"it would be rash to say that there is any prayer which God never grants. but the strongest candidate is the prayer we might express in the single word encore. and how should the Infinite repeat Himself? all space and time are too little for Him to utter Himself in them once.
"and the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year's blooms, and you will get nothing."
-c.s. lewis "letters to malcolm chiefly on prayer"
nothing to add. just amen.
1.29.2010
1.16.2010
chuckle of the day
a friend of mine has this picture on her fridge. i've been thinking about it for the last couple of weeks. and it never ceases to make me chuckle. it's so true. enjoy!
1.06.2010
ruthless trust
i recently finished the book "ruthless trust" by brennan manning. a worthy read to be sure. "ragamuffin gospel" still takes the cake for me, but this one was good. toward the end of the book, i wonder if brennan looked through his window and saw me walking by. maybe he read my mind. he so beautifully articulates what's in my heart that is eerie to me...enjoy!
now let me speak to an entirely different cadre of christians - the company of the beleaguered believers who are racked with uncertainty, tormented by doubts, and haunted by unanswered questions. they are sold out to Christ, and yet they struggle constantly, fearing that human freedom is fatal. as one woman told me, "people say that God won't force Himself on us. well, i don't need that kind of courtesy." these individuals want to embrace the gospel, yet they cannot seem to get inside it. the most frustrating words they hear are, "you just have to believe," because belief does not come easily - and sometimes not at all. admirably, they refuse to fake it, even though that stance may mean resigning themselves to being outsiders in the faith community. but they are not outsiders in the fellowship of ragamuffins. one of the great christian writers of our generation belongs to their company, and i consider him a spiritual giant.
these brave souls enter deeply into the existential loneliness of the human condition and refuse to quit. where can they go to meet with their elusive deity? "i can't pray, 'Abba, i belong to you,'" a friend told me, "because it feels phony - as if i'm just mouthing words i don't really believe." yet the mysterious love of God is fierce enough to penetrate even those who think that they cannot receive it. as they sink into the silence of infinite Mercy, the outsiders become aware of the Presence and hear a gentle voice whipser, "I am here. do not be afraid. within the dissonance and contremps of your troubled world, I live and reign." just as for many alcoholics, recovery begins on the far side of despair, so for the outsiders, trust lies on the far side of hopelessness.
1.03.2010
wrestling with God
i posted this back in 2005 when i was going through some hard things in senegal. now again in 2010 i find myself in a similar place and these words are more true than i care to admit. this is from "living fearlessly" by sheila walsh:
Wrestling with God
Your chapter begins to reveal an un-talked about side of God’s mysterious and dark character (dark to me, dark to us): the part of him we cannot grasp and yet at the same time the part of him we are not summoned to approach with passive acceptance, passionateless peace, superficial professions of joy and assurance. No, we are summoned to personal battle. This battle, this fight, isn’t with the world, the flesh, or the devil, but is instead a messy, sweaty, bloody, painful, no-holds-barred wrestling match with God himself.
This is the part of our relationship with God that we never sing about and almost never talk about--at least not in public, not from the pulpit. And yet these times of intense lament, even slugging it out with God, are encounters to which he himself summons me: messy, grunting, often loud wrestling matches to which he himself invites me to battle with nothing less than unfettered honesty, replete with malodorous sweat and bloody woundedness. Wrestling with all my feeble might—like Jacob, like Job, like Jesus.
Problem is, this divine summons, this gut-wrenching reality, makes most Christians (at least in the West) so intensely uncomfortable they either deny the summons, or when they see it in others judge it as heresy. Just think what would happen in most churches today if a person made it to the mike and said, “God has called me to do something I desperately don’t want to do. In fact, the prospect of this mission evokes such anxiety I am often doubled over in physical pain. Sometimes capillaries even burst so that I sweat blood. I beg and beg and beg and beg for release. I’ll do it if he insists, if he really wants me to do it. But, O God, please, please, please, let there be another way.”
Such a person would be regarded, I think, as deeply flawed in his or her faith—a faith deemed insufficient at best, as clearly demonstrated by a sinful unwillingness, an unacceptance of God’s perfect will, which in the end, after all, always works out for the good…right?
And if such a person in the very middle of fulfilling God’s dreaded call cried out, “My God, my God, Why??? Why have you abandoned me?” Western evangelicalism would, with a patina of charity, nonetheless in the end and in essence condemn him of heresy. Christ just wouldn’t cut it with most Christians today.
Sheila, I write with the disturbing passion of a sweaty, smelly, angry, and very imperfect wrestler with God. You might think I am a man who has fallen away on account of Christ. But with the Spirit as my witness, I am not. I am, rather, a man who has fallen in with Christ, fallen into an intense, passionate struggle. A struggle to which Christ himself has summoned me. And a struggle, even while it continues, and in all my fallenness, in which he constantly assures me…he is pleased.
Amazing.
God bless you. Much love to a fellow pilgrim who is no stranger to the dank, dark dungeon of the Giant—Despair.
Brian
I am humbled and proud to call such a wrestler my friend and brother. Brian has been told by some that his heartfelt cries to God are blasphemous; they will make God turn away rather than lean in. But how will we ever break through the fear that consumes us if we cannot pour it out in its rawest form at the throne of grace? Where else will we go if we can’t knock, knock, knock on heaven’s door?
To wrestle with God does not mean that we have lost faith, but that we are fighting for it. Perhaps we have lost faith in our old familiar ways, familiar prayers, familiar assumptions about how life is supposed to work—but we have not lost faith in God.
Wrestling with God
Your chapter begins to reveal an un-talked about side of God’s mysterious and dark character (dark to me, dark to us): the part of him we cannot grasp and yet at the same time the part of him we are not summoned to approach with passive acceptance, passionateless peace, superficial professions of joy and assurance. No, we are summoned to personal battle. This battle, this fight, isn’t with the world, the flesh, or the devil, but is instead a messy, sweaty, bloody, painful, no-holds-barred wrestling match with God himself.
This is the part of our relationship with God that we never sing about and almost never talk about--at least not in public, not from the pulpit. And yet these times of intense lament, even slugging it out with God, are encounters to which he himself summons me: messy, grunting, often loud wrestling matches to which he himself invites me to battle with nothing less than unfettered honesty, replete with malodorous sweat and bloody woundedness. Wrestling with all my feeble might—like Jacob, like Job, like Jesus.
Problem is, this divine summons, this gut-wrenching reality, makes most Christians (at least in the West) so intensely uncomfortable they either deny the summons, or when they see it in others judge it as heresy. Just think what would happen in most churches today if a person made it to the mike and said, “God has called me to do something I desperately don’t want to do. In fact, the prospect of this mission evokes such anxiety I am often doubled over in physical pain. Sometimes capillaries even burst so that I sweat blood. I beg and beg and beg and beg for release. I’ll do it if he insists, if he really wants me to do it. But, O God, please, please, please, let there be another way.”
Such a person would be regarded, I think, as deeply flawed in his or her faith—a faith deemed insufficient at best, as clearly demonstrated by a sinful unwillingness, an unacceptance of God’s perfect will, which in the end, after all, always works out for the good…right?
And if such a person in the very middle of fulfilling God’s dreaded call cried out, “My God, my God, Why??? Why have you abandoned me?” Western evangelicalism would, with a patina of charity, nonetheless in the end and in essence condemn him of heresy. Christ just wouldn’t cut it with most Christians today.
Sheila, I write with the disturbing passion of a sweaty, smelly, angry, and very imperfect wrestler with God. You might think I am a man who has fallen away on account of Christ. But with the Spirit as my witness, I am not. I am, rather, a man who has fallen in with Christ, fallen into an intense, passionate struggle. A struggle to which Christ himself has summoned me. And a struggle, even while it continues, and in all my fallenness, in which he constantly assures me…he is pleased.
Amazing.
God bless you. Much love to a fellow pilgrim who is no stranger to the dank, dark dungeon of the Giant—Despair.
Brian
I am humbled and proud to call such a wrestler my friend and brother. Brian has been told by some that his heartfelt cries to God are blasphemous; they will make God turn away rather than lean in. But how will we ever break through the fear that consumes us if we cannot pour it out in its rawest form at the throne of grace? Where else will we go if we can’t knock, knock, knock on heaven’s door?
To wrestle with God does not mean that we have lost faith, but that we are fighting for it. Perhaps we have lost faith in our old familiar ways, familiar prayers, familiar assumptions about how life is supposed to work—but we have not lost faith in God.
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