Has God ever "nudged" you? There are often times I am nudged by God. Even at moments when I am not listening very well, God says, "excuse me," as He slightly alters my course.
Well, I am currently reading a book that God is using to do more than nudge. At times it feels more like a straight-arm. I am being challenged to consider my attitude and approach to certain aspects of life. This book, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer & the Christian Life, by William Willimon and Stanley Hauerwas, is making me think about how self-centered I can be at times.
I sometimes find myself, as do many ministers, suffering from a "Messiah complex" - this idea that it is my job to save the world. That somehow, my actions will singlehandedly change the course of history. How arrogant is that? But if I am honest, I sometimes find myself buying into that lie.
But don't we all in some way? In our own little corner of the universe, we seek to control the outcome of human history. Consider the words of Willimon and Hauerwas:
We modern American people are so accustomed to thinking of life as choice or chance. Life is what I do and decide or else life is a roulette wheel of sheer luck. Is that often why we feel so helpless and hopeless? If life is all up to us, then we know enough about ourselves and our brothers and sisters to know we are doomed. A terrible paralysis comes from thinking that it's all up to us. If the fate of the world, the outcome of the future is solely my doing, or even yours, then - a good freshman course in the history of Western civilization should convince us that we are without hope. No wonder we feel frail and fearful before the bomb, AIDS, the ecological crisis, thinning ozone, or even the department of motor vehicles - it's all choice or chance.
We're not talking about the silly notion that everything that happens, everything you do, occurs because God planned it that way. We're talking about the amazing resilience of God's purposes. God's intent for the world isn't stumped by our plans. God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
That is one reason why we gather on Sunday and tell stories to one another, stories like the story of Joseph and his brothers. The world is busy telling us stories that say everything is in our hands, all of it left up to us... We are the masters of our fate and the captain of our souls. These false stories blind us to the working of God within the world.
Accordingly, when we pray, "Your will be done," we are not asking that things come out right as we want things to come out, but rather we are asking that God's will be done. Too often, we are conditioned to think of prayer as asking God for what we want - dear God, give me this, give me that. But now, in praying that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we are attempting to school ourselves to want what God wants. We receive, not what our hearts desire, but rather we become so enthralled with a vision of what God is doing on earth and in heaven, that we forget the story that the world has told us - that we have nothing better to do than to satisfy our desires.
Isn't much of life the struggle between our will and God's? And are there times we try to co-opt God's will to be ours?
Humility is not a natural tendency for me. I am a somewhat prideful person. OK, I am pretty prideful a lot of the time. But God, through nudges and straight-arms is slowly and deliberately redirecting my path. I am not there yet, but I continue on the journey with the words of Paul echoing along the way:
I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (Philippians 3:12-14)
shine!
Jason
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