“At this rate it
will take me eight years to graduate. Eight! Father, what am I even doing right
now- is this a rational goal? What is my calling?” In the silence I sense these
words: “Daughter, I do not call you into rationality- I call you into
relationship. With Myself.”
My response is a
bevy of worries about attempting seminary, many anxieties about the present and
the future. This overrides my prayer time with Him. Why do I feel nervous when
I look at my syllabus, and become overwhelmed when I look at my unofficial transcripts?
This is the parade of fear I experience as I sit down to pray through writing, taking an hour to express myself to God.
I got my very
first grade in seminary yesterday- I earned an A. This does not make me feel
better. The truth is I earned that A in the compulsive autonomy of trying to be
good. I know this. God knows this. He
brings John 15 before me-
4 Remain
in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is
severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
Yet if I am
honest, I actually DID produce something on my own, apart from God- I got an A
on my first seminary assignment. Yet I feel anxious when I look ahead at the
assignments yet to come. Why?
I got that grade
ON MY OWN, by myself, and so the rest is up to me, too. Unless I start engaging
in a life of abiding in the power of the Spirit inside of me. The humbling
thought in this time of refection is that I can have the Spirit of God
within me and yet still choose to live in my own power, run things my own
way, in my own effort apart from Him.
Grade A? Yep. Infinite reliance and abiding in God? Not so much. The indicator
of this disparity is fear- it bubbles up when I look ahead with dread at the
work still to come.
5 “Yes,
I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them,
will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone
who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.
Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But
if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you
want, and it will be granted! 8 When you
produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my
Father.
So in this time of prayer now, I
present the truth before God:
Father, I have a compulsive faith- I am
driven to be good because I am afraid of failure and rejection. This is not a
heart that abides in Your love- this is a heart that stays one step ahead of
fear. My sin is not that I am afraid, because You gave me the capacity to feel
fear, but the sin is that I have allowed fear to be my slave driver. What if
the work I did in seminary was driven by love rather than worry? What if I
approached the next assignment with an honest look at my failure to abide in
Your presence and power, and admitted my honest need for Your provision?
The tricky thing
in all this is that I am incapable of doing anything about my vices- they
remain within me unchanged even though I name them and point them out. “Look, Father,” I say, “I am walking through seminary with a
compulsion to be good driven by fear.” And He does look, because He already
sees. And His response is plain and simple: Yes, you are. But listen,
child-
9 “I
have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When
you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s
commandments and remain in his love. 11 I
have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your
joy will overflow!
What would it be
for me to walk in the Spirit here in seminary, whether it takes me eight years,
ten years or whether I drop out? It would be a releasing of my self-imposed
expectations and agendas. So it takes me nearly a decade to complete it? So be
it. My identity and value remain unaffected. My sanctification will continue on-
God never asked me to hurry. He never asks his children to rush. He is not
impatient with slow spiritual growth, even when I myself am impatient. He is not asking me to avoid the
process of growth and learning, although I would prefer a short-cut or a
hand-out. I have despaired about my incredibly slow maturing process- but He
has never asked me to speed things up. Rather, He has asked me to remain in a
posture of self-acceptance and humility as I surrender my vices to Him. Every. Single.
Day.
There is that
popular old Christian song which repeats “I’m no longer a slave to fear.” I
hear it now as I write this. The response inside me is YES to this, but the reality
is that I will remain a slave to fear forever. Fear about moving through
seminary too slowly, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of losing
control. The reality is, I am afraid. The reality is, my life of faith is
irrational, swinging from the compulsion to be good to the explosive impulse of
my hidden vices. The reality is, I am powerless to break my slavery to fear.
There is nothing I can do about it.
Wonderfully, Jesus
is not calling me to give a rational explanation for my messy faith. He just
calls me into a relationship with Him. The solution to my fear when I look at
the 8 years of assignments yet to come is to reconnect with the person of the
Holy Spirit who dwells inside me. He calls me to abide. Give grace to myself.
To love my innermost being, that place where the goodness of my redeemed soul
is waiting to be fully realized.
At my core I am
free- it is only the working out of this realized eschatology in my walk through this
life that needs to be reconnected to God. I am no longer a slave to fear in my
soul- it is only the stunted and broken pieces of my former self that rebel
against my actual identity. These parts of my being have not yet realized the truth
of my redemption- they are the pieces that need to be pruned away or given new
life, depending on the wisdom of Jesus. Christian effort is not the proper
response to bondage- my very best human effort apart from God can never bring
healing to my wounded places. I know this because my first A in seminary only
perpetuates greater fear- can I keep this
up for eight years?? Case in point- a slave to fear.
I no longer call you slaves, because a master
doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you
everything the Father told me. 16 You didn’t
choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so
that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.
He chose me. This new life is not my responsibility- it’s
His. I am called to respond and to participate in His work in my life, but
never to set the expectations. Why do I take on my own story as if I am the
sole determiner of the outcome? Because of Jesus, I already know how this all ends-
in complete freedom and union with Him! So why do I avoid admitting the things
to God that plague me inside, like “am I
supposed to be in seminary or am I simply pressuring myself to be good? Can I
accept with love that I might take twice as long as all my other peers to
graduate, knowing I have a low capacity for stress? Can I love myself even if I
never finish what I started? Can I trust
His lead, even if it leads me away from my personal goals for this lifetime?”
It is time for me to admit that when it comes to most things, I am stubborn and
independent. And I am therefore afraid of my incompetent self-leadership and inadequate
self-help.
The ultimate
antidote to a compulsive faith is to abide contentedly and helplessly in His
power, participating only when He makes room and responding only when He
provides the means. This is the call to freedom- to release expectation and agenda. This requires getting honest about the fact that I have
pieces inside me that are a broken branch which cannot reconnect to the vine. I
must allow God to work within me as slowly as He needs to, because He is
unaffected by fear and is completely motivated by love.
This is the breakthrough: In the past I have avoided honest observation about my own sin because it seemed to make my problems bigger- I am beginning to see now that in fact my honesty about my shortcomings and vices simply enables me to see how big the problem actually is.
Why am I trying to
do seminary in my own power? Because I don’t trust Him. I need to abide in
relationship with Jesus through daily prayer so that I can develop the relationship
that enables me to receive His provision for the future. This is a kind of work
that only God can do- I know this because three weeks into seminary and I am
already running primarily on worry. To release my agenda and allow this journey
to be His work and not mine, this is the greatest form of abiding I can
imagine. Am I up for this? Can I actually finish it? Do I have what it takes?
These are all the wrong questions. They provoke that old friend of mine named
fear. Rather, let me ask God today, “can I abide in You right now?” If this is
simply an act of trusting His love to hold me close and affirm my redemption
from now through eternity, I can practice that here and now.
I sit in the
silence and I bring awareness to His presence all around me. My identity is not
in the work, success and failures of my hands- it is in His Word. Galatians 5:
24-25 is a reminder of the person I am becoming, often in opposition to the
broken branches of my Christian efforts-
24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus
have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and
crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow
the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
Developing an awareness
of His Spirit will deliver me from the bondage to self-help, self-direction and
self-imposed expectation. If I can experience His presence in the silent
stillness of solitude, then I can turn my eyes away from the to-do lists which
cause me so much worry, and I can rest intentionally in His persuasive abundance
of love. And so I meditate on His presence until the stubborn pieces of fearful
autonomy are swept away by His torrent of grace and the faithful core of my innermost
being begins to flower into new life as I abide in Him. The fruits of an abiding
prayer bring the freedom which every human longs to taste. May I remain in Him
each day, thwarting my useless Christian efforts to be good for the higher calling to grow slowly and humbly each day in
His life-giving grace.
Amen and amen.
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Rebecca
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