Strength through Weakness (or, Grace in the GPS)

God wants to show us his love for us in the circumstances he providentially arranges for our lives to be lived in. When all is right and rosy in our lives, it is quite easy and natural to arrive at this conclusion. God has blessed me; he must love me. Yet, as all of us who live in this world know, life is not always lived in the Big Rock Candy Mountains. We have troubles and they are never in short supply. If pleasure and ease are the barometers of goodness, it is far from evident in our natural sight that a good and benevolent God rules the universe when there is so much pain and suffering in it for the creatures he has made. By faith, however, we are shown the sufferings of One Man as the very content of God's love for us. This is Jesus Christ, who through his suffering and resurrection offers to unite us to the life of God. In and with our Lord Jesus Christ, then, God demonstrates his mighty love for us in our weakness, pain, and suffering. I want to share briefly with you how in the trial of living with a disability, God has endeavored to show me that he loves me, and I hope, through me, to show how he loves all people.

Before I enter into this discussion, however, it will be prudent to describe what the understanding that God shows us his love in our sufferings is not. It is not to render sufferings not sufferings at all. It sounds very pious to speak saccharine platitudes that minimize the troubles we experience, but this is really an affront to God's goodness and it denies the nature of reality. Suffering, death, disease, and decay are evils in and of themselves. Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus and he despised the shame and humiliation of the cross. If this is the case, why then does God send these things to us? The miracle was that though Lazarus was dead and Jesus was abandoned by his friends and forsaken by the Father, God was there, bringing life from death and reconciliation from alienation! This is God's way. He marches right into the teeth of the darkness and makes it work backwards, bringing good from evil. If we understand this, we understand the miraculous transaction by which he turns the tears of our lives into joy by carrying us through them together with himself. This is why Christians are not insensible to the pain like Stoics or grieve like pagans who have no hope when we encounter the troubles of life in a fallen world. Jesus is alive and in his glory. Even in the midst of the deepest valleys, then, we have joy and hope because the one who has already marched through the darkness is with us, leading us through it into the light.

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is the disease that has profoundly affected my life. It's a progressive neuromuscular disease that affects the skeletal muscles and cardiovascular systems. I could walk until I was 12, but I've been in a wheelchair ever since. The disease is quite debilitating and usually results in death by the middle 20s. I can no longer manage most major life functions on my own, but I'm now 28 and, by all accounts, still doing remarkably well. Humor, stubbornness, perseverance, and hope characterize my mental mood and outlook at most times, but some days I respond to the crosses of my physical condition and prognosis and the attendant trials of absolute dependence on others, social isolation, and the difficulties or outright impossibilities of pursuing certain career and life opportunities with selfishness, frustration, fear, and melancholy. That being said, I am grateful and thankful for my life and feel very blessed by God to live the life I live.

How has God uniquely shown his love to me in my weaknesses and trials? I feel that perhaps by constitution I have a tendency toward being a solitary individual. In some ways, of course, my lone wolf ways are exacerbated or could even be caused by my disability, but physical limitation is one of the surest ways we discover how much we need others. When conscientious family members, friends, and strangers respond with care to the needs of a dependent individual, that person experiences in a profoundly unique way the grace of being loved, for in direct proportion to the level of his dependence on others, he knows the privilege of receiving love that is given regardless of his ability to benefit those who love him. This is the kind of love with which God loves us, especially since we are sinners unable to truly love God without his own help. In this light, God is always preaching the Gospel to me when people love me by assisting with basic needs I cannot meet myself. My mother, the friends in college who were always so willing to come to my rescue in times of need, or take me to a party, or care for me on a Christian retreat, my youth pastor who always made sure I had a ride to church, and so many others have been the best messengers of God to me.

Secondly, God has made his love known to me in my muscular dystrophy by richly supplying strength in the midst of every weakness and struggle. Like St. Paul the Apostle, I have come to know that God's strength is made perfect in weakness and that his grace really is sufficient. My time living on my own as a student at the University of Missouri really put this to the test. In the midst of uncertainties regarding healthcare workers and coverage and scrambling to find help often at the last minute, nearly perpetual cold feet from bad circulation, bodily discomfort from problems with medical equipment, and, of course, the daily grind of being a full-time college student in the midst of these unique challenges, I not only survived three years of this but I thrived and had the best time of my life. God met all of my needs and gave strength I did not possess to endure difficulties that sometimes pushed me right to the brink of giving up and going back home. I can only attribute my success in that endeavor to One who is mighty to save and empower those who trust in him. Since I graduated, the victories of grace have not seemed so dramatic, what with mounting frustrations about the continued progression of my disease, unemployment, being single, and living at home in my late 20s, but the strength of God continues to buoy me, bringing joy and hope for tomorrow that defies my natural understanding.

Thirdly, in a unique way, those who suffer and bear weakness in their bodies testify powerfully to the hope of the resurrection. As is the case with the dependence I spoke of that leads us by necessity to the cure for isolation that is love, so it is that those who are most visibly touched by physical brokenness both are invited themselves and invite others to enter into the healing of broken creation and triumph over death that is Christ's resurrection. Ours is a crooked witness that preaches fullness and restoration by way of emptiness and brokenness. I think this is perhaps why "normal" people often respond with discomfort to people with disabilities. People don't want to be reminded that even those who are supposedly "whole" are ultimately just as weak and frail and subject to death as those of us who can't hide it in any way. But, as has been my theme in this reflection, there is grace even in the problem because it is part of the solution. Christ received wounds to bring us healing and died to bring life to the world through his resurrection. Living as a Christian with physical brokenness, then, I am given the privilege of participating in Christ's work of redemption by bearing witness to it in my body. This has a benefit for myself in moving me to cling to Christ, and I hope that it has the same effect on others.

Lastly, and perhaps just as counterintuitively as my other points, God has demonstrated his love for me in the midst of muscular dystrophy –something that would seem in conventional understanding to move me to place my hopes entirely in the spiritual and otherworldly realities of life after death—by showing me the goodness of bodily and worldly existence. Though perhaps my time in the body and in the world on this side of the resurrection will be short, it will be spent as an embodied creature, and, in spite of the difficulties of this existence, it has been given to me as a gift in which to taste and see that the Lord is good. What is more, the life of the world to come will be life in the bodies we currently have and in the same physical world we currently inhabit, though as they will be when made incorruptible and cleansed from all the effects of sin and death. This means that even now, as I enjoy the gifts of the Lord in a broken body and a broken world, I am receiving a foretaste of the glories of the new heavens and the new earth. In spite of the sufferings, in spite of the travails of the world, if we are in Christ, we always have more of the joy of the Lord in the land of the living ahead of us than behind us. We have all come through shadows and we all will go through the darkness on the way there, but may we all be given the grace to see in the depths of the shadow the supreme value and glory of the light that is already shining and will only grow brighter!

A Change of Direction

I'm not much good lately about keeping the promises I make regarding what I'm going to write about in the future on this blog. I've promised posts on predestination, the doctrine of Scripture, and probably numerous other things, so I apologize to my great faithful horde of blogosphere followers for my grave dereliction of duty. I know the two of you (presumptuous, I know) are desperate to learn further from my wisdom, but please, hang in there a while longer and I just might get to the promised projects . . . one of these days.

Truthfully, I don't feel a great deal of motivation lately to do much writing. It's not that I'm too busy. I'm just taking one class, leading a Bible study, and not doing much of anything else productive other than these two things that really are important. No; I have struggled from time to time throughout my life with laziness, procrastination, and depression, and that’s where I am at in the current season of my life. When mired in the mud, it can be difficult to find that surge of energy that is required to crawl lose, dig out, and get up into standing position again like a man.

The source of my current malaise is an unresolved question of purpose coupled with a fear of continuing for all of my days in a state of disappointment and unfulfillment. I am profoundly unhappy, and I do not know how to proceed to remedy that. I never have known how to change that.

Plans have been frustrated, the search for deep community in the embrace of a local expression of Mother Church has been unsatisfactory, my isolation has increased, my search for "Eve" has been ill-conceived and thus unproductive, friends do not draw close (mostly, I fail to seek them out), I drink from empty or fouled cisterns, I capitulate to fear, and pervasive feelings of unreality and futility—embodied in the questions, Who reads my stuff? Is it important, and, even if it is, does it make a difference?—stifle the creative urge to write.

That's enough feeling sorry for myself. I think you get the picture about my emotional, relational, vocational, missional, creative, etc., state at the present time. I truly covet your prayers, but the point is that problems don't get solved by wallowing or by withdrawing deeper into oneself to find the answers. That's what I have always done and it doesn't help. I hear the Savior calling us to a better way: "He who loses his life for My sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39). He's telling me, "If you're unhappy with yourself and the direction your life is headed in, quit worrying about it. Turn your attention from yourself and your problems and focus on serving others!"

I'm worrying too much about my purpose writ small. Our purpose writ big is, "LOVE GOD, LOVE PEOPLE!" That's first. Get that established and you're on the right track. You don't have to go to seminary to do that or write brilliant blog rants that acutely point out and remedy everything that's wrong with American Protestant Christianity.

I have apologies to issue and prophetic words to preach to myself before I preach them to others. Much of what I have written from my armchair theologian's position as a blogger has been self-important, hypocritical, and self-serving. I have written a good deal about certain emphases held by the historic Church that have been neglected in American evangelicalism, much to our detriment. Usually the emphases I have taken up to recover are those that have been thrown out the door in the name of protecting equal and seemingly opposite emphases we have deemed to be priorities in authentic Christian faith and practice.

For instance, in order to preserve the utter transcendence of God and the immediacy of His saving works in His creatures and in His world, we have exclusively emphasized the way that God works using spiritual means, rejecting the ideas that God works redemptively in His creatures and in His world through a human church and the material means of the sacraments as "superstitious," Roman Catholic-sounding doctrines that belong in the dust heap of Church history.

I have engaged in some pretty harsh rhetoric on this front, so, undoubtedly, some of my writing has proved to be less than charitable to the Baptist tradition of my youth and to other credobaptist and non-sacramental traditions. I apologize to friends of these persuasions whom I might have alienated in my overzealous attempts to recover a robust ecclesiology and sacramental theology for evangelicals. I have been obtuse and rude and self-important to think my efforts alone could make apparent the correctness of a high ecclesiology and sacramental understandings of baptism and the Lord's Supper, much less show how important it truly is to believe correctly on these matters. I mean well, and I will try to speak more charitably on these points from here on out.

In the same vein and more directly to the point I'm trying to make, I have made a great deal of bother about how we have blown up the importance of one's personal relationship with God and the application of salvation to individuals to the point that the communal nature of our salvation and the importance of the church to that salvation has been obscured and thus that the love Christians are to have for one another (both the love we are to give and that which we should receive) has been downgraded from being one of God's surest testimonies to His children that they are His own to being simply a matter of optional, supplementary support for private Christians in their personal relationships with God. I absolutely think this is the case, and I think that this is one of the chief tragedies rampant individualism in American Protestantism has wrought.

I will inevitably be, and have been, accused of advocating salvation by love and will be accused of mixing up loving one another—a matter of sanctification—with individual justification before God, but does not John say, "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death." (1 John 3:14)? Has he not also said, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:7-8)?

Doctrinal issues aside, I must confess that, what I believe has been a burden given to me by God to be prophetic voice for reform in mainstream American evangelicalism arises (I will have to tell you the story sometime of how a charismatic/Pentecostal revivalist anointed me with oil and asked for God to give me the gift of prophecy and how I see that as an authentic commissioning, but that's for another time) from my own self-interest. I am so passionate for God's Church and for my vision of what a wonderful, loving, world-changing, Kingdom-ushering-in reality it was meant to be, can be, and will be because I want to find a place for myself where I can be loved and accepted at any time and in any place by loving Christian people in spite of the deep relational, emotional, and social brokenness and isolation I so often feel. I know God is for me, and when I stop to ponder God's graciousness to me, I remember so many instances of extravagant love that so many brothers and sisters in the Lord have undeservedly poured into my life at so many times and in so many ways and when I needed it the most. You wonderful folks know who you are! Still, I long for the days when the consolations of God's Spirit through His people will constantly flood over my loneliness and brokenness, freeing me to love fully in turn and be all that God has called me to be for the sake of the Church and the world!

What I have just said puts all the focus on my own needs, and I know our joys in the Lord and in one another will never be complete until Christ returns, but I also want you to have power to grasp "together with all the saints . . . how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:18-19).

This is where I must preach prophetic words to myself. I am part of the problem. When I clamor for my rights as a believer for the love of my fellow Christians while failing to love my brothers and sisters in the Lord as passionately as I desire them to love me, I fail to pay the debt of love I owe to Christ and to my co-heirs in and with Him. I too fail to love my brothers and sisters in Lord as they deserve to be loved. As C.S. Lewis reminds us repeatedly in the Chronicles of Narnia, "Each is only told his own story," and as Jesus said to Peter, "What is it to you? Feed my sheep" (John 21:17, 22).

If I am lonely, let me love my brothers and sisters in the Lord unreservedly. If I am concerned that I be included and welcomed more deeply into the community of my church, let me strive ever-harder to warmly love those I worship with. If I am concerned that I as a marginal person be loved and accepted among the cultural majority in my congregation, let me love in a radically counter-cultural way both those esteemed as marginal and those esteemed more favorably. If friends seem to be far away in times of need, let me reach for them in-season and out-of-season. If I believe God has something to say through me, let prophets preach to themselves.

Love the Lord Your God with All Your Strength.

*Disclaimer: Though this writing deals with the kinds of things I have been writing about in this blog, it is of a more intensely personal nature than anything else I have posted so far. I post it with some trepidation but feel that it could possibly be of worth to someone. Some of what I have written is of a sensitive and mature nature. I just want to caution my female readers that this post deals in some depth with "guys' issues" but, at the same time, I feel it is reflective of universal human experience.*

I struggle with a flesh that is wracked by desires that are too powerful for me to control. I am at their mercy. At some point I can resist them, but, if they do not relent . . . I am slain. Alas, I am always failing, and the failure is bitter. It is never a joyous embrace of that which I have desired but a beggarly and dirtied submission to the faint and distorted outline of that to which my flesh points and testifies in its desire. What a cruel trick! I do not know my desires or what I am really searching for until I have failed and realized that what I had grasped in that guilty moment was a shameful and deceitful sham for something real, holy, and deep. Why does my body declare truths and then lie so coldly?

My body screams that it wants sexual gratification. That is true, but that is not all of it. That is just the heat put off by the fire that burns within. My desire points, not to the pleasure, but to the passionate embrace of love. It is not sex I want. I want union. I want love. Anything less is a cheap and degrading substitute for something so powerful and holy. The union of man and woman, husband-and-wife, an expression of love and self-sacrifice whereby pleasing the other brings such great pleasure.

Sometimes my soul feels so isolated; it feels so alone. How wonderful it would be to unite completely with another human being, to give all of myself to the woman I love and to whom I am exclusively, passionately, and eternally dedicated, to receive all of her in turn, so close that we are one flesh. Here, by virtue of being united, there is no distance between us physically and no distance between our hearts and our souls. We have become one soul. This is truly what it means to know fully and to be fully known. This is holy. This is beautiful. This is sacramental. Truly this is the highest height and deepest depth of love.

What a great and terrible sin to transgress this most sacred, beautiful, and deep Holy of Holies of human relationships! Nothing on earth is more sacred than this mystery. It must be kept pure. How dare we subject this mystery to our whims, to our convenience, to our perversity of will and desire! Pornography. To hell with it! Send it back to hell from whence it came. It is a sham; a demonic deception of the lowest kind! Missing the forest for the gnarled trees.

A lonely young man with little hope of experiencing this union of body and soul with another, this depth of love, the very fullest expression of life and love and passion and grace and service and joy and pleasure and grace. Oh God. How cruel it seems that I should be denied the love of a loving woman after by its absence I have learned to appreciate it so. A wonderful, soft, lovely, sensuous, delicate, vibrant, beautiful, intelligent, charming, kind, good, passionate, gracious, loving, forgiving, pleasing light that would so illuminate everything that is good and worthwhile about life, about the world, about humanity, about God. Does she know how much of my devotion she would truly have? Does she know that she would be the most loved of all women who have ever been loved by a man? Does she know the treasure and blessing she would be to me, that I would be to her in return? Why is it that her heart is not moved by the one who would appreciate her most, love her most deeply, give of himself most freely.

Where is she? So many times I have recklessly and foolishly thought I had found her. No. I deceive myself, rush myself, delude myself into thinking she might care. I fall so quickly, so recklessly, so foolishly. I am impatient. My life drains away, time continues on, gather ye rosebuds while ye may, daylight's burning. For one who claims such a regard for love, I treat it so cavalierly. So much as a smile from a young lady, and I am smitten, I am slain. I would promise her the moon and the stars in a moment, fully and foolishly in earnest. Why am I so impatient? The love of a woman is indeed a great treasure, but with all good things, it takes time. A love so quickly grasped is as seed thrown on shallow soil. It springs up full of joy, but as soon as it meets a challenge, it withers away and dies. It has no root. It has not had time to dig deep in the soil of friendship, of companionship, of deep conversation and inside jokes, of the common experience of growing in respect and admiration for one another, of surprises, of disappointments, of hurts and bruises inflicted and then tenderly bound up, of conflict, of resolution and reconciliation, of time and distance, of good times and bad, of memories made together. Its source is not fire but its mere heat, which dissipates away in a few moments. My body, my hormones, my desperation, my fear, my impatience, my loneliness, my neediness, they shipwreck me. They deceive. I speak of love in such lofty terms but treat it with such shallowness.

Sex? Is that my problem? If only the biological urge were not so strong. I wonder, am I that starved for love, or is it just my manhood? Do I just want to hop in the sack? Is it just my glands? I am a man after all. I do have testosterone, and apparently quite a bit of it. The biological desire is not wrong, but getting too hung up on the physical can cause one to miss the forest for the trees.

Perhaps I have missed a wonderful love, perhaps I have overlooked "the one" because I was feeling with the wrong organ or giving my eyes too much authority over my affections. Attraction is vital, but I'm afraid I have given it too much emphasis. Maybe I deserve my loneliness. Maybe I've just got what's coming to me. There have been a few in the past that have liked me, but I overlooked them because they failed to strike me as attractive. How can I feel cheated or wronged or not given the consideration I have warranted when I have failed to give it to others? After all, beggars can’t be choosers. But I'm not so beggarly after all. It's not as if I'm hideous, and I really believe that I have much to offer beyond the physical. Besides, women don't get as hung up on how we look as we do about how they look. Ay, but that's the rub; if only I could see from the inside out. True beauty comes from within.

What I fear, though, is something far worse. Are people really so shallow as to write me off immediately as a possibility because I am disabled? Does it have something to do with a defect of personality, want of social skills, lack of confidence, the way I look, or is it that I am somehow viewed by women as less of a man because I'm in a wheelchair? Is it my disability? Am I doomed to be alone because I'm physically dependent. Women want a certain physical strength or power in a man that I do not possess. They want to be held, someone to protect them and to provide for them, someone to take the lead in making love to them. It is true that I belie the stereotype of what a man should truly be, but is this not something I can compensate for in a certain mental, spiritual, or emotional strength? I am strong though I am weak. No, I cannot hold her all through the night or lovingly lay her down, but I can be a solid rock for her to lean on.

The body, the material, the sensual is infused all through with a powerful potentiality. It is a glorious palette upon which the spirit can express its abundance, its passion, its very life. It is good. It is very good. It is very, very good. Physicality mediates the experience of the human. It is the place where the divine and the earth kiss in a passionate embrace. It is the conduit, the stage for the highest experience of the sublime, of the ecstatic, of the heavenly, of the glorious, of the gentle, of the soft, of the powerful, of the electricity of being. It is where flame's fire burns, the ice's cold bites; it's where sense finds its sensation and where passion finds its expression.

Physicality is also where we encounter the other. The other who says we are not alone. It tells us that there are others who share our reality, who trod the same earth in the same shoes. They share our passions, our fears, our sorrows, our pains, our joys, our pleasures. They share the same life that we do. It is in this knowledge that existence finds its savor and its purpose. A community of embodied spirits makes these dry bones live. We do for, with, to, and because of people-for their smiles, their touches, their looks, their favor, their benefit and ours, the blessing and fulfillment of all. Life is beautiful. It is grand and magnificent, a glorious shout of exultation at the sheer wonder of being. How glorious it is that I know, feel, comprehend, that I am! How much greater it is that he is and that she and she and he are! This is great knowledge. The possibility of all this! How glorious the Being that must exist to give us this incredible gift! Praise be to God for our lives! Praise be to God that he has placed us here between heaven and earth! Thank you God for the stuff we are made of. Oh thank you Lord for becoming one of us, taking our physicality, sanctifying it, exalting it, and ransoming it from the Fall. It is all your good creation and we, all of us, mind, soul, heart, body, are designed by your hand the most glorious of all this very good creation.

What would we do without a hug or a kind word? What would we do without shared laughter and shared food? Where would we be without jokes and stories and speech and words? For family, friends, lovers, strangers, animals, the soil, the sky, the snow, the thunder, the rain, the wind, God be praised! We see, we hear, we touch, we taste, we smell, and we declare that all you have created is good and very good. Thank you for coming to share this with us as the blessed Son of Man. Thank you for all the images of yourself that we see in the eyes of the human other. It is good that we are not alone.

Shuffling feet, lively voices, work week stories, "Good Morning!" "Good to see you today!" Cups of coffee, hale and hearty, creaking chairs, children running 'round, their smiles, their shrieks of delight, their games, hymn books and Bibles, "Let us prepare our hearts for worship." Vestments of purple, the altar covered in silver, the loaf, the wine, the smell of yeast, young and old, man and woman and child, the bored and the earnest, rich and poor, saint and sinner singing, piano clanging:

"All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!

O praise him! O praise him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!"

Reading the Scriptures:

"Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.

Who is the King of glory?
The Lord, strong and mighty,
the Lord, mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O gates!
and be lifted up, O ancient doors!
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory."

Gentle reader says, "This is the Word of the Lord." Many voices ring, crying, "Thanks be to God!" General and private confession and absolution, "In Christ we are forgiven!" The encouraging Word preached by kind and reverend sage, the Word speaking, fed flock declaring:

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth.

And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried,
descended into hell,
and the third day rose from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen."

Ancient hymns, glorious ancient Church, creeds and liturgy, a mystery we are caught up in, God is here, deacons collecting widows mites in scarlet bags.

"Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. A-men. Amen."

The Feast of the Church, Supper blessed at the Table, body of Christ in silver dish, breaking loaf, "This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat it. Do this in remembrance of me." Munching, chewing in unison the bread from heaven, our manna in the desert.

The Cup consecrated, blood of Christ in tiny plastic cups, "This is my blood in the new covenant, drink all of it", slurping, sucking, clicking in unison, strangely warmed, Jesus like a jelly sandwich, "There is Power in the Blood!" United with Christ and one another, flock fully fed.

Smiling, bearded young man, raising hands, gives the benediction "The Lord bless you and keep you, and may God cause his face to shine upon you!" Processing out, singing, "Amen. Amen. Amen." Romantic orthodoxy. Embodied Living Presence made known through Word and Sacrament, a happy and blessed people of God.

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.

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.