A Thought on a Trend, or Sentiment, within Psychology

Driving much popular interest in psychology is the quest for the natural absolution of our sins.  And this is, in effect, nothing other than the attempt to absolve ourselves of God’s grace.

From the Notebook: scattered thoughts about Isaiah 6

When Isaiah was watching Uzziah die, he saw the King of kings on his throne.  The temporal king was weak.  The eternal king is always in power.  This changed Isaiah’s life and altered his whole worldview.

When Isaiah saw the Lord on his high throne, he did not calmly reflect on his own imperfections.  He felt crushed under the weight of glory.  He was sure that dissolution of his being was imminent.  He became anxious about nonbeing.  He did not celebrate God’s holiness.  He despaired at his wretchedness.

Isaiah noted his unclean lips.  It is Isaiah’s lips that God will use most powerfully in his ministry.  Where are you conscious of sin?  Your sin is forgiven in Christ.  Now expect that God will take that part of you to do his greatest works.

A Lyrical Sidenote

I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to some of my favorite musicians and singers, more than usual.  Jason Upton, Jon Foreman, and Josh Garrels I played and replayed on my laptop when visiting family in New York over the winter break.  Each brings something different to the table, but all of them share an outpouring of the heart immersed in things from above.  One matter particularly meaningful to me in this season is a musician’s willingness to express anxieties.  More on that later.

And I said, please
Don’t talk about the end
Don’t talk about how
Every living thing goes away
She said, friend
All along
Thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really I’ve been learning how to die
I’ve been learning how to die

—Jon Foreman, “Learning How to Die”

Everyone says that it’s alright
Living in darkness every night
But I think it’s time, Lord it’s time
I’m ready to give up all my sin
But I don’t know where to begin
And I think it’s time to find out
And make that change

—Josh Garrels, “Decision”

How much time will I keep wasting?
How much cheap wine will I keep tasting?
Been to church and now I’m back again
Tired of living for the pride of men
And the world may think I’m crazy when I don’t run with them
But it’s just plain idolatry when God can’t have all of me

—Jason Upton,“Will of God”

I’m not sure why it always goes downhill
Why broken cisterns never could stay filled
I’ve spent ten years singing gravity away
But the water keeps on falling from the sky
And here tonight while the stars are blacking out
With every hope and dream I’ve ever had in doubt
I’ve spent ten years trying to sing these doubts away
But the water keeps on falling from my eyes

—Jon Foreman, “The Cure for Pain”

Will a man find a home
If he walks the world alone?
Searching for a promised land
Another day, walk and wait
For this choice to end in fate
Searching for life among the dead
Once I held you near, and words were clear
My hands rested upon your heart
Now by night and flame I call your name
My love, when will an answer be found?

—Josh Garrels, “My Child”

And if I were really honest
And the truth were known
It may sound a little funny
This is what my prayer would be:
I don’t know what to do
But my eyes are on you
I don’t know what to do
But my eyes are on you

—Jason Upton “Gideon”

A Testimony of Outstretched Arms

What follows is another quoted article from my old blog.  The unnamed sin to which I referred numerous times is masturbation, a strange question that plagues the mind of most young men who put any emphasis on the word purity.  I put this up as an informative warning, but there is nothing graphic about its description below and it can be read, I think, by anyone without offense.  It should be noted that I am not making universal claims about masturbation, but about conscience.  If my reader’s own conscience is stirred about masturbation particularly, then I thank God.

I lay on my backside with my arms stretched up to the ceiling—no, to God. I didn’t know how to escape the torment. I couldn’t run away from the temptation, because it was with me, inside me. This temptation is like a shadow, it seems, that cannot be detached by struggling with hands and feet and teeth and sweat and blood. Everyone experiences this temptation, for I know that no temptation overtook me except what is common to all humankind (1Cor. 10:13). Like my shadow, it would always be touching at least one part of my body, because I cannot keep my feet off the ground for more than a few seconds. But even shadows are melted, dissolved, destroyed utterly, in the presence of the Father of lights, in whom “there is no variation or shifting shadow” (Jam. 1:7 NASB) What? Is the devil saying that even the Great Light would cause me to cast a shadow behind me? Not if his light also shines within me! So I wait for that day with longing when “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Re. 21:23 ESV; cf. 22:5, Is. 60:20)—to be surrounded and filled with light that overcomes the uncomprehending darkness!

I couldn’t escape my shadow as I lay there. As much as I affirm Paul’s command to “flee from idolatry” and all sin (1Cor. 10:14), I was on my back with no strength in my legs, because there was nowhere to run but upward, and I had no means to get there but the strong arms of my Father, to whom I was reaching. With plain confidence Paul teaches, “With the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (v.13). Some New Age “sage” may prescribe a remedy for escape, if he admits to avoiding sin at all, by means of inward contemplation or confessing that the body is illusory. I, however, had to pray to the Almighty; otherwise I would drown in my own shadow. To go inward would’ve been of great benefit only if I had a mind to consult my conscience or the Holy Spirit. But when I looked inward I did not set my mind of things of the spirit but on things of the flesh, and there was only death looming at the advice of inward contemplation. To say that the body is illusory would’ve given me adequate excuse, like the Gnostics conjure up, to dive into my sin, for if the body is an illusion, then the crucifixion of Jesus Christ is nothing more than a stage show (cf. 1Pe. 2:24), and also the sins committed by the body are illusions, and my conscience ought to be free in all lawlessness. But “we must not put Christ to the test” (1Cor. 10:9). No, I had to pray and trust. “God is faithful” (v.13), and only by the mightiest hand can his people be delivered from slavery (cf. Ex. 3:18-20). My help couldn’t come from my own devices. The priest Aaron was commanded to bless the people thus: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Nu. 6:24-26). Blessing comes from the Lord, the Lord, the Lord. I cannot bless myself and keep myself, my face does not shine with glory that can heal, and the storm in my mind cannot give itself peace. The Lord must look upon me and be gracious to me if I am to live another day.

On my back, I began to speak to him in sheer desperation, and I recounted to him everything that I believed, scrambling in my heart to gain some defense against the tempter. This was my honest prayer: “I believe that you created the whole world, and formed and filled it—establishing your law and imbuing it with your glory. I believe that you created the first humans in your image. I believe that you spoke to them. I believe that they disobeyed and were corrupted because of their desire. I believe that you are holy and require holiness of your people. I believe that you delivered your people from oppression in Egypt. I believe that you gave them the written Law to bless them.

“O Lord, I am confused. There is no written commandment against my sin, and if not for my conscience crying out I would not see any trouble in my soul because of this. A while ago I thought I heard a voice telling me that this was sin, and I thought it was your voice. But it is not anywhere written. How am I to know?”

I paused for a moment, and then continued, because God in his grace made my conscience bold: “I believe that you called Abram and gave him your promise. I believe that you call your people to live by the law of faith, not the law of works. Oh! Now I see, Lord. There was nothing written for Abram. There was only your presence. He heard and responded. Abram was called to a mystery and given a promise that he could not see, but he walked all the same, and he believed in the promises. His faith was credited to him as righteousness. So all whom you have brought into the glory of your Son are called to a mystery and given a promise that can only be seen by a faithful heart.

“It’s faithful obedience to remember what you spoke to me and keep the commandment. And believing that you have spoken to me, and that you do not lie, and that you have never changed since the beginning, and that you always confirm what is written in the Scriptures,—to keep the commandment can only be credited to me as righteousness. I will obey the voice of the Spirit and consider the true testimony of the written words.”

It was an important prayer. In my temptation I was inclined only to think of God as a set of written words, a volume of moral information. The devil will always try to reduce the living God down to an inert and lifeless code—portraying what the Lord says as an algorithm instead of something “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The written words are not God. For how can the Maker of the world be contained in paper pages and leather binding if “heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him”? (2Ch. 2:6) Jesus rebuked the Jews who searched the Scriptures assuming they could obtain eternal life in them, because really the life is found in Christ himself, and the Scriptures bear witness about him (Joh. 5:39f.). Jesus says the word was not “abiding” in these Jews, who had never heard or seen God (vv.37f.). He doesn’t mean that they hadn’t memorized enough of the Old Testament writings. He means that they were so full, perhaps even full of “sacred” knowledge, that they were unable to provide lodging for the words, in the same way that the inn in the city of David did not have room for Messiah (cf. Lu. 2:7). They knew the words well enough, but they did not have spiritual understanding, which comes only by the voice of the the Spirit.

Likewise, as I was there on my back, I had been regarding the written words of God while not regarding the Spirit, who had beforehand spoken to me about this sin. I remembered that the apostle wrote, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1Pe. 1:16; cf. Lev. 11:44), and another, “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1Th. 4:7); however, I would not let these words abide in me, to teach me what it is to be holy before the Lord. I would not consider these as applying to the sin to which I was being tempted. “This act has nothing to do with holiness or profanity,” the devil would say. “You did not hear the Spirit say that. It was your own thought. You have not seen the glory of God,” he would continue. If he can get me to disregard the Spirit, then he can get me to disconnect the words commanding holiness from the profanity of the sin.

But when I prayed there, the Spirit gave me words anew, reminding me of Abram and the faith that comes from hearing. The Lord reached down and picked me up. The Spirit’s arms wrapped around me and banished the shadow, relieved me from the temptation. My means of escape was not an algorithm, not a ten-step plan, not inward contemplation, not denial of the world. I was rescued by the abiding word of God and the fellowship with the Spirit, who brought the written words to life in me.

God restored me that day. Praise the Lord. I became again like the disciples after the resurrection: “They believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken” (Joh. 2:22). I believe the Scripture and the Spirit’s words. So I stood and walked away from the temptation, by the Lord’s grace.

Some More Articles

I have decided to import some of my articles from another, long-disused blog.  They are mostly meditations on Bible passages, from single-verse explications to small sermons.  I hope they’re a blessing now.  I remember that some people appreciated them when they were first published.  The following is a prayer I wrote on 6 July 2008, somewhere in Mississippi, and serves as an excellent reminder:

I’m not sure, Lord, how to sort through these thoughts and theories. Notion upon notion makes such commotion that I cannot tell if I’ve turned to the right or the left. I’m so tangled in this world that it’s getting more difficult to see that ancient path. But I know, I have been taught, that the Way is alive, and that he will seek me and call me from amidst the rubble of a used and abused life. You are the Way. I ask you, and in asking I receive, to set me free from the confusion and take away the pain of my own negligence. Forgive me for my sins, my self-will, my ill-crafted illusion. Keep me away from the temptations that I have entertained. Keep my soul out of the enemy’s reach. Good Shepherd, hear my cry for help and do what must be done to save me.