Becoming a Tree

The blessings of Jesus Christ extend even to those who do not give much thought to Jesus Christ at all—those who are (so it is said) “as free as a bird.” That is my reading of the parable of the mustard seed, in which Jesus says (according to Matthew 13:31-32):

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made the point that God provides for the birds of the air—taking care of them though they don’t seek or notice this provision. God loves not just human beings, but also the smallest bird (Matthew 6:26). Now, in the parable above, we learn that the kingdom of God starts as something even tinier than a bird. Indeed, it starts as a mustard seed, a seed that is tiny alongside other seeds. But just like the mustard seed, the kingdom of God flourishes.

Mustard grew wild in Jesus’ time, a ragged bush that was regarded more as a weed than as a crop. Certainly it did not grow in cultivated rows planned by men. Like this bush, the kingdom of God advances in unpredictable ways. It grows “greater than the herbs.”

But there is something else, a further stage. The parable offers another striking detail. This flourishing spice that is greater than the herbs goes on and “becomes a tree.” In nature, a mustard seed will never produce a tree, yet this mustard seed does. The very nature of the plant transforms, the plant making a (literally) supernatural change. Through this change, it becomes something different than the wildly flourishing spice. Now, it is an organism strong enough, stable enough, and tall enough to be a comfort and a shelter to the birds of the sky.

Oswald Chambers wrote, “The final stage in the life of faith is attainment of character.” That word, character, offers the sense of a reserve of strength great enough that some of it can be offered to others. Character implies stability, the stability of being rooted, just like a mature tree.

By contrast, to be unrooted, like a bird, is not to be free. Not really. Birds can fly, but their flight is a physically demanding effort that the birds must perform in order to find safety and food. Birds also sing, but many of the songs you hear through your window are actually bullying assertions of territory. Smaller birds are hectored by bigger birds. To be any bird except the very largest is to live a life circumscribed by fear. It is in the very midst of this flying and crying that we are called to serve.

Specifically, those who have heard the call of Christ in their lives understand that it is indeed a call—a call to play a role, to continue the work that Jesus began. We aspire to provide the branches, somehow—stable perches for those among us who might otherwise be lost in the sky. We aspire to be the tree.

The reason to do this is not because we expect anything in return from the birds. We do so instead because we have been invited to love as Jesus loved. He was God come into the world. He was God come to serve. The Lord on earth was simultaneously humble and tall, just like the tree. And his life and love both continue to advance for as long as the forest continues.

You

During a recent period of rest and solitude, I went a different way. I made a right-angle turn in my heart.

It simply occurred to me that, throughout the course of my belief so far, God has always been beside me or above me. That is the place I’ve assumed for him. I have been focused on my challenges and aims. I would call out thanks to God for the victories, or I would call out to God for help when I felt in peril. Either way, I have called out to God.

The right-angle turn consisted of looking at God instead. Making him the focus.

The turn consisted of seeing my life such that those challenges and those objectives are now to one side of me, not him. He is in the front. My challenges might not be overcome in this world. My aims might not be met. Yet he is in control. He has a plan, he has somewhere to take me in this world, he has things he wants to impart—and I am less interested, now, in being distracted.

With this turn, with this shift in focus, certain verses now make more sense than they ever made before. “Pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17) is one of those verses. The Lord, I realize, is continually creating—making everything around me, every part of my experience. If I look for him, if he is my focus, if I am attentive to his active choosing of what he wants to show me, then we are unceasingly communicating.

“Seek my face” (II Chronicles 7:14) is another such verse. That sphere of experience all around me is part of God’s face. It is part of the expression God wears on his face—the expression God wears toward me. Such a face is at least as rich with expression as any human face could ever be. Think of how people’s faces communicate. Facial expressions are so subtle, so nuanced, that they send meaning right into our hearts that words cannot contain. Now consider how much more elaborately expressive the face of God must be.

I find the most basic consequence of my turn toward this face, the Lord’s face, in the softer and simpler way I now address him. I used to call him “God.” I used to call him “Lord.” I still do. But when you look at someone, they know to whom you are speaking. More often now, I find myself simply addressing him as “You.”

“I AM” is Present Tense

The Lord is not just eternally everywhere but also eternally now. His name, “I AM,” is present tense. Jesus emphasized this with the most profound violation of grammar ever spoken. In John 8:58, he said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Yet the present tense is also the presence of tension. “Your word is a lamp to my feet,” says Psalm 119:105. This is as much a challenge as a comfort. All we are given to see is where to step next—nothing more. Is this enough?

The phrase “eternal life” consists of two words that deserve to be unpacked. “Eternal” means unbounded in time. “Life,” by definition, involves development and growth. Every living thing is changing. To have “eternal life” is to have eternal change. To have eternal life, in other words, is to have boundless becoming—the state of forever turning into someone new.

Alongside such a promise, the finiteness of earthly life is just a paltry threat. Earthly life will end, but we will not. Nevertheless, most of us still live as though the ticking clock contains us. Many of us still worry as though the passing of each year’s calendar diminishes who we might be.

We who have experienced forgiveness can appreciate that walking with God means leaving the prison of the past. However, the walk with God just as truly involves leaving the shadow of the future. God is now, and it is God, right now, who invites us to know him. It is God who invites us into the joy of joining with the fresh and flourishing work that I AM is doing today.

To seek God, we turn away from our fascination with past and future alike.

To discover the gift of God, we open up the present.

Get the Basket Out of the Way

...and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NIV

...who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Romans 1:4 NASB

...and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
—Romans 1:4 NKJV

Was the Holy Spirit the One who raised Jesus from the dead? That is at least the implication of the verse above. The act that fully and finally revealed Jesus Christ to be the Son of God was (it would seem) performed by the Holy Spirit. To be sure, other verses of scripture suggest that Jesus raised himself from the dead—see John 2:19-21 and John 10:17-18. With these latter verses, though, Jesus might have spoken from the Spirit’s perspective. I do not know. Suffice it to say: One possible picture painted by Romans 1:4 is that the Spirit released on the cross (John 19:30) turned right around and released Jesus from the tomb.

That picture is profound not just theologically, but also in a personal way. Most or all of the Holy Spirit’s roles in a human life are internal. The Spirit liberates, instructs, guides, intercedes, and so on—see this list. However, right here at the simultaneous low point and high point of Jesus’ mission, we see the Holy Spirit expressing its utmost impact on a human life. Here is the Holy Spirit physically, materially, and literally remaking the man. Accordingly, here is the reason why inviting more of the Holy Spirit into our lives presents a visceral challenge to every one of us.

A “visceral” challenge? Yes. Our resistance is bodily and instinctive, because we sense where this is going. The Spirit’s concern is not to exalt us personally. The Spirit’s concern is not to give us greater power for the sake of our own thrill in being powerful. Rather, the Spirit’s concern for each of us is to make us purer agents of God’s will. The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord, says Proverbs 20:27. That lamp is lit by our own spirit touching and getting filled with God’s Spirit. And the way of God, when a lamp is lit, is not to allow that lamp to be concealed. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, says Matthew 5:15. The way of God is to get the basket out of the way of the light.

The Spirit gave Jesus a new body. The process of transformation was not pleasant. It entailed a crucifixion. Our own suffering almost certainly will be tiny by comparison. But still: In the process of letting your light shine, in the work of revealing the fullness of who you might be, what if the Spirit transforms your “body” as well?

I put “body” in quotes here, because this body of yours might include any of your outward worldly aspects. It might be your flesh that is touched, or it might be your wealth or reputation. As Francis Chan wrote, “The Spirit may lead me into total sacrifice, or he may lead me toward humiliation in the opinions of other people around me.”

As I say, we sense where this is going. We resist and brace against the work of the Spirit in our lives because we still, all of us, succumb to the error of thinking that our passing earthly lives are really where life is located. Yet we only sense part of where the Spirit is going with us, the fearsome part, the brief part—the transition point along the way to something eternal. The aim of God is that your joy might be complete (John 15:11). The fruits of the Spirit’s work are abundant, and the list begins with love and joy (Galatians 5:22-23).

Yes, God will get the basket out of the way. But imagine this: Alongside that light that has been revealed there is now this basket—at last inverted, at turned up the right way, at last able to hold all of the fruits that remain eternally sweet.

The Heart is the Hard Part

....that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
—Romans 10:9

The famous verse above offers a one-sentence summary—actually, just a half-sentence summary—of two conditions that are necessary for obtaining the renewed and reawakened life that Jesus gives. Those conditions are: (1) confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and (2) believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

Which of these two conditions is harder to satisfy?

It would seem as though the second condition is easier to meet. The heart is (seemingly) a safe and secret place in which to entertain faith. Presumably, a person could just believe there, muttering the belief only to himself, whispering the belief in his thoughts. The first condition, confessing out loud, is different—that involves exposure. More, it involves almost certain humiliation. People will turn away, smirk, and judge you naïve.

However, the ordering of the verse above suggests that condition 2 must be something more significant than just an easy follow-on to condition 1. There is the sense of a progression here, a stairstep ascent toward “you will be saved.” What if condition 2 is actually the greater commitment?

Peter (portrayed by El Greco in the painting above) met condition 1. He confessed that Jesus is Lord. He confessed it aloud, just as the verse says. In a powerful moment, in fact, Peter was among the very first to perceive and proclaim the divinity of Jesus in an inspired and genuine way (see Luke 9:20). At this point, Peter had committed to following Jesus and he would soon find himself empowered to heal and drive out demons in Jesus’ name. But did he believe? As it turned out, not yet.

Of course, while Jesus was with him, Peter could not believe God raised Jesus from the dead—that hadn’t happened yet. Still: Jesus was with him. And Peter’s confession showed how he recognized who Jesus was. But in spite of this, when a crucial moment came, Peter denied his association with Jesus. He lied to cover it. He denied Jesus aloud—repeatedly. Luke 22:54-62 tells this story—the moment when Peter’s belief was revealed to be just skin-deep, just voice-deep. Belief had not yet fully entered his heart.

From time to time, I re-examine why it is that I believe. I ask why I made this choice.

Getting into heaven was not the reason. Life after death held no fear for me. Heaven must be an accepting and welcoming place, I assumed. If there really was some special requirement for getting into heaven, then I assumed God would understand why I didn’t meet that requirement—why I apparently got confused and missed it during this life. If God did exist, I reasoned, then I could talk to him when I saw him. I could learn the truth then. Indeed, scripture shows a picture of something like this very thing. A criminal appeals to Jesus with his few remaining breaths, and the criminal gets into to heaven on the basis of only this appeal (Luke 23:42-43). I didn’t know about that story back then, but still I assumed I’d have some similar chance to offer up my case—if and when it mattered. I didn’t give much thought to heaven then. And I still don’t.

Now, however, the reason why I don’t give much thought to heaven is different. The new life, the life after this world, has begun already. The adventure within freedom has begun. And the reason why I have chosen belief, why I chose to believe in the way of the resurrected Son, is because of this very adventure—the journey of stepping out, facing fears, and walking on the waves.

Yet first there is a choice. I met people who confessed God and I decided to join them—but still there was a choice.

I called out to God, to the Son, and I came to recognize the ways in which he answers—but still there was a choice.

Finally, I opened my heart to Jesus. I did this not upon discovering the reality of Jesus, but later than that—upon discovering the reality of my heart. There is a real and vital center to each of us that is more than just an abstraction. Rather than being unreal, the heart is hyper-real—because it has the potential to be bigger than this world.

A person could be forgiven for not knowing that—not knowing that he or she has such a heart. Unknowingly, I gave my heart to pride, approval, income, and other temporary comforts. These things left me cheap and starving and small. Setting my heart free entailed releasing it from the prison of such submission, the submission to tiny things. The only problem was: I was in love with this prison. I had fallen in love with walls and bars. My heart had become this prison. Each of our hearts, in fact, consists of many such prisons. And each time we lose one of the most confining and defining prisons that contain us, we initially experience this change in our lives with a feeling of pain or tragedy or loss. Indeed, the world often cannot see anything else, anything of value, in the sorts of changes that accompany faith.

Peter did not believe, not after all the time he spent with Jesus. He did not have faith. He did not find this faith until he came to the end of who he had imagined himself to be.

Peter lied to protect himself. He lied to deny Jesus. He failed publicly and profoundly—and he watched himself do it. He was shattered by a self-inflicted blow to the spirit, and when it was done, he fled back to his old life as a fisherman (John 21:3), not knowing what else he could do.

But the resurrected Jesus forgave him. And over time, Peter accepted the forgiveness. He lived the life of the Spirit. He stood up from the self-inflicted blow.

To believe is ultimately to know this transformation, and on some level, to choose it—to choose the rising up so completely that we also choose the fall that precedes it. There is, of necessity, a demolition that precedes rebuilding. I gave my heart to Jesus once I found this heart. And I made the discovery of my own heart—I began for the first time to feel my heart’s depth and fullness and potential—only after that heart had at last been sufficiently broken.

The Doormat

I wrote about how the man or woman who walks by faith in Christ still looks a little like this world—because we are called to treasure the value of people in this world, and called to continue to serve them.

Oswald Chambers said it even more starkly. We are “called to be the ‘doormat’ of other men,” he wrote.

Jesus was the doormat first, giving up his divine rights and divine nature for the sake of those who had yet to care at all for what he had done. If we are so attached to our own pride and our own privileges that we are not prepared to be doormats after the model of Jesus, then we are in the wrong faith. Or, at the very least, our hearts have not yet grown into the faith we have chosen.

Again: The Son was the doormat first. In your own life, consider how far you have been from Christ at some point. Consider the inattention or lack of regard you gave him during some past (or recent) time in your life.

Now, consider the fullness of who the Son is. Consider who he has been for you—whether you appreciated it or not. As the one through whom all things are made, the Son is and has always been the one who sustains you. This aspect of God, the one who became human for a time, is the one who fills you with thought, breath, and life. He is the provider of every blessing that has ever relieved, comforted, or enriched you, and he is even the one who measures out and tailors every suffering for you, giving you some of the insights you now know the most deeply and fully. What have you given him in return?

That is, how long do you go, or how long have you gone, without giving the Son—without giving the Lord—any more than your passing acknowledgement or thanks?

It is a loving part of our fleeting human life that we get to taste a little bit of the same humility that we presume to expect of our God. The world was made, and we did not make it. Therefore, the Son is always the one we have lived in and rested upon, whether we recognized it or not. When at last we do begin to see this, the recognition gives special significance to the fact that when Jesus healed the lame, he told them to carry their mats. He told them, in other words, to keep hold of the mat you sat upon for so long. Keep touching that which has always cushioned you, and do not let it go.

This is Not Just a Guitar

My wife has had something on her heart for a little while now. She would like to learn to play the guitar. She told a few friends about this wish.

But we don’t own a guitar. Further, money is tight in our house. She decided against buying one. One day last week, she included a humble item in her prayers:

“God, I don’t see that we should buy a guitar just now. If you want me to play one, show me a way.”

I was home from work the very next day at lunchtime, when my wife answered a knock at the door. It was a friend stopping by unexpectedly. The friend had a spare guitar. She had come to give it to my wife—knowing nothing about the decision or the prayer the previous day. It’s all true.

My wife held back most of her tears until the friend was gone. Our friend might have been uncomfortable—too many tears just for this! But the gift was something more than only a guitar. It was another reminder of who God is, because we desperately need to be reminded.

For any of us, the reason why we look to Christ is to find God—the real God. Jesus was a man because God is personal. We forget this. The knowledge is too precious to hold. We look away.

The sophisticated world offers a picture of God that is easier. God is vast, but nothing more. God is indefinable. The word “God” is thus an icon for an abstraction—as bloodless as an infinity sign.

The cross shows something different from this—and someone dearer. In Jesus, we do not just see the God who created, producing the world long ago and far away. Instead, in Jesus, we see the God who creates, the God who is close. Nothing exists except that God made it (John 1:3), and that includes every new and present moment still breathing to life around us. God is still unfolding a plan—a personal plan. In Jesus, we see God as not only vast and indefinable, but also knowable and even small. Here is the God willing to become the size and scope of a man. Here is the beating heart of truth that lies well beyond the infinity sign.

In Jesus, God put on human finiteness. He put on the dependence and lack that we know so well. He found us and showed us his face. He struggled as we do, suffered as we can, and died as a brutally tortured human being would die. Then, he kept going—because God is not contained in a tomb.

“I am with you always,” he said, at the end of his worldly mission and the end of Matthew’s gospel (28:20). Always. Meaning: I am with you, even though they take my physical body away. I am with you, even when they take your physical body away. He is with us—in person. This is who God is.

God is not Santa Claus. My wife and I love the guitar, but we hope we will be just as true to Christ whether he gives us material gifts or not.

Rather, God is revealed in Jesus Christ—this is the important point. This is the point about God that is just as important today, just as vital, as it was when Jesus wore sandals on his feet.

The guitar is not just a guitar. It was God speaking to my family as a person can speak. God, the infinite Father, is also the knowable Son. He love fits our hearts, and his life unfolds within our lives and houses.

The one who constantly creates is still creating, still surprising us, still walking and working alongside us the way a person would. He is with us. This is God. And just like a person, sometimes he reaches out to us. Just like a person, sometimes he responds.