On Becoming Truer

“In a fallen world the Reformation maxim Semper Reformanda (‘always reforming‘) really hits the mark.  We are always in need of reformation.  Today our deepest need is not just for reformation but for the ‘reformation of reformation‘ as well.” – Os Guiness

“Now reform your ways and your actions and obey the LORD your God.” – The Prophet Jeremiah

I know how to talk of reformation, but I’m not so confident that I know how to reform.” – Yours Truly

For better or for worse, I am a member of the denomination called the Church of Christ. My highest loyalty is to Christ, and it has usurped my loyalty to the Church of Christ, and compelled me to be more closely affectionate with the church of Christ. Long ago, I thought they were synonymous and the exclusive property of one another.

What got me thinking about this distinction was my discovery that I didn’t need to be like Christ at all to be a member in good standing of the Church of Christ. This took me on my first tour of personal reformation…and this tour hasn’t ever ended (even when I thought it had on several occasions).

I looked around at who I was in fellowship with and saw that many around me WERE like Christ, even though they didn’t have to be in order to be accepted by our denomination. It was these, I noticed, who had people surrounding them who needed the real and genuine love of the Father. I fell in love with these people, and longed to be one of them.

Now, as I look in the Bible that I had grown up learning, I see that these people were the only true followers all along! They loved people and looked for opportunities to do it more and better! They did it in the name of Jesus, and they did it with a selflessness and openness that I couldn’t call anything but inconvenient and courageous.

Now I teach from that Bible every week to a group of people in my denomination, the Church of Christ. From what I can tell after almost a year with them, the majority of them are just like me…longing to be one of “those people” that make a life-changing difference in others…marking themselves as followers of Jesus, members of the church of Christ.

I’m always trying to ask myself, “What is the Christianity that I want my children being raised up within?” And when I ask that, I feel the attack of an enemy upon me to stop asking. That single question wakes up the best parts of me…it guides me in my current role as “a voice of reformation” as well as any question I ask. But instantly, when I ask it, I hear voices saying, “Don’t be so idealistic,” “Asking that will just depress you”, “Just protect your own children from the denominational parts, and only let the Christ-like parts influence them”, and “That’s not what you are here to do, Brian.”

I need to reform some more. And God has never let me reform alone. He always, always, always has had me drag people with me. I’ve always needed them, too…and I just hope and pray that I am someone they needed. It’s pretty much all I’ve got in the wake of my life, and I don’t plan on having much else. I’m just running after God’s Son with all that I am, and as little as that is, what else can I do?

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.” – Paul, to a group of folks in Ephesus

My wife doesn’t call me Brian, not usually, not unless I’m in trouble. She calls me “Husband”.

It goes back to our transition from courting, to dating, to engaged, to fully and irrevocably committed to each other until the separation of death comes. I could tell instantly after we got married that my wife gloried in my commitment to her. She had made the risky commitment to me in her heart long before I had. She chose to put her heart “out there” before she ever got the commitment from me that I would care for it as she deserves. She moved to Houston, where I lived my jam-packed life, without any guarantee from me that I would have room for her. There she lived, allowing me to pursue her at my own pace, longing for me to accept her love and the life she would bring to me, her heart totally vulnerable to my indecision.

Suffice it to say it was an emotionally painful journey for her. But she courageously waited in pain and fear. She had no way of knowing if this would ever lead to “will you let me spend the rest of my life thanking you for waiting?” or “I’m sorry, Carrie, but I don’t think I’m supposed to be married.”

And so, when we walked the beautiful path, finally together, to our vows of forever, her joy (and my glory) came in her changing my name from Brian to Husband. Shoot, just thinking about that first year, seeing her face say “Husband” to me so intentionally, so proud, so victorious, and so full of beauty packs the title with privilege and honor for me.

Since then, we have continued our introspective journey’s together, trying to continue the transformation of our lives into greater and greater Christlikeness and God-awareness…doing so as partners. But…

We sometimes get confused. Instead of staying on the introspective journey, we go extro-spective, inspecting each other, trying to change each other for our own good.

But I have to wonder. I wonder how my wife would change if I loved her just like Jesus loved the church.

How many moments in my day do I fail to heed the simple words, “Husbands, love your wives”? Dude, my new name is written right into the verse, you’d think I’d get it.

This verse goes on to suggest that I can do it. That I can love my wife so completely, so totally, and so appropriately that I can even shoulder her “issues” and love doing it! And that by loving her so comprehensively that I would actually then we loving myself appropriately! Isn’t that what Jesus did for us? It says here that I can present my bride to myself holy, blameless, and without wrinkle! What if ALL of the work I think needs to take place in her is really my message from God that I have work to do in ME? This stirs up the wild adventurer in me, I’ll admit. I want to believe this is true. I will feel like a genuine hero in the eyes of my wife, because I’m so intimately fighting for her heart. It might even put the sparkle and pride and disbelief back into her eye when she says “Husband” to me.

My friend Jim Spivey said it like this once.

 "The condition of my marriage is a perfect reflection of the condition of my life, which is a perfect reflection of the condition of my faith.  If I want to improve my marriage, I must check my own integrity and straighten my own life out and get right with God.  Life is about continually learning to be more powerfully loving, and genuine love only attracts itself.  How much my partner loves me is really none of my business." 

This is how I’m going to love my wife. Ya’ll can measure how well I’m doing through the growing sparkle in her eye, the calm ease at which she walks through life giving the strength of her beauty away to friends and children. I know I’m on the hook for this (she will read this, too!), but this is a hook I want on. Pray for me.

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.” — Soren Kierkegaard

Question from Brian Mashburn: “What is your definition of ‘Biblical Depth’?”

Answer from Kerry Shook: “Someone has Biblical Depth when they read the Bible and they don’t know any better than to do it.”

All week I have been in some turmoil over the series I will be preaching on over the next couple of months.

We are calling it: “Heart Attacks: Seeking the Person Behind the Behavior”. We are trying to call attention to the blatantly obvious teaching of the Bible that God is after the hearts of men, not merely their behavior, and we should be too. This truth affects every stinkin’ relationship so dramatically that it is very intimidating for me to preach the series. I have put so much stock in my behavior towards God (and others) that the simple truth that He really wants my heart scares me.

I’m supposed to shepherd the hearts of my children, not their behavior.

I’m supposed to be after the heart of my wife, not “be a good husband”.

I’m supposed to minister to the hearts of my parents, not complain about what they did or didn’t do.

I’m supposed to love the hearts of all mankind, not merely “give the lost a certain set of information.”

I’m supposed to remember that there is a wounded heart in my enemy, not merely react to my enemies attacks on me.

And most of all, I’m supposed to walk in the authority that my heart is surrendered to God, not merely “follow God’s rules”.

For some, the call to give their heart to God disarms them. They, in the face of their “condemning” behavior and can’t seem to imagine changing it, seem relieved when the starting point is to give God their hearts so that He can in turn give them a new one.

For us religious folks, though, it’s totally different. We have conformed our behavior and feel secure in it, so the idea of having to rework and rethink what is pleasing to God is hard. In addition to having to change everything in our thoughts and actions, we struggle with thinking that we have to condemn those who have taught us what we think now, and we love them way too much to do that. So we hide in the safety of our beliefs that it is our beliefs that save us, rather than a personal, relational, powerful God who will bypass our heads, our actions, our behaviors, and go straight for our hearts to see if He knows it.

God save us. Solomon told us that God has set eternity in the hearts of men, and we religious folks look for it in their minds. God save us from such small existence. Give us the dread that we must face by being alone with You, alone with Your Word, and give us the salvation from smaller things through it.

“We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God‘s grace to enter and do the rest.” – Oscar Romero, a Catholic priest who did some good work in El Salvador advocating the poor

“The past is behind us, and fixed. The future is before us, and unknown. With the past, we can either regret or learn. With the future, we can either be fearful or hopeful. But the present…the present is the only touch we have with eternity. It is always present. It is the moment that escapes time and becomes available for us to actually use. Even with all the very good talk of “learning from the past” and “creating a positive future”, concepts I can very much stay busy with, I wonder if I drown myself in both, allowing eternity to constantly pass me by.” – Yours Truly

“All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun.” – Solomon

Applying my mind is something that I am becoming increasingly addicted to. I’m nervous about it, really, because there is no end. And with each “new discovery”, whether it is very useful in following Christ or not, I begin taking refuge in my enjoyment of learning for (what feels like) the sake of learning.

I have some friends that I get to talk to a whole lot, and I feel safe enough and loved enough with them to allow myself the freedom to “think freely”. It’s usually my verbal attempt to climb higher in my outlook on life, to reach for Heaven’s perspective, to think ideally and romanticize about living out the ways I think. Sometimes it’s a great exercise and it lands me somewhere useful, giving me a gold nugget of reality and truth that I can bring back down with me to earth and actually put to use.

But other times, it’s a desperate attempt at significance, a place I get lost in. It’s not frantic anymore, but it’s continual…my reading, by debriefing myself around my patient friends, my isolation and soul-searching using the tool of mind. I like it there. But I must say that I’m not sure it’s the best use of my “present”.

I’m not trying to knock learning from our past, I love doing that. Nor am I wanting to never think about the future, and do things now that make my future (God willing) more in line with my values. I’m just struggling with my choices…the ones I’m grateful to have…and how to “do something, and to do it very well”, as Oscar said it in the above quote.

I just spent a couple of hours with a woman who is wrestling with the question, “Is God really good?” The sheer honesty was refreshing, the dialogue raw and real, and the elation we both felt as it came to end invigorating. After life on life stuff like that, I never doubt that the time was well spent, and in accordance with the values of God. I grateful for hours like that.

I’m fearful, however, of falling in love with stuff that is “good stuff”, but is potentially diluting the “best stuff”.

I’m not down about this at all, and appreciate the concern some of you express when you ‘check in on me’ after questioning emails like this, but I love this struggle. It makes me feel like the proverbial caterpillar working hard to get out of the cocoon, knowing that the struggle is what is finishing and sharpening an awesome transformation.

“You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.” – St. Paul, to some of his favorite people

“The distance between what we learn and what we teach needs to shrink until it eventually becomes nothing.” – Yours Truly, to the servant-leaders of the Southwest church (some of my favorite people)

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?‘ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You‘re playing small doesn‘t serve the world. There‘s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won‘t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It‘s not just in some of us; it‘s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Nelson Mandela, to some of his favorite people in an inaugural speech in 1994

Whenever I exercise the little-used “muscle” of my identity that knows there is nothing real to fear from letting the whole truth about myself be known, I am reminded of how surprising it is to other people. I see it through their reactions.

Some ignore it, acting as if I am speaking some different language that they can’t understand, because they see no usefulness in attempting to do the same themselves. My self-righteousness is what I battle when I sense this, trying to condemn those who “won’t do it” as unenlightened.

Some admire it, acting as if it is a maturity only attainable by an elite few, dooming themselves to a life of never attaining such “internal development”. My pride is what I battle when I sense this, trying to get me to agree with them as if I am something special.

Some condemn it, acting as if I am being “completely inappropriate” or “doctrinally wrong” or “not careful enough” in what or how I share, and my defensiveness kicks in, trying to convince me that I “have a defense” or that I have something to defend.

Some idolize it, acting as if they should walk around feeling less than me, and when I sense this, I must battle the pay-off my ego enjoys if I agree with them in the slightest.

Some are intimidated by it, acting as if they need to impress me with their wisdom, or intellect, or giftedness in some area of their lives, in order to offset how they are feeling. When I sense this, I must battle my desire to exit the conversation quickly, because my self-esteem is far too fragile to handle such a battle of comparison, that I feel (true or not) I will most surely lose.

Some partner with me, acting as if we are on a journey somewhere together, neither better than the other, and neither worthless in the least. This is the largest group of people I deal with, praise God, and I must battle indulging in these relationships, although I don’t battle too hard against it, because something feels right about it and mutually beneficial. The only reason I battle at all is because I don’t want to give up totally on the others just because they are harder for me to deal with. I want to still love all people.

It’s so crazy, when I stop and think about it, because I’ve listed a bunch of reactions in people that I have witnessed when I have simply and purely told the truth. I know that we all “belong to the day” and yet, all of us feel some kind of safety staying in the dark. In the above descriptions, I find my own reactions to others perfectly outlined as well, and once again feel a deep sense of community with the whole human race.

So here’s to our fearful and mutual darkness dwelling, team. May we grasp its uselessness and see clearly the light of day that we are meant to live in. May we let our own light shine without regard to how it will affect others, leaving those glorious things to God? May we cast aside our fear of all the real-but-powerless consequences that our fellow man inflicts on us when we “tell the truth” and lay hold of the real-and-powerful freedom that comes when we do.

Here’s another truth that may be hard to believe, and may summon different reactions from people who find it out…I really do love you.