A Brief Narrative, and a Prayer: VH 4

Here, in a few words, is my answer to a question posed in an interview for a summer internship.
I thought you, the reader, may like to read it. It came out of my sharing of my testimony (narrative) with the house here and a subsequent conversation with Michael.
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When and how did you become a Christian?

I was raised within the Church, and followed Christ as instructed from childhood, as default. In 6^th grade, on a youth retreat, I first encountered God as an all-consuming reality. Specifically, it was there that I first became aware of the gravity behind the death of Jesus for my salvation. I saw my undeserving-ness, and his unexpected, underserved grace. There I started to follow him consciously, some out of guilt, some out of love, some out of wonder, some out of joy, some out of duty.

Really, sometimes I feel like I’m constantly becoming a Christian. I have been absorbed with pursuing God with reason, seeking to know Him but also to figure Him out, reading His word sometimes as a letter but often as an instruction manual (reading for information, not to know Him), attempting to validate my faith to myself and to others by my understanding. I have been infatuated with ministry, looking for the proper expression of a desire and love for God and others, but also seeking to define myself and know that I know God through my work for Him, counseling and leading, worship and practicing the spiritual gifts. I have been consumed by the desire to hear God’s voice, to know Him intimately, sometimes driven by love and joy, but often driven by guilt and fear, wondering if I know Him at all. Even now, I am seeing both how He has drawn me in, and how I have run towards (and sometimes past) Him, away from (and sometimes into) my own insecurity, guilt, and fear. I am seeking to know him now as Father, to know His love for me as his son. It is hard.

These are the movements of my life, and the ways in which my faith grows (and has grown), and the ways my insecurities are (and have been) revealed. If I look at it in this way, it makes more sense to say that God has been continually calling me to repent and follow, and I have been continually turning to do so, faltering and becoming frustrated, being called again and rejoicing.

In short, 6^th grade at a retreat. In long, every day by grace.

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A Prayer, on Valentines Day Morning

Jesus,
I think I need to trust you historically
so I can love you presently.
I need to say "what you have done is enough-
what you have done secures me-
what you have done, have done, have done
gives me joy, peace, rest, love.
You were, and so you are, and so you will be."
I pray for grace only to believe You,
to trust You,
to love You.
Let me look at you, Jesus, and rest.
2/14/2011

VH3 (though should be VH6): Eden to James

Thoughts from the Narrative Class at Radius, dntn Greenville.

So, Genesis 1:26-28. God makes us, man and woman, in His image, 'after our likeness'.
Genesis 3:5 When the snake temps us, he claims that the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil will make us be like God.

The odd thing is, to some degree, they already were like Him. Satan tempts them with the desire to be like God, while already they have been made in God's own image. The fall comes when Adam and Eve stop resting in what God has done for them (made in His image) and to them (breathed His life into them) and instead strive after fulfillment outside of God.

James 1:12-15 talks about being tempted and lured (not by God, but) by our own desires, and thus falling into sin.
The very next paragraph reads "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (16-18).

Check it- we, like Adam and Even are the new creation, born again, firstfruits of His creatures. Satan's temptation against us is the same: 'go, be like God- find the fulfillment to your desires, your longings, elsewhere.'
Yet James speaks to us, saying 'Do not be deceived. All good is of God; fulfullment of our desires, true life, hope, love, is of God. He made us what we are, by His will.'

So, our call then, like that of Adam and Eve, is to rest in what Jesus Christ has done for us (dying on the cross as a substitute for our sin) and to us (living within us by His Spirit). We can't be more like Him outside of Him- we simply are made righteous in Christ. In Him is our hope, the fulfillment of our desires, true life, hope, love. Here is our identity, our imago dei, complete and whole.

cool aye?

-drew