crazy love: a review

Christians spend so much of their time trying to live the right way. We try not to swear or use foul language. We try not to tell dirty jokes. We try to make our kids sit straight and be quiet in the worship space.

Do you ever wonder if we are trying to do the wrong things?

Sometimes I wonder if we major in the minors and completely ignore the big things God is calling us to. I wonder if we gloss over Jesus’s radical calls to obedience in the scriptures on purpose, or if we simply miss it.

Francis Chan, in his book Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God says that yes, indeed, we have missed it. At least the vast majority of us have.

You may wonder if this is simply another angry book blasting the North-American church for not following Jesus. To be honest, I wondered that myself. As I began to read the book, I actually felt that it moved rather slowly. Chan takes his time outlining what it means to follow God, and makes sure that we understand just who this God is.

He incorporates his website in his text, urging the reader to go and watch some videos that are hosted there. I found this somewhat distracting. When I sit down to read a book, I want to read the book. I do not want to have to take the time to go to my computer and watch a visitor.

These drawbacks were more than made up for, however, as the book progressed. Chan Biblically draws an outline of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, not in specifics but in attitude.

His explication of what it means to be obsessed with Jesus really hit home for me. Here is a quick summary of his description of a person deeply in love (obsessed) with Jesus.

People who are obsessed with Jesus: give freely and openly, without censure, aren’t consumed with their personal safety and comfort above all else, live lives that connect them with the poor in some way or another, are more concerned with obeying God than doing what is expected or fulfilling the status-quo, know that the sin of pride is always a battle, do not consider service a burden, are known as givers, not takers, think about heaven frequently, are characterised by a committed, settled passionate love for God, are raw with God, have an intimate relationship with Him, are more concerned with their character than comfort, know that the best thing they can do is be faithful to his saviour in every aspect of his life.

While there are other books that relate the same subject, they rely more on experience than scripture. Chan makes a concerted effort to remind us that it is only in Jesus that we are saved, and that for the glory of God. This salvation calls us to lead a radically different life than those around us. This is one of the best books I have found that outlines the Biblical basis and demand for radical discipleship in an accessible and engaging way.

eyes to see

Image by * 5 ō Ō ō 5 α ω ō я ℓ ∂ via Flickr

“It is customary to blame secular scienca and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society.” Abraham Joshual Heschel

Christians often moan about the fall of “Christian culture” within which we live. We look around us and wonder why it is that things have gone this way. It seems as though we are in the Autumnal stages of a culture that so many people dearly loved.

However when I see this movement I say, “Good ridance.” The so-called Christianity which seeped its way into the popular culture became so warped and twisted, so allied with earthly powers and kingdoms that it became virtually unrecognisable from the good news for the oppressed which it is. It slowly became good news for the rich and powerful. It became a tool to oppress rather than one to liberate.

In many places it still is.

“It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religions declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rahter than with the voice of compassion–its message becomes meaningless.” Abraham Joshual Heschel

We have to admit that perhaps the reason many people around us no longer claim to follow Jesus is because we have not given them sufficient reason to want to. Often our lives seem to be more drugery than joy.

What happens, however, when these problems are reversed? What happens when habit turns into love, when discipline changes to worship, creeds are imbibed with deep faith?

What happens when the faith we receive as an heirloom suddenly begins to flow living water?

God is opening our heart to the lost, the hurting, the oppressed. God is renewing our first love for him, and changing our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

God is moving in this world.

May we open our eyes to see.

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crying versus silence

I was talking with a friend the other day about the psalms of lament and out study of them when he blurted out, “As long as people don’t just sit there and do nothing. Its all well and good to go to God and tell him your issues, but you have to do something about your issues first.”

The old adage, ‘God only helps those who help themselves.’

I agree that we should not simply sit on our buts and hope that God pulls us out of our hole (especially when the outward circumstances are of our own making). However, when there is real pain in our lives that comes between us and God how are we supposed to deal with it.

If I am angry at my parents for something, and I completely ignore the situation and simply act as if everything is okay every time I meet them I will get more and more angry, hurt, and confused. If I put on a happy smile and pretend like every thing is hunky-dory, then when I leave their presence I am going to be MORE angry with them rather than less. When there is an issue, it needs to be aired and expressed. Even if my parents know that I am angry, the relationship will not be restored until that thing is removed. It will only be removed when it is exposed and expressed.

But how do we do this? We are not very well trained at the art of lament any longer. We do not know how to take our hurt before God. We do not know how to rely on the covenantal relationship we have with him to cry out to him and expect some kind of resolution.

Again, this resolution that I am talking about is not the outward circumstance. Our lament to God leads to resolution of the relationship between us and God, and this gives us the strength to approach the outward circumstances. We will still have pain and hurt, we will simply be more confident of the help and presence of God in the midst of these things.

It is not about God helping those who help themselves, it is about removing the barriers between us and God so that he can help us.

In the TODAY devotional Rev. Arthur J. Schoonveld relates the experience of C. S. Lewis.

The Christian author C. S. Lewis searched for God during the illness of his wife without finding him. In his book A Grief Observed, Lewis wrote, “Meanwhile, where is God? … Go to him when your need is desperate … and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away.”

There are many of us who cannot find God. Who have this feeling that he has left us to our own devices. Having people around us telling us to ‘get on with it’ does not really help the situation.

The one thing we need to continue on in  life is conspicuously absent.

We need God.

Schoonveld suggests that perhaps the way to handle our pain is not crying out to him, or sitting in silence before him, it is BOTH.

If for some reason you can’t seem to find God, let him know you can’t find him—and then listen. God is right where he always is. Lewis found that perhaps his own cries deafened him “to the voice [he] hoped to hear.” He wrote later, “I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face?”

Let him know you cannot find him. Lay before him the things that are troubling you. Show him the areas of your life that you do not feel him in, and then honestly listen for his response.

Cry out to him and sit in silence before him. Trust is expressed in both. Trust that he will do something about the separation we feel. Trust that he will be true to his promises. Trust that he is big enough to handle the anger/hurt/pain that we carry. Trust that he wants to have a relationship with us where nothing is hidden.

“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may recieve mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16, NIV)

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keep pushing

Road To Nowhere

Originally uploaded by charminbayurr

My son is just starting to learn how to ride a two wheeler (with training wheels of course). He never really learned how to pedal anything before, so there is a lot to learn. He has to figure out how to turn his feet around on the pedals and push at the right times, alternating one leg and then the other. He has to figure out how to balance a little so that he does not feel like he is falling over. He has to concentrate and steer so he does not go off the road and fall in the ditch.

So many things to learn.

The last few weeks we have been going to a vacant road in an industrial park in the evenings to give him lots of room to learn. His mum has been learning how to ride a motorcycle at the same time. I have had to get rather firm with him because he simply wants to give up. Time and again, when it gets a bit tough he just wants me to push him along. I don’t mind giving him a push to get started, but he wants me to keep pushing him.

He wants to simply coast along while I do all the work.

I love to coast too. I love to have someone pushing me along, forcing me to do the things that I need to do. I love to have someone else making me grow in my relationship with God.

Wait. That’s not how it works? You mean to tell me that if I simply show up on Sunday, and have some emotions stirred up by a worship service, then go home and spend no more time in the Word, or doing service, or practising other Christian disciplines I will never actually strengthen my faith?

When I look down the road laid ahead of me, the road that leads me to God and to the person I really want to be, it looks so long. I would rather have someone push me than have to learn how to move by myself.

The problem is, we need to learn or else we will forever be stuck at the beginning of our road. We are all travelling a different road and no one will travel mine with me. There will be some who will come alongside me for a while. They may be able to give me a little boost, maybe pick me up after I have fallen, but then they will have to move on to their own road and I will need to continue mine.

We are responsible for our own lives, and this includes our relationship with God.

the end and the beginning

The last few days have been a bit strange. A member of my church is in the very last stage of life with only days, if not hours to live. He has been struggling with Parkinsons for 20 some odd years. As hard as the struggle has been, and as much as they wish him relief from it, it is still really hard to say goodbye.

All they can do now is wait.

At the same time there have been a couple of babies born. Two little girls to two different families. Little bundles of life and joy that express so much promise.

Old age, and new birth.

The end and the beginning.

At least in our eyes. It is so hard to understand eternity. How is it possible that we, who are time bound beings living in a place that has a defined sequence of events because of the forward motion of time can even begin to comprehend the existence of a place where there is no time.

No beginning.

No end.

Or rather, one single being that encompases the whole. The beginning and the end. The Alpha and the Omega.

God is from A to Z.

Rob Bell mentions an old Hebrew legend on one of his Nooma videos, I cannot remember the one off hand, about the name of God. The name which God gave to Moses out of the burning bush in Exodus 3. This four letter word which we are not really certain how to pronounce because the Israelites deemed it so holy they were unwilling to voice it out loud. Four letters (read right to left):

yod

heh

vav

heh

Some of the ancient Rabbis would say that the name of God is really just the sound of breathing.

You began your life when you could say the name of God, and you died when you could no longer say the name of God.

yod

heh

vav

heh

The name of God is the sound of breathing. Life encompased from beginning to end in a constant stream of voicing the name of God.

yod

heh

vav

heh