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Undulation
By daniel | March 28, 2004
Hello saints,
I think the actual word for it is undulation. It is the phenomenon of going up and down, ebbing and swelling, highs and lows, mountains and valleys, whatever. I am pretty sure that everything that lives undulates. Does your spiritual life seem to undulate? Mine does. I used to find that so frustrating. No. That is not it. I used to find the effect of the undulation frustrating. Let me explain.
Everybody has hot weeks and cold weeks. If you follow Jesus for very long at all, you begin to fall in love with Him to some degree or another. Sometimes it is a fiery white-hot passion, and sometimes it is just not. I do not know if that is the way it is supposed to be; I just know that is the way it is. Now, I would have hot weeks and be fiercely obedient, absolutely devoted to His agenda and the unfolding of His purpose in the world (as best as I understood it). To study my Bible, to worship, to pray, to be with the saints were the greatest pleasures I could imagine. Other weeks I would go stone cold and the passion would be gone. Obedience seemed like such effort, and only the force of habit could propel me (prod, goad, cajole me) into the Word. Prayer was an exercise or a complaint. Worship was hollow.
As I have grown, the cold-troughs have grown more and more shallow. But that is not what I am writing about now. I only mention that to let you know that even if up-and-down is standard fare, violent ups and downs do not have to be.
What I am writing about is the fruit of a discussion I had with Richard three years ago along with something I have seen in II Timothy 2:22 and Philippians 3:13-17. One day in the middle of one of my cold weeks I asked Richard what he did about such experiences and he said something very close to this ? “Well sure I get like that, brother. For me, I have found that if I just get with the brothers and pray, just pray, I can have a hot week or a cold week and it does not matter so much. I just keep with them and keep moving.” I thanked him and went away totally unsatisfied.
Not until two years later did the full, magnificent significance of that statement strike me. “?I can have a hot week or a cold week and it does not matter so much.” The problem is not the fact that we undulate. The problem is that we undulate unconnected. If my spiritual life is primarily a me-thing with us-components, then I undulate alone, with no one else?s momentum to pull me along when I slow or to be helped when I surge ahead or to snap me back into the way when I wander off someplace. “If I just get with the brothers?and keep moving.” You see we are intended to follow Jesus together. My spiritual life is actually an us-thing with me-expressions. When we go it alone, or relatively alone, our necessary undulation has far too much effect on our everyday lives. The rock of emotional disappointment falls into the wading-pool of me instead of into the ocean of us, and the effect is far greater than it needs to be.
This, in part, is what is back of Paul?s statement to Timothy in 2Timothy 2:22 ? “Now, flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” The word with may be the most important preposition in the whole Bible. You are not instructed to pursue these things alone, but with others who seriously pursue the Lord. Your spiritual life is an us-thing with a you-expression.
This gains strength in Philippians 3:13-17. Take a minute and read through that slowly now, if you would.
You will notice in verses 13-14 that Paul describes his own pursuit of Jesus as exclusive (it is his only ambition, “this one thing I do”) and as intense (he does not wait for it to happen, but drives at it, “I press on”). To hurry past this would be a mistake. The apostle Paul understood the pursuit of Jesus to be a journey that is not “first” but is “only.” What is more, he saw that the process is not passive ? one does not coast into knowing Jesus or into becoming His through and through. Rather, it is a trip that requires perpetual acceleration; one must “press” forward. Press and drift are very different words.
Paul goes on to instruct the Philippians that the spiritually mature are to have that same exclusive, intense approach to the Way of Christ (v. 15). It is interesting that relative spiritual maturity is not primarily a matter of years in the Lord, but rather a matter of how one has come to engage Jesus. He goes on to say that if anyone does not approach Christ and His Way like this, that God will let that one know. God is good about that.
Then we come to the really interesting part. In v. 16 he says that regardless of whether or not you have the correct attitude, we are all to stay together, to keep doing what we know to do, to keep paying attention to the same thing. Whether you think you are “getting it” or not, just go, and go with the rest of us. Stay with the others, and along the way, God will give you the specifics.
Paul clarifies this further in v.17. He says that we should be co-imitators (imitators who imitate together) of him (as he imitates Jesus). Note, we are not just to be imitators, but co-imitators. And we are to mark others who have an exclusive, intense pursuit of Jesus as examples and co-imitate them. If we put these instructions together we begin to get a snapshot of how a healthy spiritual community looks in motion.
Those that are older in the Way are truly coming to approach Jesus with the exclusivity and intensity mentioned by Paul. While not everyone will have that attitude, everyone can stay the course by staying together and staying in motion toward the goal. Meanwhile, God will clear up any problems with the individuals? mind-sets and, through other saints or directly, will provide the specific kind of guidance needed in each situation. To keep the promptings of the Spirit and the directives of the Word from becoming nice theory or quaint fantasy or frustrating and confusing law that no one knows how to apply, the Lord provides His saints with intimations of His character in the lives of the mature ones in the assembly. Those more competent in the Way of Jesus demonstrate the life described in the Word, and wise people will mark them as examples, get to know them well, and emulate them where they resemble Jesus (being careful to be patient where they do not yet). Further, they will seek to find out how the stronger ones got that way, and will appropriately incorporate any direction they receive into their lives. This way everyone stays together, no one is confused long enough to get discouraged, and everyone grows up in Jesus.
And this is why it is so important to make the meetings. Jesus said that where two or three are gathered in His name He could be experienced in the midst of them. To gather in His name is to gather around Him, for His purposes. To gather around sport or recreation or diversion or some other natural thing we have in common is no sin, but it is inadequate to the task of transforming us. We must gather around the Spirit of Christ, focusing on the way we hold Him in common, and in this way we learn to touch the Spirit (which is first an us-experience), and we can take what we learn into our own individual lives and live by Him (which is then a me-expression). “?I just get with the brothers and pray, just pray?.” We do not make the meetings because we are supposed to. We make them to live ? to lay hold of the life that is life indeed, the life that is truly an us-thing.
Your fellow citizen,
Virgil
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