Unnatural Activities

In the the last two decades it has been fashionable in counseling circles to address issues of wounding that impact a person's ability to trust other people by helping them build a new framework that essentially goes like this:

The world is basically a good place filled with good people where trust is a normal (read: reasonable) reaction. It is reasonable to make trust your default position until someone gives you a reason not to trust him/her.

Bear in mind that we were (and are) ministering to very broken, hurting people who needed to swing back from extremes of mistrust over to a more workable way of relating to others. In that sense some permutation of the above statement is very practical. On the other hand, I don't think the bible teaches it at all. If you walk away from the bible with one message about the world, it should probably be we live in a broken, hurting world that isn't the way God wants it to be at all. It's filled with people who hurt each other all the time, intentionally and unintentionally, and there are no assurances that the people you depend on (parents, relatives, teachers, friends, spouses and so on) will behave lovingly, reasonably and appropriately. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to provide a solution because we could not fix it ourselves. He is the only hope for a really, really screwed up world.

When we come to God in Christ and ask him to do what we cannot, we can have every assurance that he will do it, whatever it costs him and whatever it costs us. This results in some level of pain for us at times, but it is the only love he has to give. We must ask him for "the love he has and not the love he has not" (C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain). Part of this process is re-learning how to love God and love each other, and much of it is anything but intuitive. When we come to him, God asks us to perform some unnatural and complex activities.:

• When people insult you, I want you to forgive them. (Matthew 18:22)
• When people harm you, I want you to resist the urge to take revenge. (Matthew 5:39)
• I want you to love and pray for your enemies. (Matthew 5:44)
• In the middle of pain and suffering I want you to be joyful. (James 1:2)
• I want you to practice sexual purity. (Matthew 5:28;15:19)
• I want you to pursue peace. (Matthew 5:9; Mark 9:50)
• I want you to trust me in the face of want/need. (Matthew 6:25-33)
• I want you to pray rather than worry. (Philippians 4:6-7)
• I want you to put others before yourself. (John 13:1-17)
• I want you to trust in me rather than material possessions. (Matthew 19:21-23)
• I want you to care for people on the margins – especially the poor. (Luke 4:18)

As a pastor I have opportunity to witness the incredulity with which people approach lives that do not change of their own accord after one has uttered the sinner's prayer (or some variation). It’s naive to think that simply by virtue of saying yes to Christ, we automatically have the grace to exhibit these new behaviors — especially when we have years of experience of doing exactly the opposite. As we train ourselves in godliness, the ability to show mercy and forgiveness, to display patience and trust, to exhibit joy and confidence in God become progressively more natural. It can become second nature to act like Jesus but certainly not without training, not without cost. Forgiveness and a right relationship with God are gifts. They come to us freely, we are told, when we sign on as followers of Jesus and trust his agenda for us rather than our own. But spiritual formation, the molding of our lives into vessels that are useful to him, takes obedience and effort on our part. It was no different for Jesus.

We can fully expect that the judicious and strenuous practice of spiritual disciplines will lead to routine, subconscious behavior that reflects the life of Christ working in us. Initially, great concentration is required; but in time less and less energy is expended and less thought is given to the task. This dynamic is operative in the acquisition of any new behavior, whether we consider the behavior “physical” or “spiritual.” In fact, distinctions between physical and spiritual behavior are artificial; the presence of God is mediated to us only through our bodies. Submitting to God in the use of these exercises means submitting to a very specific and unique training regimen-one that will last a lifetime as we yield to God and he draws us deeper into his life.

This is nothing less than the mechanism by which God is rescuing his fallen creation. There's no use asking for it to be otherwise. There are no magical solutions, no deus ex machina. There is only God and his promises to us. Fortunately the One who promises is eternal and all good; he can be relied on even if others can't.