Warning<\/strong>:\u00a0 No chicken sandwiches were eaten, or boycotted, in the production of this blog post.<\/em>\u00a0 I love this little bit in Colossians 3, which reads: \u201cput on (or \u2018drape yourself with\u2019) a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.\u201d\u00a0<\/em> The author goes on to declare that a community clothed in these will be quick to forgive and also won\u2019t be inclined to pick at each other over every little thing (which is the meaning of \u2018bearing with one another\u2019).\u00a0 It\u2019s a wonderful word picture people living in relationship with each other for the long haul, staying on the road to intimacy.\u00a0 Taken with the rest of the passage, it reminds me of some things I easily forget in both real church life, and the cyberspace of chicken wars and election rhetoric:<\/p>\n 1. A mature faith is made visible through relationships.\u00a0<\/strong> I don\u2019t always like this because on the personality tests I show up as a bit of an introvert, which means that though I love spending time with people, I love withdrawing too \u2013 sometimes too much.\u00a0 In terms of the book I wrote<\/a> about the engaging and withdrawing spiritual disciplines, I\u2019m an inhaler more than an exhaler.\u00a0 As a result, I sometimes view the pinnacle of spiritual maturity as sitting in the mountains, reading, praying, walking by the stream, and just \u2018loving God\u2019 through writing: prayers, poems, blog posts, whatever.\u00a0 It\u2019s safe, secure, removed from the messiness of life, and terribly attractive to certain personalities.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the rub:\u00a0 Jesus says that our faith is validated by what our life with other people looks like, not by our endless quiet time.\u00a0 When Jesus went up on the mountain and the veil of this fallen world was yanked off, revealing spectacular glory, Peter\u2019s response was understandable:\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s stay here\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 I sometimes feel that way about solitude and being surrounded by the beauty of creation which, for me, provides such a marvelous window into the hints of what \u201cshall be\u201d in the kingdom which we pray will come soon.<\/p>\n The point of these \u201cglory glimpses\u201d though, is to fortify us for real life, which isn\u2019t lived in a cave, or on a summit, but in the midst of real relationships with real people, each of us with fairly regular displays of our own fallen natures. \u00a0 That\u2019s why Jesus sent the disciples down off the mountains after the glimpse of glory.\u00a0 Real life is lived in real relationships, not inside our heads.\u00a0 If we\u2019re going to know real Christian community, we\u2019re going to annoy and be annoyed, hurt and be hurt, confront and be on the receiving end of confrontation.\u00a0 I\u2019d argue that for many of us, this is the most challenging piece of faith; not because we\u2019re introverts, but because we live in culture saturated with the values of disposability and individualism.\u00a0 Relationships, in a hyper mobile and hyper connected society, are as disposable as the plastic water bottles you buy:\u00a0 \u201cToss and forget\u201d.\u00a0 But, like those bottles<\/a>, there are consequences, which we are only just now beginning to realize.<\/p>\n I\u2019d be interested in your thoughts about how we can counteract these tendencies of disposability.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong> For my part, I\u2019m trying to commit to place and relationships more intentionally, recognizing that my own maturity depends on the skills of pushing through relational barriers of artificiality, so that truth telling, confession, forgiveness, service, and real commitment, become real in my life with more than just family members.\u00a0 I\u2019m learning, but it\u2019s challenging.<\/p>\n 2. The capacity for these relationships flows out from being in the Word.<\/strong>\u00a0 Compassion, kindness, and all those other goods things are like flowers that must blossom, if we\u2019re to give evidence that our faith is real.\u00a0 But the root of that flower is this:\u00a0 \u201cLet the word of Christ dwell in you richly\u201d which means that I need to allow Christ \u2013 his example, teachings, values, priorities, and intimacy with his Father, to fill my heart and mind.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t a call to some sort of Bible memorization program, because knowing the words of the text is not the same thing as letting the Word find a home in your heart.\u00a0 Rather, it\u2019s a case of chewing the words of the text through meditation, reading, re-reading, talking about, journaling over, and yes also at times, memorizing.\u00a0 I\u2019m doing all this, though, not to win awards at Quiz Camp, but to foster intimacy with Jesus Christ Himself, so that He becomes in a real way, my best friend, the one whose values I want to baptize my own.<\/p>\n In the same way that I\u2019m prone to too much withdrawal, there are many (though they might not read this blog) who are easily distracted.\u00a0 The word doesn\u2019t dwell richly in them because the phone call, or the e-mail ping, or the latest Olympics trivia update derails their obligatory pursuit of Bible study.\u00a0 To such ones I\u2019d say, \u201cmake it relational\u201d, so that your time with the text of the Bible becomes in some fashion, real time with a person.\u00a0 It\u2019s why I write questions and my thoughts about what I read in a prayer journal sometimes.\u00a0 It\u2019s why learning the discipline of slow reading, called Lectio Divina,<\/a> can have value.\u00a0 It\u2019s why memorizing some passages (like the wardrobe passage<\/a>) can make an actual difference in your daily living.<\/p>\n The goal is for Christ to become your best friend, so that you\u2019re thinking his thoughts, and living out from his values.\u00a0 This will drive us introverts into the arena, and take some of you activists up to the mountains for a while.\u00a0 We\u2019ll all be shaped, and changed, and challenged, and blessed.\u00a0 Go very far down this road, and we might just see that our own divisions, nit-picking, in house fights, and hypocrisy, are far bigger barriers to the gospel than eating, or skipping, a fast food chicken sandwich could ever be.<\/p>\n I welcome your thoughts.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Warning:\u00a0 No chicken sandwiches were eaten, or boycotted, in the production of this blog post.\u00a0 I love this little bit in Colossians 3, which reads: \u201cput on (or \u2018drape yourself with\u2019) a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.\u201d\u00a0 The author goes on to declare that a community clothed in these will be quick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,28,23362,23366,51],"class_list":["post-2269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-calling","tag-discipleship","tag-intimacy","tag-rule-of-life","tag-solitude"],"yoast_head":"\n