meditations a la Kempis

Thomas a' Kempis' The Imitation of Christ is one of my favorite Christian works. Written hundreds of years ago by a monk in a monastery, Kempis writes about life in the monastery and life in Christ. In some places he writes as if the reader's in dialogue with Jesus, and it reads like a conversational prayer. I've been reading it a lot lately, and Kempis makes a big deal about how life isn't about us but about Christ and what Christ wants to do in us. In lieu of all that, here's a little "meditation" of sorts I've felt inclined to share.

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Adoption into God’s family involves both gifts and discipline from the hand of God. Those who aren’t God’s children have been “given up,” and since they aren’t his children, they experience neither his staff nor his rod. As a child of God I experience both, and sometimes I don’t like it.

I’m God’s child, and a selfish one: I want God to give me what I want, when I want it, and in the manner I want it given to me. I want him to hand me my dreams and take away my problems. It isn’t that God doesn’t want his children to be happy and fulfilled; it’s that he wants more than that for us. He’s not a kindergarten teacher trying to placate hordes of annoying kids but a loving father who wishes and wills his children to “grow up” and become who they’re meant to be. His primary concern isn’t our feelings but the kind of people we’re becoming.

Our father wants us to be freed from all that ensnares us, all that chains us to the wall and keeps us from moving forward. He wants to break those bonds that keep us from ourselves; he wants to deliver us from all that enslaves us so that we can move boldly into our inheritance. Our father wants us to be whole; he wants us to be fully-flourishing human beings in a corrupt and fallen world. God’s ultimate goal isn’t the fulfillment of our dreams, ambitions, and selfish hopes; his ultimate goal is our conformity to Christ. He wants us to be who we are created to be, and we who are his children have not the burden but the privilege of experiencing not only the comfort of his staff but the sharp sting of his rod. While my priority inclines to my own happiness and self-fulfillment, my own vindication and experience of life, God’s priority is my conformity to the image of his Son, conformity to genuine humanness. I may want my father to remove all the trials of my life; but precisely because he is my father, and because he cares about me as a person, he would rather use these trials and difficulties to fashion me into who I truly am: a redeemed human being, a different sort of person in a world curled in on itself.

Something I struggle with in my faith is my expectations of God: I’ve grown up and been conditioned to think that the closer you are to God, the more holier you are, the better God will make your life. This is why it stuns me so much when I see God-fearing and God-loving people suffer tragedy and misfortune. I want to ask, “Where is God?”, the classic wail of the prophets, and I want to know why a loving father could allow such things to happen. I must remind myself that we live in the present evil age, and we’re not left here simply to enjoy life and survive as we wait for Kingdom Come. God’s promised to take care of us, but that doesn’t mean he makes our lives a rose garden experience. A good father doesn’t take care of his children by isolating them from the wider world; rather, a good father goes out into the world with his children, standing by their side as the world throws all it has at them, supporting them and encouraging them and helping them in the midst of it all, so that his children will grow into decent, functioning adults. God doesn’t allow his children to be overwhelmed, even if it feels like that at times; he’s with us in our trials, teaching us and transforming us inside-out. When death strikes too soon, it’s my inclination to ask why God has allowed such a thing to happen when he’s loving. My assumption is something along the lines that a loving God wouldn’t allow such a tragedy to befall his children; but tragedy this side of paradise is a blessing on the other, and I believe that on the other side of death, we who are God’s children will find that he has taken care of us far more than we ever assumed, and “paradise” is just a foretaste of what lies beyond the Consummation. This life is a mere breath; in lieu of eternity, it is but a moment. If every early death is a testament to the unfaithfulness of God, then God has been faithless to all those throughout history who have put their faith in him and died. The kingdom has come but not yet, and until this present evil age is eradicated, death will stalk—but for those who are in Christ, death has lost its sting.

This life isn’t a “vale of tears” to be endured. We who are saved in the present will be saved fully and finally in the future, and the time we’re given by our father isn’t given so that we can enjoy life as much as we can before we die, but so that we can begin the work we will continue the other side of Judgment Day. Life from conversion to glorification is training for the world to come. History doesn’t end in the Consummation; rather, a new story begins in a new age in the story of the cosmos, a story in which we will be rulers gardening the universe for the glory of God. All that I experience is to be used to train myself for the role God has for me. Conformity to Christ isn’t conformity for its own sake, but conformity to the pattern of genuine human living which is appropriate for God’s image-bearers, those called and ordained to advance his loving care and rule through the universe.

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Sometimes I fall into the trap of an egocentric faith: "What I want from God vs. What God wants from me." It's easy to do when the American church takes the most challenging statements of Jesus and bleeds them of their sting by turning them into metaphorical principles. The reality is that God has promised those who follow Jesus nothing but suffering this side of the eschaton and reward on the other side. Jesus said that those who followed him had to give up everything--their families, their careers, their hopes and aspirations, their gods and even the roofs over their head--and so when life doesn't pan out the way I want it to, I'm wrong to expect God to "make it all better."

I often wonder about the extent and scope of God's involvement in our lives. As a Christian theist, I believe he's involved, and there have been moments in my life, and in the lives of those I know, where God's hand has been evident. Miracles and such like that. They're few and far between, and that's nothing new--even in the Old and New Testaments, miracles were actually pretty rare events (except in the ministry of Jesus), and anyone who says "life in the Spirit" is marked by miracles everywhere you look hasn't practiced a simple chronology. Inherent in my pondering his involvement in our lives (or, even, lack thereof) is an assumption that God's involvement will be seen only within a certain set of parameters. That is to say, I assume God will only be involved in a loving capacity, and that his hand will be seen only in acts of love. Here I'm at fault: the bible is chocked full of God's hand being involved in peoples' lives not in love but in wrath and/or discipline. The scope of God's involvement includes both those things we'd like God to do and those things we don't want God to do. The extent of it--"How often does God actually insert himself into the world around us and 'work his stuff'?"--is something I'm pretty clueless on. What I will say is that I believe the extent of his involvement factors in prayer: I believe God is more apt to act (and/or change his disposition or intent) in lieu of prayers made by those who belong to him.