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February 11, 2004
Hello everyone,
Two issues ago in Finding God in Everyday Life I admitted that my focus is often shattered. It is so easy to lose one’s way at times, particularly when the thistles and thorns of life grow up and choke out our allegiance to God. To complicate matters, a life of personal holiness is far too often under emphasized, perhaps for fear it will detract from God’s rich and abundant grace and mercy. The people who advance grace as the central crux of their message do not do wrong. Yet it is possible for the hearer to arrive at the conclusion that the spiritual life begins and ends when one is declared forgiven. An emphasis is often placed on the conversion experience with a focus on “just getting them saved” and allowing God to do the work that only He can do. Yet if this is the sole thrust of one’s message, many “new born babes” are left without the follow-through of discipleship into the abundance of the Christian life. Close intimacy with God and personal holiness are one and the same, different terms used to describe the too rare phenomenon in mainstream Christianity where mediocrity is so often the crowning hallmark.
Concerning my own life, blame will not be affixed where it does not belong. The fact is, my life gets busy and I gradually begin to drift away, losing my first love: losing my passion for God. Yet, in the midst of spiritual leaders with the very best of intentions, I often stumble over simple truth. On the one hand, there are those who extol grace and only grace and nothing but grace, on the other are those whose message seems to be all a matter of performance and duty. Neither of these views, it seems to me, has the balance necessary for abundant living. In fact, my life so soon settles into a sort of dull complacency with alternating degrees of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing. If asked, I would freely tell you that yes, I am indeed a Christian. But there is often an emptiness that remains: an emptiness so hollow that it stops being felt for I myself stop feeling.
Interestingly, it was the next to last issue of Le Penseur Réfléchit—or rather the reading of the article on C.S. Lewis that was to become the next to last edition—that began to put things into focus for me. I can’t say that I always feel very alive exactly, but I certainly don’t feel very crucified either. What is this painfulness of dying of which Lewis speaks? this agonizing self-surrender, this sense of mortification? The answer, I believe, is found in Lewis’s synthesis of “Catholic” and “Protestant,” for we can draw much inspiration from the spectrum of Christianity’s many stripes no matter where we may locate our official stance betwixt them all. We are Christians first and foremost before we are anything else, else we should be. As Meilaender writes in the next to last installment:
This sense that eternal issues are at stake in the mundane choices of our everyday life helps, I think, to account for the fact that, in this country, Lewis has been so popular among evangelical Protestants. An analysis of the theological structure of his religious writings would, I am convinced, show clearly that this structure is more adequately described (to paint in broad strokes) as “Catholic” than as “Protestant.” Faith as trust does not play a large role in his depiction of the Christian life. That life is not conceived primarily as a turn from consciousness of sin to the proclamation of grace. Instead, it is conceived as a journey, a process of perfection, and Jesus is the way toward that goal. From start to finish this journey is, to be sure, the work of grace, but that grace is primarily the power to finish the journey, not simply a pardoning word of forgiveness. The end of this journey is the beatific vision—to see God and to rest in God—and that vision is granted only to those who are perfected, to the pure in heart.
In good Aristotelian fashion, therefore, Lewis thinks of all the ordinary decisions of life as forming our character, as turning us into people who either do or do not wish to gaze forever upon the face of God. When “night falls on Narnia” and we get the great scene of final judgment, all the inhabitants of that world have no choice about one thing. All must march past Aslan and look upon him. Some see there the face they have always longed to see, which they have learned to love, and they enter Aslan’s world. Others see there a face they can only hate, for that is the sort of person they have become. They go off into nothingness. Every choice counts. Every choice contributes to determining what we ultimately love.
Protestant readers may, I believe, be especially drawn to this picture because, though they might not articulate the matter this way, it supplies something that is often missing from standard Protestant talk of forgiveness and faith, pardon and trust. Lewis’ picture suggests that our actions are important not only because they hurt or harm the neighbor, but also because—under grace—they form and shape the persons we are. There are, to be sure, some theological dangers embedded in such a vision of the Christian life, but in Lewis’ hands we can also see its power and its allure.
There was a second, very raw, candid, and gut wrenchingly honest article that I read during the same time frame written by a man battling the unwelcome temptation to masturbate—Journal Notes by Bruce to be precise (in the PDF format)—that has also helped me rediscover the element that has been missing for months now. Whatever our temptations and struggles may be, I believe the insight he offers can speak to us all. Speaking of Romans chapter seven, Bruce quotes the familiar words of the Apostle Paul (verses 14–25):
For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
I have read and related to this passage many times, but Bruce fleshed it out in a way I had never considered before and it is upon his thought that I wish to examine this passage. He first pointed out the wording which I will emphasize: “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.” Bruce points out that when we speak of a law, at least in the field of physics, we are speaking about a fact of the universe that is universal, impersonal, and impartial, such as the laws of thermodynamics or the law of gravity.
Many people like Paul, he says, try to do what is right by an act of their will. Yet, he questions, can we call the will a “law,” in this broader, technical sense of the word? Does it always function universally, impersonally, and impartially? Or is it subject to the mind that drives it, a mind possessing, as it does, free will? Tying these loose strands together, he invites the reader to envision him holding a bible in his hand. It appears, he suggests, that he is successfully defying the law of gravity, for his hand remains motionless, the bible safely cradled in the palm of his hand. However, Bruce continues, he cannot forever hold the bible there for sooner of later his arm will grow weary and the tireless force of gravity will eventually have its day. In the same way, men and women walk around every day appearing to defy gravity by their upright posture. But as the months and years begin to progress, gravity slowly draws them downward, stoop shouldered with sagging wrinkles. This impersonal law of gravity, suggests Bruce, functions exactly like the law of sin in our life. We may, by an act of our will, hold it at bay for an indefinite period of time. But the minute we let loose, it is sure to be there waiting. We may have pacified it; we have not yet crucified it.
John Bunyan (1628–1688), perhaps most famous for the 1678 classic allegory of the Christian’s life, Pilgrim’s Progress (from which we yet retain the enduring phrases “the slough of despond” and “vanity fair”), records the premature triumph and subsequent despair he underwent in his spiritual autobiography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666):
And now I found, as I thought, that I loved Christ dearly; oh! methought my soul cleaved unto Him, my affections cleaved unto Him, I felt love unto Him as hot as fire; and now, as Job said, I thought I should die in my nest; but I did quickly find that my great love was but little, and that I, who had, as I thought, such burning love to Jesus Christ, could let Him go again for a very trifle; God can tell how to abase us, and can hide pride from man. Quickly after this my love was tried to purpose.
For after the Lord had, in this manner, thus graciously delivered me from this great and sore temptation, and had set me down so sweetly in the faith of His holy gospel, and had given me such strong consolation and blessed evidence from heaven touching my interest in His love through Christ; the Tempter came upon me again, and that with a more grievous and dreadful temptation than before.
And that was to sell and part with this most blessed Christ, to exchange Him for the things of this life, for anything. The temptation lay upon me for the space of a year, and did follow me so continually that I was not rid of it one day in a month, no, not sometimes one hour in many days together, unless when I was asleep.
Yet Bruce points us to the grand culmination of Romans chapter seven and its triumphant entrance into chapter eight, a factor Bunyan was finally able to actualize beyond mere intellect alone. When Paul asks who will rescue him from this body of death, note what he says, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” Bruce calls our attention to the phrase law of God. There is, he suggests, a higher law capable of counteracting the lower law. This higher law, of course, is the law of the Spirit. So where Bruce begins to leave off, I will resume and suggest some possible areas of personal application.
I believe that in order for this higher law to work within us, we must surrender ourselves to it. This requires the use of our will, but in a different way than the futile attempts to stop sinning of our own volition. The difference is found in the administration of our will. We are not attempting to battle sin by gripping the table until our knuckles turn white. We are instead using our will to loosen our tongue and cry out to Him that is perfect: “Lord, complete the work you have begun in me. I have called you Savior, now I would call you Lord and Master.” This is a daily, hourly process, filled with many false starts and stops. Carnality is always only a choice away: each step we take, we can choose between one of two paths: (1) we may choose to walk in the Spirit or (2) we can choose to step alone. We are sure to have a fight on our hands if we choose to walk in the Spirit and operate according to the higher law. It is then we will know the full force of hell’s fury as the unholy trinity of the flesh, the devil, and the world war heavy against us. Lewis frames our struggle well in Mere Christianity:
Now I must turn to Faith in the second or higher sense: and this is the most difficult thing I have tackled yet. I want to approach it by going back to the subject of Humility. You may remember I said that the first step towards humility was to realise that one is proud. I want to add now that the next step is to make some serious attempt to practise the Christian virtues. A week is not enough. Things often go swimmingly for the first week. Try six weeks. By that time, having, as far as one can see, fallen back completely or even fallen lower than the point one began from, one will have discovered some truths about oneself. No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means—the only complete realist. Very well, then. The main thing we learn from a serious attempt to practise the Christian virtues is that we fail. If there was any idea that God had set us a sort of exam and that we might get good marks by deserving them, that has to be wiped out. If there was any idea of a sort of bargain—any idea that we could perform our side of the contract and thus put God in our debts so that it was up to Him, in mere justice, to perform His side—that has to be wiped out.
But once that is wiped out, or, perhaps more accurately, as that is being wiped out (for the Christian journey is a lifelong pursuit), we are given grace to live increasingly in the law of love and of the Spirit. It is never easy; there are few things in life worth having that are. And it is not gained by good deeds per se, though without the attempt to obey our Lord and practice virtue, we will have learned nothing and remain infants trapped not only in our own immaturity, but in the sheer futileness of life, emptiness and meaninglessness holding us prisoner. Yet if we forbear with patience, the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, mercy, faithfulness, longsuffering—will begin to grow in our lives. This fruit often realizes its manifestation in our actions to be sure. But the fruit is of a spiritual nature, producing an ineffable sweetness of spirit. Indeed, we begin to see a spiritual distinction that cannot be obtained any other way. It is an aura, if you will, that proceeds from within even as it wraps us without in its incorporeal veil, a certain serenity of the facial features, a certain composure of the soul that can be felt from spirit to spirit as a flame spreads warmth from a distance and ignites that which is near without superseding itself or suffering depletion. This distinction speaks even when the spoken is silent, it breathes goodness even when we exhale the air from our lungs, even when our lids close in restful repose, it casts its distinction upon our slumbering mien and complexion. In fact, Lewis captures the portrait well near the conclusion of Mere Christianity:
Already the new men are dotted here and there all over the earth. Some, as I have admitted, are still hardly recognisable: but others can be recognised. Every now and then one meets them. Their very voices and faces are different from ours; stronger, quieter, happier, more radiant. They begin where most of us leave off. They are, I say, recognisable; but you must know what to look for. They will not be very like the idea of “religious people” which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. . . . They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from. When you have recognised one of them, you will recognise the next one much more easily. And I strongly suspect (but how should I know?) that they recognise one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be fun.
Yet we must recall, as Francis Schaeffer points out in True Spirituality, that being crucified is the necessary first step and it cannot be hastened away. However, being crucified with Christ means that Easter is soon to follow. We do not stay dead, but rather we rise again to a higher way and we answer to a higher law: we have crucified with Christ the law of sin and death and risen again to the higher law of life and the Spirit. This then, is the deeper spiritual walk, the intimacy with God, the life of personal holiness. And this is also the life of joy where fulfillment replaces emptiness and the peace that passeth understanding supplants the stress and the strain. Our greatest happiness is found in serving our Lord and being obedient to the sound of His voice. Indeed, “Trust and obey, for there is no other way / To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”
So you see, those who scamper about in deathly fear of a performance based Christianity are just as unbalanced as those whose backs are broken under its joyless yoke. A life of obedience can be accomplished very practically. It involves waking up each day and taking a moment to say to God, “Lord, I give myself to you this day. Work in me the work you would; do as you will. Wash me and make me clean. I do not feel much like a Christian this morn, my Lord and my God. But do, I pray, change my heart and renew a right spirit within me.” And, as Lewis so poignantly says in Shadowlands, “Prayer doesn’t change God. . . . It changes me.” And it is as we are being changed, an often painful process, that we will begin to discover the zest for living has once again returned. There will be a bit more bounce to our step and an abiding peace in our heart that replaces the tired, frazzled, worn-thin feeling we so often feel.
But there is the foreboding reality as well: we’ll still get tired, of course. We are only mortal. What is more, we are in for a full bore struggle to place ourselves daily in the hands of the Heavenly Potter. As Lewis says so well, we may find soon enough we have “fallen back completely or even fallen lower than the point” from which we began, but we will have indeed discovered some truths about ourselves. You see, we are ultimately getting better. For all we are discovering is but the simple truth: it was there all along. And little by little, step by step, day by day, moment by moment, we declare war upon our carnal natures by inviting the Spirit of the Living God to reign within us. When we stumble and fall, we get up again. The bruises on our knees will heal. And the more time we spend on our knees, the more calloused they will become and the less susceptible to falls. The law of the Spirit is there and always waiting to be activated; the power of the risen Christ resides within. With a lifetime of practice and plenty of failures, it will gain increasing control of our lives. Conversely, if we do not attempt to surrender our will to God, if we give up before we start, if we say it is too difficult and quit, the law of our sinful nature will grow stronger and more powerful and we will spend less and less time doing what we wish and more and more doing that which we abhor until one day we find there are no more days left anymore.
Two roads. The intersection of time and eternity. The choice to walk alone; the choice to step in the Spirit. A battle of cosmic proportions waged in the banalities of the eternal now. Perhaps we should stay and agonize awhile with Jean Valjean as he confronts the metaphorical sphinx in Chapter 353 of Victor Hugo’s (1802–1885) immortal 1862 classic Les Misérables (a free, online version is available from The Literature Network):
The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so many phases, began once more.
Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, and struggling desperately against it!
Unheard-of conflict! At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him! How many times had the truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind! How many times had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his conscience, again overthrown by it! How many times, after an equivoque, after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard his irritated conscience cry in his ear: “A trip! you wretch!” How many times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, under the evidence of duty! Resistance to God. Funereal sweats. What secret wounds which he alone felt bleed! What excoriations in his lamentable existence! How many times he had risen bleeding, bruised, broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And, after having dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with red-hot pincers, it had said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil: “Now, go in peace!”
But on emerging from so melancholy a conflict, what a lugubrious peace, alas!
Nevertheless, that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through his final combat.
A heart-rending question presented itself.
Predestinations are not all direct; they do not open out in a straight avenue before the predestined man; they have blind courts, impassable alleys, obscure turns, disturbing crossroads offering the choice of many ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of these crossroads.
Archive note: See also the discussion forum thread regarding this newsletter.He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out before him, the one tempting, the other alarming.
Which was he to take?
Which are you to take? One day, one moment, one step, step by step, choice by choice, inch by inch. Will your feet tread the golden streets of Christian’s Celestial City? would you darken the doors of hell? If the latter seems untenable, let us ne’er forget Lewis’s solemn warning: hell is a place where the doors are all locked from the inside.
God bless,
Eric
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