Mostly I like life to be predictable because then I know what I'm getting myself into, but it often seems that what impacts your life the most are those things that take you by surprise. Such was the case for me in Africa. For the last two weeks I've been in Namibia with a team of 15 dancers and 13 others. I expected to go into this trip and love on these dancers like I do all my youth group kids, get to know them and experience life together with them. What I didn't expect was to have their love in return. And I don't just mean knowing these kids like you loving them, I mean always there for you, open their hearts to you, care about what's important to you kind of love. That's what took me by surprise. It's hard to explain the true significance of receiving love from others. For the longest time that seemed like a prideful, selfishness, but now it seems more like the consummation of the lover, to be loved by the beloved.

I think that very much mirrors our relationship with God. I think a lot of things about guy-girl relationships mirror our relationship with God. I think that's why God gave them to us. But it seems like God is crying out to His beloved creation and waiting for our love in return. Like the infamous DTR, God has laid His feeling all out on the table and now longingly waits for us to say those simple words, "I love you too." Maybe that's what spirituality is all about, us coming to say more and more, "I love you." If you're interested in following up on this idea with me, check out Psalm 139 where David recognizes God declaring His undying love and then his response in the last two verses. Sounds very much like a prayer I once read in the back of a 4 Spiritual Laws tract. Could it be that coming to faith sounds a lot more like committing to a relationship?

As much as I always skip over it when people leave random lyrics (it always seems like half a song, the lyrics work together with the music to create a harmonic whole) I'm going to leave these incomplete lyrics for you to ponder. It has to do with how our relationship with God is a lot like a DTR. Then maybe someday you'll have to ask me to play it for you so you can get the whole experience. :)

I don't know if I can take what you want me to say
I don't know that I can live up to all my expectations
Here I'm paralyzed at the edge of all I've ever wanted
Putting up a fight against the fears of everything I've ever known
So I'm found in that place where I jump or come back down
And all I want to say is...

I love you even though I don't know how
May my silence speak in better words than any I have found
I need you to right the ship I think I missed what
You were trying to say
So I close my eyes and I think of life without you here
I deeply sigh and I wake up, I wanna wake up where you are

How can I say for sure you're the only one for me
When my wandering eyes and feet are my tendency
Yet Your love remains the same despite my constant harlotry
Will I let my fears decide the fate of all my dreams
So I'm found in that place where I jump or come back down
And all I want to say is...

I hate it when people only post once ever other blue moon. Why even bother at all! Ok, that's me, I know, j/k. :)

So my thoughts of late have gathered around this mysterious paradox we call faith. I can't help but question the conditional/unconditional nature of this faith. I'm firmly convinced there is nothing good in me that seeks after God on my own, so this faith in Him is not, indeed can not be from me alone...and therefore, unconditional, by the grace of God. (Note: There are many references I could quote such as Romans 3 or Ephesians 2:8, but I choose not to because of the recent abundance of what one may call "proof-texting". I would rather you search the whole of Scripture and judge my conclusions and questions based on what you discover of the character of God.) On the other hand, I have different fingers...I mean ;) I'm also firmly convinced that any so called faith that does not result in the obedience of love is really no saving faith at all, but merely belief, like that of the demons who believe in God, and therefore, conditional upon the free choices I make. So in any attempt toward delicately balancing the total sovereignty of God and the free will of man, even in regards to faith, one must be quite comfortable with the mystery of a God who's ways and thoughts are higher than ours, which is where I find myself during my deliberations.

Other related questions include the idea of two levels of justification, that of the nation of Israel when they made the Levitical sacrifices, and that of the faithful saints like Moses who was declared the "friend of God", and then, recognizing the process of the spiritual life, when exactly is that moment of regeneration when the Holy Spirit resides in our hearts. I suppose scholars have long since debated and will continue endlessly to debate far deeper questions of theology than mine, so I suppose I'm ever condemned to an incomplete understanding, like Paul, until the day we see clearly and no longer as though through a glass. Although at that point, how important will understanding really be. :) Either way, thanks for pondering with me.

ps. If you haven't checked it out yet, take a look at the blog site for my team going to Namibia. You can follow along with all the latest happenings during our trip from July 1st-17th.

Lately I've been reading this great book (HIGHLY recommend it) called Messy Spirituality by Mike Yaconelli. It's been instrumental in reshaping how I think about spirituality, which seems to be quite the theme in my posts of late. We seem to equate spirituality with the absence of sin. The more I grow up spiritually, the less sinful I become. So why is it that the most spiritual people I know are the ones most conscience of their sin? Since when have we ever had to clean ourselves up before we come to God? Why do we think we can hide our sin from God to look spiritual like we do with everyone else on Sunday mornings? Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees? God isn't looking for spiritual people! He's looking for people who know nothing but their sin, and therefore their great need for Him. Perhaps true spirituality looks quite different from the very spiritual people we see, or pretend to be, on Sunday mornings. Perhaps God's much more ready to move in the lives of sinners than of spiritual people. Perhaps we need to stop turning messy sinners away from the doors of the church and instead, invite them into the love of God. Perhaps it's not until we become unescapably aware of our sin that we start to understand true spirituality.

Of course, as with anything else, this sounds far easier said than done. And what about sanctification? Aren't we suppose to be pursuing holiness? I mean, sure people can be messy before they meet Jesus, but then after that don't we want to assimilate them into little church people? Kinda reminds me of Paul writing to the Galatians saying, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by human effort?" But more on that later....

I was recently reading an article about the theology of youth ministry and I happened upon an interesting question, illustrated here in youth ministry but applicable in the context of contemplation which has recently consumed my thinking. Kenda Dean writes,

"Do young people experience God as synonymous with particular people (like their small group) or a particular practice of ministry (like singing with a praise band) or a particular context (like camp)? Or have we helped them develop a repertoire of faith practices supple enough to take Christianity beyond any single faith experience?" (Getting out of God's Way, YouthWorker Journal, Jan/Feb 2005)

I've slowly been coming to realize our facination with destination has betrayed our possibilities for an intimate, ongoing relationship with God. We have come to live our lives at destinations like church, camp, or youth group, and ignore the journey, which in fact consumes the majority of our lives. I fear my failure to "practice the presence of God," as Brother Lawrence would say, has left me starving for the next experience and missing the joy, the beauty, the adventure of the journey. It's the heart of the contemplative, those disciplines or faith practices as Dean calls them, that brings the experience of God through the Spirit into our daily journey. So rather than relying on a 30-minute devotional time to last the whole day, the whole of our journey is filled with the joy of experiencing God. Idealistic, perhaps, but then what good is a vision that's not.

The Spiritual Life. What's that even mean? Everybody's got their own idea of what it's all about. Some people limit spirituality to all that Eastern mysticism stuff thinking it's all about meditating to a higher state of consciousness until you reach ultimate godness or something along those lines. A more popular answer in the church is that spirituality is determined by our private devotional lives. Those people feel they are spiritual when their daily routine includes some form or devotional Bible reading and prayer time. They are content with church attendance, blessing meals, and following an unwritten code of spiritual maturity as means towards a thriving connection with God. The irony befalling their situation is that their goal of self-righteousness is the very thing starving the inner life they claim to nurture.

Jesus spoke to this in Matthew 23. "Everything they do is for show....[They] are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside [they] are filthy-full of greed and self-indulgence!...[They] are like whitewashed tombs-beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity. [They] try to look like upright people outwardly, but inside [their] hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness."

Striving so hard to look righteous on the outside simply leads to a critical spirit, bitterness, anger, and judgmentalism. They must expend so much energy to keep up the facade of perfection, constantly comparing themselves to others who don't match up. Aren't those the very kinds of things we're trying to leave behind by nurturing this spiritual life? Keith Green understood this controversy when he wrote, "Somehow I feel that it would be more pleasing to God if I wasn't 'doing my duty' at all, but I was madly in love with Him, constantly praying to Him and living off His Word. In fact I know this to be true, but I can't seem to 'give up' my 'devotional life.' I am afraid that my soulish flesh will just take advantage of my leap of faith and turn me into a Word-less, prayer-less monster."

So we must turn our attention about the spiritual from the external to the internal. The spiritual life is just that, the life of the spirit, that very hunger in the soul of man that cries out for more. In our efforts to renew the inner life of the spirit by focusing on the external is like washing only the outside of the dishes, or decorating a coffin. So let's abandon our striving for external spirituality and allow a renewed inner life to transform our public life. This naturally begs the question, how does one go about renewing the inner life, which is exactly where we'll pick up next time.