wildernessVOICE: The Trickle of Transformation

I once heard this quip about a professor at a school I did not attend: "That guy's written more books than he has read."

Sometimes I feel that way about my engagement with spiritual disciplines. I can easily spend more time thinking about, writing about, and teaching about spiritual disciplines than I spend practicing them. The reason for this is simple: my draw to spiritual disciplines arises out of an internal struggle.

I am aware of the need of spiritual discipline in my life. As much as I admire even-keeled individuals, I am not one. I am decidedly high strung. I need the presence of disciplines that assist me in centering, slowing, breathing, and relinquishing my need for control.

Yet, I do not find prayer or many other spiritual disciplines easy. I have much admiration for my wife in this regard. Once Kara is convicted that she needs to make a life-change, she does it. If she decides something is good or necessary, she decides and then she does.

I am different. I decide and then, if I even get started, I quickly begin to backslide. My lack of discipline is not due to a lack of love for God or a desire to be better, it's part of what I struggle with as the person that I am. I have the same difficulty with exercise and eating right. I have to work extra-hard to maintain discipline and I usually need others to come alongside me and help hold me accountable.

For the most part, my awareness of this internal struggle has been insufficient to make the difference that a similar degree of self-awareness might make in a person who is neither wound too tight or lacking in self-discipline. That leads me to an additional point about myself: I am rarely motivated to do good simply by the opportunity of neutralizing a negative. I am far more motivated by the opportunity to create that which is new and good.

In that light, I have been dwelling in Ezekiel 47, a frequent home for me within the written word of God for the past five years. If you're not familiar with the passage, click over to it and read it. And if you are going to read it, I think you should read it slowly and out loud. There is much to hear there and the rich imagery of the passage is liable to take your mind different places than it has taken mine. So, you might want to stop and discover where it takes you before you read where it has taken me over the past few days.

Last chance, I am about to share...

First the passage:

It begins in the midst of a vision in which a guide leads Ezekiel into the temple where he is shown a stream of water trickling out from underneath the altar. The stream is flowing out of the temple. On the outside of the temple walls, the stream begins its flow to the east through a dry and barren wilderness. At the temple walls, the water is ankle deep, but every 1,000 cubits, the water is deeper.

After 1,000 cubits, the water is knee deep.

Another 1,000, waist deep.

Another 1,000, neck deep.

Another, 1000, all Ezekiel can do is swim in a river too deep and too wide to cross.

Along the banks of the river, the landscape is changing. Barren wilderness is being transformed. There is green everywhere. And trees. Trees of life that bear fruit to eat and whose leaves can be used for healing.

The river itself is full of life. Fish teem in the waters. Nearby residents cast their nets in the river and are well-fed.

And as the river winds east, it pours into the Dead Sea, where nothing lives. But unlike the Jordan River which is made salty when it pours into the Dead Sea, this river that flows from the trickle of water that began underneath the altar in the temple transforms the salt water into fresh water as soon as the river reaches the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea then becomes a sea of life.

The passage is beautiful all on it's own. It does not need my reflections to capture your imagination or fill your arms with goosebumps.

But recently, I have been reminded of what Paul said about those of who are in Christ. We are God's temple. Admittedly, Paul made this statement to the Corinthians in an attempt to neutralize a negative. How could they permit wanton and egregious sinfulness within the body of Christ if the body of Christ was the temple of God?

But Ezekiel 47 helps me put that into positive language. Ezekiel 47 has become a metaphor for me about what can happen when we attend to the cultivation of holiness within the temple of our physical bodies. Simply put, when we open ourselves up to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, the product of that transformation has a transformative impact on the world around us.

It may not seem like much at first: a little water trickling out from under the altar of our hearts. In fact, the people closest to us may not be impressed or, at most, only slightly so. Yet, as the holiness we cultivate begins to bear fruit, others cannot help but benefit.

If you haven't noticed, it's a barren wilderness out there. Civility is a lost art in politics and often seems to be in our churches as well. We're more likely to unwittingly trigger another driver's road rage on the highway than we are to find someone willing to allow us to move over into their lane during heavy traffic. Sexual purity is so rare that when we encounter it, we are surprised and the outside world is genuinely puzzled. I could go on (and so could you). The evidence is overwhelming. We live in a barren wilderness devoid of the Spirit's fruit.

So, is it any wonder what one river of life flowing through the midst of the wilderness could make? Is it any wonder that a person who cultivates holiness and cruciformity (i.e., selflessness and cross-shaped-ness) is so obvious and impacts so many people? Their fruit nourishes the starving. Their leaves heal the broken. And their water's freshness is not overwhelmed by the deadness of the water it touches, but instead transforms that water into fresh water of life itself.

I know some people who live lives like that. They are quiet. They are non-assuming, but the water of life flows out from under the altar of their hearts. They impact the world around them as a product of the time they spend in prayer, fasting, and dwelling in God's written word.

I occasionally hear or read critiques of those who practice spiritual disciplines from a missional framework. Clearly, there is a ditch to be avoided. If spiritual disciplines become nothing more than spiritualized schemes of self-improvement, then we have a problem. But if we truly pursue and connect our hearts to the God who took on flesh and gave his life for the sake of the world, then our time in God's presence will only serve to reorient us to God's mission and form a missional imagination within us as we take up that mission within our lives.

That which flows out from our heart will impact the world. There is no neutral way to be. If the water of life is not flowing from our hearts, something else will.

I pray, practice examen, and dwell in the written word of God because (or at least partly because) I want to be a source of life in my world. I want to relinquish all that is within me that stifles that life: my cynicism, my pride, and my selfishness.

For now, I may be someone who thinks about, writes about, and teaches about this way of life more than I am a person who cultivates that life. There is no reason for anyone to be impressed with what little I do in this regard and I am not just saying that to be humble. It's the truth, but in this way too I am comforted by Ezekiel 47. For the water underneath the altar was but a trickle. It was what God did with that trickle as it flowed east that transformed the entire region.

May it be the same with that which flows out of me. May it be for you as well. May the trickle of our own transformation become a might river that God uses to transform the world.

Source: http://www.wilderness-voice.com/2012/10/the-trickle-of-transformation.html

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