Dear Friends on this great Adventure!
The theological basis for your and my spirituality is when we cry "Abba! Father!" St. Paul claims that when we do this, "it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:15-17).
In Christian spirituality, the starting place is not our own thirst for God, but God's loving decision to enfold us into his family. While our decision to receive the grace of God that establishes our relationship with him is essential, the gospel does not begin with any of our decisions.
Most of us can remember saying to someone, "I love you." It seemed like time stopped as we waited for a response. Only one response would be the right one. In saying these words, we put ourselves in a vulnerable position. We hoped to hear in reply, "I love you too." Through the work of Christ and the Spirit, the Father has taken the initiative to tell us that he loves us. The theological term for this initiative is "prevenient grace." God's grace precedes and anticipates our faith in his love for us. We cannot even claim to love God apart from first discovering how much he loves us.
When we see the love of God demonstrated in the cross of Jesus Christ, our response is a deep, life-changing gratitude. We gain a new identity as beloved sons and daughters with whom God is also well pleased.
St. Paul told the believers at Rome, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God--what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2). The Greek word "syschematizo" translated as "conformed" is in the middle voice, which signifies something we do to ourselves. Through our own efforts we are able only to conform to the imperfect loves of the world. The Greek word "metamorphoo" translated as "transformed" is in the passive voice, which signifies something that happens to us. As our minds are renewed by remembering God's love for us, the Spirit changes our lives. By God's grace, we start to look like God's will--good and acceptable and perfect. In other words, we begin to look more like Jesus Christ.
By the grace of God we are now his children, so, when we revert back to our old addictions to sin, the Spirit reminds us, "No, no, that's not how you act in this family." Once we discover that by grace we have been brought home, we find it irresistible to make the changes that align us with the values and culture of our new family. We will never make these changes by trying hard to get life right on our own. Only God's love is powerful enough to change our lives.
In the home of our Heavenly Father we learn how to give our lives to something greater than a self-absorbed, shallow, empty, dry and thirsty existence. When we come to see what God has done for us in sacrificing his Son because he loves us, and what he has done and continues to do through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, then everything about our lives begins to change. Changing our lives is as easy as falling in love!
Your Friend,
Duff Gorle
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Relating to God as Father and Friend
When we refer to God as FATHER, many of us think first of his high expectations for us. Perhaps the image of God we've had since childhood is one that stresses how much he has done for us and how little we have done for him. We've been trained that falling short of expectations makes Daddy very disappointed.
When our primary vision of our relationship with God is about constantly striving to appease a father who can never be satisfied, no matter how good we may be, our efforts at righteous living can become little more than codependent striving. A recent session where Denise and I were counseling an outwardly highly successful person reminded me that even in adulthood, too many of us continue to be more afraid of God than in love with him.
The Bible does tell us to fear God, but not because of his high expectations. Interestingly, it tells us to fear his love. King David explained: "The friendship of the LORD if for those who fear him" (Psalm 25:14). This is no ordinary friend we have! He will not tell us only those things we want to hear. This friend will take us places we never saw ourselves going; he will give us passion for things that we weren't formerly passionate about. This friend will certainly be hard to control.
A few short hours before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he told his disciples, "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father" (John 15:15). I wonder what went through their minds. Were they surprised? Honored? Confused? They were certainly not his peers, and neither are we, so it does mystify us that Jesus would identify us as his friends.
Servants simply do their jobs. Maybe it would be easier, clearer and much less demanding to remain servants! Friendship is frequently confusing and mysterious; it requires a great deal of trust, and it is all too easy to get burned along the way. I think the greatest challenge in friendship is learning how to give and receive in relation to someone else. In friendship we learn to serve each other.
The Creator of heaven and earth demonstrated his great love for us in the passion of Christ on the cross. When we believe that this Friend was dying to love us, then we can begin to believe there is something worth loving in ourselves. Once we trust our lives to this Sacred Friendship, we can begin to set free our other friends and family members from trying to provide the wellspring of genuine love only a Savior can offer. Human hearts are simply not deep enough.
Having freed our loved ones from the burden of loving us as only a Savior can, we will begin to delight in them as God's beautiful blessings in our lives!
What a health-giving privilege to know the Friendship of the LORD!
With love and friendship,
Duff Gorle
When our primary vision of our relationship with God is about constantly striving to appease a father who can never be satisfied, no matter how good we may be, our efforts at righteous living can become little more than codependent striving. A recent session where Denise and I were counseling an outwardly highly successful person reminded me that even in adulthood, too many of us continue to be more afraid of God than in love with him.
The Bible does tell us to fear God, but not because of his high expectations. Interestingly, it tells us to fear his love. King David explained: "The friendship of the LORD if for those who fear him" (Psalm 25:14). This is no ordinary friend we have! He will not tell us only those things we want to hear. This friend will take us places we never saw ourselves going; he will give us passion for things that we weren't formerly passionate about. This friend will certainly be hard to control.
A few short hours before Jesus was arrested and crucified, he told his disciples, "I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father" (John 15:15). I wonder what went through their minds. Were they surprised? Honored? Confused? They were certainly not his peers, and neither are we, so it does mystify us that Jesus would identify us as his friends.
Servants simply do their jobs. Maybe it would be easier, clearer and much less demanding to remain servants! Friendship is frequently confusing and mysterious; it requires a great deal of trust, and it is all too easy to get burned along the way. I think the greatest challenge in friendship is learning how to give and receive in relation to someone else. In friendship we learn to serve each other.
The Creator of heaven and earth demonstrated his great love for us in the passion of Christ on the cross. When we believe that this Friend was dying to love us, then we can begin to believe there is something worth loving in ourselves. Once we trust our lives to this Sacred Friendship, we can begin to set free our other friends and family members from trying to provide the wellspring of genuine love only a Savior can offer. Human hearts are simply not deep enough.
Having freed our loved ones from the burden of loving us as only a Savior can, we will begin to delight in them as God's beautiful blessings in our lives!
What a health-giving privilege to know the Friendship of the LORD!
With love and friendship,
Duff Gorle
Friday, February 20, 2009
A Spirituality of Joy
The ultimate purpose of Christian spirituality is to fall deeply in love with God. What good is an ever-increasing sophistication in the principles and practice of the faith unless there is an accompanying passion
The goal of a healthy spirituality should not be merely our own personal development. Such a focus would preoccupy us with our self and our perceived progress or lack thereof. But if our goal is to love God, we preoccupy ourselves with him and the things that are the passions of his heart
When the Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well and caught a glimpse of who he was and the passion of his heart to bring living water to desperately thirsty people, she ran back to town and excitedly communicated: "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" (John 4:29.
When we encounter Jesus we cannot help but echo her excitement as we run joyfully alongside her. We too have been found by One who knows us--who knows everything we have ever done--and yet, in mercy, kindness and love gives us the Holy Spirit who helps us become who we are; beloved sons and daughters of God
David reflected on God's strong hand of protection over him, and he responded by praying: "I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love" (Psalm 31:7). To exult is to be overwhelmed with more joy than our bodies can contain. When we experience this exulting type of joy, we simply must leap to our feet and scream, "Alleluia!"--or something like that.
We talk about this love of God in worship all the time, but we don't always see a lot of exulting. Time and again we encounter the Word of God offering a sacred "I love you." How can anyone hear these amazing words and think, "I know God loves me. Why does the pastor keep saying that?"
In India, the fable is told of a tiger cub that lost his mother and was adopted by a family of goats (See Frederich Buechner's "The Magnificent Defeat"). The goats raised the tiger to speak their language, adopt their ways, and eat their food. Soon the tiger believed he was just a funny-looking goat. One day a king tiger appeared, and all the goats scattered in fear. The young tiger was left alone, feeling afraid, yet somehow unafraid. The king tiger asked him what was meant by this masquerade? All the young tiger could do was bleat nervously and eat grass. So the king carried him to a pool and forced the young tiger to look their reflected images. Side by side, the truth was made clear in what they saw mirrored in the water. Lashing his tail and digging his claws in the ground, the young beast raised his head high, and the jungle trembled at the sound of his exultant roar.
Jesus restores our dignity by forgiving us for all those ways we have settled for being the goat, so that we can spend the rest of life expressing gratitude and roaring with delight!
Thanks for our joyful journey together to God's heart!
Duff Gorle
The goal of a healthy spirituality should not be merely our own personal development. Such a focus would preoccupy us with our self and our perceived progress or lack thereof. But if our goal is to love God, we preoccupy ourselves with him and the things that are the passions of his heart
When the Samaritan woman met Jesus at the well and caught a glimpse of who he was and the passion of his heart to bring living water to desperately thirsty people, she ran back to town and excitedly communicated: "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" (John 4:29.
When we encounter Jesus we cannot help but echo her excitement as we run joyfully alongside her. We too have been found by One who knows us--who knows everything we have ever done--and yet, in mercy, kindness and love gives us the Holy Spirit who helps us become who we are; beloved sons and daughters of God
David reflected on God's strong hand of protection over him, and he responded by praying: "I will exult and rejoice in your steadfast love" (Psalm 31:7). To exult is to be overwhelmed with more joy than our bodies can contain. When we experience this exulting type of joy, we simply must leap to our feet and scream, "Alleluia!"--or something like that.
We talk about this love of God in worship all the time, but we don't always see a lot of exulting. Time and again we encounter the Word of God offering a sacred "I love you." How can anyone hear these amazing words and think, "I know God loves me. Why does the pastor keep saying that?"
In India, the fable is told of a tiger cub that lost his mother and was adopted by a family of goats (See Frederich Buechner's "The Magnificent Defeat"). The goats raised the tiger to speak their language, adopt their ways, and eat their food. Soon the tiger believed he was just a funny-looking goat. One day a king tiger appeared, and all the goats scattered in fear. The young tiger was left alone, feeling afraid, yet somehow unafraid. The king tiger asked him what was meant by this masquerade? All the young tiger could do was bleat nervously and eat grass. So the king carried him to a pool and forced the young tiger to look their reflected images. Side by side, the truth was made clear in what they saw mirrored in the water. Lashing his tail and digging his claws in the ground, the young beast raised his head high, and the jungle trembled at the sound of his exultant roar.
Jesus restores our dignity by forgiving us for all those ways we have settled for being the goat, so that we can spend the rest of life expressing gratitude and roaring with delight!
Thanks for our joyful journey together to God's heart!
Duff Gorle
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Inspirational Thought
Dear Friend,
Our church's mission statement is: "Connecting People to God and Each Other Through Jesus Christ." The desire of our collective heart is to know God intimately through Christ, and to help others know God intimately through Christ, in the context of our loving community of faith.
It is difficult to get to know someone whom you cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or intuit. Through these six senses we take-in information from the universe around us that helps us know reality. In the case of Jesus Christ, how do we get to know and feel personally connected to someone who lived two thousand years ago, and hasn't been seen since?
An agnostic found himself in trouble, and a friend suggested he pray. "How can I pray when I do not know whether or not there is a God?" he asked. "If you are lost in the forest," his friend replied, "you do not wait until you find someone before shouting for help."
Earnest seekers have asked for centuries: "How can we meet, personally connect with, and truly know Jesus?" I'd like to bring forth a few thoughts based in Scripture that suggest how we can come to know God.
1. God initiates our meeting Him. We can notice evidence of God's presence in nature and within our own heart and conscience. John 3:16 states that God sent his Son so that we would know God's love and salvation. John 6:44 notes that God the Father draws us to Himself. 1 John 4:10 tells how God lovingly takes the initiative to establish a relationship with us.
2. Those who want to find God can. Scripture suggests God provides some points of light that are visible to those who choose to look and see. As we've mentioned, there is the light of nature (Romans 1:18-20), and the light of conscience (Romans 2:12-16). There is also the light of Scripture that points to the greatest light, Jesus Himself (1 John 1:7).
3. God is not limited to what is visible. The second of the Ten Commandments tries to help us find God by forbidding us to think of him in visual terms (Exodus 20:4). It forbids us to use images as representations of the divine being. Jesus said, "No one has ever seen the Father." He also said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29). Dallas Willard notes how God's spiritual invasions into human life "seem by their very gentleness almost to invite us to explain them away, even while soberly reminding us that to be obsessed and ruled by the visible is death but that to give one's self over to the spiritual is life and peace (Rom. 8:6)."
God is not insensitive to our problem of overcoming the power of the visible world. He invades the visible.
Spiritual people, and particularly people touched by God's Holy Spirit, are those who draw their life from an intimate relationship with God. We do not live our lives merely in terms of the human order in the visible world; we have "a life beyond."
4. The "still, small voice"--the interior or inner voice--seems to be held up by Scripture as the most valuable form of individualized communication for God's purposes. In contrast to the noise and frenzy of the so-called "real world of the visible" the spiritual world whispers to us ever so gently. Generally speaking, God will not compete for our attention.
When we seek God earnestly and are prepared to examine every possible thing that might be his overture to us--including the most obvious things like Bible verses or our own thoughts--then he promises to be found (Jer. 29:13). We will find God only if we honestly believe that God will address us in ways suitable to his purpose in our life.
May we be attentive as God continually, gently, mysteriously guides us into a deeper knowledge of himself.
In His Love,
Pastor Duff Gorle
Our church's mission statement is: "Connecting People to God and Each Other Through Jesus Christ." The desire of our collective heart is to know God intimately through Christ, and to help others know God intimately through Christ, in the context of our loving community of faith.
It is difficult to get to know someone whom you cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch, or intuit. Through these six senses we take-in information from the universe around us that helps us know reality. In the case of Jesus Christ, how do we get to know and feel personally connected to someone who lived two thousand years ago, and hasn't been seen since?
An agnostic found himself in trouble, and a friend suggested he pray. "How can I pray when I do not know whether or not there is a God?" he asked. "If you are lost in the forest," his friend replied, "you do not wait until you find someone before shouting for help."
Earnest seekers have asked for centuries: "How can we meet, personally connect with, and truly know Jesus?" I'd like to bring forth a few thoughts based in Scripture that suggest how we can come to know God.
1. God initiates our meeting Him. We can notice evidence of God's presence in nature and within our own heart and conscience. John 3:16 states that God sent his Son so that we would know God's love and salvation. John 6:44 notes that God the Father draws us to Himself. 1 John 4:10 tells how God lovingly takes the initiative to establish a relationship with us.
2. Those who want to find God can. Scripture suggests God provides some points of light that are visible to those who choose to look and see. As we've mentioned, there is the light of nature (Romans 1:18-20), and the light of conscience (Romans 2:12-16). There is also the light of Scripture that points to the greatest light, Jesus Himself (1 John 1:7).
3. God is not limited to what is visible. The second of the Ten Commandments tries to help us find God by forbidding us to think of him in visual terms (Exodus 20:4). It forbids us to use images as representations of the divine being. Jesus said, "No one has ever seen the Father." He also said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe" (John 20:29). Dallas Willard notes how God's spiritual invasions into human life "seem by their very gentleness almost to invite us to explain them away, even while soberly reminding us that to be obsessed and ruled by the visible is death but that to give one's self over to the spiritual is life and peace (Rom. 8:6)."
God is not insensitive to our problem of overcoming the power of the visible world. He invades the visible.
Spiritual people, and particularly people touched by God's Holy Spirit, are those who draw their life from an intimate relationship with God. We do not live our lives merely in terms of the human order in the visible world; we have "a life beyond."
4. The "still, small voice"--the interior or inner voice--seems to be held up by Scripture as the most valuable form of individualized communication for God's purposes. In contrast to the noise and frenzy of the so-called "real world of the visible" the spiritual world whispers to us ever so gently. Generally speaking, God will not compete for our attention.
When we seek God earnestly and are prepared to examine every possible thing that might be his overture to us--including the most obvious things like Bible verses or our own thoughts--then he promises to be found (Jer. 29:13). We will find God only if we honestly believe that God will address us in ways suitable to his purpose in our life.
May we be attentive as God continually, gently, mysteriously guides us into a deeper knowledge of himself.
In His Love,
Pastor Duff Gorle
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Time For Change
TIME FOR CHANGE
On this historic day, with the inauguration of our new president, we're all aware of the theme he carried throughout the campaign: "Change." I'd like to suggest a specific change you and I can pursue this year that will revolutionize our lives for the good.
Martin Luther King, Jr had a dream that his four children would grow up in a world where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. What if we focused on developing a deeper personal experience of that classic Christian virtue known as "Chastity." Chastity is a virtue that helps to build us in spirit, so we can look past a person's skin and into her or his character, insight and depth. Chastity leads us to know the God who is the source of the lovely things in this creation.
Simply put, chastity is the opposite of lust. Chastity recognizes that, though sexuality is part of everyone's being, we are all also spiritual beings. Because we are all created by God we must treat our self and others with respect and dignity. If lust leads to using people for our pleasure, then true chastity, as an attitude of heart, leads to protecting people for the sake of their wholeness and wellbeing.
Lust is deceptive because it looks and feels like intimacy. It can be tempting to accept this substitute intimacy, because meaningful intimacy requires hard work. True intimacy requires that we listen, respect, forgive, encourage, support, affirm, accept, and give unselfishly for the good of the other. Intimacy also requires that we learn humility, patience and perseverance.
Healthy relationships shape us into healthy people! The virtue of chastity makes rich and satisfying relationships possible.
St. Paul warned us that in our fallen state, we are tempted to worship the created rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). While ancient societies worshipped the stars and the moon, in our culture there is commonly the worship of washboard abdomens, tight derrieres, and shapely legs. Becoming captivated by fleshly realities is a form of idolatry. When we lack inner spiritual strength, our natural appreciation of beauty can descend into destructive obsession with external physical realities.
Thomas Aquinas in his Summa pointed out that "those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures turn to the pleasures of the body." Aquinas also noted that an aversion to sex is a vice, not a virtue. So we should never confuse chastity with a prudish attitude that holds sex to be distasteful or dirty. The Biblical book, Song of Songs, celebrates the near intoxication of physical passion. Sexual enjoyment and celebration is not the same as the misdirected fire of lust. Lust is an emotionally violent act that degrades and reduces another persons' value. Lust is a shortcut that leads to the destruction of intimacy and the destruction of self.
We will begin to experience the freedom of chastity as we cultivate an awareness and thirst for the loving, holy presence of God. Let's get to the core of the matter--we need a passionate and heart-enriching relationship of intimacy with God.
Freedom is found when we cultivate a taste for the long-term meaning God gives our lives, as opposed to the short-term excitements gained through pursuit of bodily pleasures. Most of us are aware that sin has a tendency to over-promise and under-deliver. Gary Thomas suggests we try the following experiment: "Compare the twenty-four hours after making a holy choice with the twenty-four hours after the last time you gave in to lust." There's no comparison! The peace and dignity we feel after re-directing our desire is part of the empowering experience of God giving us our life back.
Chastity offers a deep, quiet, peaceful stability to replace the empty, restless personality that is always looking for the next high.
Learning to change our lives away from lust and toward chastity requires that we begin to consider others--not that we just become a little more thoughtful, but we ask God to grow in us a respectful reverence for the people he has made. We must ask God to change our heart, releasing us from the desire to control and use others.
As we change from being a person driven by lust, to a person who lives the discipline of chastity, we'll make the joyful discovery that living a life that reverences others has fewer regrets, deeper friendships, and ultimately much more satisfaction.
Don't we really want a deep, quiet love with God and many strong, healthy relationiships with others? Will you join me in a renewed quest for the interior strength of chastity? In this quest, God will change and grow us in the direction of becoming the person we truly want to be. We will be men and women who are building healthy, mature, and respectful relationships with God, our self, and the people God has placed in our life.
"God is such a stickler about morality, not because he wants to control our behavior, but because he wants us to become the kind of people who can see him and thus experience infinite joy" (Peter Kreeft).
May God change our hearts so that lust gives way to chastity. In this process, we will celebrate beauty without worshiping it. We will be transformed away from domination into respecful self-givers as we begin to live a beautiful, immensely meaningful life.
Here's to a year of beautiful CHANGE!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thoughts at Thanksgiving Time
Dear Friends,
This week we will celebrate a most wonderful holiday that reminds us to value thankfulness. It has been pointed out by others that Thanksgiving is special in part because it has not been overrun by consumerism and commercialization--these sort of go against the spirit of the day!
My hope is that each of us will remember God's endless goodness and respond with gratitude.
In a little prayer book published by the General Conference of American Rabbis, I discovered the following: "Let man see how abundant is God's goodness, and his soul will be filled with the light of genial kindness. He will discover that the motive law of life is not selfish grasping, but generous blessing. The warming sun, the fruitful rain, the abundant earth and the magic seed, are God's messengers, carrying gifts to the children of man. The very will of man, his persistence of purpose, the energy to toil, all come unearned from the Beneficent One. Man indeed labors--that is his destiny, but without God's gifts, he would not have the power to work, nor would his work bring blessing. Let man think of God's endless goodness and be aware of the constant debt he bears his heavenly Father."
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, may the words of the Psalmist be in our hearts: "How can I repay the Lord for all his generous dealings with me?" While we can never begin to repay God's bountiful gifts on our behalf, we can bring him our offering of authentic gratitude. We can express our gratitude by living lives that are good, kind, encouraging, helpful, happy, loving and generous. Our hearts and lifestyle can reflect God's endless bounty.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Duff
This week we will celebrate a most wonderful holiday that reminds us to value thankfulness. It has been pointed out by others that Thanksgiving is special in part because it has not been overrun by consumerism and commercialization--these sort of go against the spirit of the day!
My hope is that each of us will remember God's endless goodness and respond with gratitude.
In a little prayer book published by the General Conference of American Rabbis, I discovered the following: "Let man see how abundant is God's goodness, and his soul will be filled with the light of genial kindness. He will discover that the motive law of life is not selfish grasping, but generous blessing. The warming sun, the fruitful rain, the abundant earth and the magic seed, are God's messengers, carrying gifts to the children of man. The very will of man, his persistence of purpose, the energy to toil, all come unearned from the Beneficent One. Man indeed labors--that is his destiny, but without God's gifts, he would not have the power to work, nor would his work bring blessing. Let man think of God's endless goodness and be aware of the constant debt he bears his heavenly Father."
As we celebrate Thanksgiving, may the words of the Psalmist be in our hearts: "How can I repay the Lord for all his generous dealings with me?" While we can never begin to repay God's bountiful gifts on our behalf, we can bring him our offering of authentic gratitude. We can express our gratitude by living lives that are good, kind, encouraging, helpful, happy, loving and generous. Our hearts and lifestyle can reflect God's endless bounty.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Duff
Monday, October 27, 2008
The Grace of Humility
In Luke 14:7-11 Jesus tells a parable about how guests often tend to choose the places of honor at the banquet table. Jesus counsels us: "When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor....But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'....For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was educated in Cambridge, England and gained fame as an outstanding scholar. He was ordained in 1633 and became the chaplain to Charles 1. Later in his illustrious career, he was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor, Ireland. Taylor was a prolific writer with deep insights into human behavior. In this blog I am drawing heavily on excerpts from his book: "The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living."
Christ calls us to learn to live our lives in humility. Humility is a grace with which God gifts our hearts. This grace must become our habit of life. We can live the grace of humility in the following ways:
1. Maintain a realistic opinion of ourself. This means recognizing that we are spiritually unworthy persons. This suggests we should not judge ourselves according to outward circumstances or what happens to us. All the goodness we experience is God's gracious gifting for our benefit and for the benefit of others. We are merely human--and fallen humans at that. The only thing we can offer that merits worth is our making good choices. But we are not the source--we continue to be hungry when we go without food. When we accept that we are flawed and not fully wise, we should not be angry if someone else agrees! When we know we are unworthy, no one can undervalue or hurt us.
2. Do good things in secret. We will find great satisfaction in being content to go without praise. Let's nurture a love of doing good things in secret. Goodness is its own reward!
3. Never be ashamed. There is no shame regarding our parents, our occupation or present employment, or any reality of our life. Do not be shy about who you really are--speak openly the truth with an indifference to what others might think of you. It is said that Primislaus, the first king of Bohemia kept his old work shoes by his side so that he would always remember his humble upbringing. Do not let praise for yourself be the design of your conversations.
4. Reflect it back to God. Always give God thanks for making you an instrument of his glory for the benefit of others. Be like Moses, whose face shined brightly for others to see, but he did not make it a looking-glass for himself.
5. Focus on the strengths of others. Never compare yourself with others unless it advances your impression of them and appropriately adjusts your impression of yourself. St. Paul encouraged us to think more highly of others than we do of ourselves. It is healthy to focus on the strengths of those around us in order to see our own weaknesses more clearly. In this process we can work to strengthen those areas that are weaker, and we become increasingly whole. Knowing our own weaknesses helps us forgive the weaknesses of others.
6. Enjoy the success of others. It is told of Cyrus that he would never compete in any sport with his friends in which he knew himself to be superior to them. Instead, he would always compete in sports in which he was less skillful than his opponents. He did not want to prove his superiority by winning. He placed more importance on learning from those who were more skilled while at the same time sharing in the joy of their success.
7. The Grace of Humility increases with exercise. Humility always begins as a gift from God, but we can increase our use of this precious gift through exercising the development of a habit of humility. The habit of humility is strengthened through exercise. This exercise includes confessing our sins often to God. This exercise recognizes our impatience, anger, lust and pride as not an occasionally scattered offense in the course of our long life, but rather as one continuous representation of our fallen state. If all our faults and failings were placed next to one another (rather than spaced throughout our long life) we would clearly see the vicious misery of our natural self. This awareness can help when applied as an exercise to the soul, to increase our habit of living the grace of humility.
Our world today hungers for the presence of people who are genuinely humble, because a genuinely humble person is a genuine person! To be humble is to be real. As we learn the habit of living the grace of humility our relationships will become more constructive, healthy, and positive as we interact with one another in a new way of beautiful, life-giving holiness.
With love,
Duff Gorle
Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was educated in Cambridge, England and gained fame as an outstanding scholar. He was ordained in 1633 and became the chaplain to Charles 1. Later in his illustrious career, he was consecrated bishop of Down and Connor, Ireland. Taylor was a prolific writer with deep insights into human behavior. In this blog I am drawing heavily on excerpts from his book: "The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living."
Christ calls us to learn to live our lives in humility. Humility is a grace with which God gifts our hearts. This grace must become our habit of life. We can live the grace of humility in the following ways:
1. Maintain a realistic opinion of ourself. This means recognizing that we are spiritually unworthy persons. This suggests we should not judge ourselves according to outward circumstances or what happens to us. All the goodness we experience is God's gracious gifting for our benefit and for the benefit of others. We are merely human--and fallen humans at that. The only thing we can offer that merits worth is our making good choices. But we are not the source--we continue to be hungry when we go without food. When we accept that we are flawed and not fully wise, we should not be angry if someone else agrees! When we know we are unworthy, no one can undervalue or hurt us.
2. Do good things in secret. We will find great satisfaction in being content to go without praise. Let's nurture a love of doing good things in secret. Goodness is its own reward!
3. Never be ashamed. There is no shame regarding our parents, our occupation or present employment, or any reality of our life. Do not be shy about who you really are--speak openly the truth with an indifference to what others might think of you. It is said that Primislaus, the first king of Bohemia kept his old work shoes by his side so that he would always remember his humble upbringing. Do not let praise for yourself be the design of your conversations.
4. Reflect it back to God. Always give God thanks for making you an instrument of his glory for the benefit of others. Be like Moses, whose face shined brightly for others to see, but he did not make it a looking-glass for himself.
5. Focus on the strengths of others. Never compare yourself with others unless it advances your impression of them and appropriately adjusts your impression of yourself. St. Paul encouraged us to think more highly of others than we do of ourselves. It is healthy to focus on the strengths of those around us in order to see our own weaknesses more clearly. In this process we can work to strengthen those areas that are weaker, and we become increasingly whole. Knowing our own weaknesses helps us forgive the weaknesses of others.
6. Enjoy the success of others. It is told of Cyrus that he would never compete in any sport with his friends in which he knew himself to be superior to them. Instead, he would always compete in sports in which he was less skillful than his opponents. He did not want to prove his superiority by winning. He placed more importance on learning from those who were more skilled while at the same time sharing in the joy of their success.
7. The Grace of Humility increases with exercise. Humility always begins as a gift from God, but we can increase our use of this precious gift through exercising the development of a habit of humility. The habit of humility is strengthened through exercise. This exercise includes confessing our sins often to God. This exercise recognizes our impatience, anger, lust and pride as not an occasionally scattered offense in the course of our long life, but rather as one continuous representation of our fallen state. If all our faults and failings were placed next to one another (rather than spaced throughout our long life) we would clearly see the vicious misery of our natural self. This awareness can help when applied as an exercise to the soul, to increase our habit of living the grace of humility.
Our world today hungers for the presence of people who are genuinely humble, because a genuinely humble person is a genuine person! To be humble is to be real. As we learn the habit of living the grace of humility our relationships will become more constructive, healthy, and positive as we interact with one another in a new way of beautiful, life-giving holiness.
With love,
Duff Gorle
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
