Oh Hi!
Tiffany and I are busy preparing for our departure next
Wednesday; O how quickly it has come!
We went backpacking a few days ago, spending two nights in the
woods. I was pleasantly surprised
by Tiffany’s toughness; we hiked—tangled up in overloaded packs—about fifteen
miles, several of which were full of deadfalls, creeks and feet of snow. We caught fish and cooked them over the
fire, had a bear scare and were staggered once again by the magnificence of the
Lord’s creation. And, of course,
we made some Jiffy Pop over the fire.
I
have been made aware lately of an interesting kind of “magical thinking”
prevalent in the church today, most notably within Evangelicalism. Tiffany spent much of the winter
preparing for our backpacking trip.
She ran and lifted weights and did plyometrics for several months, with this
trip as one of her motivations.
And the work paid back tenfold.
Now we are about to depart on a two month journey to Kenya to serve the
Lord, but I didn’t do extra pushups to prepare. I didn’t run like I would in preparation for a
marathon. I didn’t even practice
my Swahili. Within the Christian
life I have been confronted by a dilemma.
If I were training for football I wouldn’t skip practice to play Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare online. I
would run and sweat and tackle and sweat and run and sweat. And tackle. How could I expect to beat the guy staring me down through
those helmet bars across the line of scrimmage without putting in work? Similarly, how can I expect to become a
“better Christian” without practice?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I would be the first to tell you that the
Christian life isn’t much like football.
For one, I’m not out to beat the guy across the line; my goal isn’t a seven
hundred pound squat. I would be
the first to tell you that I can’t do anything in the power of myself to
perfect myself. I cannot fix my
sin. I cannot fix my sin. But I can open myself deeper to
the power of one who can. Dallas
Willard, one of the foremost Christian thinkers alive today and author of The
Spirit of the Disciplines, wrote the following: “The Christian life is what
you do when you realize you can do nothing.” This is what I’ve been trying to figure out. How do I do away with the magical
thinking that if I listen to that amazing sermon one more time I’ll walk away more
like Jesus Christ? What can I do
to open my heart to the power of the risen Christ, allowing Him to
transform me? I’m learning more
and more every day. This is how I
am preparing to be Christ to the people of Kenya and my fellow GPers that I’m
expected to disciple along the way.
For indeed, the same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells
in me. Finding answers to the two
questions above is how I am preparing to be like Christ in my classes, in my
marriage, in my workplace, and in my local Church.
I won’t change by watching another
webisode of the latest sitcom. I
won’t even change by trying really hard or beating myself up when I fail. I will only change when I learn what it
takes for me to open up to the Lord today. It will be different for you. It will probably be different for me
tomorrow. That’s why people say
Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. That’s why the cathedrals with organs that were built by
colonialists in the African bush are empty. Africans and God don’t relate behind stained glass. They gather together under the stars with
drum and song.
So as we prepare, offering
ourselves as sacrifices to the Lord, we pray that God will show us the way to
Himself. That He’ll remind us
again of who we are in Him. For I
have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live. We pray that we’ll be able to open our
hearts honestly, that we’ll be able to discern His desired relationship with us,
today. We know He’s with us
to the end of the age and we, therefore, go.
