Some of you may have known Peter Chappell, a lovely follower of Jesus who died recently. The family’s death notice in the paper included these words: “He has finished the race and kept the faith and now there is in store for him the crown of righteousness”. That’s roughly what Paul said of himself when he knew that death wasn’t far away – you can read it in 2 Timothy 4:6-8. He added, “not only for me but also to all who have longed for his (Jesus’) appearing”. It’s a huge and wonderful statement about faithfulness and the future, what’s up ahead.
Can you make those claims for yourself, put your own name in there? A crown? Some of us immediately think of all our shortcomings – have I really kept the faith? Does my life actually add up to much? If we’ve been well taught, we know that eternal life is God’s gift – it begins when we come into a spiritual relationship with Jesus (are “born again”) – works itself out in our day to day living – then comes to fullness after death when we experience God’s full presence. We can know that as a theory but still find it hard to accept God’s lavish promises for ourselves – even if it’s Jesus’ righteousness that gets us there – to have those promises move from an intellectual knowledge to a sense of “this is real for me”.
A week ago I attended a workshop at which we were asked to do an exercise relating to “God as the beloved other”. We worked in pairs: one person was the receiver, the other faced him/her directly, said the person’s name and added, “…. you are precious in God’s sight and I love you.” This was repeated, with the name, about every fifteen seconds for three minutes. We reversed the roles, then talked about what we’d experienced. As receiver I was very conscious of my resistance to the message! First it was like a shrinking, becoming a small child … then saying, but Lord, you know me, you know what I’m like … eventually letting the joy of God’s presence flow (well trickle at any rate)!
That’s the thing that I have so much appreciated about doing spiritual direction – it helps me move from my head to my lived experience. Of course it doesn’t have to be with another person – though there’s something about the two or three gathered together in Jesus’ name that’s significant. It does need to be between me and the Holy Spirit, a wrestling- questioning-confessing-receiving free-for-all that leaves me with the assurance that I have actually done business with God - and he has blessed me.
Yours in the struggle
Pam