One of my favorite episodes in the old TV series, The X-Files, was aptly named “Humbug.” The plot was easy enough to follow. The agents are called to investigate a strange murder in a Florida town inhabited by sideshow performers. And while the whodunit is fun (was it the Fiji Mermaid, the Dog-Faced Boy or one of the other people from the town?), the real story (at least for me) focused on one of the sideshow characters named Dr. Blockhead. Now, Dr. Blockhead was in pursuit of spiritual enlightenment by any means possible. One of the key scenes is when Scully found him torturing himself by being suspended by large hooks that ripped away at his flesh. When he saw that Scully could not grasp what he was doing, he explained: “It’s a variation of a Native American sun dance ritual. I suspend myself by these hooks, and the pain becomes so unbearable I leave my body.” And then he added almost wistfully, “If people knew the true price of spirituality, there’d be more atheists.”
I saw that episode years ago, but that quote has never left me, probably because it has a ring of truth about it. Spirituality is hard work! And there are no shortcuts. However, I wonder if we have made it even more difficult by not having a plan for where we want to go. And remember what Yogi Berra said: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” And ending up someplace else . . . well, that cannot be good.
Now, unfortunately, we all have a plan, but usually we neither recognize it or build upon it. Our plan is to follow the path our church sets out for us. And that is not wrong. Each church defines what spiritual maturity looks like or as Scot McKnight says: “A local church determines what the Christian life looks like for the people in that church.” And since this is true, then at River’s Edge, spiritual maturity reflects these eight components:
- We believe we need to be driven by grace.
- We believe we need to love one another.
- We believe that lost people matter to God.
- We believe that we are called to grow.
- We believe that we grow as we give ourselves away.
- We believe that we are called to be authentic.
- We believe we are called to be relevant.
- We believe we are called to pray.
And yet, while we all may agree that these eight items constitute what spiritual formation looks like in our church, that’s a far cry from us actually living out these things. In other words, these eight qualities are a great destination, but how are we to get there? I would like to propose the following plan. But before we get to step one, we need to define each of these categories a bit more. For instance, here are the five components that comprise how we define what it means to be “driven by grace.” For us, being driven by grace means:
- I am more deeply aware of my sin and my need for repentance, as well as God’s work of grace in my life, enabling me to receive the Gospel.
- I am more and more motivated by grace as opposed to being driven by guilt, obligation and/or duty.
- My love for and worship of God has increased.
- I am being more gracious, patient and kind to the people with whom I interact.
- I have a growing assurance that God is really my loving heavenly father who delights in me as I delight in him.
So, given that definition, what’s our plan? It has six steps (organized in three pairs):
First, ASSESSMENT and PRAYER
The first step is to assess where we are in each of these categories. (Since we are talking about growth, it seems proper to use last year as our benchmark). We need to ask about each of these five items: Compared to last year, how would you discern where you are today? For each item, are you (1) losing ground, (2) stagnating, (3) growing slowly (4), growing or (5) discovering new breakthroughs? So, for example, I might rate myself a “two” for the first item (“I am more deeply aware of my sin and my need for repentance, as well as God’s work of grace in my life, enabling me to receive the Gospel”), a “three” for the second item (“I am more and more motivated by grace as opposed to being driven by guilt, obligation and/or duty.”), a “four” for the third item (My love for and worship of God has increased”), a “one” for the fourth item (“I am being more gracious, patient and kind to the people with whom I interact”), and a “two” for the fifth item (“I have a growing assurance that God is really my loving heavenly father who delights in me as I delight in him”).
Before and after assessing where you are in each of these areas, it is good to pray. We should offer gratitude for any signs of God’s grace that have shown improvement (“Wow, I’ve really grown in my love and worship of God; Sunday mornings are a delight these days.”), but we should also commit ourselves to God to move forward and truly to begin working on those areas where we are struggling to grow. We also need to bathe this whole process in prayer because we know we can’t simply produce these things in ourselves. Only God can produce growth in us. All eight of these qualities are grace gifts given by God to bless us, and that means, we can’t generate these things through our hard work or effort. If we want to grow, the first step has to be to pray for God’s grace.
Second, SELECTION and LOOKING
The second step is to select two of the five items that you feel are most important to you today. Maybe it is becoming more aware of your sin and your need for repentance? Or perhaps it is being more gracious to the people God puts in your path? Or maybe it is growing in an assurance that God is really your loving heavenly father? Prayerfully consider which two items you want to focus on in the upcoming weeks and then post them somewhere visible so that you can see them frequently and be reminded of what you are working on. Trust me, you need to keep these two items in the forefront of your thinking or this whole project will come crashing down. And you need to keep these two items in the forefront of your prayers or this whole project will absolutely come crashing down.
After selecting two items, we need to start looking for all the opportunities God will give us to put these things into practice. We’ve asked God to give us his grace so that we can grow in these areas. Now, we are asking him to provide opportunities for us to work on them in the real world. Now, our problem is often that we don’t see the opportunity until it is past; therefore, we need to be given eyes to see. Henry David Thoreau said it best: “It’s not what you look at that matters; it’s what you see.” We want to see these opportunities in real time and take hold of them. And so we pray for new eyes. Not only that, we enter into each day in anticipation that God is going to do something in them that will give us the opportunity to grow in these two areas that we have chosen. Funny thing, God often disguises opportunities in things that look like obstacles and troubles.
Third, EMBODY and EMBRACE,
Last, we need to seek to embody these characteristics as we go throughout the next week. Our goal is to remind ourselves over and over again of our two items and to make the most out of every opportunity to put them into practice. Our goal is to embody them at every turn in both small and large ways. In other words: practice, practice, practice these two items
But it is more than just embodying these things over the course of the next two weeks or so. Our true goal is to embrace these things as a part of a new lifestyle. We want to embrace the character of someone who is driven by grace. We want our lives to be awash with the aroma of grace. Now, to move from embodying these qualities throughout the next two weeks to making them into a new and lasting lifestyle, we will probably need to add things to reinforce our efforts by doing some extra reading, following authors who are experts in this area, listening to sermons on these topics, or even reading blogposts!).
And since our goal is to make these things part of a new lifestyle, then we need to keep working on these two items even when we have moved on to our seventh category (being relevant) and eighth category (prayer).
One word of caution–what I have proposed is a plan, not a formula. In other words, there is no guarantee here. This is not a formula for success that says if you do these things, you will automatically grow. Hardly. Dallas Willard makes this point: Any plan we put into practice has no merit or power in of itself. All it does is to put us in a position where God can work in us if he so chooses. I read this statement in another blogpost (from Dave at the Kingdom Formation Ministries):
“Setting aside time every morning for prayer and meditation is an important thing to do. But the act of sitting down with our Bible, and even the act of reading our Bible is not what develops our character. Our understanding might be improved, and our appreciation for the things of God might be stirred. But when we open up to the Holy Spirit directly and personally, and receive his words into our hearts and minds, we encounter Life itself that is able to change who we are. Our part is to make a space for listening to God.”
No plan is foolproof, but I hope our plan puts us in a place where God can work in us so that when we step out in faith, God will already be there and use it to further his plan in our lives. And since this whole plan depends on God’s grace, perhaps it is best to start (like we did today) with how we want God’s grace to manifest itself in us. After all, everything in our lives depends on God’s grace.
Yogi Berra was right: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” So, where do you want to go? I would strongly urge you, first of all, to begin by choosing to be driven by grace in all that you do. So, which two items are you going to focus on in the upcoming weeks?
