Romper Room Update

A while back, I posted about an experiment our High School small group was conducting, trying to see others as Jesus sees them, and then treating them accordingly. Recently, we took a poll to see how the guys are doing with this project, and candidly, the results were mixed... seems it's pretty hard to do this on a consistent basis. My take is that the enemy plants lots of lies about the difficulty and how hard it is to be successful. And the battle continues!

In March, we modified the challenge to the group: We moved from seeing others as Jesus sees them to seeing OURSELVES as Jesus sees us... and then treating ourselves accordingly. This seems to be a MUCH harder task. It seems we can be more forgiving, tolerant, patient, and objective with others... not so ourselves. It seems we know too much about ourselves to forgive, to understand, to accept... we forget that God knows us even better, and yet He forgives us... he sacrificed His Son on our behalf... we are redeemed and forgiven. How sad... what a travesty that we can't see ourselves as He does. I've renewed my chalenge to look for Jesus in the mirror in the morning; again with mixed (or unsuccessful) results. My counsel, quoting one of my favorite characters (whose image occupies a place of significance on this page), "Look... haaarder!"

Fire at Will!

In one of the Start Trek movies (forgive me true fans, I’m old and can’t recall the specific title), there is a wonderful sequence where Picard is in one starship, doing battle (perhaps a mock battle?) with his loyal “Number Two,” Will Riker. In one of my favorite movie puns, Picard sternly orders, “Fire at will!” I laughed out loud!

Will is an interesting thing though. We seem to spend inordinate amounts of time seeking God’s will… for ourselves. Praying and sometimes even looking to the sky for writing in the clouds, or for a finger to trace the answer we seek on a wall… we implore the Lord to share with us his specific plans for us. Not always altruistically, we often are seeking to understand how OUR needs and desires can be accommodated according to His sovereign plan. I wonder, though, what ‘lenses’ we apply in seeking to find, and in seeking to understand and even align ourselves in His will.

I’m suspicious we don’t even understand just what His will even is. When I think about my “will,” I think about a determination, an intent, a plan, a “roadmap” with specific steps that I’ll take to achieve a given objective. I find myself wondering if this is true of God’s will. Does he in fact have a specifically ordained set of steps that each of us will take exactly and precisely? Is there only ONE pathway or roadmap that will lead us to his desired goal for us?

I recognize and firmly believe he does in fact have a plan… (Jeremiah 29:11), and I know that he expects us to seek his will for us earnestly through that plan (Jeremiah 29:13). I just question how specific and detailed that plan is, in anticipation of its working out. I do believe that He guides and directs each step we take (of our own free will and accord… but I’m not going there…), but as He lays the path(s?) before us, how definite is the map?

My proposition is this: If we ask, seek, and then move in accordance with our best understanding of God’s desire as He chooses to reveal it to us, and if we proceed in faith, then perhaps, just perhaps, he will work His will through our choices, for our ultimate benefit and good, according to His plan (Romans 8:29). Therefore, my purpose is NOT to agonize over discovering His plan that I might function within it, but to rely on the fact that He DOES have a plan, and that in accord with His desire for my best, I can do my best to understand in prayer and in faith, and then (whether I have full comprehension or not) to move forward, secure in His will.

Thanks to Jonay, Joel, and Jon

Lenses

“Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” 1 Corintians 13:12 – NLT

On my Driver’s License is a notation, “RSTR: CORR LENS.” It means, of course that the lenses built into my eyes are not capable of bringing sufficient clarity and acuity for me to operate a motor vehicle safely, in the opinion of the State of California. Indeed, the State has mandated that I augment my fallible vision with some sort of visual enhancement device… I choose to wear glasses, making a spectacle of myself as it were (sorry, sometimes I just can’t resist! ;-)

I wonder if in our endeavor to “see each other as Jesus sees us,” if our “spiritual operator’s license” ought not to have a similar notation… I question the acuity of the “eyes of my heart,” my ‘spiritual eyes’ in so far as the ability to truly SEE others.

Good lenses, those perfectly made, are without flaw, without contamination or aberration; they bend the light passing through them with precision, ultimately achieving a perfect focus… Sorry… my lenses just don’t seem to be able to do that! I "see through a glass darkly."

The flaws and aberrations in MY lenses seem somehow to obscure that perfect “Jesus-vision” of others that I seek… I mean I go out well intended, on my spirit-led journey, seeking encounters with my fellows that I might bless [recognize the God in] them, but I can’t see it: the crud (hmmmm… plank?) in my own eye distorts what I see. Sometimes, I unwittingly add filters to my already blurred attempt… the “historical” filter (using all the stuff that happened before… good and bad), the “expectation” filter (this is how this person is supposed to be, supposed to behave), the “selfish” filter (this is what I need from this encounter, or this is how I would act in this circumstance… that’s the RIGHT way)… all these filters to color my vision… perhaps because I’m unwilling to accept a clear, clean… perfect image.

This quest of blessing others, of seeing them as Jesus sees them, and then treating them accordingly is not an easy one. My sense is that I don’t need a “spiritual optometrist…” I don’t need correction – I need perfection in my vision. Prayer would seem the optimal solution.

A Conception of Refuge

From the Concise Oxford Dictionary (What else??!?)
10th Edition, Online:

sanctuary
• n. (pl. sanctuaries)
1 a place of refuge or safety. > immunity from arrest.
2 a nature reserve. > a place where injured or unwanted animals are cared for.
3 a holy place. > the innermost recess or holiest part of a temple. > the part of the chancel of a church containing the high altar.
– ORIGIN ME (orig. ‘a sacred place where a fugitive was immune from arrest’): from OFr. sanctuaire, from L. sanctuarium, from sanctus ‘holy’.

Last week, a small group of us were spending some time in the early morning, praying for our church. We’ve established a focus to “impact… families with the transforming love of Jesus Christ,” and were seeking God’s will and mind in what that means, and perhaps how we are to go about same. It was a truly sweet time, and God led us individually and collectively to realize that a big part of this task has to do with extending ourselves outside of our campus, reaching into the neighborhoods surrounding… showing and sharing His love of people. This was heartening, as He was not talking about programs, schedules, or plans, but about attitudes, hearts, and sharing.

So in the middle of all this, I asked, “God, if we’re supposed to be extending beyond our campus, beyond our property, beyond our grounds, then what’s the purpose of gathering here in your sanctuary? What are we supposed to do here, in church?”

Have you ever been praying and had God chuckle in response? No, really, God chuckled and said, “Kit… my sanctuary is not a building, it’s in my people.”

Oohhh! God, I see! (Albeit through a glass darkly!) You say in your word that our bodies (and our hearts) are your temple… and the sanctuary is the holiest part of the temple; we carry your sanctuary with us! So then, I thought, sanctuary is really a state of being, a state of mind… “Yes,” said God, “that is why the Christian martyrs in the Roman coliseum, were able to sing, while being torn apart by lions.” They were in sanctuary… the holiest part of the temple; a place of refuge and safety. And sanctuary is in the mind of the occupant… the one who is safe… the one who is protected; he or she can be in sanctuary regardless of the environment or the surrounding circumstances… safe in the Father’s arms.

In musing further, I put this in the context of my last post. What about that place of ‘unconditional acceptance,’ of ‘unconditional love,’ and universal positive accord… not a place where people ignore our faults, but where people appreciate our strengths (which are used to build one-another), and where people stand by one another as they grow through their faults and weaknesses, depending entirely on the strength of the Lord… is that not sanctuary?

As he quotes someone much wiser, I'm increasingly convinced: Dallas Willard is right… “The Kingdom of Heaven IS at hand.”

"When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny." -Psalm 73:16-17