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It was time for a change!

I heard the pack of dogs long before I saw them. Howling viciously, barking as if they were on the trail of big prey. They raced past me the first time—beasts that had long since lost any form of domestication. Their eyes were glowing with intent, teeth bared and snapping, saliva dripping down their muzzles as they imagined tearing into the feast of their prey. I trembled at such a terrifying sight, and breathed a sigh of relief as they passed. But then terror gripped me once more as their cries, which had been growing fainter, began to grow louder as the pack circled around to my direction again. A dawning realization sent shivers of fear and anxiety down my spine—I was the prey, they were after me.

The savage snarling grew even louder until the sounds became almost deafening—suddenly, they were standing close enough to me that I could see their crazed eyes and their fangs dripping with lusty drool. Everywhere around me there were snapping jaws of greed, lust, envy, covetousness, seeking my flesh to bite into, to consume, to maim my life in a way that would steal all joy and satisfaction. I could feel a breeze stirring around me as their jaws anxiously snapped the air. They were so close—how is it that they couldn’t see me, find my flesh with their teeth?

All of a sudden, I became aware of the soft presence of feathers around me, and I looked around to see I was in a nest woven of the strongest and finest materials the earth had to offer. The nest was hidden deep in the forest, and the materials were strong enough to repel the pack’s teeth and strength. When my eyes were opened to see this, I felt myself relax, and fall back into my hidden place, into the comfort of the feathers. I was not alone, my sense of self was safe here in its home, protected by the Creator.

The pack grew weary of its empty pursuit, and eventually set off again, looking for other, easier prey. And I sank into the abundant silence that spoke everything I needed to know.

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, before His works of old…Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him, rejoicing in the world, His earth, and having my delight in the human race.” Proverbs 4: 22, 30-31

Today I read this first passage and mused on the mystery of it. God’s tangible presence—either as a fire or a cloud— rested on the tabernacle as a sign that the Israelites were supposed to set up camp and stay awhile. How long? No one knew, and it wouldn’t be until the cloud would lift that they would know it was time to start packing up the camp. It seems that it could be as short as two days and as long as a year—time and schedule are not the driving force or theme of this story. Rather, it is the people living with God as their provider and leader. For what reasons would God decide to move the people on? Did the people ever try to analyze the situation and guess as to different factors? I was struck by the mystery of this, and the wholehearted trust that would require the people to live moment by moment, ready to stay or leave with short notice.

Later, on my morning walk, I listened to a passage on wisdom, personified in the above Proverbs passage. Wisdom hovers with God over creation, delighting in God’s world. God’s wisdom can also be quite mysterious—sometimes it might seem to counter logic or common sense. If all the resources of a campsite are used up, isn’t it time to move on? If the Presence hasn’t lifted, then the answer is ‘No,’ despite the visible circumstances.

Dwelling with God requires attentiveness to his daily guidance, a recognition of the gap between God’s wisdom and my understanding, an embrace of the mystery of these intertwined three—presence, wisdom, guidance. Wisdom is both God’s presence dwelling on the tabernacle, and the removal of the presence, indicating the need to pack up camp. Seeking wisdom is something we are encouraged to do, and God gives it to us both as a gift and also something to foster through a life orientated and open to God’s presence.

The ‘felt’ presence of God is something many of us long for—but it is something that we can neither control, conjure, nor predict. From across the ocean, I have been so moved by the reports of what they are calling the ‘Outpouring‘ at Asbury University. God’s presence suddenly resting on a physical space—confirmation of the Spirit within us and also a foretaste for when God’s tangible presence will dwell with us continually in our material space. Miroslav Volf refers to this in his new book as the time when the a new world becomes the ‘The Home of God.’

I’m not spending much time reading analysis or others’ thoughts on the ‘Outpouring’. Rather, I am allowing myself to be filled with hope at the reports of the students attentively feasting on God’s presence. When the cloud will lift, no one knows. As it is, Asbury is bringing to an end the open door policy for the campus—it seems that the leadership is seeking wisdom about how to live with this fresh experience of God’s presence. The wisdom of God that hovers over the campus, delighting in God’s people, will also guide the students to discern the next steps on their journey.

I know others have far more experience with this than do I—the feeling of utter vulnerability and helplessness, when you place your well-being at the hands of a group of strangers. In fact, this state is almost the exact opposite of much of my life which has been characterized with independence, self-reliance, and a competitive bent of ‘mind over matter’. This has enabled me to push through the pain of climbing mountains and enduring mental, emotional, and physical challenges. But in the end, grit and determination take you only so far— and the expected guarantees unconsciously associated with the outcomes of this mindset have been slowly crumbling for some time. In fact, these covert beliefs were rather abruptly exposed in January when I took a simple fall on some ice while out hiking.

My mind told me to get up and keep moving, laugh it off and carry on. But my body revolted as my heart rate increased, and I became light headed, suddenly feeling as if I would pass out or throw up. Dizzily, I sat down. ‘What is happening?’ I thought. My mind again ordered my body to obey, an unsympathetic general to her foot soldiers. My body revolted and sat down again.

My mind persisted in its stubbornness—it would be three days before I went to the emergency room to discover my right hand was broken and I needed surgery. My first surgery induced profound stress, and the feeling of helplessness was elongated by the fact that I was in my second culture navigating unfamiliar hospital norms in my second language. Further, I decided to request a different surgeon as I wasn’t comfortable with my assigned surgeon. On the day of my surgery, I lay in my hospital bed with seven white-jacketed doctors staring down at me as my surprising request interrupted their morning rounds.

‘Are you insisting on this?’ one asked, looking at me slightly shocked.

‘Yes,’ I answered. I longed for an assurance that my request would be granted, so that I could feel some measure of certainty before going into surgery, but the team merely said, ‘We will see,’ as they left my room. In fact, I did not know who did my surgery until a couple of days afterwards when I was checked by the surgeon I had requested.

‘The Lord is at my right hand and I will not be moved,’ I kept murmuring to myself as they wheeled me into surgery. Was I abusing the interpretation of this verse? Frankly, at that moment I didn’t much care if I was, and I continued repeating it as the kind anesthesiologist exclaimed at my thick skin that bent her needle while she attempted to numb the nerves in my shoulder.

My second surgery a few months later to removed the screws and titanium plate promised to be much simpler and quicker. Still, once again I experienced the sense of profound helplessness as I was wheeled through the hallways.

There are certain experiences in life that can act like a theater curtain being drawn back, revealing the play to the audience. Being put in a state of helplessness is one such experience. Who am I when my self-reliance and self-determination are taken away, when my ‘performance’ as a cause is severed from the result, revealing loss of control?

The last couple years, these experiences of feeling helpless have been occurring with greater frequency—an experience I had at a border crossing, the pandemic, breaking my hand. But are they really happening more frequently or am I just more attune to how little I can actually control? In fact, the experiences have taught me the folly and futility of focusing on performance in my spiritual life and ministry life.

Attending to your response when you are helpless unmasks your actual theology, not just what you think you think. A ‘non-helpless’ person has a hard time experiencing grace—not just knowing about grace—but the feeling of something unexpected and undeserved when you truly cannot reciprocate.

Experiencing helplessness is a required experiential state to shift our compass and properly orientate us in our life with God [for while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for us], but it is also critical to enlarging our compassion for the Other, those who are in a constant state of helplessness against the ‘powers’—refugees, people suffering in war, drought, extreme poverty, women experiencing violence with little recourse for safety, children in untenable situations.

It is hard to accept my helplessness, but it is likely the key to experiencing the peace that passes all understanding.

This compelled me to contemplate the relationship between new and old. So often, we long for something fresh, something to bring new vision and enliven our spirits. The tedium of familiar routines can be discouraging and disheartening. So we look for brand new paths in the forest, or maybe even completely new forests. But perhaps more often, the ‘something new’ happens in the familiar. Perhaps it is a blaring siren call, like spring green. Or perhaps it is more subtle, like the elusive presence of a migratory bird. Regardless, to see something new requires expectation and watching. When newness is recognized, the reward is a fresh sense of wonder and joy at the mysteries of life—a sudden new perception of something you believed had no more sides to contemplate. In a second, the familiar path can again be the source of a gift.

The other day I was thinking about the parallels to the equally agonizing process of moving away from a performance-based Christian praxis. Moving the rubric from a self-mediated transformation, marked by moral behavior and good deeds, to a daily acknowledgement of my weakness and presentation of myself to God has often felt infuriatingly futile and immeasurable. I previously felt so much more effective, useful, and in control. I now acknowledge that willing myself into transformation, sometimes fostered by mental whipping and guilt, although perhaps useful for external behavior, does not reach too deeply into a person. In actuality, it may keep your theology sequestered in your intellect, while you deny the experience of your body.

Entrusting one’s transformation to the Holy Spirit feels vulnerable and somewhat scary, because it lacks a timeline, or a prediction of who I could be. But it is also freedom, slipping out from under burdens of religiosity and self-recriminations. What I am discovering about freedom, however, is that since sometimes the way towards it is counter-intuitive, it takes a while to get used to and enjoyed. It requires both vulnerability and faith, since you must release (the illusion of) control and also work to believe the promises about God’s ongoing work in you.

So in this way, I take heart in the slow progress of my hand. I can do my exercises and stay diligent with my physical therapy, but I don’t see the healing take place in a radical way in front of my eyes. Rather it is a slow, encroaching process that is happening all the time, whether I am thinking about it or not.

To me, however, the question reminded me of the questions Jesus would often ask people. On the surface, they could seem obvious or even genie-like: To a blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” To James and John, “What do you want me to do?” after they told Jesus they wanted him to grant them a wish. However, the right question, at the right time, can reveal what is really in someone’s heart, if they have the courage to look. Going back to Jeremiah, was God inviting Jeremiah to bring his misgivings boldly out into the conversation? Was he helping Jeremiah to really understand his true question about God and the current situation? We Christians are called to pursue and speak truth, but we often talk too much, our words becoming babbling and sometimes obnoxious incoherence. What if we learned the art of the poignant question, asked at the right time, in the right way? What if we had the courage to consider a question asked of us, even when it comes from an unlikely or hostile source?

squeezed us into a corner

papered with mirrors.

Rigid jaws

clenched eyes

until raw desperation

forced one

then two

open.

I saw

weakness

fragility

stingy love

masked with smug convictions,

fear

masked with noble actions.

Left with 2 choices

I surrendered my idols

sadly

with great regret

mourning

loss of control and

cleanly ordered plans.

This year

no giddy rush of freedom

at the relinquishment

at this headlong jump

into the wildness of God.

We give up our religion

in order to seek

while God may be found.

We remember our idols

longingly

like a lover

who becomes flawless

in hindsight

We wait to learn

how to trust

into uncertainty

how to love

without cause

as the world,

indifference flaring

into occasional brutality,

is drawn up into

a basket of suffering.

Warm yourself

before the Spirit’s fire

before walking that golden glimmer

into the hope and dread

of the long, cold winter.

quivering strands of life

like a spider’s web

hovering between

two snowy branches.

Caught by the sticky siren’s call

subject to winter’s chilled breath

I relinquish.

I feel

every tremor

heralding uncertainty

Every shiver

whispers

the hope of release

the hope of remaining.

Am I prey

or merely taking a winter’s rest

encased by water-jeweled silk?

When I was younger I was always attracted to Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me…for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’ I was captivated by these words like a weary winter traveler drawn to a crackling bonfire in a snowy clearing. But I didn’t actually really feel or experience that his burden was light. Jesus invites us into his freedom of being guided by the Spirit rather than by our wider cultural rules, our Christian cultural rules, or our personally-imposed rules. In fact, when he says ‘learn from me’, we can see how he was guided by the Spirit as he interacted with each person he encountered in a unique way—not operating from a scripted rule book of how to deal with people who are engaging in ‘bad’ behavior.

But for some of us, learning to walk into this freedom is not necessarily an instantaneous moment heralded by rapturous Hollywood-film music.

For those of us who struggle to embrace our freedom, we can find plenty of company in the Scriptures. Think of the wandering Israelites who so quickly forgot how ruthless their Egyptian slavery had become. Or Paul’s admonition to the Galatians, who were panting to return to more rules and regulations.

My friend Ksenija Magda, in her new thought-provoking book Blessing the Curse?, discusses the relationships in a household which Paul uses to exemplify his exhortation to the Galatians to live in their freedom. One of those household relationships is the ‘pedagogian’, who Magda describes as a slave with a big stick in an ancient Greek household, enforcing the father’s household rules to his children (sons). Returning to the law, therefore, ‘is like wanting to become a child again, after having been accepted as an adult heir at God’s table —like asking for that abusive slave with a big stick to beat the father’s will into you, after you’ve already been communicating with the father directly…Why leave the freedom and fullness of God’s executive table and exchange it for a slave’s interpretation of God’s will?’*

Why indeed? It makes no sense on paper. But maybe our bodies have a certain ‘muscle memory’ from long years of a self-imposed pedagogian. Or perhaps someone is not even conscious who or what is ruling their lives. Walking in freedom may need to be a daily decision, or a gradual realization, until new muscle memories form, and our bodies react in horror at the thought of returning to the past—a past way of life as dead and lifeless as the white ashes left in memory of the fire.

Magda, Ksenija. 2020. Blessing the Curse?: A Biblical Approach for Restoring Relationships in the Church. Cumbria: Langham Global Publishing, pg. 116.