Sunday, May 29th, 2005
Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (CEV)
I am sure that God who bean the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in his grace until his task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns.
Philippians 1:5 (Living Bible)
It’s taken a year to get to Day 28 on this Driving With Purpose blog. The first post was on June 3, 2004. Hopefully we’ll get to Day 40 before the day when Jesus Christ returns!
Rick Warren uses a couple of metaphors to explore the slow process of maturity:
1. Vine-ripened tomatoes (as opposed to gas-ripened)
Rick reminds us that quality is best achieved with slow growth.
2. Occupation of Pacific Islands during World War II (Lane Adams, Spirit, 1985) Rick uses Lane Adams’ analogy of God’s pre-conversion ’softening-up’ through ‘bombing’, the initial beachhead in our lives, followed by the longterm campaign to take over more and more territory until all of our life is completely God’s. It’s a violent image but it makes the point that God’s in for the long haul with us.
It takes so long to grow into maturity because:
1. We are slow learners
2. We have a lot to unlearn.
3. We are afraid to humbly face the truth about ourselves.
4. Growth is often painful and scary.
5. Habits take time to develop.
I appreciate Rick’s reminder that what takes years to learn can take years to unlearn. I remember the year before I started as a minister telling a friend I needed to develop stronger spiritual disciplines in the next two months. He wryly smiled and reminded me that spiritual disciplines took years to develop. So true.
We can co-operate with God in the process
1. Believe God is working in your life even when you don’t feel it.
2. Keep a notebook or journal of lessons learned.
3. Be patient with God and with yourself.
4. Don’t get discouraged.
I appreciate the image of seasons Rick uses to describe the times we seem to be shooting ahead and the times we seem to stagnate. I’ve found this especially applies to periods of fresh creativity that tend to be followed by times of dryness.
This chapter is a welcome alternative to the “Easy steps to maturity” approach to spiritual growth we can find ourselves pining for. Rick finishes with the sentence, “Even the snail reached the ark by perservering”. Nice.
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Sunday, May 1st, 2005
Run from anything that gives you the evil thoughts… but stay close to anything that makes you want to do right.
2 Timothy 2.22 (Living Bible)
Remember that the temptations that come into your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you will not give in to it.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (New Living Translation)
Rick Warren in today’s chapter reminds us not to become defeatist when it comes to temptation. He starts with a claim that God will not allow us to face any temptation that we cannot overcome. And then goes on to tell us that all will be OK if we are proactive and follow his 4 point Biblical plan.
1. Refocus your attention on something else.
2. Reveal your struggle to a godly friend or support group.
3. Resist the Devil.
4. Realize your vulnerability.
Hmm. Rick’s running with Paul’s promise that God won’t test us beyond the point of endurance. I’m not too sure. I’ve seen many Christians crack under pressure, sometimes ending up in moral failure or with mental illness. I don’t think it’s God’s fault. We take on challenges and expectations that sometimes are unrealistic projections of what we think God wants. But we are fragile and vulnerable people.
Rick’s chapter is based on the second part of the 1 Corinthians verse: finding a way out of temptation.
Refocusing is a brilliant idea. And I appreciate Rick’s acknowledgement that this takes a lifetime of practice, particularly when it comes to addiction. The addictive mind is more devious that we allow.With the Holy Spirit’s help we can reprogram the way we think.
Yes - keeping an honest accountability with peers or supervisors is a healthy way to go. The AA recovery movement has a lot to teach us in this area. The moment of confession takes the power out of pride and self-deceit.
Helping others face up to their areas of weakness is a tricky business. As a parent I feel responsible for helping my kids develop self-awareness in the areas of their strengths and limits. They don’t always enjoy it when I confront them over discrepancies between action and word. But they seem to act on it in the long term. Between friends or colleagues honest confrontation is no easy task. Many friendship have been lost. But if friends can’t do it, who can?
Rick talks about resisting the Devil in terms of memorizing and using scripture. Looking at the number of times he quotes scripture in his book, that’s obviously the way he works. I’ve memorised lots of scripture but I can’t say it really helps when under pressure. I think it’s more the principles that I’ve developed while studying scripture. The principles of purity, of faithfulness, honesty, gentleness, patience and so on.
And once again, I’m not keen on the idea that we are neutral members of a conversation between God and the Devil. We are quite capable of having inner ethical dialogues without supernatural interference.
I agree wholeheartedly with Rick’s last principle. Avoid temptation by realizing your vulnerability. If that means not turning the computer on so be it. If it means staying out of bakeries and DVD stores, so be it!
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Saturday, March 19th, 2005
Happy is the man who doesn’t give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him.
James 1:12
My tempations have been my masters in divinity.
Martin Luther
Rick’s first key sentence for the day:
“God develops the fruit of the Spirit in your life by allowing you to experience circumstances in which you’re tempted to express the exact opposite quality.”
I can relate to that. The times I’ve grown in patience are times with kids who wouldn’t cooperate with parental guidance. The times I’ve grown in love are times when I’ve had to put aside my own needs - and been tempted to just live for myself. The times I’ve grown in self control are when I’ve been tempted to live without perameters of conscience.
How Temptation Works?
Rick gives us Satan’s predictable four-point pattern of temptation, based on the story of Adam and Eve. Desire, Doubt, Deceipt, Disobedience. Hey I didn’t realise that Satan was a modernist stickler for numbered plans of action, with each step starting with D in the English language.
Desire. Satan identifies a desire inside of you.
Doubt. Satan tries to get you to doubt what God has said about the sin.
Deceipt. Satan deceives us into believing his replacement of God’s word.
Disobedience. We finally act on the sin we’ve been toying with.
Some cynicism aside, there is a recognisable pattern here - recognisable because it plays over and over again as we find ourselves acting against our better judgment. Action starts from within, not from some outside force. The doubt and deceipt parts of this scheme are faced by addicts of all sorts as they struggle with the temptation to re-engage with their addiction.
I’m not a person who looks for the work of the devil every time something bad happens, or every time some one is tempted. We don’t need any supernatural intervention for us to succumb to destructive patterns of thinking or behaviour. However I believe there are times when it appears that Satan attempts to twist our perception of events.
I was preparing for a worship service last year when I noticed that key people in the church were starting to get gnarly. One woman, normally with a heart of gold, comes in angry and cynical. It turns out she’d offered to help a guy on the street and he’d responded by attempting to grab her bag. Another key leader walks in cursing and threatening to shoot homeless people. I immediately gathered these people together and prayed with them, helping them clearly resist the temptation to succumb to fear and hostility. We called on the power of God to overcome evil.
Rick Warren’s Three Tips on Overcoming Temptation
1. Refuse to be intimidated.
Martin Luther reputedly said, “You cannot keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair”. Just as I wrote this sentence, a giant moth flew in through the door. And out again. That’s how it is sometimes with desire. You can’t predict when it will appear.
I’m not with Rick on his explanation of the origin of evil thoughts. He recommends that readers not condemn themselves when they have bizarre or evil thoughts - they come from Satan he says. I think that assigning blame to Satan leads us to a naievity about our own emotional complexity. Hurts and hopes are part of being human. The reality we face is that our hopes and hurts can become distorted and lead us to destructive behaviour.
It is clear, reading through the Bible and exploring the lives of Jesus-followers, that we are all complicated beings capable of the best and the worst of thought and behaviour. Even in the middle of noble gestures and intimate moments with God we can succumb to arrogance!
2. Recognise your pattern of temptation and be prepared for it.
Good move. Jerry Jenkins wrote a book called “Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It” in which he reminds us of the need to be realistic about situations in which temptation is harder to beat. As a speaker and workshop leader on the road I found this very helpful in the area of marital faithfulness. The same principles apply to other areas of temptation such as time waste, over spending, and distraction from important relationships and tasks.
3. Request God’s Help
Rick refers to the ‘microwave prayer’ - the prayer that goes to God in times of trouble, 24 hours a day. It’s quick and to the point - “Help”. The one word prayer. It’s a prayer I’ve prayed often. It’s short for “give me strength”, “guide my thoughts”, “lead me in my actions toward others”, “help me find the words needed for this situation”, “fill me with your love”, “keep me from going over the edge”.
Final question for the day:
What Christ-like character quality can I develop by defeating the most common temptation I face?
I’ll have to think about that…
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