The River
There’s just too much individualism! We read scripture as if it were written saying to each individual, "Now here's what I want you to do when [so and so says or such and such happens]." That's not the way it's written. The biblical strokes are broader than that and they're affected by the overarching
purpose of God for the entire human family. We aren't called to know a
billion spiritual ways to react, a jillion responses to make in moral
judgment and spiritual development.
Rather than ask, "What is this text saying to me?"
it would be enriching and more helpful in the long term to ask, "How
does this text fit into God’s grand purpose?" And then, "What kind of
life am I to lead in order to tune in with the grand purpose of God?"
It's a lifestyle we're to look for rather than a million answers to a
million specific questions about this and that.
We aren't forever under God's microscope. We aren’t those brilliant
children who are overseen by ever-present teachers and guides who are
supremely anxious that we achieve our greatest potential. There is no
ceaseless prodding and shaping at the level of specific responses. Such children are robbed of community experience and community dependence because their individuality is taken too
seriously. We're not our best and cannot be our best under God if we’re
feverishly checking our personal development every thirty minutes by
buying one more book, attending one more seminar or reading one more
blog. God has made a commitment to the human family of which he has made us a part and it is that that I think we should be stressing.
If the response to all that is that we need personal development and
we need people to tell us about personal development well, then, we’re
richly blessed because we have plenty of people like that! It
appears we'll never be short of them (not since the Enlightenment).
Sometimes I think there’s no other kind of writer or speaker or teacher.
I know it isn’t true, but sometimes it seems that everywhere I look
everyone is talking about him or herself or talking about each one of us
as if we were isolated units. Books by the tens of thousands fill the
religious shelves, teaching us how to develop this or that, how to know
this or that, how to avoid this or that and how to get this or that. Do
we need such instruction? I'm sure we do! But do we need a ceaseless
torrent of it? Must leaders turn the church into a gymnasium filled with
mirrors and spiritual body-builders that follow personalised programmes
"created just to suit your individual needs"?
To live in the Spirit must surely involve getting to know where the Spirit is taking the human family
in his cosmic enterprise. It must involve praying prayers that bear
that in mind, praying prayers that are shaped by thoughts and insights
generated by his massive purpose and praying prayers that are assured
that he will take us there. It must involve embracing that overarching
purpose as our own because it is his.
In praying to be the individuals we believe God wants us to be we
need to ask, "Why am I here? What is it that I am serving in?" If we
want to develop as individuals as the Spirit sees and thinks of us,
then our prayers will be more in tune with the Spirit if we see
ourselves as he sees us. If I see myself as a budding piano-player I
will discipline myself to that end differently than if I saw myself as a
possible weightlifting champion. "Since this is what the Spirit is
bringing about, what kind of family members does he need? By his grace I
will be that kind." To know the mind of the Spirit will shape our own
minds in prayer and we will pray "in the Spirit". To know the mind of
the Spirit doesn’t mean we get to know in specific what
he would want us to do in every conceivable set of circumstances. That
isn't possible; it isn't open for us to know. To know the mind of the
Spirit is to know the drift of the whole divine purpose and to offer
ourselves in service to that.
It would be something like coming to the bank of a great river and
knowing it is flowing to the sea, launching our little boat and getting
involved in the adventure. That image will only take us so far but to
know the direction the current flows and to give ourselves to it is a
major description of what it means to live or pray in the Spirit. We
don't need at the point of our commitment to know all the twists and
turns or rocks and eddies of the river—that doesn't matter. We jumped
into the adventure knowing that whatever we meet on the
way, we're still going to the sea. This calls for initial understanding
and commitment. That understanding and commitment will grow as we race
with the current, tip over on a sandbank or get caught in some
whirlpool—whatever.
What we won’t do, is drag our little boats up out of the river and slink back home. And if someone on the bank asks where we're going we'll be able to tell him—to glory! And if others on the bank tell us our boat is fragile, that there are rocks and rapids ahead, that we aren't smart or knowledgeable enough, we’ll admit all that and journey on. And if they say that the river comes in the end to nothing but marsh—if they tell us that, we'll tell them it can't be true because this is the river of God. We’ll call them to join us in the adventure rather than loaf about, bored and aimless and critical.
What we won’t do, is drag our little boats up out of the river and slink back home. And if someone on the bank asks where we're going we'll be able to tell him—to glory! And if others on the bank tell us our boat is fragile, that there are rocks and rapids ahead, that we aren't smart or knowledgeable enough, we’ll admit all that and journey on. And if they say that the river comes in the end to nothing but marsh—if they tell us that, we'll tell them it can't be true because this is the river of God. We’ll call them to join us in the adventure rather than loaf about, bored and aimless and critical.
Think and wonder in pleasure about the "big picture". Think
noble things of God. Commit in gladness to him and his purposes and take
what comes as part of the adventure.