready to walk with me through a formational journey through Romans?  You may be surprised.  And changed!

Entering the Darkness

Most of us know the familiar territory where darkness prevails and we usually work to avoid it at all costs, from the extremes of addiction to keeping a good (false) attitude of the place we are in.  We avoid the darkness.  We fear it.  It is not fun.  Yet, what if, in it, we could find God? What if, in it, we could find the greatest truth of all?  God is not afraid of it.  It doesn’t surround him like it does us.

…To you, the night shines bright as day. 

Darkness and light are the same to you. 

Psalm 139:12

Lord, of course, You can see through either! Both can dispense Your truth and Your presence.  What if the darkness might hold just as much truth as the light?

Places of darkness are different for each of us.  Maybe it’s the darkness of a hurt we have buried or the darkness that befalls us when we quiet ourselves from shiny, noisy or blustery practices and we have to sink into the center of who we are.  Maybe it’s the darkness of an unresolved relationship or truth about ourselves.  The list goes on, but God’s truth about each can often only be revealed in the chasm. 

And since God is there, seeing it as clearly as if by daylight, if we allow ourselves to enter with Him, He can shine the light on the truth we need.  We can stay in the darkness knowing He is there, whether resolution comes or not, knowing that He is there to comfort or guide, satisfy or use it for our good. 

I am not so afraid of quiet now or even the darkness that some would claim to be the absence of God.  I think in the end the only one refusing to be in the darkness is me.  Now I know to enter it and relish the pause it gives, the truth it shows, and the comfort it brings.

God is Already in the Place You Are Going

Full of God

Full of promise

Of change and healing

Redirection and purpose.

That’s how I got here.

Unrecognizeable by some.

Untolerated by others.

But here -

In the right place –

On good ground –

And not yet arrived.

Still climbing for heaven.

Open the window for others to see

And start their journey, too.

Guerillas of Grace by Thomas Loder

Holy One,
there is something I wanted to tell you,
but there have been errands to run,
     bills to pay,
          arrangements to make,
               meetings to attend,
                    friends to entertain,
                         washing to do...
and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you,
     and mostly I forget what I'm about,
          or why.
O God,
don't forget me, please,
for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Eternal One,
there is something I wanted to tell you,
but my mind races with worrying and watching,
     with weighing and planning,
          with rutted slights and pothole grievances,
               with leaky dreams I keep trying to plug up;
and my attention is preoccupied
     with loneliness,
          with doubt,
               and with things I covet;
and I forget what it is I wanted to say to you,
and how to say it honestly
or how to do much of anything.
O God,
don't forget me please,
for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Almighty One,
there is something I wanted to tell you
     but I stumble along the edge of a nameless rage,
          haunted by a hundred floating fears and...
I forget the real question is that I wanted to ask,
     and I forget to listen anyway
          because you seem unreal and far away,
and I forget what it is I have forgotten.
O God,
don't forget me please,
for the sake of Jesus Christ.

O Father in heaven,
perhaps you've already heard what I wanted to tell you.
What I wanted to ask is
     forgive me,
          heal me,
                increase my courage, please.
Renew in me a little of love and faith,
     and a sense of confidence,
          and a vision of what it might mean
               to live as though you were real,
                    and I mattered,
                         and everyone was sister and brother.
What I wanted to ask in my blundering way is
     don't give up on me,
          don't become too sad about me,
               but laugh with me
                    and try again with me,
                         and I will with you, too.
What I wanted to ask is
      for peace enough to want and work for more,
          for joy enough to share,
               and for awareness that is keen enough
to sense your presence,
     here,
          now,
               there,
                     then,
                          always.

The Uninvited Discipline - an Epilogue

I am ending my list of Uninvited Disciplines, although I suspicion each of us have many more.  While I do not negate the spiritual disciplines of the ancients because they have so much to teach us about finding our center, find our connection to God, I also don’t want to limit God’s opportunity to reach me in the every day activities, too.  I don’t want my day to devolve into a to-do list or skill-building which does not include a conscious effort to seek God in each.  Let the monkish practices of silence, study, prayer, service, or solitude invade daily life, for they are the tools by which our whole life can be God’s and can be centered on God.

An Uninvited Discipline - Conversation

“I said I wanted to talk.  I did not mean I wanted to listen.”   And thus, we have completely lost the meaning of conversation.  The word’s origin is from a 1500s meaning, which was “to live with.”  It was also the legal term for sexual intercourse.  Thus, conversation was to engage in a give and take, a knowing and understanding of the other.  That means it is two-sided, a dialogue, which is much more than just what I have to say.

The two skills needed for conversation are, first, deep listening (hearing what is real about the other) and, secondly, finding your voice (expressing what is real about you). Both are significant.  If I never express the real me, you’ll never know me.  If I refuse to hear you or only listen superficially, I’ll never know you.  Our relationship will never be intimate.  Face-t0-face conversation builds community in a way that text-to-talk never can.  To hear the heart takes much more than words because to develop conversation that is caring, I have to hear beyond the words and listen for the expression of the heart, which takes place in tone of voice and body language.

Whether in listening or speaking, we all need to learn to be more intentional and confident when engaging in conversation.  It takes initiative to enter deep places in which God can lead and reach us through our community conversations.  It takes courage to listen to others with whom we do not agree, to hear those we don’t understand.  It takes a surety of self to allow someone to be different than me and not have to change them to conform to my views.

Conversation becomes a personal discipline when I engage deeply and it becomes a spiritual discipline when I keep God in the center of it – when I listen for His movement, His Spirit in myself and in you.  It is a discipline because it begins with love:  the love for God which allows me to love others enough to hear them.  It allows me to love others enough to tell them the truth.  It allows me to love others without judging them by my filters, which means to see the other person through God’s eyes.  I may need help learning to listen to a difficult person or my enemy.  I may need help with my beloved family, for whether I would love them for my sake or theirs, I would miss the opportunity to love them for God’s sake.

Some of the skills needed for God-centered conversation are not new to most.  To be a good listener, we know to listen with our agenda aside, to ask for more of their story, to listen to the emotions behind the words, even to  attend to their agenda.  It is a discipline to honor and acknowledge another’s point of view.  There are other skills, though, we neglect in listening:  to pray, to be open and open to change, to be willing to hear a person all the way, to desire what God wants, to be willing to learn, to intend a good result of the conversation.

Even the skills of saying our part, our words and idea-expressions may,  at first, be obvious: tell the truth, start with “I” statements, be clear, distinguish between fact and emotion.  If there is a desire for action from another, be specific with action and timeline.  Could there be others?  I return to prayer – let’s make it the first and best action we take before the words come out of the mouth.  Ask God to lead to explain without complaining and to express results with God in mind.  Don’t minimize your story or point of view any more than the other person’s. 

An unusual or less thought about part of conversation is the silence between the words.  What is being said that the words are not telling?  What is the tone of voice, the body language saying?  What if we sat in silence with each other to give space for ideas to grow, to give space for hearts to hear.  It is a discipline to let silence speak, too.

Realize that in basic conversation (not in teaching or persuasion), we hear to know each other, identify with each other and join with each other, even when we have differences.  Community grows when we can hear another person’s heart. Conversation builds community when we can invite more to the table, more people and more ideas. 

Many of the recorded conversations of Jesus with people took place in “their” space, where he met them.  He met Peter by the lake where his livelihood was, the woman at the well where sustenance was, the Pharisees in the temple where their duty lay, the cripple at the pool in a supposed place of healing.  Jesus didn’t very often go for “neutral.”  He met people in the public square and in their homes.  People are more comfortable there. 

Jesus often did not leave them there, though. He knew how to lead them through conversation through the facts to their thoughts and opinions, to identify their deep desires, and through their crises to discussions of the sacred.  He listened.  He asked questions.  He pointed to healing.  He pointed to God.

It is truly a discipline to engage in the knowing search of another person, which is conversation’s goal.  It is a discipline to reveal our own truths and lies.  It is a greater discipline to let a healing Savior to be in the center of all conversations so that the greater community can be built. 

And what if our conversation with each other told the truth about the kind of conversation we have with the Lord of the Universe?  How well we listen to each other may indicate how well we listen to God.  How much truth we tell to each other may indicate how much truth we tell God.  How much we connect and community-build with each other may tell the greatest truth of how well we are connected with the Triune God, who is, most of all, Community.

An Uninvited Discipline - Aging

It may seem obvious that growth, in general, involves discipline and I want to raise the awareness that growing older is a spiritual discipline, no matter what decade of life one is passing through.  Sometimes, we want to race through a decade (see teenagers) or push back from the next (see 50-year-olds), yet each can be a marvelous time for growth if we keep God at the center of it.

It is modernity’s health and technology advancements that make this discussion possible.  In 1900, the life expectancy for men was age 47, for women it was 50.  Infant mortality was around 10% (today it is 6.89%), with adult roles and expectations applying to a young person by age 14-15.  As a result, the “seasons” of life was not a well-developed concept in a world where either you were a child or an adult, neither very far from death.

Contributing to a changed view of the seasons of life was the stabilization of health practices such that children and adults didn’t die enmasse of disease or injury and life expectancies expanded greatly.  Adolescence was incubated in the 1920s, but didn’t manifest as an age phenomenon until the ready-mobility created by the automobile and the development of radio and TV where a teen culture could be explored outside of the family culture.  Also, the possibility of living past 60 created a retirement class, a whole group of people who also have mobility and new roles.

A new set of expectations about life and even life-with-God became possible.  All that to challenge your view of faith practices, which in previous calamitous and confining eras was more of a matter of dealing with death and staying alive.  The basic assumptions change when the safety of your environment and the opportunities of a long life exist.  What attitudes prevail when childhood is extended?  What changes occur when life is less precarious?  How do we incorporate a role for spiritual growth and eldership for a healthy older population?

While the decades of the 1900s were spent developing a youth-oriented culture, have we failed to see the value and possibilities of a full-functioning eldership in the population?  Since eldership is underdeveloped and less venerated, most people push back from it instead of embracing, growing and celebrating it, instead of joining God in it and desiring His measure of maturity for it.

I find the things people say about their age expectations to be both interesting and telling.  My eight-old granddaughter marks the days until she can be nine.  Teenagers clamor to be 18, when they can finally “do whatever they want.”  Then out of post 40-year-olds I hear, “Oh, to be 20 again” or “I can’t wait to retire.”  Any reflection of “some day…” or “if only I had …” about another time of life causes us to miss the possibility of today.

I propose that it is a spiritual discipline, and one we rarely invite, to understand the purpose and possibility of every age.  It can be a huge benefit to your relationship with God if you can keep Him in the center of the process of growing old, which we are all doing.  At the core of this discussion, I believe, is identity – how I define myself.  For us to see the spiritual discipline of growing within an age and stage and then moving to the next is to keep our identity secure in God’s definition for us and  His purpose for our lives.  For example, if I can stay connected to my identity as a child of God, that marker can hold and guide me through child-rearing, vocational development, health challenges and community changes.  The discipline is to lean into God to remember His definition for my identity through success and failure, trial and trauma, change and stagnation.  Such a discipline can bear the onslaught and victory of each age. 

Others have written specifically on carrying disciplines into the second half of life.  You can read Richard Rohr, William Buford, Billy Graham or James Fowler.  I want to focus on the discipline God may intend the most:  maturity.  Christ-like maturity.  There are specific markers for that maturity in the New Testament:

·  Humbleness, where holiness, purity and righteousness characterize a sure pursuit and discipline, is one few invite let alone desire, even with its blessing.  (Matthew 5:5, 6, 8)

· Defining a new life in Christ, being able to let go of cultural definitions which prove to be constraints on life, is a true challenge for change. To understand that to grasp the greater things of God requires that we let go of the lesser things of culture, childhood and ego. (Matthew 16:25-26)

·  Wisdom-keeping, which provides stability for a person and a community,  is a sure discipline.  It is marked by a deliberate thought process independent of the culture and, when from God, it penetrates the whole person and nurtures identity.  This can only happen with dependence on God and can provide guidance to a life of integrity and give a reputation to a world badly in need of its understandings.  (Prov 2:2; 2:10; 3:5; 4:23; 16:21) Those who hold their own “wisdom” and use it to isolate themselves or divide others are not mature.

·  Mentoring relationships of those who partner and follow an elder can only be accomplished by one of a practiced maturity of the previous traits. Gifted leadership needs to be developed so God’s people can be thoroughly equipped to minister and lift up others, which leads to people being unified in faith of Jesus Christ and so all can mature and be formed into his likeness, love being the driving force. (Eph. 4:11-16)

Realize that each stage of life must be filled – worked for and relished – and then abandoned for the next.  Be weary of the culture’s tendency to overprize youth and young adulthood, trapping the elders into a false sense of identity when they over-identify or do not match youth’s expectations.  Instead, assert and preserve the dignity, creativity and richness of all phases of life. 

By midlife and beyond, in love and work, the mature find a way to contribute to the community and to integrate generations.  This means impacting the world today by equipping the next generation and leaving a legacy. Whether through financial contributions, through parenting and mentoring, to being a praying grandparent, investing in God’s work takes precedence in such a way that each age can be faced with a sense of fullness which can overcome the grief and loss of many things.

Each decade we live, the ultimate spiritual discipline might be the effort to keep God at the center of the practice of life.

An Uninvited Discipline - Forgiveness

I so appreciate Christ’s effort on the cross which makes forgiveness available to me.  All I have to do is accept it, ask for it and it is mine!  Once I have repented of my sin and received forgiveness, could there be a discipline which attends it?  Is there a practice which can bring me into greater proximity to God through forgiveness, the very thing He has given freely?  Surely!  I call it accepting the full force of forgiveness and that its power can ripple in areas within myself and any person who needs it.

I have seen some not get the full force of forgiveness when they have blocked its healing power.  In Matthew 18, Jesus gives several lessons on forgiveness, and most pointedly in verse 35, he ends the series of lessons by saying, “Unless you forgive from your heart…”  You are to forgive from the place of hurt and anger, the place you feel it the most.  Forgiveness is not just a good idea, it is a balm to a hurting heart.  The full force of forgiveness is to provide healing and freedom from the sin against you.  It is surely a discipline to allow forgiveness that far reach into the center of who you are. 

We may want to forgive in theory, but not practice.  I heard this in statements such as, “I forgive her but…” or “I have tried to forgive” or “I have forgiven him in my mind.”  People say this because they have only applied forgiveness as an idea.  It may be a good idea, but just an idea.  Not a practice. 

Failing to get healed from an offense is proof that forgiveness has not been “from the heart.”  Depending on the scale of the offense, seeking healing may be a severe discipline.  I may need therapy.  I may need deep community prayer and support.  I may need to own any complicity in the sin (i.e. vengefulness, bitterness, despair) and repent so that the full force of forgiveness can enter my heart for someone else. To forgive as such is to be able to remember without hurting.

Another area where people often need the full force of forgiveness is in forgiving themselves.  I have heard people say it is harder to forgive themselves than anyone else.  As with any other person, forgiving oneself involves the same discipline.  If this is you, I challenge you to think and say out loud the following:

            I need to repent of _________, which has harmed me greatly.

• This means I know I have wronged myself and the good work God wants to do in me.
• I am committed to changing that behavior to keep God’s goals and power at the center of that change. 
•  I am committed to making reconciliation with myself, to prove that I can be trusted.

Don’t hold back the power of God from any person, even yourself.  If we forgive like God forgives, it is surely a discipline.  God went to extreme measures to make forgiveness available.  He intends it to be a force in our lives, especially when we learn how to direct it towards all who need it.  

To become ready to forgive may be the greatest part of this discipline and with God at the center, forgiveness is no longer a trite assent to a good idea.  Instead, the force of forgiveness reverberates through our lives and rebuilds them, which can provide a testimony as to God’s power in and through forgiveness.  What a discipline!

Philippians 2:13

For God is working in you,
giving you the desire to obey Him 
and the power to do as He pleases.  Phil 2:13

How much are you working against Him?

An Uninvited Discipline - Repentance

This seems the right moment to considered the layered meaning of discipline.  It is a practice of something in which one is not proficient:  gathering skills and experiences to improve in an application.  Its root word – disciple - infers it includes following someone else’s example.  So, in spiritual discipline, we engage a practice where Jesus is the discipler; He is at the center.  We do it for Him.  We let the practice drive us to Him.  We will soon see that repentance becomes the epitome of spiritual discipline. 

Without God, there is no need for it.   Without God, not only is there no need, there is no one to whom to confess or admit anything.  Without God, ethical standards are situational, with each person determining (and avoiding) any sense of wrongness. This can be seen in the oft-repeated phrase, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”  A subtle, “Sorry about your luck.” At the core, repentance is admitting we are wrong.  In this, we are not proficient.  Many only have sorrow over their actions when there is a negative consequence.  Sorry they got caught.  Sorry there were consequences.  Maybe even sorry someone else was offended, but that is not the sorrow that leads to repentance, at the heart of which is confession and change.  The mark of true “sorriness” (sorrow/grief) is marked by change (true repentance). As long as ego is at the center, little change is possible. 

As it is, I [Paul] rejoice not because you were grieved but because you were grieved into repentance…For godly sorrow produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly sorrow produces death.  

2 Corinthians 7:7-11

In the translation, The Voice, it is said of godly sorrow:  …because you were moved to make a permanent change that can happen only with the realization that your actions have gone against God.

When we wrong someone else, we have sinned against one of God’s and, like any Father, He is just as offended.  This applies when we have wronged ourselves with sinful choices which prove to be attack against our own humanity.  Even when someone else wrongs us, we reliably sin in response.  We may not be the original offender, and whether we attack back or ignore the offense, if we do not forgive, we have sinned.  If we choose resentment and bitterness, detachment and separation, or stay wounded, it is evidence of our lack of God and His healing efforts. We are at the center, licking our wounds, petting our passions and massaging our egos, but with God at the center, He exercises our passions towards Him, feeding us with love, filling us with compassion, and healing our injuries.  

It is a discipline to train for the right response to sin, no matter its source.  If I keep God at the center of mending an offense - a sin - the purpose and practice change.  I will be grieved because of how God sees it.  I repent in light of God’s provision to do so and because of His desire for unity among His children and because he desires holiness within me.  This is because He wants to remain at the center of me and us.

There are godly indicators in wanting to forgive others and myself.  It is okay to do it out of obedience, gratitude for my own forgiveness, maybe even to avoid the wrath of God and the consequences He may bring, but what if I had a sorrow over offending God, the lover of my soul, and the Father, who holds me dear?  He wants more for me than I want for myself and He knows that sin keeps me from Him and His best.  The discipline of true repentance provides an exercise which strengthens my relationship with the Father and carries me through the pain of offenses offered by a sinful world.

An Uninvited Discipline - Discernment

Most of us who are serious about our relationship with God are trying to figure out what He wants from us.  We want our decisions resting on His directives.  We want our lives led by Him.  We want to draw near to His presence.  So, we read the Bible, listen to sermons, go to seminars and cry out for answers, rarely sure if what we “hear” is from God or some contrivance of our own heart.  We want to be able to know God’s voice, to discern its meaning for our lives.

How about a quick text, Lord?  Or at least a call?

We may be hungry for answers and leading from God but are we listening?  What if God has been speaking all along?  How will we be able to “know” his voice from other strange voices?  How will I even distinguish Jesus’ voice from my own?

In John 10, Jesus talks about his “sheep” hearing his voice.  It is a metaphor with big implications.  He is speaking.  The “hear” is to give attention to, understand, or give ear to the teacher.  Do we?  Just like when I have said to my children, “Do you hear me?” by implication, I mean did they pay attention, understand it and ultimately do it.  I usually ask it because I am not getting the desired response. 

Are we like that?  We really have had God’s words spoken to us and yet He gets no response.  How many times has someone said about God’s written word, “I know but…” Or what I heard in class recently, “It’s so hard.” 

At first I want to ask, “What do you desire most to hear from God?” but I must remember the end of John 10:27:  “My sheep hear my voice and I know them.”  It is an intimacy marker – “I know them intimately,” “I know what they need.”  This causes me to reframe the question: “Do you trust God to give you what you need and are you listening for that?” Do you desire what God desires for you?  Can you hear and trust any direction or answer He may give?  This is what makes discernment an uninvited discipline.  We wanted our answers our way.  That is what we are listening for. 

It is then a spiritual discipline to call discernment “obedient” listening.  Samuel’s famous line, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” was only made when he mistook the voice of God for someone else and, thankfully, that someone else was his mentor, who knew to direct him back to God.  To do the same, be deliberate in your listening.  A deep and deliberate reflection of the times God has “spoken” to you in the past – through His written Word, a sermon or teaching, through godly counsel or prayer – can reveal the pattern by which God has operated in your life.  If you stay familiar with this pattern, then other voices are easily distinguished from God’s.  I have often recommended a journaling exercise of significant God-voiced and God-led events in a person’s life.  To see the pattern is revealing and can prove to be a signpost for when God is speaking next.

These answers and experiences with God should include not just obvious directives, comfort and guidance but answers that include NO, which I often take to mean “better than this.”  Many a person knows, in retrospect, the value of not getting something they thought they once wanted. 

It is also important to note times of silence from God.  Waiting in silence has great purpose in giving us a chance to grow strong and to be willing for God’s answer.  Silence can draw us in and causes us to grapple with the truth God has spoken and then to enact obedience,  to step into and follow His leading.  It also behooves us in such reflections of our history with God to note how we have responded to God when He has spoken.  Have we obeyed?  Have we desired to gain the full benefit of responding to His directives and insight?  Do we trust God enough to listen for what He desires for us?

At the core of the spiritual discipline of discernment is the desire to be near to God. It is the “knowing,” in its intimacy-building intent, that should drive our listening.  The sheep who hear his voice then follow into the field.  Those who are attracted to his voice follow closely, not running ahead or lagging behind, going no further than grace allows and keeping Jesus Christ, that familiar shepherd, at the center of life.

An Uninvited Discipline - Relationships

There is a myriad of books, Christian and otherwise, about developing healthy relationships.  My intention is not to discuss any of the “how,” which has been done from many perspectives, but rather why those pursuits are significant to our relationship with God.  Whether it is an endearing, sweet relationship (think:  grandchildren or BFF), or a difficult relationship (name your own here), that relationship can cause you to move closer to God or farther from God because it is practice ground for our relationship with Him. 

God wants us to “relate” to Him.  We can see that clearly in His relationships described in the Bible.  He walked and talked in the garden with Adam and Eve.  The Ten Commandments are relationship guides that teach us how to relate to God and each other.  There are so many relationship descriptors in the New Testament about us:  child, bride, friend and others.  Paul uses the most common of household metaphors of the goal of our relationship with Christ: “Father, out of your glorious riches, strengthen your people.  Fill their souls with the power of your Spirit so that through faith Jesus will become more at home in their hearts.  May love be the rich soil where their lives take root...so that they can know the love of Christ that is infinitely long, wide, high and deep, and may your fullness flood through their entire beings.” (The Voice -Ephesians 3:17-19)

What a loss for a human to not feel grounded, welcomed, settled and at peace in a place on earth!  What a gain to have a home!  Having a home where we are tended to and to which we tend gives a picture for us to stay and play, care and share with God.  I wonder how many people who never had a “home” cannot settle in with God the same way?

Jesus lived his life, ministry and death in the company of a network of personal relationships.  Some were not comfortable, as with the Jewish leaders.  His relationship with the disciples was problematic.  Some were daring, as with women, lepers and zealots.  He met people in gardens, houses, on walks by the sea, and in the synagogue.  He met them in enemy territory (Samaria).  He had friction within his family.  He was frequently eating with people.  He was not an isolated religious figure sitting inside a temple or on a hill.  He was immersed in relationship.

In all these, Jesus did not forget his Father in Heaven nor his purpose on earth, despite the challenge within these relationships.  I propose that if I keep God at the center of my relationships, instead of myself, I will be challenged in different ways than I intended.  It will be a spiritual discipline which will make me more like Jesus.

The first example that comes to mind is in marriage, but you can apply parenting or work relationships.  When my husband and I have a disagreement or a decision to make, do we make it based on what we want (which can be in opposition to each other) or do we make the remedy or solution revolve around what God wants of our marriage?  It is a discipline to move the center of all such discussions around God and His priorities for us, individually and corporately.  What impact does it hold to make decisions that bring us closer to God and not just to get relief or do what is easiest?  What impact does the witness have to solve problems that demonstrate our trust of God in any dilemma or decision?

This thought process also includes any relationship I may have with an enemy.  Jesus had the most powerful things to say about this kind of relationship.  In Luke and Matthew, he challenges the people of his day and us with these relationship guides when it comes to an enemy: (Matthew 5)

•      You have heard it said, “Do not murder,” but anyone who is angry (enough to murder) his brother with be judged by his anger.

• ·       In fact, anyone who calls another person names, “fool” being the highlight, may find himself with a day in court or in the fires of hell.
• ·       Don’t offer your gifts to God at the altar if your brother has something against you.  Make it right with him first.
• ·       If someone sues you, make right the offense.

And then he pushes all the harder (Luke 6):

• ·       Love your enemies.
• ·       Pray for those who persecute you.
• ·       Bless those who curse you.
• ·       Be good to them.
• ·       Lend to them, expecting no return.
•       Expect no compensation for their demands or thievery.

Ouch!  That is not what today’s relationship books say.  This set of directives does not make sense in Jewish law nor to our sense of justice.  Jesus explains,  “I have come not to do away with the law, but to fulfill it.” (Matt 5:17)  He becomes the consummation of the purpose of the law.  He has come to fill it with his presence, to show its deepest meaning, to have its strongest impact.  It’s what we might call “the spirit of the law,” but much more because Jesus is now the ultimate goal. Jesus becomes enough for us. In dealing with our enemies, we are not to serve our own purposes nor do good to our enemies for their sake, but for the sake of Jesus.  Basic law only serves to point to our deeper need for Him and His deeper truth.

That is what makes relationship a spiritual discipline we did not invite, but it is what we need - full relationship with Christ.  It is daunting and not what I want to do.  I may want to work on certain relationships because it makes life easier (me at the center).  I want to appear at peace with my enemies (me at the center), but keep them at arm’s length so as not to enter any more difficulty than I have to, (me at the center).  But with God at the center, the severest discipline begins.  The discipline is defined differently, enacted differently and drives me into total dependence on and obedience to God...

Which is what He wanted all along.