If you find no scars on your soul, you aren't looking for them. That, or you adamantly reject the notion of the Fall. To live and breathe as flesh is to be wounded. This is the truth revealed by God.
At its very root, the fundamental definition of righteousness is to agree with God. The fundamental definition of sin is to disagree with God. The point is not a matter of performance, because we are expected to fail in that. It's a matter of desire, which can only arise in us as a gift from the Holy Spirit. Without His desire for righteousness in us, we have no hope. Consequently, the actual success at carrying out these desires results from a mystical union of wills. Mere performance is a matter for those under Law, the Covenants of Noah and Moses. Such is but a reference point for those who walk under Grace. We who carry the desire to please God will inevitably do so, regardless of performance. We have to move beyond thinking in terms of conditional favor based on doing, or even being (which is a mere logical abstraction of doing), and focus on loving.
God's Word assumes we orient on the relational. Most of the world orients on the performance. The vast gulf between the assumptions of the Word and those of most humans is the source of most sorrows. That is, while living in a fallen state is bad enough, we make it far worse by insisting we most certainly do perceive what is, and what ought to be by use of our rational faculties. So deeply ingrained is this assumption, even after coming to Christ, we still reflexively seek the wrestle with revelation within the rational framework. We assume this is the framework of the God Himself, when He has said otherwise. We think we know what "relational" means, but our definition and assumptions are all wrong.
Many Children of the Kingdom pass their entire lives only approaching the exit from this madness. Our entire cultural setting militates against it. We have all too many battles fought over trying to assert rational assumptions as the "handmaiden of revelation," when in reality we enthrone this "reason" above the relational revelation. In chasing this false dream, and failing at so many points, we assume we simply haven't tried hard enough. So again, we come to that performance assumption. From end to end, the whole question hangs on escaping the Western rationalist frame of reference.
That the rest of the world offers millions of competing assumptions only makes it harder. In the foul mix of it all, we find ourselves surrounded by new souls in Christ struggling to overcome a tangle of lies and scars, attempting to take a path to recovery based on false information, and we have left millions with the bare thread of hope which only the Spirit Himself supplies. We acknowledge that's the bottom line, but we have little idea how to make it more usable, how to translate that into a way of living as our spiritual "normal." Instead, the entire Western church seems stuck on trying to find that rationalized norm, which is merely a different flavor of what the world is doing without Christ.
Because we do not break the mental habits of Western rational assumptions, we often require of disciples all the wrong things. Some of this should be obvious: grace does not have a uniform dress code. Grace calls for walking in love, so we would not reveal too much skin because we want to avoid giving offense and offering temptation. We are warned against portraying ourselves by our dress as the opposite sex, or from confusing the issue (though we mess that up by pressing too much mere personal taste). Beyond that, just about anything goes. When we reflexively expect standard middle class business attire as the norm, and dismiss as "unprofessional" anyone who dresses outside that norm, we are putting God in a box. It reduces holiness to a worldly performance standard. In these days, most people are getting at least a part of that message. Still, we often miss out on so very much joy and blessing because we retain yet a whole raft of similar reflexes which make no room for those who fall too far outside our personal comfort zone.
In our minds, we make a sin of too many choices we do not understand, but then refuse to try understanding. God calls people where they are, to something only He can decide. When we erect barriers in the minds of new disciples, they may never find the joy and peace of their true calling, because we have excluded from their consideration things we just can't imagine God doing. We don't permit Him to color outside our lines. This grievous sin has driven many from the church, and far too many from faithfully serving Him. Consider, for example, those who suffer PTSD. We get the willies when people operate from psychological wounds, and won't even admit to ourselves when we have such wounds. That means they never get healed. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can come in a wide range of shades and depths, and so very much of it simply cannot be treated, other than learning to live with it. Because we chase the chimera of a rational normality which does not exist, we can't let people be wounded in the soul and be acceptable. A part of us fears because we refuse to understand any part of it, and refuse to accept the notion God can use such people.
God can and does heal, but only as it suits His purpose, not some false assumption He intends to heal every malady. We filter it all through some lie that lack of healing means lack of faith, ipso facto not quite as "holy" as us "normal" folks. In other words, we demand a change in something God has not delivered into our hands, and we won't let God choose something we don't like. Thus, the guy who can't hold a job, for all his sweet spirit, is a failure. We let the world define for us what failure is, instead of seeking the Word on it. In our minds, we associate that with someone who is just too lazy, or crazy, and either one is simply not what God intends. Yes, Paul wrote about bums and busybodies, but we can't paint everyone with that broad brush stroke simply because we haven't taken the time to walk a mile in their shoes. We don't ask God in prayer what to do about each individual because we assume too much about what the answer has to be.
Worse, the issue becomes confused because so many of the people we treat this way are also stuck under the false assumptions they are bad because they are different. They struggle mightily to capture that false normality, and when they cannot, gain yet another wound because they can't perform. So they either give up and go away, sinking into the Slough of Despond, or they simply embrace being a lazy bum and hang around bumming off everyone, because that is what is expected of them.
Someday, I hope and pray we make room for the walking wounded and crippled whom God has chosen to serve Him. They are vessels prepared for His divine purpose, just as they are. Too often they serve far more gloriously than we, and we don't even realize it. We can't see what "glory" really is. If we could break the mental habit of putting valuations on everything, if we could just devote more effort to understanding what comes out of people as the path to knowing them relationally in Christ, sensing things in our spirits and not making our rational faculties the measure of all things, perhaps we'll see the power of God working in us in new ways. We as the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in this world have done so very little because we don't give God room to do it His way. We keep trying to tell Him how it should be.
By Ed Hurst
03 October 2008
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