Confidence

Several years ago, when I was first beginning to come to an understanding of what it means to follow God, I quickly ran into the doctrine of eternal security and election. This is still a very tricky doctrine, but it no longer troubles me as it did in the past.

I read passages such as Hebrews 6:4-6 and wondered about its implications, particularly to those who leave the church. In an Arminian interpretation, it seems like you only get one chance. If you're saved once and fall away, there's no coming back (either for some theological reason, or else because such a person never would come back in the first place). A Calvinist perspective says that the one who fell away is either still saved, or else he never truly knew Christ in the first place. Matthew 7:21-23 tells us that there are many who believe they are Christian, but who Jesus never knew. In either case, I was worried about whether I was one such person.

I talked to a friend at the time, a more mature believer, and he assured me that we can indeed have this certainty. He compared his relationship with God to his relationship with his new wife - while it is certainly physically possible that something could happen that he ends up cheating on his wife, he knew with an absolute certainty -- from a deep personal experience of his relationship in the past and present -- that it would never happen.

I'm not typically quite as confident about my own behavior - I know that I lack discipline and that I'm often liable to do or not do otherwise to what I've previously asserted. In short, I'm prone to fickleness in my actions. But over the past several years, I have indeed grown in confidence of my faith, just like my friend promised. I know now with utmost confidence that no matter what happens, in the end I will turn to God. I know this from past experience - how I've reacted to different situations - and from how I presently understand God. (Of course, I say this with the caveat that only God can truly see my heart, and that better than I myself can see it, so it is possible I'm fooling myself, but that's not really worth considering).

However, I've already briefly mention another area where I lack confidence - my own actions. I find in myself a disturbing doublemindedness reminiscent of the latter half of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in which my evil and good sides plot against one another for dominance of my body. I can see one minute with tearful clarity the depth of my sin and its effects, and the next minute entertain ideas of further sin, pondering how I can set up traps to tempt myself in the future in an effort to more fully indulge my fleshly desires. I think about the verse in James,

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.
-- James 1:5-8

I almost find it the other way around. I am double minded, and have prayed and prayed about the same things, and after all this, I doubt even more because I'm not even sure whether I will fall to temptation in just the next day. I think about the woman who asked Jesus to help her with her unbelief.

I know from experience that uncertainties can change. I've seen my faith grow from infancy to certainty in the last six years. I want the same sort of certainty here too. Right after telling about the false believers, Jesus taught

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
-- Matthew 7:24-27

I long for a house that won't fall when the rains come down and the streams rise and the winds blow. But it seems almost circular - how do I put these words into practice when that's the whole problem in the first place? All I can think of is this hymn:

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.

On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
-- Edward Mote (1836)

My hope isn't built on my own merit, but on Jesus'. So I'll just keep praying.

Spiritual Buffalo

I've been teasing out a few posts for the last week now, and I think I've finally solidified the first piece out of it all.

Last weekend, I saw my current favorite artist (if it hasn't been obvious up until now), Sara Groves, in concert. She prefaced the title song of her latest album, "Add To The Beauty", with a story. Many years ago she saw the movie "Dances with Wolves" and a scene that particularly struck her and stuck with her was the one where they find a huge number of buffalo slaughtered, with the myriad of useful parts just wasted. More recently in Africa, she realized that she hadn't been using "all of her spiritual buffalo" -- that the various things in her life could be used for much greater purposes in God's kingdom.

This idea is tied closely with redemption. When God redeems us, we primarily understand it to refer to the justification and forgiveness of sins we receive from Christ's death. But another part is sanctification, which I understand to mean that while we are on earth, He is progressively making us to increase in holiness, and in likeness to him. We have the command to "be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect" -- part of our redemption is the daily steps in that direction, through God's grace.

I now think of passages like Romans 6:13, instructing us to offer the parts of our bodies to God as instruments of righteousness, and 1 Corinthians 10:31, saying that whether we eat, drink, or whatever we do, to do it for the glory of God. These are referring to individual actions and compartments of our lives, and each and every one of them is to be individually redeemed along with the whole. Thinking in this framework has helped me greatly in the past week to look to God in many more ways than I had before, and to flee from temptations. I find myself praying that these little things -- my eating and drinking, my going and coming, my work, school, and leisure, and many more things -- would all be redeemed. And when I find myself considering a markedly "unredeemed" course of action in one of these areas, it occurs to me that God does care about how I use the resources He's given to me, including the situation at hand.

Anyway, here's the song:

We come with beautiful secrets
We come with purposes written on our hearts, written on our souls
We come to every new morning
With possibilities only we can hold, that only we can hold

Redemption comes in strange place, small spaces
Calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty
To tell a better story
I want to shine with the light
That's burning up inside

It comes in small inspirations
It brings redemption to life and work
To our lives and our work

It comes in loving community
It comes in helping a soul find it's worth

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful
-- Sara Groves, Add To The Beauty, "Add To The Beauty" (2006)