The Goal of Imperfection

The goal of perfection is often lifted up as a lofty ideal to strive for in life.  In this year’s 2010 Winter Olympics Apollo Anton Ohno described his 2006 Gold medal in the 500 meter short track speed skating event in Torino as a perfect race.  I am sure he hoped for the same kind of perfection in this years Olympics, but settled for one silver and two bronze.  Maybe seeking perfection is a good plan when it comes to sports, but I am not sure perfection is the right goal in life.

I think many of us unfortunately live a life of quiet sadness because we are not perfect.  We have imperfect families, imperfect marriages, imperfect children, imperfect jobs, imperfect homes, and imperfect cars.  We try to do our best, but from time to time we yell at are kids, eat to much, drink to much, or lust to much.  Deep down we wonder if we really should be more perfect and that somehow we are missing our potential in life.

What if for a change we lived life from a perspective of grace?  What if we accepted the reality that we are imperfect?  From time to time we will make mistakes in life, but thankfully we have a loving God who forgives us.  By God’s grace we can also receive forgiveness from others and ourselves.  Then out of the immense grace we receive, we can forgive others.

Maybe our goal in life should be to accept our imperfections and to live life more empowered by God’s grace.  Out of this perspective, we can gain a more healthy balance to life.  We can learn to live less by our excesses and more out of the center of God’s love.

Created in the Image of God

Growing up in the Church I learned early on about the sin nature.  I learned that I was a sinner in need of God’s grace.  This teaching helped me understand why I needed the forgiveness of Jesus and why as Paul writes in Romans 7.19, “…I do not do the good I want…”   I remember watching Billy Graham on television as a kid and hearing the great evangelist remind everyone that we are all sinners in need of salvation.

Now, I am a minister, teaching Christian Theology and I still embrace much of what I learned growing up, yet inside I find myself wanting to encourage people to balance an understanding of human sin with the profound teaching from Genesis that we are all created in the image of God.

Why is this important?  I think most of us know naturally that we struggle with sinful tendencies.  We know that we are not always motivated to do the right thing or think the correct thoughts.  The pervasiveness of human sin is obvious when we turn on the news and learn about wars, crime, and the drama of Hollywood celebrities.

How often do we hear that we are loved and valuable to God?  Deep down in our DNA, we are created in the image of God.  In this sense we are good, valuable, and deeply connected with the source of all life.  Our truest identity can be found as God’s creation, whether we are conscious of this truth or not.

Recently, I led a group of students in Centering Prayer, a form of silent contemplative prayer.  I invited them to consent to God’s presence and action within them.  After experiencing the prayer time, a young woman remarked that she appreciated the invitation to rest in God’s presence within us.

I think for many people, the tendency is to look inward and only see our sinfulness.  How often do we look inward and embrace our identity as God’s children, wholly and dearly loved?  When you look inward do you see God’s presence making a home with you.  In John 14.23 Jesus says, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”  If the Holy Spirit resides in you, then maybe your sense of identity can be positive and hopeful.  You can look inward and find joy rather than despair.  Forgiveness rather than guilt or shame.  Peace and love rather than anxiety and hate.  I encourage you to embrace your identity as a child of God, created in God’s image.

Prayer as Intimacy

Intimacy is a powerful word in our culture.  It conveys a closeness with someone that is emotionally deep and sometimes sensual as well.   It is a provocative word.  In my prayer life I long for intimacy with the Living God.  I desire the same depth of closeness that I find in the most intimate of human relationships.   God can see into my heart and hold me close.   To be intimate with God we need to be vulnerable.  God invites us to relax and share our whole selves.  The places of shame or fear are especially safe for God to touch and heal.  Imagine God to be the most gentle of counselors who has the courage to to help you face some of the most painful places in your being.  God gently holds you and me and enables us to receive the love necessary to fully embrace life with its challenges and opportunities.  My favorite form of prayer involves simply resting in God’s love.  I imagine God holding me with the same closeness of a lover.  In that safe place of love, I am free to love myself and God.  Flowing out from those times of intimacy I am able to love my wife, daughter, other family, friends, or strangers.   I am able to embrace all of God’s creation with a love that originates in the intimate love of the trinity.

Jesus the Contemplative and Activist

Occasionally in my work at Fuller Seminary, I receive phone calls from people who just want to talk to a real live Christian about questions related to faith in God.  Last month a guy called to express some of his frustration with the Christian religion.  He asked me a very personal and confrontational question.  “Is there anything I can say to you that will challenge your faith in God?” 

I paused after getting the question and then told him, “No, I don’t think so.”  We began a long conversation about why I am a Christian.  I mentioned that growing up in a Christian home certainly influenced me.  I also told him that I had heart surgery at fourteen and needed to rely on God at a young age.  Then I mentioned that what influenced my faith most was my fascination with this Jesus guy from the Bible.  The frustrated caller eventually calmed down and by the end of our conversation he expressed appreciation in my answer.  He said that I was sincere in my reasons for being a Christian. 

That recent call reminded me how much my faith in God has been shaped by my great appreciation for the person of Jesus.  I know the Bible teaches that we are to call Jesus Lord and that He is the Savior of the world and deserves our praise.  I am sure my affection for Jesus is shaped by years of hearing that he is to be followed in order to have a good life.  But deep down the reason I am still a Christian over thirty years from the time I made a commitment to follow Jesus as a little boy, is because I am more in awe of this historic figure than anyone that has ever existed. 

I love many things about Jesus.  I appreciate his sacrificial love, his compassion for the poor, his devotion to his Father in Heaven.  I think he is both a radical guy and a regular guy.  He was a leader that people followed and he was someone you could sit down and share a beer with at a party. 

Jesus was also both a contemplative and an activist.  He knew how to take a break and spend hours in solitude in prayer to His Abba Father and He knew how to actively stand up against injustice.  He healed the leper and the woman with the issue of blood while others saw them as unclean.  He stood up to the religious and civil authorities when others cowered in fear.  Jesus was able to be a deeply spiritual leader who took time to reflect deeply and pray thoughtfully, yet this did not lead him to disengage from the world around him.  Instead his deep interior life enabled him to have the courage to live an active life of profound love and compassion.

This Jesus guy is why I am a Christian.  I am proud to say I am a follower of the greatest contemplative and activist who ever lived.

Healing Prayer- Living with Paradox

The topic of healing prayer is a sensitive one for many people.  We all desire healing in our lives, yet life experience suggests that sometimes people don’t experience physical or emotional healing.  Then the question becomes why.

The normal answer  is that the person is at fault, God is at fault, or God’s will is not to heal.  I find any of these answers to be unsatisfactory and simplistic.

As a spiritual director, I believe strongly in God’s desire to bring restoration to hurting people.  In the case of physical ailments, healing  may come through  medical assistance, change of physical activity and diet, healing prayer or other supernatural intervention, or some combination of all these approaches.  Emotional healing may also come through supernatural intervention through prayer or prophecy, but usually also requires some form of counseling or behavioral change.

When healing does not occur, in my mind it is to simple to blame God or ourselves.  It is better to continue to pursue steps toward healing, while recognizing that life sometimes turns out terribly wrong.  This is part of the mystery of a broken world, God’s action in our world, and human free will.  I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of God’s healing or seemingly lack of intervention sometimes, nor do I assume humans are always responsible for what goes on wrong in this world.  I instead choose to keep praying and hoping for emotional and physical healing in my life and the lives of all other people who are in pain.

My general perspective is Jesus wills to bring healing to everyone.  When people do not experience that healing, I live with the paradox of that reality without trying to resolve it.  Does this make me weak minded.  No, I think it is a sign of courage when we pursue to live like Jesus even amidst the ambiguities of life.  The reason I believe God wills to heal is because Jesus never demonstrated any other perspective and I trust Jesus to be a full representation of the likeness of God in human form.

May God guide all of us as we seek to be healing agents in a hurting world.  May we follow the example of Jesus.

Spiritual Formation- What is it?

Spiritual formation is the journey of transformation into the likeness of Jesus Christ. The study of spiritual formation is a reflection on how we are spiritually formed by God. It explores the process of deepening one’s relationship with God, self, others, and the world. In spiritual formation we learn about the rhythm of God’s grace. The holistic life is shown to be one of deep intimacy with God, intentional community with others, and sacrificial service in the world. Since God is the one forming us, we are led by the Holy Spirit in this rhythm of grace. Our lives are about relationship not performance or self achievement. Yet, the call to intimacy with God leads us to an awareness of our own belovedness. To become more like Jesus is a process of learning to love ourselves more not less. Out of a deep love of self, we have the security to love sacrificially.