On The Holy Spirit

Tags

believer, Bible study, doubt, experience, Forgotton God, Francis Chan, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, love, panic, prayer, salvation, small group, trinity

I don’t tend to like quote small groups studies. But I was really finding this group of people interesting and fun, so I swallowed my feelings for small groups and went to theirs, feigning eagerness to swap ignorance with these, my peers. We were reading, together, a book by Francis Chan. Good book, no doubt. We chatted about the Holy Spirit, about how we ignore Him, about how we don’t understand the Trinity so we talk Jesus-this and Jesus-that when Jesus talked Holy Spirit-this-and-that. It’s all messed up so we tried to make sense of some of it. It was as all small groups for me have ever been, a below-average life experience, but one thing gave me pause. Well, two things did.

The one was this question Chan asked in the book, “When’s the last time you saw the Holy Spirit work?” And I wasn’t worried when I read it.  I’m a Bible-believing follower of Jesus Christ.  This is no problem.  It’s the “gimmie” question on the mid-term exam.  It’s the golf ball you can sneeze into the hole, it’s so close to in.  It’s the–  Then I realized…I didn’t know.  I didn’t know the last time I saw the Spirit work.  I couldn’t remember the last time I saw the Spirit work.  Oh my gosh.  I hadn’t seen the Spirit work.  Panic.

The other kind of pause was less dramatic.  In trying to understand how we “see” the Spirit at work in our immediate lives, I was posing this question to these pseudo-friends of mine: Can you give me an example of experiential knowledge of the Spirit in your life? They spoke only in generalities when they answered and so I gave a story about how I felt my heart changed over time in praying for the salvation of my friends.

I was thinking of two whilst I spoke and told them how I’ve prayed for years the same prayer that ebbs and flows as the days roll on, just adjusting it’s dialect but always begging my God for the same result. When I used to pray, I believed that God would. I’ve always believed that He is able. I experienced the way He saved me from a life not unlike each of theirs, so it’s not a matter of not believing. But over time, little details change, huge shifts take place, my perspective grows and my heart is transformed. I don’t know how it happens, but I believe that God will in a new way now.

I know with an overwhelming confidence that, though these men are still in unlove with my Savior, that God is doing something. I pray the same prayer, still, but with a fresh kind of assurance. My point was that, I think the Spirit has shifted me. This is my experienctial knowledge.

Without realizing it, I had seen the Spirit work. A man across the group said my name to break the silence. Linda… He’s a quiet kind of guy, which is cute. From what you just shared with us, you have seen the Spirit work.

They startled me, his words.  They nudged me with an elbow and I was just dozing off. Oh yes, I had! I sure had seen the Holy Spirit of this Living God work in my life.

Unstuck from Assumptions

Tags

action, Belief, Chicago, church, community, disciple-making, discipleship, downtown, friends, friendship, group, house church, Jesus Christ, life, love, Michigan, Mozart, Rogers Park, sacrifice, social, tangible love, theology, Tuesday night, West Michigan

They’re not fair, these assumptions. These assumptions I’m carrying about making friends and settling down in this new part of town are just residue from my grief. I didn’t realize until my last couple days in Chicago how sad I was to leave this group of people who have been growing into my own community over the past several months. I drove halfway to Michigan in need of windshield wipers hanging from my eyelashes because they were behind me, these people. I was driving away from them. Their love, the direction of their thoughts, the way their actions match, it’s changing the way I think. The way folks practice Christianity, yet again, is influencing my cerebral theology.

Chicago Community in Summer 2010

These assumptions I carry, they say it doesn’t get any better than the apartment on Mozart. That’s where we’d meet on Tuesday nights. My assumptions say that Mozart is the standard, the ultimate expression of Christ’s love among others, and that even searching for something comparable is following a pirate map and finding no treasure at the end. I’ll never find anything to match. My assumptions say there will only ever be disappointment apart from Mozart.

I have to be able to see through these changes to the clarity beyond. The Mozart folks sent me a letter today. The kind where everyone writes a message and signs their name. They must have passed it around on Tuesday night, the first Tuesday that I was gone. I mean, here. Nothing in their words said specifically that I’m wrong, that I’m assuming things that will only achieve loneliness, but I know that I am. They’re on the right track, these dear friends of mine, living like Christ, transforming lives, effecting change. But they can’t be the only ones.  They just can’t be.

There are folks here who have hearts bent in the same kinds of twists and turns. I’m sure of it. There are folks here with crazy ideas that maybe [gasp!] don’t even fit into the structure of the institutional church but, yet, are Christlike to the utmost. Ideas that are wise, that are love incarnate, that are sacrificial and hard. And if I sit on these assumptions, I’ll never meet them to know. Here goes.

My name is Bob and I’m an alcoholic.

Tags

AA, absolute truth, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, divorce, drinking, family, higher power, Jesus Christ, pluralism, truth

Hi, there.  My name is Bob and I’m an alcoholic.

That’s my dad.  And I never really like it when he says that—that he’s an alcoholic.  I mean, he is, they all are forever, I guess.  That’s what he says.  But he hasn’t really been since I was a little girl and we lived in the old house with the night when he came home drunk and the yelling that woke me from bed in my nightgown and Mom that made him sleep in the car in the garage while my little brother and I sat behind her on the stairs, sniffling.

I’m thankful to my higher power, which I choose to call God.

That’s what Dad says at the meetings when it’s his turn to talk.  He told me today and I was silent for a long time after.  I knew that people said that kind of stuff; I know all about higher power this and that from AA.  I just never knew that’s what Dad said, too.

Him and Mom went splitsville in their marriage two years or so ago and it was a surprise even though it wasn’t a surprise at all.  They’d always been off, because they’re both a little off—the way we’re all a little off.  Dad moved out when I was living in Colorado.  I drove through the mountains to the public library one day while Dad told me about his apartment-condo-y place.  He was staying there all alone and Mom was at home.  I remember the road, the phone to my ear, and it was all surreal. 

When Mom and Dad got righted again, and we all lived in the same shared home, I thought they were figuring out the Jesus thing, too.  I thought we were past ethereal pluralism and new spirituality, where all this higher power help lives.  When red balloons are red, they are red for everyone, even if folks want to see them as blue or green or aquamarine.  A place where true things are always true and we’re bold enough to be exclusive because life has consequences.

I’m just as broken, just as addicted, just as absurdly perfect of a candidate for the hundreds of thousands of AA meetings across the country this Thursday afternoon.  And my higher power is the King of Kings, the Savior of the world.  And not one of my twelve steps is worth a damn without Him.

The One Thing Is…

Tags

Andrew Marin, Bible, Chicago, church, D.L. Moody, doctrine, Emmanuel, God, graduate school, Jesus Christ, love, Moody Bible Institute, Moody Theological Seminary, theology, writing

I’ve been purging and reviewing each of the 20+ page doctrinal papers that I’ve written during my time in grad school these past few days (trying to inch closer and closer to my graduation in less than one month). I have to summarize them into one page a piece. Besides the fact that I thought it would be a breeze (and it’s not), the whole process is raising questions I never realized I had. I’ll only go into two. The one thing is…

Love.

The thing with love is that I learn one new thing about it, and I think I know what it is. I’m Sherlock Holmes, I’ve figured it out; case closed. Months later, maybe sooner, I learn something brand new – something fascinating and wise and I realize that I didn’t have it all figured out after all. So I soon re-visit that place of comfort, where I, again, think that I have it all figured out with my latest bit of information. As you may have guessed, this goes on. And on and on. It’s a ridiculously foolish cycle. One I wish I could get a clue about!

I’m not going to give you any church answers. It will never be my style. I’m not a Sunday-school kinda kid. I won’t have a spiritual breakthrough from my cookie-cutter, Pastor’s-kid, spoon-fed-faith upbringing when I’m in my early twenties. I’ll just continue to have a series of fresh breakthroughs as I’ve already set the precedent for, since I know and will continue to know very little about anything. Let’s be real, here, I’m always trying to figure out life and godliness [1 Pet 1:3]. If it’s not love, it’s everything else.

In my doctrinal paper I say that God acts on behalf of the highest good of others. That’s love. I believe that. His love is based on His unchanging character. I believe that, too. It’s modeled with all kinds of perfect in the atonement [1 Jn. 4:8] and we are surely capable of love by way of His model [Dt. 7:7-11]. Yep, yep.

I defended, the other day, the idea that love is manifest in presence. That the “big idea” of the gospel is God being with us, displaying His love. In the OT, He busts down from heaven to be with the men of faith and it’s a huge deal when God “comes down” from the big “up there”. The whole story of the Bible is set up to bring about the Cross, Emmanuel, God With Us, Jesus. And after His death and resurrection, God sends the Holy Spirit to stay quite literally with us. I can’t understand how it’s not the big idea (or one of them). It seems like it’s jumping out of the pages of Scripture. God wants to love me by being with me. I believe this.

My friend, Andy, in his book (Love is an Orientation) speaks so poignantly about Biblical expressions of love that it blows my mind. He’s not talking about theological “verbary” and other nonsense, he’s talking about what it downright looks like (he’s very good at this distinction) to love it out in real life! In the chapter, Reclaiming the Word Love he defines love as, “tangible and measurable expressions of one’s unconditional behaviors toward another” (108). What is love worth if, as real people, we have nothing to hold onto as a result of it? My parents, my siblings, my friends will not know that I love them because I say so, they’ll know because I will show who I am to them by the things I do for them. God did not stay far away from us and holler it out, He did not talk about how He felt or what was required of us, He just straight up did something for us that showed His love in a real way. I believe love is tangible.

The confusing part, as I’m summarizing God’s characteristics into three-word sentences with a list of Scripture references is that the summary isn’t fair. It’s what I have to do to try and show that I’m going to rep Moody well; I’m going to carry the stamp of Mr. D.L. Moody without heresy or newspaper-headline-style falling away. I’m gonna mess up, they know that – but I can’t be planning on doing it with colossal flare, complete with pyrotechnics and a soundtrack and then expect to blame it on my educators or something…crazy.

However – love can’t be canned into abbreviated sentences. I bet I’ll be defining and re-defining it until the day I meet the embodiment of it, until I meet Him – face to face. What else would you expect? I’m barely surviving in this messy world. I can’t see clearly through the foggy mirror on my best day, so the very best I can do is make out the shapes that I can see as best as I know how from the fuzzy reflection. I’m the fuzzy reflection for others, too. We’re just trying. And it’s just for now.

Is this where “working definition” came from?

lurv.

Tags

city, God, graffiti, Jesus Christ, love, poetry, relationship, sacrifice

LOVE IS NOT CANDY AND FLOWERS
IT’S LONELY SHADOWS AND EMPTY HOURS

On the back of a street sign in front of the LaSalle St. Theatre, currently showing Jersey Boys, in the heart of Chicago’s Loop, you’ll find (if it’s withstood the weathering these past few months) a sticker that humbly proclaims this message.

Is it true for you?

I thought it was true for me. I found it for the first time, deftly guided, and I nodded in deep agreement. I knew love wasn’t easy; I could testify; I even loved the poeticism that embraced the metaphor. I’d seen too many romantic comedies that end happily ever after with all the glitter and gold of romantic love. There’s just no way, I thought. That’s not the way it really works.  Heartache is true, and so is this.

But I was wrong. I was wrong to agree. I can’t deny the lyrical stepping that the phrase achieves, and no, everything about love isn’t always pretty and the romantic comedies still aren’t right. But. But love is not, it’s certainly not lonely and empty. If love is lonely and empty for you, let me gently suggest that it’s not love. It could be a thousand other things, but don’t be fooled to think that it’s love.  Love, perfect love, never leaves you lonely or empty.  Not a chance.

Christ’s love for me is real. I may feel lonely or lost at times, but at those times my understanding of God’s love for me isn’t complete. Jesus doesn’t make everything glitter and gold the moment you trust Him. No, sir. But can I readily admit the gaping hole in my comprehension? Is it even possible that I might be missing something? Or am I too proud to say so? When I’m properly understanding the big picture, God’s love for me is deeply sacrificial and meets every single need I could even imagine having. In His love, as He is love, God does the best possible good for me, His child, every time. Isn’t that better than candy and flowers? Sometimes I don’t even know what the best possible good is for me.  But God loves me unconditionally, and whatever the elusive “best” is, He acts in that direction on my behalf. It’s better than every amazing stereotype that love gets. It’s life-saving, literally. And it’s how love between you and me should at least try to function.

Much love.

Magic (Nothing about) Christian(s)

Tags

Bob Dylan, books, character, Christian, Christianity, Jesus Christ, literature, Magic Christian, music, novel, story, Terry Southern

There’s a book by Terry Southern. The margins are thick, lots of white space, less than a hundred pages of goings-on. It’s called The Magic Christian, a name which is a whole hearted misnomer at face value.

The little white novel is said, though verified to what degree – I can’t be sure, to have been the book that Bob Dylan used to have with him all the time as he was getting cleaned up and, however nominally, faith-based. He’d carry it under his arm maybe as a pretense, or maybe because he was leafing through it for a third or fourth time, who’s to say? But I thought reading it might give some insight further into his elusive character.

As it turns out, the book is a thousand surprises. It hardly carries my curiosity page after page to find out how the absurdities of this character, Guy Grand, will come to mean anything at all. My curiosity, you see, is strong.  And it’s not quenched by a monotonous plotline with no peaks in the action, or in my below-sea-level of intrigue.  It’s just that, too many pages of this Guy Grand and his antics without explanation begs some questions.  The protagonist is strange.  No, it’s something more than that, further off the charts than your day-to-day out of place person. If I knew him, I’d hear people call him out of his mind, and say he’s lost his marbles. Insane! Ridiculous! Unbelievable! Asinine! We, today, wouldn’t tolerate his games for even a second.  Yet he carries on in these frivolous pranks of his, unexplained, and without clear motive or resolution.

I can’t tell if he thinks they’re a good idea.  Or if he thrills at fooling America’s brightest bulbs.  Why doesn’t he earn a reputation for failure?  Can his money really buy such a clean slate time and time again?

For example, to simplify the particulars of my favorite trick: he buries hundreds of thousands of dollars, in bills, deep within a city block-long pile of warm manure and urine mixture.  And after painting a sign that says “free money”, he pays off the police to turn their heads for the morning, gets on a plane, and flies across the country to his home. No motive as far as I can tell, just a lot of money and some kind of unearthed desire towards the impossible.  And the chapter, of course, ends without the faintest explanation.

The “Magic Christian” doesn’t appear until the final few chapters of the novel.  It’s a boat.  A yacht or Titanic sort of enterprise that Guy Grand buys, as he does repeatedly to large corporations and organizations throughout.  Passengers have to apply for a spot on the cruiseship.  It’s only for the most elite.  But, there’s an element of facade to all of that, because Guy stows away half a hundred outcasts and weirdoes below deck, for release among the pristine passengers a few days into the trip.  He creates a plot of kidnapping and abuse through this video feed of the boat’s captain which, as planned, pushes passengers to see the mental health doctor aboard ship, who must be in on the plot.  But, for what, I cannot discern.  Guy Grand, himself, is on the boat as it turns into total chaos, but he just ignites protests among the unknowing passengers.  On and on it goes, until the boat returns home and Guy, as he has done for each prank thus far, pays off anyone who knows the truth in order to keep things hush hush.

So why this clustermess of a story under the arm of this legendary singer-songwriter?  I toyed with the idea that he sees some tongue-in-cheek parallels between the facade and the truth of Christianity, but I can’t even find the details to put together that simple theory.  I could be Dylan’s sincere view of Christianity, unreflective of Christ in any way, which would explain a pretty little thing or two.  It could also be that the whole situation lacks a single connection, and I’m tearing my hair out for nothing.  The book has nothing to do with Christians, Dylan’s never read it, he never even carried it like they say.  But.  I can’t shake a feeling that there’s something beneath the vanity of Guy Grand’s ideas.  I can’t get at it just yet, and can’t fathom how Dylan had it figured out.

Love Wins

Tags

Christianity, emergent, emergent church, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, love, religion, Rob Bell

Relational Concepts [relationalconcepts.org] just put out a new article on the phrase sprawled across Michigander bumper stickers and the ideas behind it. Does love really always win?, I remember asking when I lived in Michigan and saw the stickers all the time. My mind skipped to Jesus turning the tables in the temple, wondering if love was winning there, or if Jesus had another immediate purpose, or if that isolated incident was far out of context, or if choice D, all of the above would be right-er…

It’s a mushy view of the Gospel that love always wins. Imbalanced at the least, I’d say (like ragamuffin).   It’s oversimplifying to a fault.  And it’s sort of a reconstruction of the image of Jesus Christ, which is severely detrimental to Christianity because people don’t have a solid picture of the historical Jesus as it is.  Why y’all gotta go messing it up further?

Love is one characteristic among many that needs to be balanced and in solid interaction with the rest of God.  I won’t ever lie to you, unbelieving friend, and tell you that it’s all gonna be okay, or that I’ll be there no matter what, or that love wins with this God I love, all the time.  I’d rather give you a Bible and let you see the full story for yourself.  Start in the gospel of John, maybe.

I largely digress…

Wielding Words Well

Tags

atheism, Christian, Christianity, God, Jesus Christ, words, writing

I won’t ever go into professional blogging.  I’ll mess around with it some more, but I won’t stay here.  I’ll never stop crafting words, and finding new tools to use, but it won’t likely be on your computer screen.  Books and bundled things are becoming slowly old school, but whatever I do will make a pass at keeping the offline alive. 

And though I worked for Expedia for about as long as it took me to realize that selling those knife sets in high school was a scam, I don’t think I was very good at those online summaries either.  Here, however, if a writer who knows the tone, the ins and outs of the demands of online writing.  Writers, take note(s).  Atheists, rebut if you must, but you should also be taking notes.

This kid’s brilliant : Jim on science and religion via Barnes and Noble excursion.

Just The Way You Like It

Tags

choice, God, Heaven, Hell, Israel, Jesus, Jesus Christ, pride, Ravi Zacharius, salvation, stubborn

If a person is determined to have it his or her own way, then to be in the presence of God would be Hell… If you reject God in this life, then you would reject him in a million lifetimes, because it’s clear that it is all about you… RAVI

If you’ve ever read one of his books, certainly if you’ve heard him speak…Ravi’s likely right.  But it still takes a bit for that to settle without indigestion in my stomach.  All the pleas for a melting heart, a crushing blow to the brick wall of stubbornness in him, a softening of her pride – making her feel safe not small in humility, can be legitimately changed over time or in a REM cycle, car crash, blackout, or messy trip.  I trust that.   

Or. . .that stubborn pride can be his truest heartbeat.  The deepest love of her soul can be self-satisfaction. 

And, as with Israel in her rebellion, the Lord gave her kings when she wanted kings, judges when she wanted judges, adultery when she wanted that, too.  None of it good, and here is she, still estranged from Him because of that stubborn will.   

What a mess when certainty and tunnel-visioned ignorance stomp the pursuit of truth into the curbs and gutters of this alleyway life.  I sometimes wish they didn’t want the things I don’t.  And hate the things I love.  But, sick truth is, that kind of heart unchanged will never want to live with me in the glory of eternity. 

I always picture them regretting their absence of choice, but I’m wondering if it will be regret.  Or if the cursing with just get louder, as if it’s the fault of the God who doesn’t exist.