The Family of God

The call to follow God has always been a call to community. Since Adam and Eve, God has been calling individuals to Himself. We each individually choose to answer that call, or to reject it, but when we choose to answer His call and to draw near to Him, we are not just answering the call to an individual relationship with God, but we are also answering the call to join the community of God, the family of God.

This image of the Family of God is used repeatedly throughout the scriptures. In the earliest times it was a literal family, the family of Adam and Eve, the family of Noah, the families of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These early families are both literal, historical, families, and also “types” for the broader family of God that would be revealed more fully only much later. These early families demonstrate the unity and the complexity of following God in community. They serve as both encouraging symbols and as illustrations of the problems that come with living in community.

We must resist the temptation to romanticize the family. Living in community has many benefits but it also brings with it many burdens. G. K. Chesterton, in answering those who generally attacked the family as being bad because it is uncongenial, or difficult, replied:

“Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who for, good reasons and bad, revolt against the family are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our younger brother is mischievous like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid like the world; he is old, like the world.”

Chesterton is hitting on a point that is of great value to those of us who are called into the family of God. When we entered into the family of God, it is not as an only child in exclusive relationship to our Father, but rather we were adopted into a family with many brothers and sisters. Jesus is the firstborn among many brothers. We are adopted into a family and we must learn to live with our brothers and sisters in the faith. Chesterton strips away the romantic notion that living in community, in family, will be easy or comfortable. We are wildly divergent in our gifts and temperaments, our likes and dislikes, our callings and our character; and yet, we are called to live and work together.

The process of living in this kind of environment, learning to love one another, to esteem others more highly than ourselves, to serve those whom we may not even like, is a kind of living sacrifice. It requires that we die to ourselves a bit more every day. The beauty of the Cross is that while death is never comfortable, it can be transformational. Death is no longer defeat, but is now the point of redemption. If we are willing to fill up in our own bodies what remains of the sufferings of Christ for His Church, we will find that we are transformed in the process. To live in community is to experience some of the greatest joys available to us on earth, and also to place ourselves in the flaming crucible of transformation. The fires of community both warm our souls and burn away the dross. May we never draw back from all that He wants to do in us and through us in community!

Silent? Perhaps.

I have often heard it said that God is silent. That there are times in our lives when we will be desperate to hear His voice, to experience His presence, but He will not speak and will not manifest His presence to us. I have been taught that is anthropocentric and presumptuous to expect that God will speak to us or to expect to meet with Him at any given time. The corollary to this seems to be that humility on my part requires me to be content to know about God and to trust God in these times of silence. When God doesn’t speak, He can still be trusted.

I am sure that this is true. God is trustworthy regardless of my experience. God is the LORD, the creator of heaven and earth, the Almighty God who does whatever He pleases. All true. And yet, He is the self-revealing God. He is the God who seeks relationship. He hearkens unto our cry. He fixes His eye on His children and bends His ear to listen for and to our prayers. He is not mute like the idols, He can and does speak to His children. I don’t think it is presumptuous to expect Him to speak or to be genuinely surprised by His silence… if He is indeed silent.

I cannot speak for others, but I am wondering how often God is truly silent. Is it that He isn’t speaking, or that we are not hearing Him? It maybe that God truly is silent at times, that He may refuse to manifest Himself to His children for reasons that only He fully knows. I do not mean to rule out this possibility, but I am realizing that often He is speaking; my failure to hear Him doesn’t necessarily mean that He is distant or silent.

Recently I have been going through a trial. Not just an inward trial, but also an outward trial, a conflict with another person. I have been asking God to solve this problem, and have been frustrated by His silence. Then, just this morning I realized that God has not been silent or distant. He has been present and speaking. He hasn’t chosen to solve my problem, and so I interpreted His “failure” to solve the problem, or to answer me according to my questions and concerns as silence. In fact, as I reflect on it, God has not only been speaking to me in general about my heart or about other things in my life, but He has even been talking to me about this conflict. I just didn’t like what He had to say, so I wasn’t really paying attention. I was “blowing off” the advice and counsel He was offering because it didn’t fit my paradigm or my desires. None of what I was hearing from Him was helping to solve the problem so I simply paid it no mind.

As I reflect on this I think back to other times in my life, other times where God seemed to be silent. As I do so, I find that He has been consistently speaking to me. God is revealing Himself, is in fact speaking, everyday. He speaks to us through His creation. He speaks to us through His Word. He speaks to us through His people. Sometimes He also meets us during worship, or in dreams, or impresses things upon our hearts or minds directly, whispering to our very souls. So, why do I fail to hear Him? I have already addressed my current malady of simply not wanting to hear what He has to say, but there are other reasons as well.

Sometimes I have failed to hear Him because I have filled up my life with noise and activity. I have “drowned out” the voice of God in my life by keeping myself too busy, and my mind to full of other information, to hear the whisper of His voice. My inner senses have been overwhelmed with input and the cacophony of voices has made it nearly impossible to pick out the voice of my Good Shepherd. Solitude and silence have been the answer for these times. I must take time to still my body and soul, to block out all the other voices, so that I might hear the steady and quiet call of my Lover to come away with Him. My heart is like a pool of water that has been all stirred up and I can’t see clearly through the turbid, silt laden water to see beneath the surface. But, if I wait in stillness the waters calm, the silt settles and I can see with crystal clarity through to the bottom of things.

Sometimes I have failed to hear Him because I have simply not pursued Him. His Word is available to me every day, His “pre-recorded” messages are there for me listen to whenever I would take the time, or make the time, to do so. Often when I do make the time, a miracle happens and the Word comes alive through the agency of the Spirit and these “pre-recorded” words turn out to the very Logos of God alive and active speaking to my very soul. But, if I do not choose to turn my attention to His Word, I miss the opportunity to meet with Him. Sparks do not fly every time I open the Word to seek His voice, but if I never sit down and read I miss the opportunity for the electric chemistry of our meeting. Even when sparks do not fly and the meeting is less electric, opening the Word is like reading old love letters or old correspondence from a friend or mentor and I hear His voice in that way, as an echo, a reminder of the connection that we share, the history of our relationship.

I don’t believe that God is nearly as silent as we sometimes make Him out to be; rather, I believe that I have much to learn about becoming a better listener. I cannot presume to know what He will say, but it is not presumptuous to expect Him so say something.

The Invitation to the Valley

I have been on an interesting journey recently. Lately I have felt the draw, the urge, to deal with some deep issues in my life. I believe it is the Lord beckoning me to return to the depths of my soul. These are the deep places, the oft dark places, the places from which my motivations and desires spring. These are the places that go unexamined most of the time, and that is not a bad thing in and of itself. To visit these wild regions of the heart is a perilous and consuming thing. You could not live in this place forever, but to reject the invitation to this part of the journey would be to reject the invitation to growth, to healing. It would be to reject the invitation of God.

Accepting this invitation is like entering a deep gorge. At first there is some excitement as you marvel at the view, the vista is grand, the scenery interesting. The sense of adventure is almost palpable. The canyon gapes before you and you see the path winding downward, and you can hardly wait for the adventure to begin. As you follow the path downward the walls grow ever higher on either side of you. Their immensity is awe inspiring. The shadows start to grow deeper and fall more and more across your path. As you move deeper into the defile you start to grow somewhat apprehensive. What will be around the next bend? Where is this road leading you? You start to slow down. The path feels familiar under your feet. It is as if you have been here before, but it is not a comfortable kind of familiarity. It is simultaneously familiar and frightening. You start to feel anxious. The hair stands up on the back of your neck. The canyon walls are no longer beautiful or interesting to your eyes. They now seem more ominous as they tower over you. They seem to close in on you as you move ever onward, ever downward.

You start to feel like turning back. Now the canyon is so dark that you are really afraid. You can’t see the way forward clearly, but you are beckoned onward. The walls are so close now that you are bumped and bruised. You remember this feeling. You remember this fear. This is what you ran from years ago. This is what you spent so many years avoiding. These are the feelings you have been denying and protecting yourself from for so long. Now the canyon has narrowed so far that you have to turn sideways and push yourself through the crevice before you. The only way forward will be painful, but to turn back is unthinkable. You have come this far. He beckons you on. He assures you it will be alright. But can you trust Him? He has allowed you to be hurt before. Can you trust Him?! Where else can you go? Who else has the words of eternal life? And so, you plunge yourself in the crevice, getting scraped and scratched, battered and bloodied, trusting that He will not mislead you, that He has not lead you here to abandon you. You cannot see where He is leading, but you choose to trust.

As you struggle on fear grips your heart. You have been down here a long time. You are not sure how much more of this you can take. You start to doubt. What if you were wrong? What if you have deceived yourself and He didn’t really ask you to take on this journey? After all, you it doesn’t seem like anyone else is taking a journey like this. How come you have to do this while others seem to do just fine without having to endure the darkness, this dark night of the soul? And then you see a glimmer of light ahead. At first you’re not sure you didn’t imagine it. No, there it is! There is a light ahead. Just a bit further on and you’ll be through. You push yourself around the last bend, through the narrow passage and suddenly a new vista breaks forth before you and you are free!

As I have answered His call and followed this path, I have been brought to deep places of hurt and of healing. I have had old wounds exposed and received new healing. I have found that He is trustworthy after all. So, here I raise my “ebenezer” and say, “thus far He has carried me”. I have yet another experience of His faithfulness to look back on. I hope I will not be much longer in the valley, as it is the valley of death, of self-mortification; and yet, I would not avoid this painful part of the journey. I know myself and Him better for having accepted His invitation. I have a new level of freedom. I will have to stand firm to remember and to live in this freedom. I will have to struggle to remember the lessons learned in the valley as I return to the highlands. I will have to resist the temptation to return to life as it once was, as I lived before. But I trust as He was with me in the valley, He will be with me on the highlands as well.