The Price of Consolation - Living Like a Desert Father

 

Some words have more than one meaning. Take 'Consolation', for instance. In its most common use, it can mean the sweet ministrations of empathy given in a difficult moment. To a comtemplative, however, - that is, someone who works to develop their spiritual life through meditation and/or study - it means something quite different. It means achieving and maintaining life in the presence of God. Consolation = Connection and fellowship with God. 

The Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits, ascetics, and monks, lived in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria starting around the 3rd century AD. They left the cities to seek a life of deep solitude, unceasing prayer, and spiritual combat. Sound like fun? Well, maybe not. But they discovered something many of us actively seek when we take Christ at His word that He wants to give us Peace. 

"My peace I give to you. My peace I leave with you." (John 14:27) We say it all the time, don't we? We wish it for one another. We pray for it. 

But Peace costs something.

I was reading an article in America magazine recently about a young woman who hung up a fulfilling career to have children and raise them at home and was trying to manage the transition, perform her daily tasks, and maintain a relationship to God. Not surprisingly, she found this difficult because her new life held none of the intellectual challenge of the old. Oh, it held challenges, all right, but rather than complex problem solving and quick, tangible results, it held day after day of repetitive tasks done mostly in isolation. 

It was tough for awhile until she understood that her life resembled that of the desert fathers, who did not seek worldly success but chose instead a life of solitude, of repetitive and mundane tasks, and those tasks became essential to their paths to God. 

Are they boring? Yes. Who likes changing diaper after diaper, or washing dishes meal after meal without visible end? But it's the daily tasks that offer the brainspace for prayer. It's in the mundane that stillness is available and peace can be found. 

Want peace? This is where it can be found: in regular, intentional separation from the world; in inner quiet; in repetitive manual labor. You already know it's not found in the busyness of packed schedules or in our retreat into entertainment and devices or in homes overloaded with stuff and the shopping that gets them that way. 

When folks recommend meditation and quiet times, this is the reason. They are looking for peace. And in this confusing and hectic world, even at the price, it is worth it. 

Image: Dreamstime

Being Abraham

 

Abraham had a tough life. Sure, God considered him a friend in a way many of us can barely imagine, but really, theirs wasn't the kind of friendship most of us would relish. 

He never really got to settle in. First, God told him to leave his home in Ur without giving him a destination. That's it. Just leave. Not go to the next town or to Jerusalem or to Detroit. Just go. And, remarkably, Abraham seemed content with that. He went. Just like that, one day at a time, and ended up in Haran, after 600 miles on foot with his whole household. 600 miles.

He stayed there for awhile, and then God told him to get up and leave again, this time to the promised land in Canaan. Another 400 miles. On foot. To a land already occupied with folks they had to evict by force. And Abe did it. 

When he got there, God told him he would have a son. His wife had a few chuckles over that because of their advanced age, but Abe believed it and waited. He waited 25 years and no son came. His wife got impatient and tried to make it happen, but that didn't work out the way she planned and finally, when Abe was 100, his wife had a baby. 

Later, God told Abraham to kill his son. Yup, the same one he waited 100 years for. And Abraham prepared to do it.

Well, I feel a lot like Abraham these days. I can see what God has done and what He is doing and think I can see what God wants me to do, but for the life of me can't see how to get from point A to point B. It's like God is saying, "Go to Los Angeles" and then He breaks my legs. It's like He's promising me an impossible son. Just like Abraham. It's like He's telling me something is going to happen, but there is no possible way it can. 

And I guess that's the point. Trusting God (or anyone, for that matter) really depends on not understanding how impossibilities can actually happen. It's doing as much as we can in obedience and love, then letting the person responsible for getting the rest done just do it. After all, our aim is to fulfil God's purpose, not our own, or is supposed to be. And if the purpose is not ours, then the method by which it is accomplished is not ours, either. 

The simple way is to say it's a matter of relinquishing control, and that's probably true, but it's more than that. It's believing God is God. It's understanding the nature and reality of love. It's acknowledging that our greatest strength doesn't lie in strength of character, natural virtue, knowledge, or experience. Our greatest strength lies in our connectedness to God. It's remembering that our first and best purpose is not to succeed in our plans. It's to follow, like Abraham, where we're pointed, content to not understand why. 

Maybe that's what will make me a friend of God, too. 

Image: Crosswalk.com

How to Lose your Faith

 

Did you ever notice that you have been made human?

Well, of course you have. But it's a problem, isn't it? I mean, you were made human, but it seems like every time we turn around, we're being told to be something else. More spiritual, more perfect, more like Jesus. And none of these things seem to fit in to the reality of humanity. Humanity is random, very flesh and blood, and full of error. It's a thing, for sure. What exactly, then, are we to do with these two things that seem so far apart, spirit and humanity?

Well, Simone Weil had something so say about that. 

"Whoever puts his life in his faith in God can lose his faith but he who puts his life in God Himself will never lose it."

We are often told that the bridge between the perfection of the spirit and the imperfection of humanity is faith, but Simone doesn't think that works. The problem is that faith only stops with the act of believing and doesn't go far enough. Believing isn't going to do it because it centers on us, not on God. Believing is what we do, not who we are supposed to be believing in . Believing is a created thing. We create it with our mind and intellect. And as such, it is as misguided a goal as wealth or fame. Faith is just a thing. It's God we really want, isn't it? And God isn't reached by faith or any kind of constructed belief or practice. God is reached by encounter and fellowship directly with Him. 

It's kind of like believing the Bible. If belief in and following the Bible is our goal, that's one thing. But it can end up kind of like worshiping a book. A good book for sure, but it is still a book. The Bible is not God. It may be from God or about God, but it is not God. Neither is faith. The Bible and faith are both tools, means to an end, but not good final goals. There's more. With God, there's always more.

The temptation is to go to church, read your Bible, learn prayers and verses, then kind of dust off your hands from all the effort (and it is an effort) and think you're done. 

But that's just the beginning. It's like putting a carcass on the table without meat. There's a framework to build on, but nothing of real substance to nourish.

God gave us the Bible to lead us to Him. That's it. Nothing more. 

He gave us faith, and prayer, and church families for that, too. Nothing more. It's Him. It was always Him. 

Faith and doctrinal frameworks provide support on which those things might grow, but there's little point in growing a tomato plant if you never pick the tomatoes. 

Faith is not the fruit of a well-lived life. Life in God is. Faith is temporary. You will not need it in heaven. 

Knowing your Bible is not the fruit of a well-lived life. God is. You will not need someone else's idea of what God is saying in heaven.

Building a strong church is not the fruit of a well-lived life. God is. You will be part of a church with no walls, no hymns, no bake sales in heaven. 

When God tells us to focus on the eternal, He means Himself. 

So lose your faith, and focus on Him, where faith becomes irrelevant because He is so real.

image: beliefnet