dependence - Where Death Delights To Die

Night

Are you there, Father?

.I’m here

I can’t see you.

.No, you can’t

I need to feel that you’re there.

.Take my hand, and you will

Photo by Carolyn V on Unsplash, altered by me.

Edit: last line was “.Believe that I am, and you will”

~~~

The flowers I pick
Die in my hand,
But flowers I can’t
But pick.

Photo’s my own.

On Trying

S
  al
  vat
  ion
To

Sinners:
Awaken
In dark to
A house
Without
Lights;
Switch
Is dead,
But we
Sure as
Hell try.

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

I was taught that this refers to what we need to learn. But isn’t it what we need in order to live? Not bread alone but every word of God’s, and Christ, himself, fully embodying and revealing that Word. But surely this also includes

wait for it

bread.

Sustenance, air, water, clothing, friends and family: whatever we need, as determined by God, just like the birds and the flowers, who don’t have storehouses or barns. At every moment, they depend on God’s provision (or withholding).

How different is modern American security? We idealize careers, we develop our CVs, we invest. All cultures sell their own flavors, but we sell Independence. “Need no one.”

But don’t go off to the woods just yet. Our assumptions need changing. Give us today whatever we need—food, friendship, capacity for love, ability to learn from our mistakes, changed assumptions…

Don’t we depend even in those things that secure us? Investments require stable markets. Careers require healthy minds and bodies. Commutes require that the gravitational forces that keep our tires upon the ground remain constant. We depend upon a sovereign and graceful God, who holds all things together.

And after praying for our bread, do we believe that he’ll give it and that, after the day’s provisions, we can say, “We received what we needed?” Do we depend even for that? Don’t we? Doesn’t Christ provide all things for life and godliness, so that all provision has as its core the death and resurrection of God? And while we were still sinners, did he not already give it?

Indeed he did. Give us this day our daily bread.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

2/28/2017: On Earning A Living

Sorry. It’s been a while since I’ve posted. It’s been super busy.

I wonder if we approach commerce from the wrong direction. I write, or whatever it is I do, to give, to love. What recompense I receive is also someone’s gift. That’s the interdependence inherent in love. And in this way a community should function. I realize this is not the way of the world, it having fallen from love into karma. But God hasn’t fallen into karma, and God still steers the thing.

Thus I shouldn’t think of it as “How can I make myself deserve to be paid?” but rather “How can I best give?”

The natural question that arises, then, is at what point do you make a living? Or how do you provide for your family?

(2/12/2018: I’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out what I was saying in this next part. It’s been so long since I’ve posted that it’s been a good reminder about the purpose and guidelines of these posts. But I figure this is a touchy-enough topic that I should probably try to figure it out.

So perhaps I refer to the precedence of grace before action and to us being called to good work without being able to control grace—something about the dependence inherent in faithful work and thus the disconnect between a faithful, dependent worker and a goal corresponding to independence. Or I may have had a couple ideas rolling around in there.)

This seems similar to me to the question of grace and faith. If salvation is by grace and grace alone, at what point does a person act, or respond, as it were? At what point does a person have faith? And in the case of present salvation, or sanctification, at what point does the person take action? There seems to be some kind of disconnect between cause and effect. I wonder if the answer lies in my misconstruing the effect. Is salvation the properly desired effect of faith? Of good action?

Doesn’t the faithful person already assume salvation—that is to say, dependence—and in his godly dependence seek primarily things other than what the so-called independent person still requires?

Is earning a living the properly desired effect of giving to others? I suggest no. And I think my adherence to the question is symptomatic of my so-called independence.

I remember hearing something from someone at some point that went something like this: Give, give, give, and if you happen to get, give that too.

The focus isn’t on not having. I’m not an ascetic. The focus is on giving. And I think we have enough correction by way of Jesus on receiving. That is, don’t depend upon it, for God takes care even of flowers and sparrows.

What about one’s family? Surely providing for others is a gift, and we work in order to earn those things that others need to survive. Yes, but money is not all. There are things more important than money. For instance, learning to give. Giving alongside you. Serving others. Depending upon God. All of those things are more important than merely possessing.

And that term, earn a living, is just wrong. Earn, as in karma. A living, as in those things that make us alive. How graceless and anti-metaphysical is that? As if food and clothing and housing make us alive. As if breathing, alone, is living.

Further, how often does the term actually mean to earn indulgence? We’re on the escalator of indulgence—our horizon of living goes up with every notch of the crank.

Of course we should try to keep breathing. God gave us life, time, and it’s best spent with care. But to what end? To indulge? Or to give?

Thus, we breathe to give. We keep breathing to keep giving.

12/5/2016: On The Fear of Death

Is the fear of death, or the reaction against death, the impetus for all of our actions?

“‘The tale is not really about Power and Dominion: that only sets the wheels going; it is about Death and the desire for deathlessness,’ wrote J.R.R. Tolkien in a letter in 1957. He would often tell interviewers that The Lord of the Rings ‘is about death … and the search for deathlessness.'” (Not sure where I got this, but it’s not mine).

Surely Satan and Sauron seek power and dominion, and I had developed in my great antagonist a similar bent. I had concluded that their search was one of pride, one of seeking to surpass the Almighty, to become Almighty themselves, to be truly Independent. That is, they forget or disbelieve in their dependence on the One and step into faithlessness, into disobedience. Adam does this as well, having adopted the Serpent’s philosophy. Milton shows that Lucifer sought something higher than what he was given. He assumed independence, having become dissatisfied with God’s provision (without cause). Again we find lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, boastful pride of life.

But perhaps that’s not enough. For that’s probably how it starts (if I can even imagine what it’s like to have no sin nature and to make a sinful decision from a neutral state)—how it starts prior to one’s fall (or at its inception, rather, after which all things change). But after a fall, we all have death, the separation from the being from whom all life flows. And having death, do we not all seek to remedy ourselves, to recreate ourselves, to conquer the death that is in us and that we feel at all times, to conquer the death in the whole world? Does that not drive all of us into all that we do? If that’s the case, a being’s desire for true independence becomes one of self-preservation, which necessarily correlates with a separation from the Life Giver. No longer is Independence sufficient, or Independence for the sake of Supremacy or Mastery, but Independence to the end that we are safe and complete and whole, without requiring any other for any of our needs and/or desires (should they not match). But I suspect that our method of achieving this escape remains in the same vein to the fall, us having lost our connection to Life. We seek to recreate ourselves by means of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.

Of course, fear and false confidence are the two sides of pride. And to be sure, we feel both, sometimes even simultaneously. It is likely that it is not merely the flight from death that propels us but also the periodic belief that our swords and shields can defeat the dragon of death. Both drive us toward the same goal—to be independent. To be sufficient in and of ourselves.

12/3/2016: Insecurity

Stems from a lack of value and faith in the grace of God through Christ.

Leads to a desire to be something other than myself—something that matches my idea of what it takes to meet the standard (the highest standard only Christ has met).

I spend my time reading what it takes to be an artist, hoping to find a description of myself, because I have come to view artists as that standard to meet.

If only I valued and believed the love, the imputed character, the eternal hope of the one who met the only standard worth meeting. Insecurity would have no place in me. But only by grace through faith.

So as it stands, until he returns and calls me home, I remain insecure (to the extent that I lack faith).

But such is the nature of God’s work. He uses the weak to demonstrate himself. He allows me to remain weak in order that the greater good be accomplished—that he be seen both by me and by others through me.

Him being seen for who he is is the most important thing in life. Worthy of my pursuit. But also worthy of my continued insecurity. For me to believe in this, I must also commit to the continuance of my insecurity. For the glory of God.

12/3/2016: Wilderness

God, give us a break, please.
But what you have is better. I’m sorry, but it’s for the better. I’m sorry not because I’m doing it but because I know you won’t like it.

God, send us back to Egypt. We at least had food there.
You have what you need here. In fact, you live not by mere food and shelter but by my very word. What you have is far better!

But we cannot bear the desert!
I don’t expect you to. But through it you will learn that you depend upon me. And you will learn to depend on me.

We find, though, that they lacked the faith for such dependence. Israel would fail. Like all mankind. Like me. Only one would succeed, and that’s why we need him. Christ succeeded, and on him we are dependent. Even when we do not depend upon him, we are dependent upon him. And he is faithful. Such that even when we want to return to Egypt, God keeps us in the wilderness.

11/4/2016: Towers of Babel

The thing about the tower of Babel is that they probably would have finished it. The issue wasn’t that God was stopping them from failure. He was stopping them from success, lest they succeed in what would have been a small thing, in reality, but that would have convinced them of their greatness. God stopped them and scattered them lest they convince themselves that they didn’t need him.

Connect this with my own towers. I may actually be able to do these things. But I fall into confusion and worry and so remember that I depend upon God.

The reason this is important to me is because I often see other people succeed in these things that confound me and question whether my arrival at dependence upon God is valid. They do it fine. Why can’t I? Assuming these persons actually “do it fine,” what’s the disconnect? One might conclude that God disallows me from functioning independently. A scan of my history seems to indicate this. It certainly seems that unless I have an attitude of dependence, I am unable to refrain from anxiety when dealing with the success about which I care. Though of course that’s just one interpretation.

But this brings a more elemental issue to the front. I sometimes get dead-ended into thinking that I am dependent on God for success in these things. That’s true. But the point of Babel is broader and baser, I think. I’m dependent on an essential level, and that’s the real issue. I’m dependent for life, for sanity, for motivation, for love, for a future, for all of the assumptions upon which I function and also for success, even in things in which I am qualified, in the human sense.

God breaks me from my towers to remind me that I am dependent as creation to Creator, not just that I am dependent for the building of towers. The towers really aren’t the issue at all.

It is up to God for all good things.

That being true, I must conclude that mere addiction-breaking (in my case, media addiction), such as that which occurs for so many unbelievers, is either common grace or something short of good. Indeed, a lack of addiction with a lack of love is not good, though it may feel better (remember wanting to not be worried anymore when you still dealt with legalistic anxiety?). A lack of addiction with love is good. And God provides all good things.

Furthermore, it seems to me that this is another issue of sanctification, much like my initial issues with legalism, which started to unravel near the beginning of my time at DTS. And the big thing that changed concerning my understanding of sanctification is this—all salvation is by grace through faith. ALL SALVATION IS BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH. That means that this token of sanctification—me escaping addiction and entering love, concerning media and work and the like—is BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH. Could a person force themselves, apart from grace, to do a “good work?” Yes, but only if God provides the circumstances that allows them to do it, and it would lack the motivational, character elements that makes it truly godly, thus limiting to what degree it could be called “good.” Likewise, a person can force themselves to lose an addiction, God-permitting, but such would lack the goodness that comes from true salvation-sanctification. And it’s that salvation that’s desirable and good. The first is merely an idol or tower or ease or something. And it is a grace that God has not allowed me to settle for those things and has reminded me to desire the utmost, the greatest good that he could provide—salvation unto Christ-likeness.

So what should I desire? To escape this addiction into love—whatever love is lacking in conjunction with this addiction. How is it accomplished? By grace, through faith.

Of course, that means that it comes at the time and place and by the methods of God’s will. Not mine. And like all salvation, it is his prerogative to give it or not to give it. And he is good regardless of his choice and timing. (Correction—his choice and timing are good, even when I don’t perceive them as good, in which case the problem is whatever I have set as my standard for good).

Another thing. I said before that building the tower was in their means. That’s true, but only in part. They depended on God for their being, for their genes, for their circumstances, and for everything else short of whatever it is we choose of our own accord, to whatever degree that is possible.

5/1/2017—Dependence became a pretty big theme for me last year. I think I wrote this document nearing the hilltop of my personal development on the subject (up to this point). It came on the heels of having our third child, interacting with my dad’s recurring cancer, failing to buy a house, and failing to conquer (after three months of success) my lifelong addiction to video games.

Dependence ended up in the novel I’m working on, as well. An important part of my cosmogony (and therefore the framework for my story) concerns dependence/independence, and I did a lot of work on the idea outside of the cosmogony. I hope to make the latter available at some point.

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