Mastering the Obvious!

My Grape Nuts are drowning out Sponge Bob in the next room, but it is still inescapable that the day has already begun.  I have a sprinkler valve to install in the back yard and then my day will move on to some other task to get the house ready to close.  But before all of that, I have to reach deep into the Spirit of God, as deep as He allows, and solidify the next point of my growth.

So far, I have been starting and sustaining my prayer time with the two statements, "You love me," and "You have my back."  It is now time to add a third.  In Hebrews, the writer (maybe Paul, maybe not) speaks of Abraham in Chapter 11 verse 8 and how he moved without knowing where he was going.  Chambers goes somewhere different that I expected with the verse.  He says that Abraham demonstrated his faith in God by separating himself from his family.  But Chambers differentiates this from holiness for some reason.  I don't think they should be.  It may not be the sanctification which God brings out in my life daily, but I believe it is part of it.  Either way, he points to the separation of Abraham from those elements of his life that would be distracting or obstructive to his relationship with his Master.  I believe that this concept and perspective on this verse gets at something that occurred to me after wrestling with holiness yesterday. 

First a comment on holiness.  I typically explain the concept of being holy as being "odd for God".  In other words, it refers to something unmistakably referring to God due to its difference from those things which do not.  Spoons look a lot alike, regardless of material they are made of.  But the particular use of a spoon can be ascertained by a few small hints, like size.  Big spoons are for serving food, smaller ones are for eating it.  Shiny spoons are for more formal occasions than plastic-ware.  So too, my life, even though it is shaped like a lot of other lives, should have some clues that indicate a purpose which originates from my Master.  Those clues constitute holiness.  Those I can handle, perfection I can't.  So I am responsible for some of those clues, and other no so much.  Some are fruit of my Master's Spirit within me, and some are made up of my own choices of what I will and will not do, where I will and will not go, and priorities for my time. 

Now the element that has been missing in those initial statements follows naturally from the effects of them.  To state to my Master that, "You love me" is to accept that He accepts me radically, not on my own merit but on His sovereign choice.  The point with that statement is to activate the effects of unfathomable grace from my Master.  The second statement, "You have my back" drives home that I can trust my Master completely.  Regardless of my life circumstances, the important elements of eternal things remains secure.  As Paul points out so clearly in Romans 8, nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus; nothing at all.  So, from grace I move to faith, faith that liberates me from the fears which bind me to the chains of this world, and do so without purpose or benefit.  Now on to the next step, the next phrase I declare to my Master is, "and I am at Your service."  Hmm. How long it has taken to get to this point, and why so long? 

I responded to the struggle accepting the unqualified acceptance of God with shame.  I knew implicitly that I could not earn such acceptance, so I hid, like Adam in the garden, I hid with leaves as large as I could find.  But in hiding, the shame only grows.  I know I am not what I appear to be to those around me and I fear what will happen when I am discovered.  The shame fueled a sinful life focused on self, seeking to medicate the pain which is the festering ache of shame, an inescapable result of accumulating vast pools of shame in the vacancies of my life.  The statement as I seek the face of my Master, "You LOVE me" cut through high dams blocking the reservoirs and released the shame I used as fuel for my self-centered sin.  They were so extensive that this statement was necessary first.  I had to come to terms with the way my Master sees me and accept that what is true is His perspective of me. I had to accept it without the benefit of understanding or being able to explain it.  He is sovereign and He chose me, I don't know why me.

After working through the radical acceptance of my Master, I found that my sinful habits were still a problem.  They may have originated from those pools of shame, and they were also sustained by other things.  I probed again beneath the surface of my life and found fear lurking in the dark recesses of my character.  I was afraid and those fears directed various elements of my life, like relationships with others.  Now from grace I launched into a fearless addressing of my personal security.  I pursued the underlying basis of these ridiculous pretensions, and found a sense where I had learned that I am responsible for my own security.  But there was this inescapable understanding underlying such an expectation that I could NOT control my environment sufficiently to protect myself.  It was a silly expectation that I somehow be able to keep myself, and then my family, and then my friends safe.  It was not possible.  I had no control over my environment, only over my response to it from within it.  I was placed in this terrarium by my Master and it belongs to Him.  So, I came to the only reasonable conclusion that I had to trust (have faith in) the One who owned and maintained this environment I live within.  So, from grace I traveled into faith.

Now I am finding that the struggles I face are more simple behavior and attitude problems; much like everyone else I suppose, but new for me.  In the entries to this blog, I have bandied about the idea of service, pointed to the need of it, the foundation for it, the many varied ways I have messed it up in the past, and so on.  The next step for me is to practice the marks and clues to my different purpose and use through service to my Master.  I need to move from grace, through faith, into submission.  I need all these elements, I need them to flow from one to the other.  For me to reverse them will create the same repetition of problems I faced in my previous attempts.  I will serve for wrong reasons out of a grace-less, fear-ridden, sense of unobtainable obligation.  Oh, and I will need to do so with joy.

So, I will begin my times with my Master, and my reconnections throughout the day with three phrases instead of two.  "You love me, You have my back, and I am at Your service."  Well, the sprinkler refuses to fix itself, and the grass is dying.  I consider that a calling from God through the circumstance He has placed me in, and I will serve my Master today by doing the quality of work I would do for someone who paid me up front, which He has.  After that, I will continue to serve my family, my friends, my Master in whatever ways He leads me.  I will enjoy the smile of my Master, even when I fail, or even when I reveal my foibles.  I will enjoy the radical acceptance of my Master as I serve, trusting that He has my back, that He connects the dots in my work that I can't even see or haven't found yet.  So, my new, over-arching task is to master the obvious, service to my Master.