Pneumatological Reflection, submitted to Dr.Coe for the assigned meditation upon John chapters 14-17.
“The
world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no
longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world so it hates you.”
-John 15:19
The world has taken unexpected but important forms
in my life- places where faith, hope and love should be most
secure in my memories. But on my journey, these are the places where
the world has ruled over my own imperfections and vices and then turned them
against me. Now no one person has ever volunteered for such a position-
rather, these are victims of their unawareness, knowing very little of how the world is using them to wound me in
secret places of my soul. Just as the Pharisees genuinely believed that they were
righteous and holy, so do these messengers of the world believe they have acted rightly. The world turns their heads so that they
see my vices and believe it justifies the wounds they inflict.
This has been my cross to bear, and I bear it even now- that those who
represented love to me have come to represent the world from which Christ has
called me to be set apart. Now I am reminded in John 17:15 that my Lord is “not
asking God to take me out of the world”, and so I shall remain in this place of
incredible tension. But I am also reminded that my Lord is asking God to “keep me
safe from the evil one”, and so the conspiracy wrought by the world shall not
prevail over me.
But I will be misunderstood-
indeed, my faith in Christ will be misunderstood
for
the sake of Himself and His transformative work within me.
I myself will misunderstand His refining work in moments of desolation.
This is to be my dark night and my dark contemplation-
that my greatest humility will be in discovering my calling to be set apart
from the ones I once idolized with a deficient heart. I have come to learn through
my vices and failures that my loves were not love- they were
idols because they were the world to me. They were, for me, avenues for the world to enter my hidden heart. To be set apart is to be
humbled to my core- humbled that I can not save them, fix them, be fully loved or known by
them in this way. None of this was possible because the hidden heart can only be healed by
the presence of Christ over the years of a lifetime. I step back and now
reflect how these idols had become the world for me. Here I must
fully surrender in trust to my Lord, because I can no longer lean on those who gave
me a false sense of security and identity. Those who once brought me comfort and meaning only did so
because I was a participant in their ways- now that I am set apart by the
maturing and awakening of my wounded spirit, I can no longer take comfort in those
relationships, and in this way they are lost to me in my former manner of living. We each are on our own
journey into God, and mine requires a humble admission that in my attempt to
rescue those relationships I only succeeded in burning bridges.
And I see now that
bridges needed to be burned in order for my Lord to show me where the world had
its hold on me and where my hidden heart was in submission to powers and principalities
that were much bigger than the relationships themselves.
I am called to lay
down my weapons of desperation, fear and desire and to fly to the feet of the Lord who
calls me, to be still and quiet in His presence as He administers His healing
balm of humility, surrender and trust. Here I must see that the world has
indeed hijacked the vices of my former loves and turned them against me. Here
I also see that the enemy hijacked my own vices and used them to submit me to
the world. In this reflection I can understand that silence and solitude are
the only ointments that will cure the wounds of relational loss- to allow
myself to become empty will prepare me to be filled. To submit to the reality of broken relationships is to submit to the work
of Christ. To release the people who have betrayed me, to release them to the world to which they presently and unknowingly belong, to trust also that Christ is working to rescue them in ways that do not involved the heroic
efforts of my faulty flesh. Here I must detour from the world, away from my former idols, and in
this purgative contemplation I will not be betrayed by my Lord who guides me ever onward into the hope of spiritual humility and full surrender to His love.
