discipline – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

a commitment to blog!

Posted on August 23, 2011Leave a comment

Deprecated: preg_match(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($subject) of type string is deprecated in /home4/salvagh0/public_html/wp-content/plugins/jetpack/jetpack_vendor/automattic/jetpack-image-cdn/src/class-image-cdn.php on line 682

This section of my blog was supposed to be the creative outlet to pull my less than admirable hobby of television watching into the realm of theologizing and spiritual reflection.

Yes, I had hoped to turn t.v. into a spiritual discipline.

No, it didn’t really happen last year.

But another season of shows that will suck me in is just around the corner and I am bound and determined to post at least once a week here. I am absolutely kicking myself for not reflecting on a bunch of episodes from this last year.

Stay tuned!!!

The Gift of Self-Control

Posted on August 15, 20102 Comments

Story about sun exposure – how it takes effort and paying attention to keep yourself safe.

If you aren’t focusing on the task at hand… at the goal – you will lose sight of what is important.

This morning we heard the familiar story of Samson and Delilah – of a man who was tempted into giving up his secret strength.

But to understand this story we need a little bit of background.

There was a man named Manoah whose wife was barren. Try as they might, they could not have a child. But one day, an angel appeared to the woman and promised her that a child would be born to them – a child that would be holy – a child that would save Israel from their enemies. But in order for this to come to pass, the child must be set apart as holy and must live a certain way. This vow – this promise was called the Nazarite vow.

And so even before this child was born, the mother lived according to the Nazarite vow and then when the child Samson came into the world, he was declared a nazarite. Now, being an infant – he couldn’t choose this himself – but according to the tradition – a father can declare his son a nazirite. Samson had the right to refuse this status and to end his promises, but nowhere in the scriptures does it say that he does this.

Now, what it meant to BE a nazarite meant that he had to follow three rules. First, he had to abstain from any fruit of the vine. He couldn’t eat grapes or drink wine or even use wine vinegar with his food. Second, he had to refrain from cutting his hair. As time went on, the long hair on his head would have been a sign of his vow. Third, he had to avoid dead bodies.

So Samson took on these vows and grew and God blessed him with strength as a result of his faithfulness.

However, Samson had a weakness. He had a distraction in his life. And that distraction was women.

It’s not so much that his love for women was a bad thing. But time and time again, his weakness for the members of the opposite sex put him in terrible situations.

And eventually, as we heard this morning, Samson was tempted away from his Nazarite pledge by losing sight of what was most important. He put this woman, Delilah, before the pledge that he and his parents had made to God. As soon as he let Delilah cut his hair, his strength vanished, he lost his control over the situation, and was captured.

In our gospel reading from Luke, we are reminded not to worry… but I think in light of this discussion on self-control today, maybe a better way to understand this passage is to not be distracted.

You see, if we look at this whole speech that Jesus gives, he’s not trying to save us from anxieties and troubles by reminding us everything will be okay. No, Jesus is trying to tell us to stay focused on what is most important. This advice not to worry about food and clothing and tomorrow end with the powerful statement: Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…. And verything else will take care of itself.

In other words, focus on God and what God asks of you…

The key to self-control really is to allow God to have the central place in our lives. The key to self-control is to allow God to guide our every action.

I learned as I was studying for this week that the word for demons in the bible – daemonia – actually means “to be controlled by another.” And every time we let food, or worry, or power, or security become the focus of our lives… those things begin to control us.

As one preacher reminded me – people used to assume that there were spirits that caused us to indulge in pleasure, so anytime someone succumbed to a temptation – they saw it as a demonic possession. “We no longer believe that but their insight was right about the [spiritual fact that] cravings… become compulsions. At some point… they begin to control us. At some point, our character becomes misshaped and misaligned in order adjust itself to increasing demands our compulsions put on us. We are no longer free, but are driven by our compulsions. The Biblical insight is right that these forces become bigger than us which is why we need to be intentional about them.”

It’s not that things like eating and drinking and sex are evil… but they can spiral out of control if we allow them to be the central objects of our lives.

What we need is discipline ourselves, set up walls of guidance – boundaries and barriers in our lives to keep us focused on what matters most.

Perhaps that is the simple injunction given by Jesus: Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. Maybe it is the sort of guidelines that a Nazarite chose to live by – avoiding grapes and wine, not cutting his hair, and avoiding the dead. Maybe it is some other kind of rule or order in your life, like setting aside 15 minutes every morning to pray… whatever it is, having an order, a discipline to follow is the key to self-control.

In Proverbs 25:28 tells us what a life without self-control looks like… a city broken down without any walls

Self-control is a barrier – a protective fence – blinders to keep us focused on what is most important.

Something about how a horse wears blinders to focus only on what is in front of it.

So we must be reflective and honest about the things that put cracks in our barriers. What are the things that weasel their way in and distract us from doing God’s work in the world? What keeps us from being in control of our actions? And how can we turn those things over to God?

As J. Hampton Keathley puts it…

Samson, a man raised up by the Lord as a deliverer and judge over rebellious Israel. Samson strangled a lion; yet he could not strangle his own love. He burst the fetters of his foes; but not the cords of his own lusts. He burned the crops of others, and lost the fruit of his own virtue when burning with the flame kindled by a single woman.

It only takes one thing… one thing to lead us off of the beaten path. Let go of your desires. Turn your heart over to God. And seek his Kingdom. Amen.

Hebrews Part 6: Discipline

Posted on November 8, 2009Leave a comment

My nephew has recently picked up a bad habit. Lying. Whether it’s just a phase he is going through or if developmentally he has just realized that he can make up stories and try to get away with things… it hasn’t been working. His parents see right through his lies. They catch him all the time. But they couldn’t figure out how to get him to stop doing it.

But they recently got some advice and figured out a new way to discipline him. Each time they catch him in a lie he has to pay them a dollar. Now, for a 7 year old, a dollar is a lot of money. And he has to go all the way up to his bedroom and get his piggy bank and pull out a dollar and come all the way back downstairs and pay up.

And since they have instituted this new form of punishment do you want to know how many times he has lied? Once – the first time – and it was so painful for him and it made such an impression on him that he hasn’t done it since.

As we come to the last chapters of the letter to the Hebrews this morning – we find that we have come full circle. We have gone from being accepted by Christ and called his brothers and sisters in chapter two – to being addressed as children of the Lord in chapter twelve. And like all children – like my nephew – we are going to learn a little bit about discipline.

All of that stuff that happens in between – all of those big words like Christology and atonement – they help us understand how we become children of God, but what really matters is that it happens. Because of what Jesus has done in his life, death, and resurrection life – we are restored and redeemed and we are now children of God.

We have been adopted into God’s household – but there are some changes that we are going to have to make in our lives – some new “house rules” if you will. Because what Christ did is set us on a new path – we have a new direction in this life and our job now is to run this race to the end.

We talked a little bit about that race last week – but today we are going to talk about what running this race is really like.

So first a question – How many of you here are runners? Not very many, I would imagine.

Running is very hard work. On and off for about 4 years I have tried to take up the habit of running. And I’ve learned that you have to start off slowly, step by step, little by little. If you tried to start off running 5 miles a day – you would cramp up and your heart would scream at you. But slowly, gradually, you can build yourself up to that point.

The reason why my attempts at running have been unsuccessful is very simple – I lacked the discipline it takes to become a runner.

I might start off good for a week – or maybe even two weeks. I would gradually increase my time running and my lungs would expand their capacity to take in air and my heart would become gradually stronger and my legs would slowly start to adapt to the work I was asking them to do…

…. but then I would get busy, or get tired, or get frustrated because I wasn’t seeing the instant results I wanted. And so I would skip a few days… and then those days would become two weeks, and then I had to start all over again. I couldn’t pick up where I had left off – because my body had already reverted to its pre-running stage.

What I really need is a running coach – someone to yank me out of bed in the morning. Someone to remind me of the basics and to teach me new skills. Someone to keep me on track. The kind of discipline that a running coach would encourage for their student… healthy eating, drinking plenty of fluids, warming up your body, and the part I dread: wind sprints, endurance running, and pushing yourself a little farther each day… is all designed to help create the best possible conditions for a running lifestyle. Each and every single thing is important to turn your body into a running body.

I don’t think its mere coincidence that our reading on discipline in Hebrews this morning comes right after the introduction of this race metaphor. Bill Long wrote that “discipline can not only ‘chisel’ or ‘sculpt’ the body…, but it can shape the soul.” And just like a runner, we are being asked to transform ourselves – mind, body, and soul – into something different. We are being asked to become different people – and that takes discipline.

What is true for my habit of running is often true for our spiritual race as well – the discipline we need often has to come from without.

The good news is that this race comes with its own coach. Hebrews 12:2 reminds us that we can look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith who has tread this path before. When we look to him – who endured more than we could possibly imagine – we find the strength to keep going.

And then what we are asked to remember is that this race isn’t going to be easy. We are going to run through some rough terrain. We are going to bump elbows with people who are running different races and we might get pushed around in the process. There will be potholes and roadblocks and dead ends and hills and valleys along this race.

But in each of those struggles, in each of those trials, God is disciplining us – we are being shaped into children of God.

As verse 11 reminds us – discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Just like wind sprints strengthen and transform our hearts… although they make you feel like you are going to die in the process… so too does the discipline of God transform our lives.

Something that is rattling around in the back of my mind… and I want you to bear with me for just a minute, because I haven’t fully figured this bit out… is that discipline is not punishment.

Now – I know that in the version of the scriptures that you have printed there it actually uses the word punishment – but it is the only version that does so and I believe it’s a bad translation of the passage.. Almost every other version I have looked at uses the word “rebuke” instead of punishment…. God is expressing disapproval, God is correcting us. In the greek, the word is elegchomenos… literally, we are being exposed when we are on the wrong path or doing the wrong thing.

But the type of discipline that then is carried out is not some arbitrary punishment, God does not take pleasure in causing pain in our lives or seeing us struggle… but God’s discipline helps us to correct the mistakes in our lives… it is a training or teaching that will equip us for righteousness.

If I am running incorrectly and someone doesn’t point it out and correct my form, I could cause serious damage to my body. The initial correction might be tough, it might be painful and it might hurt my pride, but it will strengthen me for the long haul. So too, the discipline of the Lord puts us back on the right path and strengthens us for the tougher parts of the journey ahead. It will forge us into the type of people that God knows we can be.

What that also means is that God doesn’t send trials into our lives just for the sake of trials. God only disciplines us because we are loved and only disciplines us to correct missteps and to prepare us for the future.

I firmly believe that God doesn’t give us cancer to teach us something, or send hurricanes to shore to send us a message. Love is not the foundation of that kind of discipline.

But when tragedies befall us – when we face roadblocks – when we are rocked to the core by a death or a disaster… we can know that we have strength to endure because of what we have already been through and we can be assured that God will bring us through to the other side a stronger person than we were before.

The final thing that I want to say is that discipline not only happens between us and God, it also happens in a community.

John Wesley was really big on discipline. The very reason we are called Methodists today is because he and his friends had such a meticulous method to keep their minds and souls conditioned – to keep them running on the right path. Wesley often referred to an early church saying that “the soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian.”

In the last chapters of Hebrews our joint responsibility for one another’s discipline is clear. “see to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God.” “make sure not root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble.” “ remember those who are in prison, as if you are in prison with them” “let mutual love continue” “remember your leaders… your earthly coaches… who are charged with watching over your souls…”

But we also remember that the same charge is given to us whenever we stand together and make our member ship vows. Each time we do so, I say to you:

“Members of the household of God,
I commend these persons to your love and care.
Do all in your power to increase their faith,
confirm their hope, and perfect them in love.”

Our job as Christians is more than to simply believe… we also must be in relationship with the living God… we must live our lives differently. And discipline is how we hold those two together. Discipline is how we make sure that our lives match our beliefs. It forms us into the kind of people God wants us to be. It is our training ground for the life to come. And the good news is – we are all in this together.

Becoming Disciples through: Accountability and Practice

Posted on April 26, 2009Leave a comment

1. Our life of faith is a journey

Later on in today’s service, the life of faith will begin for this little girl as her parents and family bring her forward to be baptized. As the water is poured over her head and the Holy Spirit fills her life nm, we are remembering that God blessed us with the gift of life… and life abundant.

As her family and as this congregation – we will make promises this morning. Promises to hold her firmly in this faith to which she is born. Promises to guide her and pray for her. Promises to support her – no matter where on this earth her journey may take her.

That journey begins for her today – at this baptismal font.

But it doesn’t begin in the same place for all of us. Think for a moment – Where did this journey begin for you? Was it through an invitation from a friend to come worship? Was it in a Sunday school class? Perhaps as you were engaged in some community service project –or elbow deep in another person’s pain? Maybe your journey began as you plowed your fields or first saw your newborn child and thought about the miracle of life?

Sometimes we think of our journey beginning the moment we are saved. But I want us to think farther beyond that experience. When was the seed of faith first planted in your life? Believe it or not – you have been on this journey ever since.

Now, I’m going to be completely honest here for a moment. In the institutional life of the church – where we record such things as baptisms and confirmations and those who profess their faith – this is the journey of membership. It is pretty much the way the church is organized to help and support people along this journey. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system – but ideally, as we make members of this body of Christ, we are also in the process of making disciples of Jesus Christ. In my mind, that is what the whole journey of faith is about – becoming a disciples of Jesus Christ.

The question I want us to explore over the next month together is – Are we on the right path?

Will you pray with me?

2. Come into the light

God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If I were to stand up here and say that that membership process I just described is perfect – that it accomplishes the mission of the United Methodist church… I would be lying. I would be walking in darkness.

for too long, I think that the church as a whole has let our system do just that – stay in the dark. We simply let it be and we haven’t taken the time to look at whether or not disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world are being formed (that is after all – the goal)

In this passage from 1 John, we are reminded that when we come into the light of God – reality is exposed

all the stuff that we were hiding in the darkness, or ignoring, is seen clearly. And it is clearly judged. I can honestly say that over the past few weeks, I have been looking prayerfully and seriously at this process and I have felt convicted. Our system is broken. It doesn’t work properly. And as a pastor, I can say that I am part of the problem. We make and take vows to support the ministries of the church through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and now our witness – but if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t really have any expectations on people to live them out. We don’t hold one another accountable to these promises. We say all the right things – but then no one really cares if you aren’t walking the talk.

The amazing gift about standing in the light – is that once we see clearly, once we confess and acknowledge what is broken, than God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is our promise from the First Letter of John. And then we have a chance to truly walk in God’s light once again.

3. So come into the light with me. Come see what it is that I have been so convicted about – what it is that isn’t working. For that, let’s go back to our scripture from Luke. We find ourselves in the midst of the disciples, who have basically stalled in their journey faith. They aren’t going forward, they aren’t going backward. They are stuck.

This passage comes after the women have encountered Jesus at the tomb. It comes after a few of the disciples themselves were witnesses to the resurrection. It comes after two followers of Christ met him on the road to Emmaus and rush back to tell the disciples. There has been a whole lot of talking about the resurrected Christ – but the disciples haven’t really MOVED yet.

As Jesus enters their midst, he doesn’t bring judgment, he doesn’t ask them what on earth they are doing, he brings them peace. He shows them his hands and his feet. He eats a piece of fish. He is the living and breathing Jesus Christ walking and talking among them and he wants to remind them of that.

BUT – because he is the light of the world, he also reveals some truth. He sheds some light on the situation so to speak. And so he says: This is what I have told you… that everything that was written about me in the law and prophets and psalms must be fulfilled: the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations!”

The disciples were not only witnesses to all of these things – but they were also now supposed to be witnesses of these things. They are called to go out, to tell the world why Christ died and rose again – to call people to repentance and share with them that their sins are forgiven.

4. This is pretty much the great commission from the gospel of Luke – it is the sending out of the disciples with the promise that the Holy Spirit will soon be right there with them – empowering them to speak and live out God’s good news.

Let’s not leave our church out of the light either… because here in this church – we hold that commission pretty seriously. It is in fact our mission. Our calling as a community is to make disciples of all nations – First, by baptizing them and then, by teaching them everything that God has commanded us.

Hey – we’ve got a baptism happening this very morning! We are helping this beautiful child begin her journey of faith. We are certainly on the right track! We are reaching out to our families and loved ones and inviting them to be a part of this mission that we ourselves are on.

And we seem to be doing some teaching as well. We have Sunday school classes and confirmation and small groups… I know that I have learned a lot in this past year… but I sometimes wonder if we are doing enough.

Are we truly making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?

Quick show of hands… and I want you to be completely honest here – how many of you feel like you are equipped and empowered as a disciple of Jesus to transform the world? How many of you think that you, as the Body of Christ, really can go out there right now and make a difference?

(might be more than you think) I think that if I come into the light, if I stand firmly in the light of Christ, I have to admit I have doubts. I think my doubts are not so much about our ability to do so (or Christ’s ability to work in us), but about our willingness to do it.

We can only go as far as we think we can go. Which means if we

I think that as much as we talk about following Jesus, we are a bit more like those first disciples of Jesus Christ, hunkered down in a room somewhere, not quite sure if we want to take the next steps… not sure if we are able to take the next steps.

5. I think those disciples drastically underestimated just how much was expected of them. And they did so, because they drastically underestimated just how much was given to them.

I wish I could take credit for this wonderful image, but as I talked with the pastor over at the Lutheran church about this passage, he said that we are like sticks of dynamite sitting on a shelf. We are filled with all of this potential power and energy – extremely dangerous stuff! But as long as we sit on the shelf… or in our pews… or on our couches back home, we are simply potential.

We forget that Jesus promised the disciples that power would be given to them. We forget that power came down from heaven and filled the disciples at Pentecost. We forget that although they were in that room waiting for God to act – God has ALREADY acted in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is loose on the world. It is a spark of fire and energy given life by the resurrection of Christ from the dead and it is ready to turn all of that potential energy inside of you – inside of this church – into the amazing transforming power of Jesus Christ.

And yet… the Holy Spirit is wild and elusive. While I would like to believe that we could all just hold out the wicks on our little sticks of dynamite like we hold our hands up in the air and catch the spark – I can’t guarantee the Holy Spirit will show up.

John Wesley – that founder of our faith – waited for YEARS – to have the holy spirit light a fire in his soul. His ministry up until that point was a series of flounders and failures mixed in with some good attempts – but it wasn’t until the Holy Spirit took hold of him that the Methodist movement really took off. In the meantime, he was the same thing he was afterwards… a preacher – out there proclaiming the word of God.

In the midst of one of his struggles with this dilemma, he asked a friend and mentor Peter Bohler what he should do. Bohler’s advice: Preach faith until you have it, then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”

If I were to translate that to our journey of faith, I would say that we need to practice being a disciple until we have the Holy Spirit, then, once we have the Holy Spirit, we will be a disciple! Until it happens, we shouldn’t sit holed up in the church waiting to be filled… but we should be out there, in the world, actively looking for others to join us on this journey of transformation.

Come into the light my friends. See that we already have a path laid out before us – a way of living as a disciple that we have already claimed as being holy and good. We live as disciples through our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service and our witness. Each of these things are a means of God’s grace – Each of them opens us up to the Holy Spirit in the world around us. Each one of them will transform our lives – if we truly do them and if we hold one another accountable to do so.

That is the journey of faith that we are invited on in this church. Come and walk in the light of God with me in these next weeks. Amen and Amen.

Broken Open, Filled With Love

Posted on March 29, 20091 Comment

Sermon Text: Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 12:20-33; Psalm 51

It takes a long time for any of us to learn something new. At Christmas time, I was absolutely set on learning how to play the guitar. I headed to the Guitar Center in Cedar Rapids and found the perfect guitar for me and bought it on the spot. My brother-in-law gives lessons, and so we worked out an arrangement that I would have a lesson each week when we came over for dinner. So far, so good.

For the first few weeks, I practiced nearly every night. It was exciting to hold this instrument in my hands and to hear the intonation of the strings. I learned a few new chords each week, but I think the more I learned, the more I realized how little I in fact knew. Every new lesson opened up a whole world of possibility and questions and soon it was almost overwhelming.

And then, I got busy. Or rather, other things in my life started creeping in and taking importance once more. My practicing suffered. I began to dread my Friday night lesson and on more than one occasion conveniently “forgot” my guitar at home. I know, it’s pathetic really, but eventually I just stopped playing.

For a few weeks now, my guitar has sat in its case in the corner of my office waiting to be played. Waiting for me to pick it up once again. And I think the thing that makes it so hard to do, is that I know I’m going to have to start all over again. I’m going to have to go back to the basics.

As I glanced over at my guitar this week, I realized that many of us could easily substitute the words “faith” or “church” or “prayer life” for my experience learning how to play. When we begin this journey and this relationship with Christ, we are so full of energy and excitement and we dive in head first, eager to learn.

But life creeps back in. Or at least, life as it was before, and if we do not give our relationship with God the care and attention it needs, before too long we find that our faith is sitting in the corner, gathering dust, rather than an active and vital part of our lives.

In many ways, I don’t know that we are necessarily to blame for this phenomenon. Maybe it’s because we are lazy, or too easily swayed by the ways of this world. Maybe it’s because we are weak. But it seems like each of us has built into our nature this inability to fully follow God the way that we want to. Call it what you want – the consequences of free-will, original sin, or the brokenness of humanity – but there is just something that seems to prevent us from truly accepting and embodying the will of God in our lives.

In Romans, Paul talks about this struggle in his own life, saying “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!”

This problem of will, this problem of sin isn’t something that just plagues us. It isn’t something that just plagued Paul… it has plagued us as a people of God from the very beginning.

There is a bible study group in our church that meets on Wednesday mornings. And in the past few months, they have been working through the first books of our Bible. We have listened in as the Hebrew people hear God’s call and say that they are willing to follow God’s law… but then time and time again grumble, and try to do things their own way, and fall by the wayside. Over and over again, God reminds them that they are a chosen people, reminds them that they have been brought out of slavery and bondage – that they have been freed to live a new life in relationship with God. And over and over again, they fail.

In the midst of a time of failure, one of those moments in the life of Israel when they were the farthest from God and seemed irredeemable – God sent a prophet named Jeremiah into their midst.

Now, Jeremiah had some tough words for the people of God. He spoke harshly against their worship of other gods and their mistreatment of the poor and told them very clearly that God was about to let Babylon come in and carry the people off into exile.

And before too long – the things Jeremiah spoke of began to happen. The king was taken away, the army collapsed, the temple was ransacked.

But then, in the midst of their despair, Jeremiah laid aside the words of judgment and condemnation and began to speak a word of hope.

“A new day is dawning” God spoke through Jeremiah, “ A new day is dawning where I will put my law within you… I will write it on your hearts. It will not be like the promises we made in the past – promises that you could never live up to – even though you love me, and even though I was faithful. This law, this new way I will write on your hearts and I will be your God and you will be my people. I will forgive you, I will restore you, and I will remember the ways that you failed in the past no more.”

The law – the beautiful words of God that are meant to guide our actions and to help us to live in love with one another – is a good and holy thing. But try as hard as we might – I’m not convinced that we can do it alone. Left with just good intentions and our own hearts and minds and wills – the law is an unattainable goal that will always show us as wanting. None of us is perfect enough. None of us is good enough. None of us, no matter how much we love God, can do it on our own.

But something changes in these words from Jeremiah. The law is transformed from some external measure that we must live up to – to a relationship, a way of being, that God writes on our very hearts.

The Psalmist cries out – give me a clean heart, O God, put a new and right spirit within me. Take that old self of mine that never seems to get it right, and fill me up with your will. Because I can’t do it alone. Only you can sustain me. Only you can help me to do it right.

In our United Methodist tradition, when we talk about grace, we talk about it in three ways. First, there is the grace that comes to us before we even know or understand who God is – prevenient grace. Then, there is the grace that helps us to see clearly what God desires of our lives. Through justifying grace, we begin to understand just how much we have failed according to the law, and just how much God loves us anyways. And when we accept that love of God – a third kind of grace pours into our lives… sanctifying grace. The grace that will sustain us and help us to grow more into the likeness of God each and every day.

It’s easy to describe those three types of grace. It’s a lot harder to accept them in our lives. Doing so means letting go of our former lives so that the love of God can live within us. We can only receive a new spirit within, if we are willing to let our old spirit go.

There is an old Hasidic tale that relates to this struggle.

A disciples asks the rebbe, ‘Why does the Torah tell us to “place these words upon your hearts”? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?’ The rebbe answers, ‘It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay, until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.’

Only when our hearts break open, only when we truly let go of our old ways, does the perfect, loving, powerful word of God fully rest in our being.

This is the message that Jesus tells his disciples over and over again – using the simple image of a grain of wheat.

Unless a seed falls into the earth and dies, it is simply a seed. But when it is planted – when the earth and water go to work on that tiny seed, it is broken open. And before long it stops being a seed and it becomes a sprout, a glimmer of new life that peeks above the soil and will grow and bear fruit.

Our lives without God are a lot like that seed. Without help – a seed will simply remain a seed. And without help, we cannot transform ourselves into what we were meant to be. But through the warm soil of community and the refreshing waters of the holy spirit, we too, can be broken open; we too can die to our old selves; we too, can find new life and bear fruit.

On my own – just me and my guitar won’t go very far. I need instruction. I need encouragement from my teacher. I need people around me who know just how much I want to play and who are willing to hold me accountable. But perhaps even more than those things, I need to go back to that first desire I had to play. And I need to let the love of music and song rest within me, place the notes upon my heart until one day my closed heart breaks and the music falls in.