When the phone rang, the battle in my mind began. I was driving to work on the freeway without a headset or ear plugs, and my options were to answer the call (totally illegal) or let it ring (legal but totally frustrating). It was do the right thing vs. what if this is work calling? Following my conscience vs. I might be missing……something.
Not the world’s worst moral dilemma but it struck me how seamlessly I took the road most traveled (answering the phone). A haunting thought occurred to me: after all these years of Bible study, church attendance, and spiritual disciplines, was I still programmed to do the wrong thing?
For many of us older Christians, the ideal of becoming Christlike can seem challenging if not unattainable. However willing our spirits over the years, our flesh has been weaker, as the consistent battle with our lesser angels has worn us down. Not wanting to completely give up, we continue to assent to the possibility of Christlikeness, but the probability seems increasingly far-fetched.
And this far-fetchedness isn’t just with the agape love, turn the other cheek type of Christlikeness. Brendan Manning writes “I find myself threatened, challenged and exhilarated by Christ’s freedom from human respect, his extraordinary independence, indomitable courage, and unparalleled authenticity.” I’m also blown away, both by the existence of these attributes in the life of Christ and the almost total absence in mine.
Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this life of non-Christlikeness? Dallas Willard for one. In his soul-searching book “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard attacks the throw in the towel idea with a penetrating combination of wisdom and logic. “Surely the life God holds out for us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle!” My wife and I have gleaned many insights from this book and for both of us “Renovation of the Heart” has been a restoration of hope.
So let’s say for a moment that becoming Christlike (or at least more like Christ) is actually a possibility. What is the best means to that end? There have been various answers broached over the Christian millenniums, most of them having to do with either squelching or negotiating with our sinful nature. To me it has something to do with addressing the relationship between my faith and feelings, those pesky little human reactions which always seem to have a life of their own.
The Willard emphasis with challenging emotions is straightforward and simple: don’t deny them or dwell on them. Let’s say you’re feeling angry: don’t suppress the feeling but don’t cultivate it either, and certainly don’t embrace it as some kind of expression of your deepest self. Although emotions themselves aren’t sinful, there are actually such things as good emotions (i.e. fruits of the spirit) and bad emotions (anger, malice, resentment etc.), and through a lifetime of spiritual discipline and the grace of God a person can gravitate toward the good and extinguish the bad.
In the world of psychology emotions are often seen differently. Emotions aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just are, and are certainly a window to the inner world. A person’s shadow self and the concurrent feelings shouldn’t be run from but embraced; the way to the eye of the storm is not around it but through it. If I’m angry I start by recognizing the emotion, have a mindfulness about taking action, and then later ask myself what this anger is telling me about myself.
Taking a bit from both camps, I’ve developed my own little mantra on my voyage to Christlikeness: B and OB. B is to be, letting myself just be who I am (a humanbeing). OB is obedience, listening to God and attempting to do His will. Starting on the B side, I let my emotions surface–holy, unholy, or somewhere in the middle. Then on the OB side I take what surfaces and try to take action on the leading of the Spirit.
By doing so, somehow by the grace of God my character is starting to conform to the image of Christ. I can still be a saint and sinner in the same millisecond, but this aspect of my humanity can be embraced and put in perspective. Willing my way to Christlikeness never worked; what seems to help is finding a synthesis between my humanity and my faith and letting the Spirit forge that into something special.
Not the world’s worst moral dilemma but it struck me how seamlessly I took the road most traveled (answering the phone). A haunting thought occurred to me: after all these years of Bible study, church attendance, and spiritual disciplines, was I still programmed to do the wrong thing?
For many of us older Christians, the ideal of becoming Christlike can seem challenging if not unattainable. However willing our spirits over the years, our flesh has been weaker, as the consistent battle with our lesser angels has worn us down. Not wanting to completely give up, we continue to assent to the possibility of Christlikeness, but the probability seems increasingly far-fetched.
And this far-fetchedness isn’t just with the agape love, turn the other cheek type of Christlikeness. Brendan Manning writes “I find myself threatened, challenged and exhilarated by Christ’s freedom from human respect, his extraordinary independence, indomitable courage, and unparalleled authenticity.” I’m also blown away, both by the existence of these attributes in the life of Christ and the almost total absence in mine.
Wretched man that I am! Who can save me from this life of non-Christlikeness? Dallas Willard for one. In his soul-searching book “Renovation of the Heart,” Willard attacks the throw in the towel idea with a penetrating combination of wisdom and logic. “Surely the life God holds out for us in Jesus was not meant to be an unsolvable puzzle!” My wife and I have gleaned many insights from this book and for both of us “Renovation of the Heart” has been a restoration of hope.
So let’s say for a moment that becoming Christlike (or at least more like Christ) is actually a possibility. What is the best means to that end? There have been various answers broached over the Christian millenniums, most of them having to do with either squelching or negotiating with our sinful nature. To me it has something to do with addressing the relationship between my faith and feelings, those pesky little human reactions which always seem to have a life of their own.
The Willard emphasis with challenging emotions is straightforward and simple: don’t deny them or dwell on them. Let’s say you’re feeling angry: don’t suppress the feeling but don’t cultivate it either, and certainly don’t embrace it as some kind of expression of your deepest self. Although emotions themselves aren’t sinful, there are actually such things as good emotions (i.e. fruits of the spirit) and bad emotions (anger, malice, resentment etc.), and through a lifetime of spiritual discipline and the grace of God a person can gravitate toward the good and extinguish the bad.
In the world of psychology emotions are often seen differently. Emotions aren’t necessarily good or bad, they just are, and are certainly a window to the inner world. A person’s shadow self and the concurrent feelings shouldn’t be run from but embraced; the way to the eye of the storm is not around it but through it. If I’m angry I start by recognizing the emotion, have a mindfulness about taking action, and then later ask myself what this anger is telling me about myself.
Taking a bit from both camps, I’ve developed my own little mantra on my voyage to Christlikeness: B and OB. B is to be, letting myself just be who I am (a humanbeing). OB is obedience, listening to God and attempting to do His will. Starting on the B side, I let my emotions surface–holy, unholy, or somewhere in the middle. Then on the OB side I take what surfaces and try to take action on the leading of the Spirit.
By doing so, somehow by the grace of God my character is starting to conform to the image of Christ. I can still be a saint and sinner in the same millisecond, but this aspect of my humanity can be embraced and put in perspective. Willing my way to Christlikeness never worked; what seems to help is finding a synthesis between my humanity and my faith and letting the Spirit forge that into something special.
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