Where I Stand

I have so far wiled away the better part of my summer in my room, sipping iced tea, playing countless games of Literati against people better at word games than I, and watching enough baseball and mediocre movies to fill a lifetime. I had set out to do some soul searching but instead opted for the easier option of simply peacing out for three months. Now I face the coming school year with few issues sorted out and a nagging array of questions that simply will not go away.

The thing that continues to weigh heaviest of all on my mind is a suffocating dread of one day waking up to realize I have let my life pass by without having ever really accomplished anything. I have taken a few pains to try to responsibly alleviate this fear by actually doing something tangible about it. With the help of my Vocational Rehabilitation counselor, I have discovered my dreams are not impossible to carry out. Going to seminary is feasible financially and can lead to a profession I'm well suited for. Teaching theology at a Christian university or teaching religious studies at a more secular institution would be a dream job for me, and going to seminary is a good start in that direction.

But there's a fear attached to this as well, or maybe this is the real heart of the fear I'm in the process of unfolding. I fear being a disappointment to God my whole life. I fear that I will continue to cheapen His grace by not allowing it to transform my life as fully as He intends or, worse, not at all. Am I getting better from the sickness of sin? Not right now. I guess I decided to peace out spiritually for the summer too. It seems like every time I slip that I lose more ground toward Christlikeness than I had previously gained. That's why I'm unworthy to shepard a flock. A minister of the Gospel must be good on both theory and practice; I seem to only excel on theory. But how can I teach the truths of the Faith if my life does not demonstrate a high degree of fidelity to them? I must get better is the only answer.

How do I do that? "Let God transform you inside out." Yes, that's true, but how to let God is mysterious to me. Perhaps my theory's not right. Maybe that's my problem. I have thought long and hard on how imaginitively and practically barren my Christianity is. I need ways of connecting with Jesus that do not depend so much on emotional response but on something more tangible. Trying to drum up emotion in prayer is a prison; it has stolen the spontaneity of the Christian life that it promised. It has made me feel farther from God and more constrained than I'm now sure a more structured and more variously ritualized Christianity would. And this is by no means a rejection of a sola fide Christian faith. This isn't what I think the trouble is. It's the warping of this doctrine that over-emphasizes the necessity of "really meaning it" or "personally experiencing God." Of course, this is true, but don't we elevate emotion just as high by this over-insistence as the Reformers accused the Catholic Church of their day of doing with ritual and sacrament. Both are errors equally destructive to vital communion with God. Isn't a truly faith affirming Christianity one where Jesus is easily found in the Holy Spirit, spontaneous individual prayer, the Bible, and communion with other believers, but also in the liturgy, formal prayers, ancient creeds, bread and wine, and baptismal waters of the institutional Church. That's what I need. I need grace that I can access anywhere and everywhere. Of course, that's the Christ we serve. He gives grace abundantly to His people. I just need more reminders of that, and I need avenues of connecting with Him that don't require a great emotional response in order to know I've met with Him.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

There's really just one great decision in life, and it must be made over and over again. That decision is the decision whether to take the road that is easiest, the road that seems the safest and most comfortable, or to take the right road. It's not that the safe and easy road is always the wrong one. No; sometimes it's easiest on us and safer too to do the right thing, but often it seems that doing the right thing is uncomfortable and dangerous. Sometimes it's even fatal. It's the best of both worlds when what is safe and easy and what is right coincide, but far too often, they are radically opposed.

For those brave souls like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Corrie Ten Boom, and Raoul Wallenberg who stood against the evils of the Nazi regime, the safe and easy decision would have been to say, like Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and sit idly and apathetically by while millions went to their deaths. No; they chose to heed Jesus' words and say, "Yes, of course; I am my brother's keeper!" and fight the dark madness of the Holocaust.

Theirs was a difficult decision, for to speak out against injustice or to help, to rescue or shelter those the Nazis had targeted for extinction was to share in their awful fate. The courageous pastor-theologian Bonhoeffer died at the end of a hangman's noose for helping Jews escape, participating in a failed coup against Hitler, and boldly defending the Gospel of Christ while few in Germany would. The Dutch resister, Corrie Ten Boom, lost her father and endured the hells of Ravensbruck for loving her Jewish neighbors as herself by hiding them in her home. For imitating Jesus by leaving his luxurious life in Sweden to go to Nazi-occupied Hungary and help rescue 100,000 Hungarian Jews from certain death, the diplomat Wallenberg found himself in a war zone as the Red Army approached. A victim of Soviet paranoia about Western spies, he purportedly died in a Soviet prison two years after the war.

This was indeed The Cost of Discipleship for these three heroes of the Second World War. What about those heroes of the faith from Scripture who chose what was right instead of that which was comfortable, easy, and safe? Consider Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Caleb, the prophets, Mary and Joseph, the 12 Apostles, and Paul. All of these great players in salvation history sacrificed their ease, safety, and comfort, and some even sacrificed their lives, to do what God called them to do. Didn't Jesus suffer all this and more to do the will of the Father?

Jesus and John Wayne

I've spent this summer off from college trying to escape the fears and questions I have about my future. I've spent my time with nose in book, eyes glued to the TV, hoping for something that will satisfy or at least take my mind off my existential struggle. It has not succeeded, so I'm going to chart a new course in which I seek to figure out where I'm going for my tomorrow. I told myself prior to the start of the summer that I would spend some time to reflect on where I'm headed, and now I make good on that promise.

One place I know I'm headed for is home. The question is, What's my arrival and journey there going to look like? What's my road and where's my home? Well, my road home is the path less traveled. It's straight and narrow, and it's the only road there. Following Jesus Christ is my road home, and my home is not of this world. It's a heavenly home not made by hands that I'm looking for.

The truth is, though, that while I know where I'm going, I know the way there, and the company's the best, I'm not heading that way confidently and resolutely. Oh, I've heard that that place is an untamed and glorious frontier, that the road there is the greatest adventure of all, and that the guide is a wild rebel of a man who sticks closer than a brother and has all the power, wisdom, and beauty of the universe in his grasp, but I also know of the hardships along the way. I know there's going to be fierce opposition. There's a cunning and persistent enemy out there waiting to ambush us. We're definitely going to take some wounds and some losses. And there's going to be fatigue, hunger, thirst, and probably some loneliness along the way. This trip's definitely not going to be comfortable and convenient.

I'm not at all like the trail boss. He's not bothered at all by the trouble we'll encounter. He's wild, brave, strong, and wise, and he's well experienced with all the troubles of the journey. In fact, no one knows more about suffering and hardship than he does, so he's really tough. He knows our adversary well too. He knows all about his schemes and tactics, and he's already given him the beating of his life once and swears he'll do it again. He also knows that wild and beautiful country we're headed to. In fact, they say that's where he's from. He more than makes up for my weaknesses, and there's no one else I'd rather have by side in a fight. So what am I so afraid of? Why am I only taking steps forward tentatively? Why am I just aimlessly wandering that general direction at the back of the train instead of mounting up and riding at the front with the trail boss?

I've seen some of the other men and women on this journey who've taken the time to get to know him and be taught by him and have become like him. Why can't I be like them? I have to remember that at one time they were just as weak, timid, and fearful as I am now. But the boss, he's gracious and he's willing to teach all those who will listen. So there's no more excuse for settling for mediocrity. It's time to become a man like Jesus and John Wayne.