“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.
“Given the issue is so fundamentally important to our view of who we are, a claim that our free will is illusory should be based on fairly direct evidence. Such evidence is not available.”
— Benjamin Libet, in a 1999 quotation I found via a current article in The Atlantic today that blows away the Goliath in the room of the question of the soul
Carla: [Saint] Paul totally bonked. He was a-bonkin!
Scott: Paul wasn’t bonking.
Carla: C’mon. You know he was bonking!
Scott: You are the strangest Christian wife I could have acquired.
Some notes from Prayer (2006) by Philip Yancey
#On the interconnectedness of everyone and everything:
I live in a web of dependence, at the center of which is God in whom all things hold together (34).
That’s a good way to explain to myself how it is I can be grateful to God for everything that is good, including existence itself.
On prayer as worship:
Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God (35).
An idea from my girlfriend my freshman year of high school returns: Making requests of God is a form of worship. It has proven one of those stick-with-you, life-shaping ideas. Thanks, Katie.
On emotion being teachable and malleable:
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
My super-culture insists that emotions just happen and should not be repressed or feared. I agree with the overall message, thanks in no small part to Carla and to Milan and Kay Yerkovich, who wrote How We Love. But I don’t hear much from anyone about directing and changing emotion. Incidentally, I also don’t hear much about directing and changing libido. But these things are subject to the will. The tricks to success in bending one’s emotions and libido are to no hate the feelings when they come, acknowledge weakness, expect failure, eschew shame, and never give up. It reminds me of something I read by Melinda Selmys about the Catholic line on chastity being impossible. She argued that its impossibility doesn’t entail its uselessness. Rather, it serves as a well of gravity, as fuel for an aspirational more asymptote. As long as we avoid legalism, we are the better for the impossible ideal. Life in God is aspirational. I should note that the thing Heschel as quoted by Ben Patterson as quoted by Yancey is trying to say here is it is good to learn unpleasant emotions from the Psalms.
On distractions and desires in prayer:
Distractions [in prayer] are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants. If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these. When you are praying for what you really want you will not be distracted.
Twentieth-century Dominican priest, theologian, and philosopher Herbert McCabe wrote that. It jibes well with the “Q: What should I do? A: Do what you want!” mantra that God gave me two decades ago. I should try it. These days, it’s distractions from planning changes to my strength training workouts. What is the real desire there about which I can pray? A long life of good health that makes for a long, wide potential for good deeds as I age.
On conceptual copouts born of the conflict between exegesis and experience:
“Come near to God and he will come near to you,” wrote James, in words that sound formulaic. James does not put a time parameter on the second clause, however.
But I jest. Yes, Yancey’s gloss could be taken as a copout. But I take it as helpful truth.
From British convert Jonathan Aitken:
Trusting in God does not, except in illusory religion, mean that he will ensure that none of the things you are afraid of will ever happen to you. On the contrary, it means that whatever you fear is quite likely to happen, but that with God’s help it will in the end turn out to be nothing to be afraid of.
Again, pap to satiate the naive among us when first confronted with reasons for doubting God’s goodness? Sure. But also good, solid truth.
On psychosomatic healing being no threat in my book:
“It doesn’t diminish my respect for God’s power in the slightest to realize that God primarily works through the mind to summon up resources of healing in a person’s body. The word psychosomatic carries no derogatory connotations for me. It derives from two Greek words, psyche and soma, which mean simply mind (or soul) and body. The cure of such diseases demonstrates the incredible power of the mind to affect the rest of the body…Those who pray for the sick and suffering should first praise God for the remarkable agents of healing designed into the body, and then ask that God’s special grace give the suffering person the ability to use those resources to their fullest advantage. I have seen remarkable instances of physical healing accomplished in this way. The prayers of fellow Christians can offer real, tangible help by setting into motion the intrinsic powers of healing in a person controlled by God. This approach does not contradict natural laws; rather, it fully employs the design features built into the human body” (254)
That’s Dr. Paul Brand. I find piquant novelty in his approach to thanking God for what’s already natural in the human body and for seeing that natural stuff as the stuff of healing. Yancey goes on to report that Brand eventually came around to believing in the utterly miraculous as well, but the man still holds that most healing is psychosomatic. For the longest time, I thought healing being psychosomatic took away from healings as evidence for God. But I suppose it doesn’t have to.
On the limits of healing prayer:
In terms of physical health, you could say that the power of prayer has limits: no prayer will reverse the aging process, banish death, or eliminate the need for nourishment (256).
Several other quotations I don’t have time to comment on:
I have come to see the very selectiveness of biblical miracles as a sign of God’s personhood (258)
I never make a list of what to pray for. I pray instantly, as soon as something comes to mind, and I trust God to bring it to mind (315)
I know not which is most profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor anything else in the world (324).
“Trusting in God does not, except in illusory religion, mean that he will ensure that none of the things you are afraid of will ever happen to you. On the contrary, it means that whatever you fear is quite likely to happen, but that with God’s help it will in the end turn out to be nothing to be afraid of.”
— Jonathan Aitken, as quoted by Philip Yancey in Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?
“‘Come near to God and he will come near to you,’ wrote James, in words that sound formulaic. James does not put a time parameter on the second clause, however.”
Distractions [in prayer] are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants. If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these. When you are praying for what you really want you will not be distracted.
— Herbert McCabe, as quoted by Philip Yancey
But consider what Rabbi Abraham Heschel said to the members of his synagogue who complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt. He told them that it was not that the liturgy should express what they feel, but that they should learn to feel what the liturgy expressed.
— Ben Patterson, as cited in Philip Yancey’s Prayer
Carla cried “tiring” to hear my say that yet another purely social gathering was without a point. But I stand by it: I don’t want to invest time in people except insofar as it builds Your kingdom, God. I feel excited to cultivate our relationships with some folks because the growth of Your kingdom among us when we gather is effortless. I’m not looking for people with whom I simply have an enjoyable time; I’m looking for people with whom I can say, Look! God is among us doing stuff.
“Prayer is a declaration of dependence upon God.”
— Philip Yancey
“We are sending our young people into the marriage bed as virgins (good) but also as morons (bad).”
“One who allows himself license in little things is ruined little by little” (Augustine, as quoted by the folks at Renovaré.
At a very basic level, well-being within Christianity is not gauged in the presence or absence of illness or distress. Religious beliefs and practice may well have therapeutic benefits, but that is not their primary function or intention. Nor is the efficacy of a “spiritual intervention” theologically determined according to criteria such as reduce anxiety, better coping, or a reduction in depression, important as these things may be at a certain level. Theologically speaking, well-being has nothing to do with the* absence or reduction of anything. It has to do with the presence of something: the presence of God-in-relationship. Well-being, peace, health—what Scripture describes as shalom*—has to do with the presence of a specific God in particular places who engages in personal relationships with unique individuals for formative purposes. Rather than alleviating anxiety and fear, the present of such a God often brings on dissonance and psychological disequilibrium, but always for the purpose of the person’s greater well-being understood in redemptive and relational terms.
— John Swinton, Dementia, p. 7
“More than anything else I am thankful to Jesus for being patient with me and for remembering me when I have forgotten whose I am” (John Swinton, Dementia, x).
“I don’t know if it’s a success, but I do know it’s good.”
— myself, quoted despite the gaucheness of doing so instead of just journaled because it seems a multi-purpose saying: I said it originally to Aaron about his running club, but I could say it equally about our church
You want biblical models for how the offender should behave in pursuing forgiveness? Try Jacob and Zaccheus on.
Guilt is good. (The feeling, not the fact.)
You know the allure of your own little child first thing in the morning, how it’s irresistible to give them all your loving attention, to hold them, coo over them, think the world of them, and feel ready to give the world to them? Two notes about that:
- This is the way God feels about you.
- This is the way God wants us to feel about each other, not just our own kids.
The sin Jesus addressed via the Cross was our sin against God, not our sin against one another. The latter still requires the hard work of reconciliation. If we understood this, our track record in handling abuse situations would be vastly improved. Jesus’ work on the Cross is not license to bludgeon victims toward cheap forgiveness of their abusers.
God does not need us to “make good” to him in order for him forgive us. However, humans may need us to do so. There is such a thing as manifesting (bringing forth) fruit of repentance. This makes hyper-Protestants nervous. It need not be so.
Here, Crosby makes the point I’ve been approaching by asserting that the sin God deals with on the Cross is our sin against Him, not our sign against others.
God has given (perfect middle participle– a present reality affecting us at the moment) us, everything necessary for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). We just need to get on with well-executed consistency in basic things, rather than lusting for some ill-defined new level of spiritual catharsis or illumination (Stephen Crosby, “It’s 2019 and God is Not Taking You to New Levels”).
That articles like these still speak to me proves that I’m still a post-Charismatic.
I have started to prioritize sleep catch-up over prayer-walking. Is that okay?
“Not one of those men had ever suggested that a person could be ‘called to anything but ‘full-time Christian service,’ by which they meant either the ministry or the ‘the mission field’” (Jayber Crow, 43).
You can be called to anything in which you can love.
Is it scripturally defensible to claim that the Cross handles our sin(s) against God but does not do anything about our sin(s) against other people? And that even God’s forgiveness of our sin against Him does not preclude the possibility of rehabilitative action on His part, even punishment? (Restitution would be impossible, of course.) Is this a good way to avoid the pressure to forgive and forget or forgive quickly or superficially and a good way to keep perpetrators from getting off easily and without restitution and without reconciliation and without humbling?
This thought occurred to me while praying the Lord’s prayer on my walking way up Enterprise Drive to pick up Éa’s bag from Organic Climbing. It is tangentially inspired, I’m sure, by Rutledge’s The Crucifixion and by Denhollander’s piece on how penal substitutionary atonement informs how abusers and victims should be handled.
“Well, I feel better now.”
–When the verse you don’t understand is skipped by your favorite commentary.