Some Important Messages

Monday, September 25, 2017

The Fire Within

This weekend, I had the great blessing of spending time at Surfside beach with 16 of our delightful high school youth. We focused on the idea of rest as a spiritual discipline and about how even with all the many things we have to do, we are called not let school or cross country or our jobs or any of the things of the world to rule our lives, but rather to let our lives be ruled by our love for God.



We also talked about how our lives aren't magically changed overnight, but we have to enter spiritual disciplines and sacred rest in small doses every day. One of the scriptures we reflected on was this:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer up your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Romans 12.1-2

The concept of being transformed is one that strikes me personally and one I hope might capture your heart as well.

Grammar Geek...

If you don't like grammar, feel free to skip ahead. For those of us Grammar Geeks, let's think on this for a moment. I love in this passage that it says "be transformed." In grammar, this is in the "passive voice" meaning the subject of the transforming isn't you; rather you are the object of the transforming. In other words, you can't transform yourself. Only God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, can do that.

So transformation, then, doesn't look like me beating myself up when I'm not perfect. It doesn't look like me foregoing sleep so that I can read another chapter of the Bible or putting together a regimen of spiritual practices that I can in no way keep up with. It doesn't mean that I need to become perfect; it means I need to turn my attention to the one who is.

I really like this because I am an over-functioner. As a child I would practice writing my alphabet for hours a day, even long into my teenage years, so that I would have perfectly neat handwriting. To this day, when I am in a group and we need a scribe, I like to be the one writing because I know my handwriting will be perfect. When I am assigned a task, I do it right and I do it perfectly, or I do not do it at all. If it were my task to become perfect, I would literally push myself to insanity trying to accomplish self-transformation. It is a relief for me that the dotting of my eyes and the crossing of my t's comes not from my own efforts but from me resting in God's love and transforming me from the inside out.

Yoga and the Third Niyama...

I bring up yoga and eastern spiritual practices not because I am secretly trying to support another religion but because I thought this lesson had universal truth. Sometimes when I practice yoga, I think the words my instructors use give voice to parts of my faith I didn't have words for before. Maybe this isn't strictly perfect, but when I hear something that resonates more with a truth I know from my faith, I just steal it and change it for myself. Don't judge me too harshly!


When I was in yoga last week, the instructor was talking about the third niyama called "tapas." Tapas refers to the fire in your belly, the energy you have for perseverance, the part of you that burns and churns for transformation. I immediately thought about the Romans passage for this weekend, among others. Scripture gives us lots of examples of spiritual transformation, but it doesn't have a word for the internal fire that responds and yearns for that transformation. There's something biblical about God placing a fire within us that urges us to change and transformation, and maybe it resonates with you also.

I love this concept because I am reminded that I'm not done, I'm not perfect, I'm not always right. I love this concept because I always want to be better, to be more humble, to be more like Jesus. I love this concept because there is always room for a closer walk with God. As a pastor, I believe sometimes people think I have all the answers or I have my act together all the time. I think sometimes people think I should have all the answers or my act together all the time. And I think sometimes people think I'll attain perfection after like 5 years in ministry or when I have children or when I retire or something. I love Romans 12 because it doesn't make exceptions; it doesn't say, be transformed by going to seminary or being in ministry. And while verse two sort of seems like there might be an end point, the whole chapter seems to show us that this is a lifelong journey.

*****

So anytime I stand to pray or to preach, to guide our youth, I stand as a work-in-progress, humbly accepting God's will and God's grace. I teach our youth to allow God to transform their lives 5 minutes at a time because God continues to transform my life 5 minutes at a time. As a pastor, I pray that we can learn and grow together, that we can walk on this journey together.