1. My last week at Jacob's Well ... stop by if you're in Chicago!
This coming Sunday (January 29) is my last Sunday at Jacob's Well Church. I'm transitioning to full-time pastor at Loop Church (while still doing outside writing and speaking). As you might know, the last Sunday a pastor speaks at a church presents an important opportunity to give some "final words." Loop Church has graciously allowed me to preach a version of that
sermon there on Sunday morning as well, so I don't have to preach two different sermons on the same Sunday! If you're in the Chicago area, please join us, either at Loop Church (9:00am) or Jacob's Well Church
(11:00am).
I know, I know: there are lots of quotes in this newsletter! Items #2-4 are all extended quotes that relate to being quiet, trusting God for outcomes, and finding rest and peace. These authors all said it so well that I just wanted to share their
words.
2. Teresa of Avila praying about trusting God for outcomes, and letting go of attachments:
I just came across this quote, and am inserting it in
my book. Teresa has so much wisdom to share! What causes so much of our stress and overwhelm is that we are overly attached to getting certain outcomes. Listen to this prayer:
"Let nothing, O Lord,
disturb the silence of this night.
In this quiet let me begin
to let go
of the thousand trivial attachments
upon which I have come to
depend,
out of which I have built my life,
and upon which I have rested my hopes.
Letting go of what I have come to value
will be painful.
But what greater loss could I know,
what great blindness,
what greater calamity could there be,
than to make much of what is nothing,
to cling to what has no value?”
- Teresa of Avila
3. Dallas Willard on trusting God for outcomes,
and living with more inner silence and peace:
Blaise Pascal, the remarkable scientist, theologian and Christian of the seventeenth century, remarked in his book Penses that "all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay
quietly in their own room." The reason for this inability, he found, is "the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely." In order not to "think of it closely," we turn to what Pascal calls "diversion" to distract ourselves.
"Hence it comes that people so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible."
Pascal also observes that
we have "another secret instinct, a remnant of the greatness of our original nature, which teaches that happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in being stirred up." This instinct conflicts with the drive to diversion, and we develop the confused idea that leads people to aim at rest through excitement, "and always to fancy that the satisfaction which they do not have will come to them if, by surmounting whatever difficulties confront them, they can thereby open the door
to rest." [In other words ... thinking that if they can just get everything done, then they can rest and all will be well.]
Of course it is a fallacy to think that one just needs more time. Unless a deeper solution is found, "more time" will just fill up in the same way as
the time we already have. The way to liberation and rest lies through a decision and a practice.
The decision is to release the world and your fate, including your reputation and "success," into the hands of God. This is not a decision to not act at all, although in some
situations it may come to that. It is, rather, a decision concerning how you will act: you will act in dependence on God. You will not take charge of outcomes. You will do your part, of course, but your part will always be chastened by a sense of who is God -- not you!
4. Ruth Haley Barton on the invitation to habits of solitude and silence, which involve
trusting God for outcomes, and result in living with more inner silence and peace:
I believe silence is the most challenging, the most needed, and the least experienced spiritual discipline among evangelical Christians today. It is much easier to talk about it and read about it than
to actually become quiet. We are a very busy, wordy and heady faith tradition. Yet we are desperate to find ways to open ourselves to our God who is, in the end, beyond all our human constructs and human agendas.
With all of our emphasis on theology and Word,
cognition and service -- as important as these are -- we are starved for mystery, to know this God as One who is totally Other and to experience reverence in his presence. We are starved for intimacy, to see and feel and know God in the cells of our being. We are starved for rest, to know God beyond what we can do for him. We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer silence that is the presence of God himself.
The invitation to solitude and silence is an invitation to all of this, and the beauty of an invitation is that we really do have a choice. We can say yes or no. God extends the invitation, but he honors our freedom and will not push in where he is not wanted. Instead, he waits for us to respond from the
depth of our desire. When your invitation comes, I pray you will say yes.
5. Quote of the week ... the other side of this issue:
“A good journey begins with knowing where we are and being
willing to go somewhere else."
- Richard Rohr
