A Ramble About "I Can't"

Exhausted. That's what I feel right now. That's what we all feel right now. It's been raining on and off for days now, and we've been pretty well confined to the inside of the RV, only running outside when we have to feed the outdoor dogs or check on them. This exhaustion runs deep. It runs down to the very core of my strength, mind, emotions, and spirit.

All of the impossible challenges which have been thrown at us have taken their toll, and my fear reaction is also exhausted to the point where new difficulties and dangers are looked within with a sad calmness because I know deep within myself there's nothing I can do about them.

I am at the point now where “I can't” is becoming ingrained deeply into my psyche. All of my bravado is spent and gone, and any real courage I had before is itself also completely spent. I now understand what Watchman Nee described in The Normal Christian Life with his illustration of the drowning man and the strong swimmer on the shore waiting until he is exhausted from his struggling to save himself before he dives in and pulls him to safety. This is where I'm at right now.

I've known for years, decades, from reading different spiritual and mystic authors that the key to living a “Normal Christian Life” was total surrender and giving up. That is, recognizing that your own strength is totally inadequate and giving up the use of it. But it is one thing to read about it and attempt to put it into practice on your own (which is oxymoronic in and of itself), and quite another for the Lord to drive you there, as He must. I have now learned that you cannot reach this point of exhaustion of your own volition to where you give up on your own. God has to drive you to it. He has to create the conditions of your “drowning” so that you wear yourself out and finally give up. You can't do even this.You can't even come to full surrender on your own no matter how much you think you can or have. All you can do is tell God you're willing, ask Him to do it, and then brace yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I know I've reached the point where I know I can do nothing, absolutely nothing. It's actually kind of funny to see these words as I write them and know that they're true and not just some kind of spiritual hubris. I also know that I can't even keep up in prayer for all the things which need to be done which I can't do. Most days, the prayer which forms in my mind most often is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” or just, “God have mercy.”

There's a certain resentment that builds with this exhaustion. There's a certain bitterness which creeps in. But I know that this bitterness is a fruit of the false prosperity teaching which had infiltrated the beliefs and practices of the Christianity of my youth. It was never so explicit as such, but there was still the idea that if you had chosen to serve the Lord that somehow you would be well taken care of and lead a somewhat middle-class life with good employment. I know better than that now. I've known better than that for a while. But it has also allowed me to identify this lingering lie which lay buried in the back of my mind. Somehow I had expected things to resolve into “better” circumstances than these. But this is not what Jesus taught, nor told us to expect.

It is a fascinating feeling, this calmness of exhaustion. There is an odd sort of peace about it, like accepting and waiting for death. Which, I know, is the whole point of God driving me to it. Acknowledging and accepting my death with Him. I can do so of my own volition a thousand times over, but it doesn't really happen until I am driven to it.

As a final thought on this subject, this is where we all must be driven if we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We must all individually be driven to this exhaustion where we accept our death calmly. It is then, and only then, that we stop fighting for our own selves and with our own selves.It is only then that pride and self-esteem cease; when avarice loses its hold on us; and when our facing Him in judgment never leaves our mind's eye.

This exhaustion is a necessary step in the path of Jesus Christ, but it is one which will leave you permanently scarred, and and a step from which you can never recover.

Another Rant

Today, if you will forgive me, I'm going to just rant in a rambling way. This is just some things which I've already talked about before blurted out in no particular coherent way. I will eventually return to coherent, meaningful rambling.

How do you start a church without setting it up in opposition to other churches around it (sheep stealing), without turning it into just another denomination (which no one needs), or without coming under the authority of an existing denomination (which automatically presumes the first problem)? Not too long ago I posted a kind of statement of faith for the pre-Nicene Church gleaned from the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. This was the Church which was the immediate successor to the Apostolic Church and the one which all other Churches and denominations were ultimately born from. If we were to start a church governed by this same statement of faith as this original church, we would likely be be accused of heresy and of starting a cult (something of which one person has already accused me in a separate matter in private) regardless of its original and ancient legitimacy.

The more my wife and I wrestle with these questions, the more my head begins to hurt. How do you make disciples of Jesus Christ, not just pew warmers and lip-servers, but real disciples of Jesus Christ without running into all of this nonsense? How do you teach the primitive faith and discipline of the Church without someone calling you a heretic because it's not “Scriptural” (which definition varies from church to church anyway). And of course, you can't explain to them that this concept of Scripture Only comes from a teaching which is less than five hundred years old and was unknown to the ancient, pre-Nicene Church. They don't want to hear that, and will refuse to listen (many also don't want to hear that the Scriptures were not written in Elizabethan English, but I digress). They certainly don't want to hear that the Bible of the first century and most of the second was the Greek translation of the Old Testament which included all the “Catholic” books not found in their modern Bibles, and the collected writings of Paul and what copies of the gospels they happened to be able to obtain. Many included extra writings in their canon such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. “Scripture Only” under these conditions was neither practical nor possible. I digress further as I rant.

The truth is that we want to practice what Jesus taught, and to teach others to do the same. To be disciples ourselves first, and to disciple others. This is really what He told us, all of us, to do. The more I observe of the Church in the United States, regardless of the denomination, the more I'm coming to believe that it is actually set up in such a way as to try to make this as difficult as possible, if not outright impossible, without causing conflict and damage to people's faith.

Many (if not most) pastors and churches are predominantly concerned with advancing on of three things: their own personal position and power, the amount of money coming into their church, or the position and power of their denomination. Any attempt to bring people together for discipleship automatically draws the suspicion and ire of the existing churches and pastors who believe the person doing so only does so with these motives in mind, and in order to undercut their own positions. The truth is that preachers and pastors can be more ruthless in their pursuit of grandeur than some of the Roman emperors my kids are learning about for their history lessons. It's sick, and it causes all kinds of damage to those who come to them in faith wanting to be discipled and find a real church community. Many leave the churches because of it, disillusioned and more broken than when they came.

Further, starting a single church in a single area doesn't really solve the problem (and in many ways it just contributes to it). The problem itself, among other things, is the sectarianism and denominationalism which divides the Church up into little kingdoms, democracies, or despotisms. It's not about following Jesus Christ as much as it seems to be control and the enforcement of one set of (mostly minor) doctrinal beliefs over another.

Christianity is, must be, more than this. The first priority of a disciple of Jesus Christ is, and must be, following the rule of life which He taught. The truth is that this obedience is the highest form of worship and the only form of worship which really matters in the long view. In many places in the Scriptures, this is what God Himself says, and Jesus says again, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” In the writings of the Prophets, God says again and again that He can't stand it when people come to Him singing songs and offering sacrifices when they refuse to obey and live the way He told them to. He can't stand it. He can't stand the sight or the smell of it. He actually tells them to stop offering the burnt offerings and sacrifices because of it. Wealthy people flaunting their wealth and oppressing the poor who come to “worship” absolutely revolt and disgust Him (not a good position to be in, by the way). He allows nations to collapse and be destroyed because of it.

What is truly the point of participating in the Sacraments if you yourself are not a disciple, baptized or not? Can your faith save you if you refuse to obey and don't take Jesus Christ seriously? Is it really faith at all or just an act? Can your profession of faith hold any salvific value if you treat His teaching cavalierly? Do you really believe that telling everyone that you're saved means anything if you don't do what He said? In what way have you achieved salvation through Jesus Christ if you flaunt your disobedience and deny Him through your actions?

Christianity is not about going to church on Sundays (or Saturdays, depending on your persuasion or schedule). It has nothing to do with it. It has little to do with sitting and listening to a preacher for an hour (or half an hour if you're lucky). It has absolutely nothing to do with arguing someone else into taking or position on a minor theological point. Christianity is, first and foremost, the worship of God through the obedience of faith to Jesus Christ. It is binding yourself as a committed disciple of the practices taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ. Those who refuse to do this are not disciples. Those who refuse to love are not disciples. Those who refuse to forgive are not disciples. Those who refuse to renounce everything and follow Him are not disciples. In short, those who do not live like disciples of Jesus Christ, are not disciples of Jesus Christ and are therefore not Christians at all.

So, back to my original question. I suppose my real question is “How do we correct this mess?” It is a question which has lain on my heart for a long time in one form or another. I have learned the hard way that no one denomination or church can or will contribute to it without excluding all others and making the problem worse. Another church or denomination can't be started without becoming part of the problem no matter how well intentioned.

As I think about it, perhaps the real problem is that Christians have stopped taking responsibility for their own progress in salvation. They've stopped taking responsibility for their own discipleship and instead have put their faith, not in Jesus Christ and what He taught, but in these pastors, church leaders, denominations, and so on.

Well, I think I'm done ranting for the moment. It's not much that I haven't said before in some way. Unfortunately, I don't think it leads me to a solution any more than I was at when I started. I do know this, however. If we continue down this path, we will, as a Church, grow farther and farther away from our Lord until He no longer knows who we are. The answers to these questions lie in individual responsibility and the willingness to obey Him. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter which church you attend, because it will be self-deceptive and pointless.