How can the gospel be more meaningful? Is it enough that we think about it once a week for an hour or so, while the rest of the time our thinking and acting is driven by our secular culture?

The gospel is much more than the best way to face dying, it is a call to the lordship of Jesus Christ throughout our lives, along with commitment to care for the Lord and his people and indeed all who are in need, more than for ourselves. That brings with it an ongoing life of alertness and repentance when we find ourselves falling back into being casual about Jesus.  

I am concerned about preaching I hear. It seems ‘descriptive’ to me, suggesting data in various details in the Bible or in the church’s programs. I miss ‘loving God with all your hearts.’ If God's people are content without that, doesn’t that mean general disinterest? I miss Christian conversations where we ask others for prayer for our lack of love. 

Have you heard of those ‘spiritual disciplines,’ tried and true methods for growth in our love for the Lord? I hear them described but can’t see results. Is this only my own spiritual decline, or is it about where God's people in general are right now?

What should we do, what should I do, when that is the way it seems to me? I’m sure I shouldn’t just keep quiet, since that can only keep up the indifference that fosters all this irrelevance. 

Have you ever taken that Myers-Briggs test? The one that tells you about yourself, whether you’re an introvert or extravert, and a lot more? I’m always frustrated with it because it comes out that I’m on the cusp between this and that, partly this and partly that: I like being with people, but I don’t like it when nobody listens when I say something. 

I’m trying to read this book, Robert Mulholland Jr.’s Invitation to a Journey, A Road Map for Spiritual Formation, whose emphasis is on ‘holistic spirituality.’ Maybe you’re naturally good at something and naturally not so good at something else—but the Lord calls you to live for him in every way. Jesus says that the greatest calling we all have ‘is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.’ Doesn’t that sound ‘holistic?’ I think I do well with loving him with my mind; I have worked a long time trying to figure out right ways to understand the Bible and what the wrong ways are. What does it mean that the Lord told his people to kill all the Canaanites, children included, but Jesus told us to love our enemies? (I don’t have the answer, but I my calling as a teacher in the church demands that I work hard for it). So I love the Lord with all my mind, well almost. But how much do I love him when it comes to caring for people, especially the people who just aren’t very interesting? Isn’t that my calling too? 

But how does that fit my love for the Lord? Isn’t it just going down my to-do list and checking it off? That’s possible, isn’t anything me-centered possible? Could I intentionally pick something that I hate doing, just because I love the Lord with all my heart? I could at least ask the Holy Spirit to work that in my heart, that desire, couldn’t I? It gets complicated though. Have you tried a retreat, especially the ‘silent’ kind? I think the point of that is, chill out, don’t be active in anything, let God speak to you.  Is that right? If I’m reading Invitation right, that would be easy for some, torturous for others. So who should be there? The active types of course, the ones who refuse to meditate on the Lord’s goodness because they’re so busy bringing in the Kingdom. 

So the Lord wants us to do what’s hardest for each of us? That begins to make some sense to me. It’s not so we learn to get tough, to have the courage to go ahead and do what’s hard. Rather, it’s deliberately trusting the Lord in those situations, praying for him to do what we just can’t do in our weakness, learning of  our deep weakness and his persistent strength. Isn’t that how prayer works? It’s not: Lord, I have this all figured out, I know I can do it, so just add your blessing on top, as a formality. Instead isn’t it, Lord I know this is worth doing, it would bring your love into a hard needy place, it would bring glory to your name—but you know by myself I’m just not up to it. So Lord, just do what only you can do, and the whole world will see and be totally astonished that it happened through me, and then you and only you will get the glory—that’s exactly what I’m praying for. 

I’m not against that silent retreat, not against meditating your way through Ezekiel, not doing your part in resolving that hard theological thing that’s gotten the Lord’s people so agitated and divided. But here’s the thing: if you can do that ‘anyway’ and ‘naturally,’ it’s not that clear to me that when you do it, it will come from loving the Lord with your heart, mind, soul etc.

I believe that for me personally my Father has put this one on my table: to do what I can to make clearer to everyone I know that a big part of our calling is to be vigorous in finding out about what people are hearing and thinking when we live for Jesus in front of them. You know I got there from a hopeless theological conflict that no one understands. I feel I’ve done my part, all I could possibly do, so now  can’t I just quit and move on? But here’s the thing: just because it’s truly hopeless for me to do, does that mean it’s not worth doing? No, all it means is that I’ll have to lean upon the Lord in ways that I really haven’t done much before. All it means is that in this very dark hour the Lord is going to shine forth more of his Glory than I’ve ever seen before! It will be so crystal clear that it’s not anything I or others could do but only what he in his kindness and power could do!

So here it is, my calling from God right now, listen up everyone: you have to find out what people hear when you talk; you have to say it better after you learn that; you have to find out what people outside your little neighborhood hear so you can be part of God's work in reaching out to them too; you have to honor and be behind the people God has called to help us understand his Word, as they labor to find out what Hittites heard when God talked back then, and how God Almighty said what he said so they would hear.

Whew! That can all sound normal and usual and ‘why not get with it.’ But take it from me, while people like to say they work for the Lord ‘missionally,’ a fair abbreviation for all of the above, they hate the idea. Yes, they do. I’m tired of trying to figure out why, so we won’t go there. ‘Listen!’, that’s the magic word. For openers, learn from WEF member John Leonard how to ‘Get Real.’ Go on from there to do it yourself with your believer friends, the ones you talk weather and sports with but whom the Lord has put in your life to talk Bible and gospel with. Get behind those seminaries that respect listening to human cultures, old and new.

I know, that’s the hardest thing in my own life right now. But I can call on you to help me since that’s another lesson I’m learning, from Asian believers: God is really Three in One, and those Three listen and learn from each other, and it’s the same with all of us. We’re talked enough about Jesus as ‘my personal’ Savior, now it’s time to get it better, he’s Our Church Savior, yes he is. Don’t you know so?