Understanding Understanding

This week’s blog is the beginning of a series of thoughts on the subject of MATURITY. I am choosing to do this simply because of the importance of it.

“We announce the message about Christ, and we use all our wisdom to warn and teach everyone, so that all of Christ's followers will grow and become mature.” Col 1:28 CEV

Many different analogies are used to illustrate spiritual life in the Bible. But they all involve change and growth in some way. Whether the analogy is farming or family life, or even building construction, the idea of growth is the common and dominant theme, particularly in the New Testament. We are not called to go and make decisions. We are called to go and make disciples.

Moms and Dads know full well that a lack of maturity is a failure of life’s most basic task. What we want for our children is for them to grow up; to become mature healthy human beings. Our Heavenly Father feels the same way about us.

Over the course of the next few weeks I simply want to outline some of the more significant ‘Marks of Maturity’. My desire is that we might by these evaluate ourselves to ensure that we are in fact growing into the mature followers Christ is calling us to be. I will not be trying to say everything important that can or should be said about each one of these marks. I just want to identify them in a cursory manner and to present them as a sort of ‘check list’.

The first mark I want to identify is UNDERSTANDING. There are probably a few different words that could be used. In the passage above Paul says that he used all the wisdom he had to warn and teach so that we might grow and become mature. In the wisdom literature of the OT (IE. Proverbs) wisdom is clearly identified as a central mark of maturity. We want our children to grow to have as much understanding as possible into what is true and right and good. This is the main idea about wisdom in the NT as well. It is knowledge based, but it is particularly a knowledge that leads to genuine discernment, particularly the discerning of truth from error and right from wrong.

Take a look at these passages:

“It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.” Eph 4:11-15

“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Heb 5:11-14

These passages, both in the context of growth to maturity, give us the biblical priority when it comes to knowledge or understanding. To be wise is not just to know things but to know how to live according to the designs of our Creator and Redeemer.

The obvious implication from this is that we need to see ourselves as life long learners. We need to commit ourselves to having a right attitude about our responsibility to know the truth and to live it out in our lives. We need to be people of The Book.

Practically speaking, in order for this to happen, we must adopt a life style that allows for it. It will mean time and energy and perhaps some money too. We need to make a thorough biblical knowledge our priority and to ensure we are not only learning in the academic sense but living it out in our lives for this is what it means biblically to have true understanding, wisdom or discernment.

The first thing we are told about the brand new church of Jesus Christ in Acts chapter two is that they devoted themselves to the Apostle's teaching. (Acts 2:42)

Knowing & Knowing

I know that photos get doctored all the time these days and you can do almost anything with Photo-Shop, but these pictures are just what they appear to be. A few months back Florence began to coax some of the local chickadees with some peanuts. I was pretty excited for her when they began landing on her hand and taking a nut from her. I was so happy that this brought such simple joy to her heart and I was more than content to revel in her experience.

Then the other day, she convinced me to give it a try. I didn’t really understand why she thought that I should. My attitude was clearly wondering what the big deal was. I had seen them do it and knew all about how they would come and take the offering. I guess that is why I was surprised by how much pleasure it gave me suddenly when it happened! The actual experience of having these gorgeous little creatures of God drop out of the wild and light on your palm is far beyond just watching it happen. Before, I had been quite content to just be there and watch the cute little guys with their little caps on and observe the pleasure it seemed to give her to have them come. But I had no idea of what it actually felt like. I hadn’t even really thought about what it would feel like. I knew that Florence enjoyed it because she likes to watch them and feed them. And so I thought that I had been experiencing them coming and doing that just by being there and observing it. But when it was my finger they came and clutched onto, the whole thing just somehow jumped to a new level of life experience. It became somehow very different while remaining the same thing. Somehow experiencing it personally made it so much more than what it had been.

Suddenly I could feel their weight. They are just little guys and they weigh maybe about as much as a very large grape. But I could feel it. I hadn’t even thought about their weight previous to that. I mean seriously, why would anyone think about how much a chickadee weighs, right! And I could feel their little feet clutching. I hadn’t thought of that before either because you can’t really see it. It just looks like they come and sit. But they don’t. They actually hang on. And it feels amazing , not unlike having a baby take hold of your finger.

Sometimes it is like that with us and God. It is one thing to know by observing or studying. That is in itself a great blessing for sure. But personally experiencing a relationship with God, having Him forgive you and move in your heart and work in your life is so much more. It so much surpasses mere knowledge of Him and is so amazing that words and pictures both fail to convey it. There is just no substitute for personal experience. There is nothing that can take the place of it.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Miner Details... Major Events

Just before 10:00 PM last night, I got to watch (along with how many others?) as the last trapped miner in the San Jose Mine, Chili reached the surface joining his rescuers and anxious family members. After more than two months underground, including more than two weeks during which they were feared dead, the last miner emerged from under 2,000 feet of rock ending the longest underground entrapment in human history.

The mine disaster took place August 5th. On August 22nd a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the buried miners surprised the world with a note, scrawled on a piece of paper - they were all alive!

This week, 69 days after the collapse of the mine, following several weeks of preparation and drilling, it took just over 22 hours for the 33 men to be brought to the surface. What a spectacle to watch as one after another these 33 men were rescued from the grave.

One of the interesting things about all of this is the great number of personal stories that are coming to light with the miners. Among some of the first to be rescued was the youngest, Jimmy Sanchez at only 19 years of age. He told the world that he kept his spirits up by thinking about his two month old baby daughter Barbara. Two hours later, the 9th man to be rescued, was the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, the most experienced of the group who began work as a miner when he was only 12 years old. He is now on antibiotics for a lung disease common to miners. He dropped to his knees after he emerged and bowed his head and prayed.

Luis Alberto Urzua, the shift foreman was the last miner to be rescued. Luis is the eldest son of a large family that grew up without a father. The other men call him ‘the boss’ and he is credited with helping his men endure the initial 17 days in isolation without any contact with the world of the living.

There will undoubtedly be many more individual stories emerging onto the world stage in the weeks, months and years to come; stories of bravery, resolve, leadership, faith and so many other aspects of humanity will continue to surface long after the miners.

All of these men had their own personal stories before this greater story began to unfold. But it is this greater story that has brought all of their stories together, connecting them and bringing a whole new sense of significance to each of their lives. The greater story has become the context for all of their personal stories.

All of this has served to remind me once again that all of life is really about God’s greater story. It too is a story of rescue, of burial and new life. And all of our stories are really a part of God’s greater story. And it is only as we see our lives fitting into God’s greater story that our lives suddenly take on their true significance.

“Our deepest problem is that we seek to find our identity outside the story of redemption… lasting change begins when our identity, purpose and sense of direction are defined by God’s story.” Paul David Tripp

Deconstructive Criticism

My father-in-law is building a new house. His old house is … old. And it has major issues resulting from its age. It has served well but is past its day and needs to be replaced. But, he is going to live in the old house until the new one is constructed. Then he is going to demolish the old one. The order is important. I wrote it down – “Don’t tear down your house until you have a new one built to live in.”

The reason I wrote it down is because I was thinking about the tendency we have to point out the inadequacies or the problems with things and how easy it is to tear down existing structures or ways of doing things, and how often we do this without anything really substantial to offer in place of them.

Let’s face it - it is not that hard to identify imperfections, weaknesses or problems within any system or structure. What is hard though is creating and developing new systems, structures or ways of doing things that actually represent major improvements in addressing all the issues of life.

It will take at least a couple of months for Howard to build his new house. I suspect his old one will come down in a matter of minutes. I think there are probably a few different elements that are necessary for criticism to be considered truly constructive in nature. But one of them certainly should be a healthy measure of respect for the efforts put in by those who have laboured before us.