As we get older, my mom, at family gatherings, looks around and tells us how happy it makes her to see all of us siblings getting along as friends, enjoying each others’ company, cooperating and helping each other out. I felt the same over the summer when my teammates were just enjoying being together.

Psalm 133 begins with the same feeling.

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head… (vv 1-2a)

It goes on about where the oil runs, which, in my high-maintenance western mind, doesn’t sound all that pleasant. I’m thinking of how hard it would be to clean up all that oil! But back in the day, and in the land of metaphors, the oil running over symbolizes a lot of things, including a sense of satisfied abundance.

A more literal and practical Scriptural reference to this unity of community is found in the famous Acts 2 description of the early church.

All the believers were together and had everything in common. (vs 44)

Recently, I was the blessed participant of such a community. In vs 45, it goes on to say how everyone gave to whoever was in need. I shared in my small group how the brakes on my car were starting to audibly complain, but I didn’t have enough to get them fixed any time soon. My prayer request was that God would arrange my schedule so I would drive as little as possible and that He would provide the funds to fix it, whether it was through extra design jobs or whatever. Before we even got to pray about it, one woman in my group simply said, “You can’t drive around like that. I’ll pay for it.” To which my ungracious reply was, “You have your own son. You should take care of him!” (We have a good friendship. ) She had her husband promptly call the mechanic and set up an appointment for me. Within two days, I was able to step on the brakes without fear…although it took me two days after that before I actually stopped cringing. Old habits die hard. She even told me the following week that my brake job was their Valentine’s Day gift to each other! What a crazy couple! I have always loved them…

I’ve heard so often — even said it myself — about how nice it would be to return to the “true” church of Acts, the good ol’ days. Let’s not kid ourselves. I bet they had their fair share of dysfunctions and conflicts. We have much to learn from the early Church, but we are the true Church in the here and now. Two things struck me as I started to put Scripture and experience together:

1. Faith communities are sacrificially active. The book of Acts is really about “the acts of the apostles.” This isn’t just a collection of cool stories about miracles; it’s also a description of how followers of Jesus lived and how we can live so that we’re intentionally positioned to live in view of miracles. Community and faith don’t just happen. They’re cultivated through intentional sacrifice.
2. Living in such a community is humbling. If people are giving, someone needs to be receiving. I’d rather be the one doing the giving. This experience is a reminder I don’t have everything I need, I’m not sufficient on my own, and although God can supply all my needs according to His glorious riches, He usually isn’t going to do it in secret. He will make my needs glaringly apparent, and He will usually use His people — the most glorious richness of His creation — to supply them.

Of the more popular translations today, The Message is the only one that uses “beautiful” to express the psalmist’s original words. As I reflect on what just happened in the past week, “beautiful” is the word that comes to mind over and over again. It is beautiful to see the Body of Christ living as it should, each giving from his or her own strengths, like the pieces of a puzzle all coming together in their proper places to form a majestic scene. We don’t need to return to communal living to build a community. In fact, most cults start that way. I don’t want to be that kind of church. We only need to freely share our strengths and be willing to ask for help in our weaknesses, all the while acknowledging God among us and in us. I wonder if that makes God as happy as my siblings and I make my mom.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5.11

Please pray for save travels, open hearts, and generous spirits toward one another as He reveals His heart and spirit to us.

In The Hidden Face of God: Finding the Missing Door to the Father Through Lament¹ Michael Card entitles the 30th chapter, “The Disturbing Faithfulness of God.” I was uncomfortable through the entire reading because he was relevant and right. Even the discussion and meditation questions at the end were timely. He begins with a quote from Walter Brueggemann.

You are not the God we would have chosen. (137)

I appreciate that: it’s religiously incorrect, and it’s real.

Toward the end of the meditation, he asks,

Could it possibly be true that the miracle is not provision, but Presence? (140)

I know His presence is what I should choose, but there are times when my limited understanding would rather choose His provision.

When I think of my most faithful friends, the first one that comes to mind is one I met through youth ministry. We’ve both since stepped down, but she has remained a faithful friend. Her faithfulness, though, isn’t revealed by what she does for me (which is already enough), but more clearly by her presence. Why do I hold one definition of faithfulness for my friends, and another for my Father?

Thankfully, God is not only faithful, but relentlessly so.

…if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself. 2 Timothy 2.13

1. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2007. [↩]

“Did you get everything you wanted?” “I hope you got everything you wanted this Christmas.” These comments greeted me in the opening of two separate messages on the Sunday after Christmas 2007 and a third one at the first meeting of a group in 2008. It is a common question in casual conversation. Usually it is directed toward children, youth, or a casual acquaintance as an icebreaker question. However, in Christendom where “the true meaning of Christmas” is highly emphasized, it seems to be an odd question and peculiar hope to present to an adult congregation of professed believers. It left me slightly unsettled and saddened.

What is it we try to instill into the young minds under our charge? “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” “We give presents at Christmas to remember what God has given to us.” So, why do we follow-up the Christmas season with questions about getting?

Could it be that we have more of a consumer mentality than we want to admit? Could it be that we have more of a consumer mentality than we are even aware? Could it be that we have actually bought in to the world’s commercial version of Christmas on a deeper level than we want to own up to?

Perhaps the follow-up question we should ask is, “Did you give everything you wanted to?” If we keep this end question in mind, our attitude toward receiving, as well as giving, will likely change. There is no sin in gratefully receiving and enjoying a gift, and I don’t want to discourage giving traditional Christmas gifts. What if, though, our Christmas celebration included celebrating Communion and giving us time and space to reflect upon, receive again, and further our enjoyment of the greatest Gift we could never deserve. This gratefulness ought to be reflected in our response to the gifts we receive from others.

I enjoy stories with unpreditable plots, so I was immediately drawn to the concept behindAdvent Conspiracy, an international movement to recover the scandal of Christmas. It promotes the joy of giving through compassion rather than consumption. It suggests giving time and honor rather than miscellaneous material objects. It encourages creativity and thoughtfulness in our giving. It remembers the heart of the original Christmas gift.

As we deepen our appreciation for such a lavish Gift, allowing it to change our hearts, souls, and minds, it is quite possible that our conversations about Christmas gifts will naturally turn toward what we had the pleasure of giving. Rather than comparing gifts received, we can “spur one another on toward love and good deeds”¹ as we share the ways we have given to our hearts’ content.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.  1 Timothy 6.17-19

1. Hebrews 10.24 [↩]

My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forever more. Psalm 131 (NIV)

The opening of Psalm 131 has always caused some cognitive dissonance for me. On one hand, I don’t want to settle for mediocre. I want to constantly do it better, to meet the highest standards and demands…and to understand what just happened! My aversion for regret refuses to let me settle for less, even when it’s better to count my losses and get out. Although I’ve never read it, Bill Hybel’s book title, Holy Discontent, resonates with me.

On the other hand, this Psalm and Paul’s example of being “content in any and every situation”¹ are always in the back of my mind when crazy ideas and hopes to change things for the better pop up.² Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” Being a creative and a visionary, I gravitate toward that sentiment. Being a Christian, I want to keep that sentiment in the context of God.

Definition

One of my favorite definitions of humility comes from a former high school student who returned to our youth group to deliver a lesson.

Humility is remembering your rightful place before God.

Eugene Peterson quotes another similar definition in the introduction to his chapter on Humility.

Humility is the obverse side of confidence in God, whereas pride is the obverse side of confidence in self. John Baillie

I like those better than the more common definitions of “thinking less of yourself,” “thinking of yourself less,” or “not thinking of yourself.” Those definitions seemed contradictory to the reality that we exist and are created in the image of God, thereby carrying some inherent (albeit sin-scarred) value. Besides, it’s impossible to not think of the very vehicle through which you depend on to work out your salvation, whether it is your physical body or your emotional state or your intellectual understanding.

Peterson addresses this in his analysis of verse 2.

But if we are not to be proud, clamorous, arrogant persons, what are we to be? Mousy, cringing, insecure ones? Well, not quite. Having realized the dangers of pride, the sin of thinking too much of ourselves, we are suddenly in danger of another mistake, thinking too little of ourselves. There are some who conclude that since the great Christian temptation is to try to be everything, the perfect Christian solution is to be nothing. And so we have the problem of the doormat Christian and the dishrag saint: the person upon whom everyone walks and wipe their feet, the person who is used by others to clean up the mess of everyday living and then is discarded. These people then compensate for their poor lives by weepily clinging to God, hoping to make up for the miseries of everyday life by dreaming of luxuries in heaven. (154)

So, it seems humility is about focus, not ignorance. On our path toward God, we grow in humility when we emphasize focusing on God rather than ignoring ourselves.

Application

Something that has recently been bothering me more is the comparison that happens in ministry and among ministry leaders. In particular, almost every cross-cultural ministry team I’ve been on included some comment during debriefing (or training) about how much more difficult it is to be a Christian “over there.” While that sounds compassionate, I’ve always sensed an undercurrent of pride that I couldn’t quite explain. Even though the conclusion usually ended up being, “they are some of the strongest Christians I’ve ever met…far stronger than we are in the United States,” the spirit of comparison seemed out of place.

I think it has something to do with this:

All cultures throw certain stumbling blocks in the way of those who pursue gospel realities. It is sheerest fantasy to suppose that we would have had an easier time of it as Christian believers if we were in another land or another time. It is no easier to be a Chinese Christian than to be a Spanish Christian than to be a Russin Christian than to be a Brazilian Christian than to be an American Christian — nor more difficult. The way of faith deals with realities in whatever time and whatever culture. (150)

Every humanly developed culture has its challenges to the ones who want to live according to God’s Kingdom culture. For most Eastern cultures, it is overt idolatry: another god. But for Western cultures (or, at least, major metropolitan United States), it’s more covert idolatry: still another god. Peterson thinks it is ambition (p.153), and I’m inclined to agree.

Ambition is aspiration gone crazy. Aspiration is the channeled, creative energy that moves us to growth in Christ, shaping goals in the Spirit. Ambition takes these same energies for growth and development and uses them to make something tawdry and cheap, sweatily knocking together a Babel when we could be vacationing in Eden. (153)

There are other gods, I’m sure, but ambition is pretty high on the top of our list, even for Christians. We just euphemize it and call it “pursuing God’s best.” The challenge, and one mark of mature faith, is to be able to live at the edge of aspiration without crossing over into ambition.

Personal Challenge

In the beginning of the chapter, Peterson calls this psalm a “maintenance psalm” (p. 149) and compares it to pruning.³

…it gets rid of that which looks good to those who don’t know any better, and reduces the distance between our hearts and their roots in God. (149)

In between the paragraphs, I wrote a quick prayer almost 9 years ago that God would help me recognize and release that which looks good because I don’t know any better. Not too sure how often I’ve followed up on seeking Him in that…it seems my life has recently gotten busier with good things, “God things.” Am I willing to let go of the things that look good but am really doing for my security, not His purposes? Am I willing to cease activity and take the time to even ask Him about that?

1. Philippians 4.12 [↩]
2. Ironically, Paul is one of the most far-reaching people I’ve every come across. Still, there’s a difference between the apostle Paul (who was by no means perfect) and the earlier Saul. Other character comparisons to look at: Peter in the Gospels and Peter of 1st and 2nd Peter; Paul and Peter? [↩]
3. interesting…another reference to a garden, along with Eden in above quote [↩]