Persistent and longsuffering readers know that I’ve been writing almost exclusively on Substack, with the Sunday blog on Stand Firm, and links here on Mondays, when I get my act together. This hasn’t been because I don’t love all my Patheos readers. On the contrary. I love you all. And also, I’ve been grateful for the chance to earn a bit of money. And also, it seems that every other decade I need a bit of a blog overhaul. First Undercurrent of Hostility, then Preventing Grace, and now Demotivations. The common thread is that I don’t like people telling me I have to be happy all the time. The world is a grim place and blogging is one good way to tiptoe through the minefields.
Someone recently asked me again about the term “preventing grace.” Why would you want to do that? I had to explain the etymology of the word “prevent.” It used to mean “to go before” I explained, but now it means “to stop or hinder.” God’s grace goes before us and makes a way for us to come into eternal life. But God’s grace also hinders us from falling into the pit. His preventing grace is like the narrow thorn bushes described by Hosea that keep you going on such a constrained and, seemingly, treacherous path that you are prevented from being devoured by the enemy, or being overwhelmed by the flood. It seems, at times, cruel. A vocation, as the spiritual friendship people like to complain, “of no.” Why shouldn’t I do all I want? Why shouldn’t I pursue the bright blessing of love? Why shouldn’t the devices and desires of my heart measure my own experience of the world?
Because none of those things are good for me. Only God knows what will make me live. Only his food is good enough to sustain me through eternity. Only his cross can chart the way of salvation. In all the reading I’ve done these past few years the thing that has most discouraged me is that people who call themselves Christians take so foregranted the preventing part of God’s grace. Rather than questioning themselves and their desires, they question all previous Christians from generations past. They question the Word of God. They question doctrine and theology. They question and malign the motivations of others. But they never ever ever question themselves. All the various constraints that make it possible for ordinary people to see that God is good they throw away. And then they wonder why everyone is so miserable and sad.
But perhaps the tide is changing. The SBC just voted that Rick Warren can’t be Southern Baptist after all. So now I will go and pray that he won’t, for a moment, think of joining the ACNA. Have a nice day!
Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In