Antidote for Judgmentalism: Accepting that We Know So Little

 I Cor. 13:12,13 (The Message)  We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

According to the apostle Paul, we know so little about anything and everything. Truth that we believe we are so sure about is as clear (or less) as the scene in this picture. Because of this, it's wise to suspend our quick judgments on everything and everyone.

This doesn't mean we don't have opinions and convictions but they must be held loosely and without malice towards those who see differently. Paul admonishes us in three areas, saying that this focus will lead us incrementally and ultimately to full clarity: 1) trust continually in the Lord who sees clearly; 2) keep expectation alive in God; 3) love Him and others with all our heart. Paul punctuates his message by saying that self-giving love is the summation of how we gradually gain clearer vision until the perfect day.

In summary, I believe that an antidote for judgmentalism (which is the default response of fallen/fearful humans) is to step back and ponder seriously how little I know about God and myself and others and put my trust in God's clear eyesight, live with hope for all, and do whatever is in my power to love.

Prov. 3:5 (Good News Translation) Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know.

Jesus' Ability to Lead: A Source of Peace

I've become aware over recent years that we Christians generally seem to be pretty uptight people. There seems to be an underlying anxiety about most things in our life: worries about whether or not I'm praying or fasting enough, or whether my prayers are fervent or faith-filled enough, whether I'm doing enough for others, whether I'm in the will of God, or whether I'm giving enough, whether I'll miss "God's best", etc., etc.

I've spent my life in the holiness and missions world and like many in that world, the emphasis on "finding the will of God" for many years left me with a nagging fear that I might miss God's "highest" and end up living as a "second class citizen" of God's kingdom. I believe these kinds of fears have their roots in religious ideas that set up spiritual hierarchies and that put the weight of our salvation and sanctification on us, rather than on God.

When I look at the characteristics of sheep (see here), I'm very impressed with the shepherd's love and care for the sheep and His ability to lead them (see here). My conclusion is that getting the sheep to a certain destination is much more about the shepherd's leadership than it is about what good followers the sheep are.

This is a source of joy and peace/relief to me when I start to go down the path of introspection, getting uptight and afraid that I'm not sufficient enough in this or that and worried that I've missed God's best or that I'm not going to make it in the end, etc, etc.  I can pause and look at the good Shepherd and how well He leads and how He is able to get us where He is taking us.

Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you...my yoke is easy, my burden is light..." I do my small bit of agreeing to be with Him in the "yoke", and the weight of getting me (along with all His people) to where we are going falls on Him. This should make us the most joy and peace filled people on earth!

Doubt or Devotion...or Both??

An observation I have been making in recent years is that one of the easiest things to happen to a Christian is to stagnate; we like to feel secure, and staying within the inherited theological boundaries that have provided a sense of certainty (see "Sense of Security") is natural to us. We unwittingly end up placing our trust in our certainty rather than in the Person of God in Christ who is infinitely larger than our systems of belief. Western Christianity of the past few hundred years contributes to this tendency to stagnate, because we've accepted the idea that being a Christian primarily means to adhere to a determined set of beliefs concerning God and that those beliefs should never change. (See recent post here.)  It's acceptable if we change within the boundaries of that prescribed belief system, but to venture outside of those boundaries in search for more truth is at best discouraged and at times punished.

I think there are two main ingredients needed for ongoing change and growth in God: 1) Sincere questions about Jesus and scripture, sorting through what really is needed and disposing of whatever is hindering the true knowledge/experience of God in Christ;
2) Sincere devotion to Jesus, always keeping focused on what the "sorting through" is all about and not getting lost in the sorting. Without the sincere questioning, we easily get stuck in what we have been taught and there is always more to learn (and unlearn) of Jesus; without sincere devotion to Jesus, we can easily make the "sorting through" the goal.

With this in mind, I recommend some books below, two for the "questioning" ingredient and two for the "devotion" ingredient; I recommend the wonderful (and at times frightening) adventure of finding a trusted follower(s) of Jesus with whom you can safely discuss anything and everything while keeping clearly in view the ultimate and ongoing goal of encountering Jesus in truth and consequently becoming like Him. Depending on the lens you are looking through, some of this material will stretch your thinking; the wonderful thing is that you don't have to agree with everything an author writes in order to receive truth from him/her.

Books to help with the questioning ingredient:
A New Kind of Christianity
The Sacredness of Questioning Everything

Books to help with the devotion ingredient:
God's Favorite Place on Earth
The Only Necessary Thing

What God Chose to Make Me...

 “I would rather be what God chose to make me 

than the most glorious creature that I could think of; for 

to have been thought about, 

born in God's thought, 

and then made by God, 

is the dearest, grandest and most precious thing in all thinking.”  

 - George MacDonald -