Who Carries Whom?

I was reading this section in Isaiah the other day, Isaiah 46:1-4.

Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.  They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity.
"Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save."

Bel and Nebo are Babylonian gods.  Bel is the title of Marduk, the patron-god of Babylon and the head of their pantheon and Nebo is his son, who became the chief god of the Assyrians.  Every year, the statue of Nebo would be taken to to the temple of Bel Marduk so that the gods could commune together as father and son.  When they were moved like this, the idols were literally burdens carried by weary beasts through the streets and down the roads.  Their gods were literally burdens to be borne by their worshipers.

From the distance of a couple thousand years, we may sit back and laugh at the foolishness of these worshipers.  Their gods were works of art, carved pieces of stone, cast pieces of metal.  Their followers had to move them, position them, clean them, and often took things further by "feeding" them--though of course they could not make the food disappear by themselves.  The idols were more helpless than even infants, and obviously were impotent to actually do anything for their followers.  Certainly we are more enlightened than they: we have no idols of stone or metal.

But sometimes, I think we are not so different.  Really, who bears the responsibility in our relationship with God?  We may no longer have to move around a big statue of Him, but are we obligated to serve Him in other ways?  Is He burdensome?  Are we compelled to carry Him out to the mission field, because He cannot find new converts Himself?  Are we required to give Him our money because He cannot provide for Himself?  Are we forced to inform Him of our needs and those of the people and world around us in prayer because He cannot find them out for Himself?  Whose responsibility is it to keep up the relationship?  Is it us,  striving forever to please a God who apparently cannot satisfy Himself?  Is it us, being oh-so-careful not to upset His delicate sensibilities?  If this is so, our God is a burdensome one indeed, borne about by feeble creatures like us--and probably of little help to us.

But this God is not the God of the Bible.  It is the God of the Bible who speaks out at the ridiculous procession of the burdensome gods, Bel and Nebo...who speaks still at our burdensome gods.  What He says is simply amazing.  When all the world is full of gods who are burdens, who need someone to care for and carry them, the God of the Bible says: "I will carry you!"  In fact, He has carried us, and He will, from birth to our old age.  He carries us; He cares for us.  He gives us the words and the opportunities to join Him on the mission field, where He is already at work finding new converts Himself.  He provides us with money and the strength to earn it, and asks in return only that we remember Who it came from and use it accordingly.  He knows everything.  He knows every problem and every word we will say in prayer, and so brings about answers to our prayers before we even say them.  Yet He asks us to pray to Him about our concerns anyway, so that we will remember that He already has them well in hand and we'll stop worrying about them.  He has laid it on Himself to keep up our relationship.  He made it possible by His redeeming blood.  He sustains it by the Holy Spirit and His own faithful nature: He cannot deny Himself.  He appeased His own demands in Christ, because He saw that we were incapable of doing so.  Though we offended Him deeply, He appeased His own sense of justice on the tree and now He freely offers forgiveness for our every wrong.

It seems to me a huge contrast between a god that I must carry, and the God Who carries me.  The former I may strive forever to appease and never see any benefit from.  But the latter, has done everything to be with me and loads me with benefits daily, such that I can never count them all.  This is the God who carries us!

Something's Different...

I've noticed in the last month or so that there's something different in my relationship with God.  If you've read a few of my "Great Romance" labeled posts, especially the early ones, you know what I'm talking about.  The change, in any case, was difficult for me to pin down at first.  Something was different, better, but we still had the same struggles and challenges...still do, in fact.  I would get busy and start trying to overcome obstacles in my life solo, and He would have to break through my walls and get my attention.  He would ask me to do something, and I would object because of some arbitrary standard or fear.  We'd have our tiffs.  We also had our moments of nearness and affection.  All of this was familiar from months and even years ago, though there were always new surprises, new twists and discoveries.  Nothing was in a rut, really, but the pattern of our relationship remained unchanged.  But something else had changed.

It took me a while to figure out that what had changed was my attitude.  It really struck me when I revisited a song I'd used in one of my earlier posts, "Arms"  by Christina Perri.  The song is about a woman who questions her lover's affections and their relationship, thinking that she isn't good enough for him.  She throws up walls against him and tries to break away from him, to spare him, but he always comes for her, holding her and refusing to let her go.  She always seems surprised by this, by the fact that he loves her even though she thinks life would be easier for him if he didn't.  When I wrote that post, I could sing that song with prefect empathy for the woman: that was how I felt about my relationship with God.  I felt like I didn't deserve Him, like it would be so much easier on Him if He were to just give up on me...and I was always surprised when He didn't.  But the other day when I sang the same song, I no longer felt as the woman did.  I might still think that it would be easier on God if He didn't love me so--sometimes--, but I was no longer surprised that He did, no longer ready to insist that He stop for His own good.  I knew it was pointless.  I knew that He loved me in spite of all the pain I caused Him, and that He had no intention of letting me go.

That in and of itself is a change.  I have believed from my childhood in eternal security: the Once-Saved-Always-Saved position.  From the age of six, at the latest, I'd stopped any serious questioning of whether or not I'd actually been saved the night I accepted Christ.  I believed I was going to heaven.  I believed Jesus loved me.  From halfway through my college career, I knew that God wanted a real relationship with me that included talking with me, sharing my frustrations and joys, and sharing affection and intimacy.  This last had been totally unexpected to me (I'd always thought before that the whole "relationship with God" thing was mostly just a catch-phrase to jazz up rote prayers and regular church attendance--having a relationship with God that looked and behaved more like a romantic pursuit than anything else seemed absurd; when I first realized that description fit my interaction with God more accurately, I feared for my sanity).  But knowing all these things and believing them is different from understanding them in your heart.  Head-knowledge doesn't give confidence, but heart-knowledge does.

That described a lot of the change in my relationship.  I wasn't afraid any more.  I didn't think that God might decide to up and leave at any moment or leave the relationship to stagnate in a quagmire.  I knew He cared too much for that, that He never would, and I drew comfort from that.  There was confidence and boldness, too.  Not only did I know that He'd decided to stick it out through thick and thin with me, I accepted His decision.  I couldn't and can't always see the logic behind it, but I accept that it must be there and that it's His decision to make.  As a result, I am not, like the woman, constantly going about trying to sever the relationship for good.  I know I can't.  I still build walls, but I now build them half expecting them to come down any minute as He comes crashing through.  I object when it happens, but I quickly accept it and move on.

This means more change in my attitude every day.  I'm no longer scandalized by His words of love, I accept them and even flirt back.  I no longer argue that He shouldn't get me gifts, I accept them with gratitude even if I can't quite see why He's giving them to me.  The change has affected the relationship as a whole.  I'd describe it as more settled, more mature.  There are still surprises and drama, but I'm no longer expecting the whole thing to fly apart any minute, or any time soon.  Now, deeper issues can be worked on and deeper intimacy enjoyed.

The oddest part about this change is its timing, but I don't think it's coincidental.  This change, this deepening and stabilizing of our relationship comes at a time when I haven't been in church in literally months, am not attending Christian activities of any kind (both of these due to my schedule), and have been off a daily Bible reading plan for over a year.  All the kinds of things I would have expected to be necessary to deepen my relationship with Christ are totally absent from my life.  The only thing there is Christ, and I think He's bringing a message by allowing my heart to settle in with Him under these precise circumstances: the only thing I need is Christ, everything else may be good, but He alone is sufficient.

Where Does Our Guidance Come From?

Today, I reorganized my room--at least up until the point where I ran out of shelf space to reorganize onto.  I have far too many books, or else far too few places to put them.  I gravitate toward the latter explanation, personally.

While I was sorting through things, though, I happened upon a booklet called This Legacy of Leaders by Rick Whitney: "a Great Commission Northwest book" the title page declares.  I remember that a dear friend of mine gave me this booklet to read some months ago.  It was very important to him.  He was the leader of my small group at church and he thought the booklet would help me understand more about leadership.  At the time, we were sadly in conflict over the topic of leadership.  He saw himself, as a leader, as having the authority to tell me how I ought to handle my personal relationship with another member of our group.  I saw him as only having the authority to advise on the matter, with the final say being God's, not his.  Sadly, this conflict escalated into a big relational blowout that damaged and severed several friendships before I even opened the cover of this little booklet.  Afterwards, I didn't want to open it and be reminded.

But now, the past is sufficiently past.  I opened the little booklet and began to read.  Rick opens by addressing the reader as a "future leader" and reminds them of the great debt they owe to previous leaders, teachers, and mentors.  His opening sentence: "Every man who has ever done anything for God has had teachers and leaders."  Of the Great Commission movement, he states, "We strongly hold to the truth that leaders are shaped by leaders [emphasis original]."  From his description, a great Christian leader owes his existence to a great chain of previous leaders who devoted their time to training up successors in the faith.  Indeed, he claims, "Leaders don't just 'spring out of the weeds.'  Someone has invested their heard and shared their life with every pastor who is now 'on the wall.'"

What immediately occurred to me was that this was true, but insufficient.  Indeed, the claims could and have easily be made by non-Christian leaders.  Sir Isaac Newton is often quoted as saying, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" about his findings in the field of science and the influence his forebears had upon it.  In 1st Century Israel, the Pharisees traced their knowledge and their doctrines back to an oral tradition reportedly handed down from teacher to teacher, leader to leader, from Moses himself.  And yet Jesus didn't have much of anything good to say about the Pharisees.  The passing down of knowledge from one generation to the next is certainly important, but it is not sufficient to make a Christian leader great.  Garbage and baggage is as easily passed from generation to generation as wisdom and truth.  Without the influence of the Spirit of Truth, a simple chain of nobly-minded men passing on guidance from generation to generation would (and has, in many cases) fall victim to this fact and eventually wind up with as much garbage and baggage as wisdom and truth.  In fact, if the chain does not start with the Holy Spirit, then all you have is garbage all the way down.  That the Holy Spirit is capable of starting such a chain independently of any existing leaders is demonstrated by the life of the Apostle Paul, who says of himself:

"I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.  For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.  ...when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.  But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother.  (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!)  Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia.  And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.  ...Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem...because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.  ....those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.  On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised."

--Galatians 1:11-12, 15-22; 2:1-2, 6-9

Thus Paul had no heritage of Christian leaders he could look back on: he had only the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Paul did not learn the gospel from the apostles and influential men in the church at Jerusalem, but only met them later, after his own ministry and leadership were already in full swing, and they affirmed his leadership and his gospel, recognizing them as given by God.  Though Paul had no legacy of leaders to follow, He had something even better: he had God to follow.  The apostles clearly thought this alone was sufficient for His ministry...and I think it remains the most important thing any Christian leader can have today.

But I wonder if the author of this pamphlet would agree.  He alludes to "side-boards" and "guidelines" that leaders will need to understand what is expected of them as they are used of God and serve as a leader in His church.  Where can we find these guidelines, or side-boards, as he has it?  "One way you can gain these side-boards, [sic] is to understand just what your leaders are looking for when it comes to future leaders. [emphasis original]"  He then explains how he sent a message to a number of current church leaders asking them for a few words on what they were looking for in future leaders.

When I saw this, I confess to being overly optimistic.  I thought to myself, "That's nice.  We'll have one or two brief quotes from leaders and then the writer will come back and expound the guidelines of leadership from scripture (the quotes of the Bible, which is authored by the Holy Spirit, being of greater weight than the quotes of men, which are authored by mere mortals)."  Then, I turned a page, then another, then another.  The booklet is 55 pages long, and all but the first 4 and the last page consist entirely of quotations from other leaders.  Here is the source Rick Whitney suggests future leaders draw their guidelines from: previous leaders.

But is this where we are supposed to get our guidelines from, whether in leadership or any other aspect of our spiritual lives?  I'll admit it is a fair source, but is it the best one?  For pages and pages and pages leaders spout their personal opinions on what a good leader should do and should be.  No doubt their advice has merit, but is their no firmer foundation, no greater truth we can look to?  Can we find any better source of guidelines in the area of spiritual leadership than the God who made all our spirits and seeks to lead us all?  Has He not spoken on the topic of leadership in the Bible?  Surely He has, but it is not the Bible that Rick Whitney asks us to turn for guidelines but to each other.

This troubles me greatly, even as it clears certain things up.  In the church my friend attended, leaders were greatly revered.  Their advice was taken very seriously.  There positions were highly honored.  I would see this as a good thing, if it were not for how it contrasted with the attitude toward the influence of the Spirit.  The Spirit, in this church, was generally thought to work through leaders in some sort of top-down approach.  Some even scoffed at the idea that the Spirit might choose to direct a person individually in his or her everyday life.  Others said that such guidance simply could not be trusted if it failed to line up with the advice of one's leaders.  When it came down to a real choice between following the miraculous voice of the Spirit speaking directly to your heart or following the advice of your leaders regurgitated from the advice of their leaders and ultimately sourced from who-knows-where, the choice was a matter of remaining in the church (if you placed the leader's advice higher) or being ejected from it (if you did not).

How can this be good Christian practice?  How can this be virtuous Christian leadership?  Paul became an apostle not because of his leaders, but because God called him and revealed the gospel and his mission to him without the influence of leaders.  Even when Paul called for Christians to follow and imitate him, he did so with a keen eye that they should first and foremost follow God.  "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ," he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1 [emphasis added].  Verses later he states that the head of every man is not his leader but, "the head of every man is Christ."

It is good to have leaders, teachers, mentors, and people we can learn from, but if our ultimate source of guidance is not God Himself, we are lost.  We then had better hope that our leaders are led by God, for if not then this parable applies:

"if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit."

--Jesus Christ, Matthew 15:14

More Mirrors

Added March 1st, 2013
In the months since I posted this, I have gotten back in touch with members of my previous church in the Great Commission Movement and one of the national leaders of the movement as well.  Some elements and people in the Movement seem to respond very well to criticism and the national leadership is definitely among them.  Yet some at my previous church seem to still reflect the need for "more mirrors."  Parts of this post still address that need, particularly paragraphs toward the end that address issues of deflecting valid criticism and church elitism.

My initial post (linked to through the first paragraph of this one: the September post called "God's Best") still remains fully valid and, I think, relevant for believers everywhere as we are all under God's sovereignty and all living out His best--and all vulnerable to the accusation of Satan that we have somehow destroyed God's sovereign plan and purpose for our lives by sinning.

However, in regards to this post it should be noted Jim McCotter (the primary author of the book critiqued below) is no longer a member of the Great Commission Movement.  The Movement's current leaders are aware that much of the sadly-valid criticisms they incurred early in their history were related to his leadership and they have publicly stated that they will not work with him until or unless he embraces the changes they made in response to those criticisms and reconciles himself with various people hurt by his leadership.  The Movement further no longer promotes Jim McCotter's works, including Leadership:Elders and Apostles.  It is effectively replaced by a 2007 work by John Hopler and Brent Knox: New Testament Church Leadership in Action Today.  While this work builds on the theme of the previous book in that it places a strong emphasis on doing things "the New Testament way," including leadership, the book corrects the errors of it's predecessor.  It acknowledges deacons and apostles as church offices, though it does not discuss them in detail.  It acknowledges that models of leadership other than their own may be equally valid, while still presenting arguments in favor of their own view.  It drops entirely a number of points from the previous work, including dismissal of criticisms, the one-church-per-city rule, and objection to the Biblical requirements that an elder be married and with children.  While the previous work emphasizes zeal, courage, and blind obedience as the ideal qualities of a leader, the new work emphasizes servanthood.  The latter work argues its case logically, Biblically, and with respect for other views, and on the whole this seems to be the model followed today by the Movement, though due to the independence of the individual churches they should be taken on a case by case basis.  That being said, for most of them, this post no longer applies.  However, since parts of it are sadly still relevant and since more general questions on church leadership (such as "Why does the Bible require elders to be married?" etc) are addressed indirectly below, I have preserved the original post.  You can view it in its entirety by clicking below.

Scattered Thoughts

I've been wanting to write another post here for a while.  Now I suppose I'm going to write several all together here and just hope it makes sense.  Even if it doesn't, it will feel good to get it out there.

I've been meaning to finish up my previous post on Psalm 139.  I don't know if I'll finish it, but I did want to add on to it.  The psalmist begins by talking about how God knows him so completely and utterly. God knows when he rises, when he sits, where he goes and when, and even knows what he is going to say before  he says it.

In truth, God goes beyond simply knowing us.  He is not some distant figure in the heavens peering down on us.  He possesses us.  We are His.  From the moment of our birth, and even before, He sees us and makes up plans for our lives.  He surrounds us with His presence day in and day out, even as we sleep.  We cannot escape from Him.  The psalmist goes to great lengths to illustrate this last point.  Beginning at verse seven, the psalmist writes of how he cannot escape God's knowledge and presence even if he tries.  If he goes up into Heaven, God is there; if he descends into Hell, God is there; if he flees at the speed of light itself to the remotest corner of the universe, even there God will be with him.  Even if he cloaks himself in darkness (whether spiritual or physical), God's gaze pierces the darkness: it does not inhibit Him in the least.

Such an omnipresent personal force could be truly terrifying.  It reminds me a bit of the "Creepy Doll" song.

Everywhere the character turns, the creepy doll is there, watching, waiting, and obviously hostile.  But God's presence isn't threatening like that.  It can be threatening, I'll admit: He encroaches on our sense of privacy, our independence, and most of all on our belief that we are the self-sufficient sovereigns over our own lives and worlds.  But He does not encroach on all this because He intends to ruin us.  He encroaches because He intends to rescue us.  All through the Psalm it speaks of God's actions in terms of protection and guidance.  You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me (verse 5).  If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me (verses 9-10).  We are drowning in our privacy (read loneliness), our independence (read isolation), in the pressure of trying to be enough for all of our needs all by ourselves.  Christ comes and rescues us from all of that, protects us from ongoing damage and leads us out.

That reminds me of another thing I wanted to mention.  There's this song that's been going through my head a lot the past few weeks--and no, it's not about a creepy doll!  It's one of the new Taylor Swift songs, "State of Grace."  I confess I had to listen to it a few times before I actually had a clue what the song was about.  Once I did, though, I immediately saw how it applied to myself and God, especially right now.

The lyrics for this song are very hard to find online.  So far I haven't found one listing that doesn't foul them up.  Honestly, people, how hard is it to just buy the album at Walmart and open the insert to page 2?  All the lyrics are printed right there, no guesswork.  They're listed here for your convenience.  Copyright Taylor Swift.

I'm walking fast through the traffic lights

Busy streets and busy lives

and all we know

is touch and go

We are alone with our changing minds

We fall in love till it hurts or bleeds or fades in time 

And I never

saw you coming

And I'll never

be the same

You come around and the armor falls

Pierce the room like a cannonball

Now all we know

is don't let go

We are alone, just you and me

Up in your room, and our slates are clean

Just twin fire signs

Four blue eyes 

So you were never a saint

And I loved in shades of wrong

We learn to live with the pain

Mosaic broken hearts

But this love is brave and wild! 

And I never

saw you coming

And I'll never

be the same 

This is a state of grace

This is the worthwhile fight

Love is a ruthless game

unless you play it good and right

These are the hands of fate

You're my Achilles heel

This is the golden age of something good and right and real 

And I never

saw you coming

And I'll never

be the same

And I never

saw you coming

And I'll never

be the same 

This is a state of grace

This is the worthwhile fight

Love is a ruthless game

unless you play it good and right.

Where I work, the environment is very fast paced.  Customers don't stop piling into your line just because you're tired and can barely keep your eyes open, or you had to skip breakfast and your fingers are beginning to tremble from hunger.  Your break is coming, sure, but it's only a few minute respite.  Even if you get off, it's a few hours, maybe a few days, during which you never really seem to recover, and then you're back on the line again.  It can be exhausting, but it's life as the world offers it.  Keep moving, keep producing, keep working, harder, faster, stronger, smarter than the next guy.  You have to get ahead--and stay ahead--of everybody else if you ever want your life to count...and did I mention that the definition of "ahead' is always racing along faster than you could hope to run yourself?

There are respites, of course.  There's a sympathetic chat with a customer, a few words with a friend, a small space of relaxation.  There's something in those moments that touches my parched soul--but then I have to go again, I have to keep busy.  And it seems the end result of being busy is being alone.  I don't have time to really understand and be with people and have them really understand and be with me.  I don't have time to understand myself, to really understand the wounds of my past, my present, to see how I've changed and evaluated it.  I just have to keep moving.  This is the break-neck pace of my private, independent, self-sufficiently sovereign life...and it might literally break my neck!

But like the psalm says, God is inescapable and He comes to guard and to guide.  He always seems to show up when I don't expect Him.  I never see Him coming.  He pierces all my business, all my defenses, all my armor, in the most unexpected ways, and cuts right to my heart.  Though I may be surrounded by bustling customers, I feel as though I am alone with Him, just the two of us.  All the things I think I have to do in order to count aren't there with us.  All the things I'm trying to make up for aren't either.  No, He isn't proper (the prudish way I think of proper) to barge in like this and sweep all of this oh-so-important rubbish aside.  But He's right.  No, I don't deserve it.  I've done worse than loved a few shades of wrong, but my slate is clean.  He went through Calvary to make it so, in order to get me here, alone, with Him.  It's wonderful!

I'm not truly alone, though.  There are still customers bustling.  The pressures of the day are right there, waiting to pounce on me, as is the temptation to battle them all alone in my self-sufficiency.  But God is here to.  I live with the blessing of His presence, the blessings of Heaven itself, while mucking through life on Earth.  It is a fight to keep this in my mind, but it's a worthwhile one and I'm not alone in it.  God has written my life story, and He is my destiny.  When all else fails, He knows my weaknesses and exploits the chinks in my armor of isolation to open me up to Him once more.  Love and life can be a ruthless and pointless game, but it never is with Him.  He plays it good and right, for He is Good and Right!

There are some more scattered thoughts floating around in my brain, but I'll save them.  For now, I've found a good stopping point, and I'll seize it.