His Fingerprints

After last weeks blog my wife suggested that I talked a lot about finding your deepest desire but I said nothing about how to find it. So, I decided that this week I would go through the exercise myself and I thought I would share it with you.

Last week my wife and I were in Atlanta visiting our daughter who is nearly finished with her PhD. at Emory University. Emory, like most universities, uses their graduate students to teach many of the classes so I got to attend class three times while my “little girl” taught some 300-level course. (Proud isn’t an adequate word here.) I mention it because being on campus, any campus, really fires me up. I just love being around all that knowledge and energy. I went every day to the student center to buy a cup of tea just to experience the atmosphere. Just writing about it makes me want drive to near-by Akron University and just walk around.

So, this is where I started. I obviously want this experience but is it one of my deep desires? I need to look deeper to find out. I need to look past what I want on the surface, past what I am supposed to want, what others expect me to want or what I have been conditioned to want.

It is so exciting to go soul-diving, to explore uncharted territory within myself. What do I want? Why do I want to be on campus? Is it prestige? No, it’s not that. It is just exciting to be there. It is like being next to a huge slightly leaky balloon full of potential energy. But why do I want that?

There is another area of interest in my life that may be worth exploring. I want to fix everything that is broken, cars, houses, children, friends, myself. Why, why do I want that? One reason is people give me value when I succeed in this way. In fact, I give value to myself as well. Why do I consider it valuable to be the repair agent? I think it is because the brokenness presents a challenge, a conquest. So, why is conquest and victory important? I don’t know.

Let’s look at it from another perspective. What is it like not to have conquest in my life? The answer is profound boredom. It is akin to being dead. So conquest is at least one of the ways to stave off boredom and that is important because boredom makes me feel like I am dead. Ok, so conquest isn’t the deepest need, rather, it is relief from the profound kind of boredom. If boredom represents death, then, my deep desire is really to live. It is not just the genetically wired preservation-of-the-species desire for life. It is something much more. This fits with the being on campus thing as well. The excitement of being that close to so much potential for personal growth and the energy of the young is another way to drive the boredom away. Do you hear what I am hearing about now?

“I have come that they might have life and have it more abundantly”

- Jesus Christ

Now where am I? What dies it mean to live abundantly? I am already a devout disciple of Jesus but I still don’t know what this abundant life is all about. At least I don’t know it well enough to use it as a decision point. Something that will help me decide which way to go, which way will provide more of the “abundant life”.

I have a lot more that I want to say about this (my journal has four more pages) but the letter is getting long, so, I will stop for this week. At least, I got down to where I think my base desire is. Next week I want to look at what this means in my life.

Bye for now.

Lately, I have been reading and listening to a lot of folks teaching that we need to listen to God’s voice or discern what the Spirit is saying. The didactic in every case talks about the need to do this and the result of doing it but not how we are to do it. It is like the teachers assume that this skill is instinctual, but ask anyone who has or is trying to follow this instruction and they will tell you that it is not. In fact, most people don’t have a clue how one discerns God’s voice.

So, in a fit of honesty I asked myself, how would you answer the question? My first response I have known and trusted for years. I can tell when the Holy Spirit is speaking to my spirit via my emotions. I believe that my emotions link my spirit to my mind (soul) so that when a thought is accompanied by a certain sense of awe I have come to understand that God is speaking.

The second response is newer for me and it is what I would like to spend some time on this week. It has to do with desire. What part does desire play in our spiritual lives? If your spiritual training is anything like mine was, you grew up believing that our desires were the enemy of your soul. In fact, the death of desire was equated with sanctification. That is heresy.

There is a lot of scripture to support the idea that ‘desire’ in us is extremely important to God. One of the most striking examples is the parable of the Prodigal Son. This is the story of a wealthy father and his two sons. One son was compliant, faithful, always did what he was told but not terribly honest about his feelings especially his desires. The second boy was the rebel. He lived for the moment and was totally into instant gratification. The rebel asked for his inheritance early and spent it satisfying his every desire. The compliant one stayed home and worked the farm.

You know the story. The rebel spends all his money on wine, women and song and ends up homeless. One day he decides to go home and ask if he could be a slave on his fathers’ farm. (Note the lack of arrogance – See the blog two weeks ago.) His father receives him with open arms restores him to son-ship and throws a party. The first son is resentful and goes off to pout.

I absolutely love this passage but it is the most scandalous portions of Scripture that I know. Here is why. Look at who has the approval and joy of the father. The one who embraced his desires even though they were sinful and self-destructive. Really, it is almost unbelievable (Especially since I am the other brother.) Further, when the first son calls his Dad on the injustice of it all asking why haven’t you thrown a party for me and my friends? We get one of the saddest responses in the Bible. He simply said, you never asked. Oh my goodness, you never let me know what you wanted.

Perhaps you already see my point. Our desires are God-given. Yes, sin has corrupted them but you will never receive his unbridled joy by denying desire. “You never asked. Son, what would you like? It is my joy to give it to you.” I am not teaching a prosperity Gospel here. What I am saying is, if you want to know God’s will for your life and you are sincerely seeking His direction, the way to find it is to discover the deep desires, the major themes of your life and follow them. It is how the Spirit leads. He built desire into your heart to lead you in the paths He wanted you to go. To kill desire is to cheat yourself of fulfillment and much of the Father’s joy.

One of the larger changes in church practice, that I have noticed, is the use of the altar. For the first part of my life, the altar was a very prominent part of the service. It was the place of repentance. It was where sinners were saved and back-sliders recommitted their lives. I have watched the use of the altar change from evangelism to a place of recommitment to where it is hardly used at all. If I had grandchildren I doubt that they would even know what an “altar service” is or was. The change came when the unsaved quit coming to church. Pastors found themselves preaching evangelical messages to the choir and both realized that they were wasting their time.

The use of the altar changed in my life as well. As a child it was a place I frequented as a safe-guard against going to Hell. (One never knew when an errant car would send you to eternity.) Then, in an effort to find some security in my relationship with God, I began to “go forward” in search of the experience of “entire sanctification”, where all carnality was at last put to death. As I have written else where (many times) this didn’t work. But, I grew up and matured and I guess it was just natural with all the experience I had going to the altar that I became one who worked/counseled with those who were seeking. Lately, I came to the realization that I haven’t prayed or served around the altar for years.

Now, all this has left me wondering when the use of the altar as described above began. I did a quick search of the net and found that there are no references in church history to an altar call before the ministry of Charles G. Finney. Mr. Finney invented the practice of urging people to make a physical movement at the conclusion of a service in the 1820’s. All other references in Christian church history to the altar before that are in connection with the Eucharist. At any rate, it is clear that using the altar as the point of evangelism is a para-church activity. It does not serve cross-culturally. It does not even serve our culture any more.

So, I am standing, singing the closing chorus at the end of a Sunday morning worship service and I often do not feel the closure I need. I find myself wanting to go to the altar. Some of this may be just a Pavlov reaction to prior training but I am sure it is more than that. I was discussing this need with a friend of mine and she suggested that I might need to be able to respond to the service. I think she is right. I feel the need to respond to what I have heard and felt during the last hour. Maybe it is repentance but repentance is now a joyful thing not something done out of fear. Often I just want to meet with my friend, Jesus, for a few minutes, meditate on the message or pray alone or with a friend. What ever it is I think we need a time after every worship service that would be voluntary, perhaps, to respond to what we have heard in our spirits the previous hour.

I was listening to the radio just this morning as I was getting ready for work. An author, I didn’t catch his name, was being interviewed about his recent book, Why We Are Not Emergent. One of his very first statements was that the Emergent left characterized by the “Emergent Village” had thinkers and authors that didn’t espouse the existence of a literal hell. I take this to mean a place where a soul burns in literal flames, that is to say oxidizes, for eternity.

I too have believed this all of my life. My belief was so strong that it was my entire motive for being a Christian. However, I want to be completely transparent with you and say that in recent years as my relationship with God has grown, I have become increasingly uncomfortable even doubtful of this doctrine.

If you read this blog regularly you will know that I appreciate the writings of C.S. Lewis and a more recent author Timothy Keller (among many others of course). Dr. Keller, leaning heavily on C.S. Lewis has provided me with an understanding of the doctrine of Hell that is very satisfying for me and it has everything to do with humility.

There is a chapter in Kellers’ book The Reason for God that deals with the problem that many people have with believing in a loving God that can send anyone to a place like Hell. First of all let me say right up front that Keller believes in a literal Hell as do I. But he also explains in the footnotes that “All description and depictions of Heaven and Hell in the Bible are symbolic and metaphorical. Each metaphor suggests one aspect of the experience of Hell. (for example, “fire” tells us of the disintegration, while “darkness” tells us of the isolation.)” It is not my intent to argue this point. Rather, I would like to show how allowing this language to be metaphorical broadens the teaching passages on the topic.

Let’s look at the Luke 16:24-31 passage. This is the story of a rich man and his servant Lazarus. In this story the un-named rich man treats his servant rather poorly. In the course of time the rich man dies and ends up in Hell. Lazarus also dies and goes to heaven (the bosom of Abraham). At this point the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus down with some water. He also instructs Abraham on a better way to inform his brothers of their fate. The point is that there is an astounding lack of humility on the part of the rich man. As Keller points out, in spite of the fact that their roles have been reversed he still is treating Lazarus as his water boy. Even more astounding is that the rich man never once asks to get out. He is so self-absorbed, so convinced that he is right, the thought never occurs to him.

What is being suggested here is that pride (lack of humility) is the “fire” of Hell. We see the beginnings of it in this life. Who is more miserable or appears to be so small as the person who is has lost all sense of humility. To be in Hell means that pride destroys your soul forever. It never stops. The resultant self-absorption also can do nothing but isolate you from other souls as well as from God. The darkness keeps getting darker. But it was your choice all along. Hell is the growth of pride or the loss of humility on a trajectory to eternity. There can be no more miserable existence.

I would like to close this letter with a quote from C.S. Lewis from The Problem of Pain also quoted by Keller. This sums it up for me.

“There are only two kinds of people those who say “thy will be done” to God or those to whom God in the end says “thy will be done”. All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn’t be Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.”

I intended to continue the conversation on humility this week but I am going to postpone that for a week. I had a conversation with my sociologist-daughter about last weeks’ post. Her stance is that she cannot know who to help and who to walk away from because she has not lived in the poor persons, circumstance. In general, she believes that our circumstance shapes how we think to a large degree. So much so that some people would choose the company of a pet to the offer of free shelter. This was clearly demonstrated in New Orleans after the hurricane where some chose to stay on their roof surrounded by 18 feet of water rather than to leave their dog.

It doesn’t make sense. It is not logical. In my economy the life of a dog or cat is not worth the life of a human. But to them it is. That pet has become more than an animal to them. The part that haunts me about this phenomenon is the apparent inability of these people to think otherwise. Is it their choice or are they emotionally trapped? Are they actually a slave to the circumstance that formed them?

I have always believed that everyone has a choice. If you turn down an apartment and a kennel in the garage for your cats because the landlord won’t let the cats in the house, well, it’s your choice and you have chosen the consequences of life-on-the-street. At that point I would say there is a total lack of humility and I would walk away. This is where I was at the time I wrote the last blog. But, then, a persistent thought came. I don’t remember if it came before the conversation with my daughter or after. None the less, it caused me to look at Luke 4:18 again. In summary it says:

• The Spirit has anointed me to:
• Preach the gospel to the poor
• Proclaim release to the captives
• Proclaim recovery to the blind
• Set free the oppressed

This is how Jesus described His ministry not only once but He said the same thing in answer to John the Baptists’ question, “Are you the one or should we look for another?” This, then, by association is my ministry. However, I have a question about this verse. Was Jesus talking about four groups of people or just one group? Could it be that this verse is a description of the poor? A paraphrase could be, “Preach the Gospel to the poor. You know, those people who are captives of their circumstance; those folks who have been poor for so many generations they can’t see any other way. They are blind. Give them sight. They are the ones that the powerful oppress and exploit. Preach the gospel to these people, the poor, because the Gospel can free them.”

OK, where does that leave me? How do I help the poor, even the ones who spurn the offer and literally disrespect me? Is there ever a time to say enough is enough? Here is another question that I really need to find the answer to. Am I hung up on the exception or will most of the poor respond like the van-man? My experience with the poor is so limited I have no data. I guess I better go get some.

This week I am continuing the discussion about the poor. A friend of mine commented on last weeks’ blog saying that her definition of the poor includes the poor emotionally, relationally and spiritually as well as financially. I agree with her. However, what I am saying is that the church she and I attend and most of the churches we are acquainted with have multiple programs for all the poor except the financial/social group.

Be that as it may, what I would like to talk about this week is another aspect of our responsibility to the poor. Also, it may be that my conclusions this week are equally applicable to all the classifications of “poor”. The question that is begged here is do we minister to all the poor or is there a time and circumstance to walk away? I have to tread lightly here least I sound like I am compromising on my previous stance. I don’t mean to do that at all. It is just that it only took a couple of weeks after writing the blog titled, “Luke 4:18”, for circumstances to arise that made me investigate the question. Remember the man-in-the-van from a couple of weeks ago (see “Luke 4:18, blog 1/10/10). He has begun to cop an entitlement attitude. My pastor gave him some requirements for ‘camping out’ on our church parking lot. Two of them were he needed to attend a service and he had to vacate the lot when school was in session. In turn, van-man did none of these things and was rude to one of the secretaries of the school. He also turned down an offer of an apartment because he has three cats living with him in his van and the landlord would not allow pets in the apartment. So, how far do we go here? What would Jesus do? What did Jesus do?

I may have found and answer, at least one that works for me. When/where did Jesus walk away from people? Two instances come to mind, when He returned to Nazareth and in Capernaum when most of His disciple left Him because of what He had told them. What attitude or characteristic did the people exhibit in these two accounts that caused Jesus to reject their requests at Nazareth and push them away with His words in Capernaum?

If you recall the people of Nazareth wanted Jesus to perform the same miracles He did in other places. Instead he reminded them of how they and their fathers rejected all the prophets before Him. In Capernaum Jesus told His followers that following Him meant more that a free meal. It meant total sacrifice and they left.

I think the reason is that Jesus sensed in the people of Nazareth and His followers at Capernaum a lack of humility. There was no recognition of any need for grace. Since Jesus was a Nazarene the people thought He should put on the same “show” for them and they got mad when He didn’t. His many disciples were in it for the free ride and maybe the glory but not because they had a desperate spiritual need that Jesus could fill.

The longer I think and study about humility the more clearly I understand why many of the ancient philosophers like St. Bernard and St. Thomas Aquinas considered humility as the foundational virtue second only to faith. Next week I would like to further explore the virtue of humility leaning heavily on the writings of C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller. But, back to the van-man, what would Jesus do here? I think He would tell him to go away and wait until He, Jesus, saw that van-man had recognized a need for grace both physically and spiritually.

I sat down today to write a poem about the poor, perhaps a story of a homeless person. I wanted to create something that would touch the emotions of those that read it. I found that I could not do it. The topic is so broad and I know so little about it.

The poor are like a nation within a nation, a culture if you will with sub-cultures. Take the homeless for example. It seems to me that the majority of these people were not born into this group. They joined it in their twenties and older. But, I really don’t know this. I have heard about homeless children who survive on the streets but I have never seen one. For all I know there may be more homeless children than adults worldwide.

I am told there are homeless who have jobs but choose to live on the streets. I don’t know, I guess it’s so. Now that I think about it I had more contact with the homeless in my childhood than now. You see, I grew up beside a railroad track and we would occasionally give a homeless man (it was always a man) a meal. Back then we called them hobos and it was fairly safe to do that sort of thing.

What about the teaming thousands that have a place to live that is more substantial than a cardboard box but their income is below some government assigned level. They too are the poor. It is relative, though, isn’t it? The poor in say Chicago would be middle class in Haiti right now. But lets keep it at home for now.

As I said, I grew up in a lower income neighborhood. I could look across the tracks onto Maryland Avenue where kids had more that I did. But I never felt disadvantaged. I did not think of myself as poor. I saw them as rich and I wanted to be there but it spawned no resentment. I would just wonder what it would be like. And you know what, now I know. I raised my children in neighborhood better than Maryland Avenue. Even when I was poor or close to it, by government standards, I did not experience it.

I remember asking Dad to drive through the slums of Canton, Ohio. It was actually a pretty small area. I was probably 10 or so and I was fascinated by these people that had to survive. They had a toughness that I did not have but respected, almost envied. I didn’t know how close to them I was.

Am I expressing myself clearly? Can you see that I know nothing about the poor, how they think, who they are, really? Here are some questions I have:

Are the poor a culture or are certain cultures poor?
Is being poor a way of thinking or a state of being?
I have been below the poverty line but I did not feel poor, why?
Does social capital make up for financial capital?

That’s it isn’t it? To be truly poor you must be lacking financially and socially. Take a look at my heritage. My Dad was truly poor as a child, bare foot, mother-taking-in-boarders kind of poor. But, first they were white and second she provided the love and guidance necessary for Dad to graduate from high school and eventually become a truck driver. This allowed him to eventually buy a very modest house where he raised me beside the railroad track.

I didn’t feel poor because Mom and Dad filled the financial holes with social capital. They pushed my oldest brother to go to college. He was the first in my family to do so. He broke the ice. From there my road was defined. All I had to do was make good decisions and walk right into upper-middle class professionalism in my career, my church, my community. I know nothing about the poor.

Here is a thought. Could it be that the root problem is not financial? Jesus said, “Go and preach the Gospel to the poor.” He also said that I will be judged by what I do about and with the poor. At the moment, I am overwhelmed. Nearly frozen in place by the size of the task and a little frightened.