Friend: Hey Christian, its good to see you, how has your week been?
Christian: Oh, its been okay, thanks.
Friend: Why just okay? Anything going on with you?
Christian: Oh, no. Nothing major. I'm not sure why I said okay.
Friend: Well, is something minor bothering you?
Christian: I guess, yeah. It's hard to describe. I just live with this background noise that's like a nagging feeling in my stomach. I feel mildly agitated and don't really want to live like that.
Friend: Yeah. What do you do about it?
Christian: That's a good question. I don't really do much about it. I think I try to ignore it. If I keep myself pretty busy and distracted then it kind of just fades into the background.
Friend: Like a background noise?
Christian: Yeah.
Friend: So you distract yourself?
Christian: Yeah, I try to stay really busy, or occupied. You know, when I am not busy with work I habitually check my phone, scroll through Facebook, read blogs, watch TV.
Friend: Anything else?
Christian: Sometimes religious activities. Reading theology, serving in ministries, reading and sharing blog articles. Or sports and activities. Or food. Either eating it, or worrying about not eating it, or what to eat, or how I feel from eating it. Sometimes I wonder if the problem is nutritional or dietary. Maybe I have one of those intolerances everyone talks about.
Friend: Maybe. How does the distraction thing play into that? If you are constantly distracting yourself, you must be distracting yourself from something.
Christian: Yeah. I am distracting myself. I don't like that nagging feeling.
Friend: Does it work?
Christian: What?
Friend: The distraction. Does it make the nagging thing go away?
Christian: No, it doesn't. I mean, for awhile. If I really focus on other things then it kind of recedes for awhile. Sometimes really working hard at exercise and diet seem to give me some level of relief, which I have to settle for.
Friend: Do you?
Chrsitian: Do I what?
Friend: Do you have to settle?
Christian: I guess not.
Friend: If you had a dog in your yard that wouldn't stop barking night and day, do you think the best solution would be to try to distract yourself from the sound?
Christian: Haha, no. I would tell it to go home.
Friend: Yeah.
Christian: Okay, so distracting myself is the wrong way to deal. But what do I do, how do I send it home?
Friend: I think that depends on what it is.
Christian: How do I figure that out?
Friend: Well, I think it would be good to start with the basics.
Christian: That makes sense. What are you referring to?
Friend: What is your deepest need?
Christian: Food?
Friend: Think like a Christian.
Christian: Okay. I guess my deepest problem is sin, so my deepest need is forgiveness and freedom from sin.
Friend: Good. And have you been given a way to deal with sin?
Christian: Yes, Jesus dealt with it.
Friend: Most true! And what are you then called to do with your sin?
Christian: Um... confess and repent?
Friend: Right. Do you do that?
Christian: Well, sure.
Friend: Regularly and deeply, as a practice?
Christian: No. Honestly, it is pretty sporadic.
Friend: So could feelings of guilt for unconfessed sin be what is bothering you?
Christian: I suppose so. Does guilt work like that?
Friend: Think about your closest relationships: parents, siblings, spouse, kids. When you wrong them does it affect the relationship? Does it affect the way you act and feel around them?
Christian: Yeah, it does. I try to avoid them, I have a nagging feeling that things aren't right.
Friend: How does it get better?
Christian: When I admit what I did wrong and apologize. It is amazing how restorative that is to the relationship and to me.
Friend: Do you see what I am getting at here?
Christian: Yeah. But confession is hard. How can I confess every sin?
Friend: Start with the ones you remember. Start generally. Ask God to reveal more that is in the way. Do you think he wants guilt to stand between you? What lengths has he gone to in order to remove it?
Christian: Yeah.
Friend: Confess every day. As you fall, rise through confession. Ask him to forgive the ones you don't see. And do it all purposefully. Consider your sin. Consider the guilt of it. Own it all the way to the bottom, without excusing, justifying, or blaming. Then plunge it fully in the blood of Jesus, put all your sin on him, and rise with a clean conscience, knowing it is finished. If guilt nags at you, remind it of Christ and his sacrifice. Do you know the joy of a clean conscience?
Christian: Kind of.
Friend: It is a treasure worth digging for. It is freely yours in Christ. Seek it.
Christian: Will this solve all my problems.
Friend: I don't know. But if you are not in the practice of daily confession this would be the place to start. Christ promises rest to those who come to him.
Christian: Thanks for talking to me about this.
Friend: Go in peace.
There is a common struggle among Christians who want to know God's will for their life. Rightly understood and pursued, this is a great thing. Wanting to do whatever God would have us do, and to sift out of that any measure of sinful desire is beautiful, it is seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. When we are seeking this well, that is--by faith, it will help us and keep us moving forward. But often we hang up at this point and become paralyzed by uncertainty and filled with anxiety. What is going on here?
I think part of what hangs us up in the desire to "know God's will" is a desire to control the future, to know and determine it exhaustively, to insist on making choices based on all the possible information. But this is not how we were created, and it is to agitate against our creatureliness. We don't have all the information; we were not meant to have all the information. We are given all the information we need, and we have a Father in heaven who loves us and promises to guide us and go with us. He delights to call us to walk by faith in him, to trust that we are in his hand.
God called Abraham to go to a place that he would show him. He told him to leave everything he knew to go to a place as yet undisclosed. Where am I going? What will the provisions be like? Will there be enemies? Don't I need a pro and con list? You have all the information you need. Trust me, and go.
God called Abraham to sacrifice his son, the one he had already promised to use to make Abraham into a great nation. How will that happen if Isaac is dead? You have all the information you need. Trust me, and go.
How did Abraham know it was God's voice? That is a good question. Jesus tells us that his sheep know him and they hear his voice, and they follow him, and they will not follow another. The question is crippling in the abstract (how might I know), but when the time is right, you know.
Walking by faith in God, moving forward even when we don't know for sure, is part of what it means to seek his kingdom and righteousness. God is an active part of the story. He doesn't call, and send, and then not accompany. If you check your heart, and by his grace you set yourself to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, you should not worry that he will abandon you along the way. You have a promise that when you seek his kingdom and righteousness first, he will take care of the details. Your Father knows that you need these things. Is he the kind of Father who would send you on an errand and not supply you with what you need? Is the the kind of Father who is able to make people's sandals not wear out during long treks through the desert? Is he the kind of Father who withholds good things from you? What has he given you already?
Following God by faith means passionately pursuing future possibilities with an excited realization that God could decisively change our course at any time. We don't see everything, but he does. We want to see everything and then act. He wants us to realize that he sees everything and trust him. All of this adds excitement, wonder, and mystery to our story. I don't know what is around the next corner, and that creates dramatic tension. It could be a chest of gold, or it could be a dragon. It could be a smooth section of path through a quiet glade, or it could be a dangerous, rocky ascent. This shouldn't make me sit down and look for a map that I know I don't have. I should feel my heart thump, feel the blood course through my veins, say a prayer, and walk forward.
The price of this excitement, wonder, and mystery; what we have to give up in order to embrace it, is control and a demand for exhaustive knowledge which we can never have. Not a bad trade.
When I really need to pray about something I go for a drive in my truck.
Driving has the right amount of distraction. It requires enough focus that I can't be doing anything else, but is automatic enough that I can freely talk to God about what is on me and in me.
The other good thing about it is that I am in a little box, sealed off from the outside world, so I can get loud and people don't think I have lost it (which I have in some senses).
So I drive around, gesticulating wildly, shouting my prayers to God, and sometimes crying. I am sure it is quite a spectacle. The danger of it is a lack of reverence. Any time you start raising your voice with God you have to be careful that your heart is right. I try to be careful to say something like "I know you are right, but it feels to me like..."
Fill in the blank.
"you are not there."
"I don't have the strength, patience, and love to do what you are calling me to do."
"it is all death and no resurrection."
You get the angle.
That first part about knowing that God is right is crucial. It is deep folly to assume that I am right and God is wrong. Nevertheless sometimes I have to wrestle with him to get to seeing things right side up. These kinds of prayer times are almost always wildly beneficial and overdue.
I was encouraged today when I read and was struck by a description of Jesus' prayers that sounded an awful lot like my loud times in my truck.
"In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence." Hebrews 5:7
Well, the loud cries and tears part.
I try really hard to imitate him in the reverence, and I see there in Hebrews how crucial it is. It is why he was heard. Jesus' reverence is also why I am heard, and I really want to imitate him in it.
I don't think I usually associate loud cries and reverence. I think I usually think of reverence as quiet and still.
I don't always have a quiet time. When I do they are usually far less helpful than my loud times, so long as they are clothed in reverence.
I have found the secret to parenting.
It is contained in the phrase "the law says do, the gospel says done."
Along with that is an understanding that commands do no good to help us obey, only the promise does.
So now when my kids don't want to eat their vegetables, instead of telling them to eat their vegetables (do) I tell them about how sure I am Jesus ate his vegetables for them (done).
When it is bedtime, I don't tell them to go to bed (do), I just tell them how Jesus slept the sleep of death for them (done), and sit back and wait for them to run and jump into bed.
When they want to play in the street, I don't warn them of the dangers, nor do I tell them they are not allowed (do). I just simply tell them that Jesus died for them (done) and I am sure they will make the proper connections.
Anything else is legalism that I have happily gotten free from. I feel so much better now, so free.
Just kidding, I don't do that.
That would be a bad idea.
I love the gospel centered movement. I poke fun at parts of it here because small gospel thinking doesn't show a deep love for the gospel. If I objected to my favorite song being turned into muzak, you should not think I had decided to be against my favorite song. In fact, the more I love it, the more offended I will be by its hollowing out.
Apart from Christ's work we have no hope.
The gospel is the good news about God's work for us in Christ's death and resurrection.
We are accepted by God purely on the work of Christ and not on our own work.
We grow by the power of God's Spirit at work in us as a result of regeneration.
God has lots of good means for our growth. The promises, commands, and warnings of his word are part of those good means.
Apart from faith and regeneration none of them will do us any good because our hearts are in rebellion against God.
If you stumble over that, ask yourself what God told us the Scriptures are for in 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
