Sunday, October 4, 2009
What I Already Have
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I have really enjoyed reading Albert Haase's book Coming Home to Your True Self. It seems to be one of those books, much like Foster or Nouwen, that is an easy read but very difficult to truly implement the concepts into my daily life. It is a book I think I could reread every year and still get a lot out of it.
At the end of the chapter I read this morning, there was this simple line:
"There is nothing more to get...." How often to I subconsciously reduce spiritual life and faith to something that I want to get, to obtain, to learn, to achieve. An award, hours of service, a recognition, some profound awareness that is beyond what anyone else has every thought or even thought to think. Spiritual life is not like the rest of life (especially American life), in that there are no rankings, no levels of achievement, and nothing really to "get." Rather it is a life that is lived.
"...grow in the awareness of what we already have." This reminds me of one of my favorite sections of Scripture, Ephesians 1. The writer talks about how because of Jesus' faithfulness in life and death, God has made him "above (and beyond, exceeding) all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come." And then at the beginning of the next chapter, the writer states that we too have been given the same status and title of Jesus. We are "raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms"!!! In other words, in the spiritual life, we have been given everything Christ has been given. We are brought into the life of Christ.
But how often to I forget that? I want to achieve more. I want to prove myself to God. I want to pray myself into his life and into his approval, forgetting that I am already there. I am like a person frantically searching the house for my lost glasses, only to realize they are right on top of my head the whole time. If I would just stop, look around, become aware, I would experience the fullness of God's love and the abundance of life with Christ in the here and now.
There is nothing more to get. There is everything in simple awareness.
---
photo is from the underground market in guatemala city, taken in dec. '08
I have really enjoyed reading Albert Haase's book Coming Home to Your True Self. It seems to be one of those books, much like Foster or Nouwen, that is an easy read but very difficult to truly implement the concepts into my daily life. It is a book I think I could reread every year and still get a lot out of it.
At the end of the chapter I read this morning, there was this simple line:
"There is nothing more to get in the spiritual life. We simply need to grow in the awareness of what we already have."
"There is nothing more to get...." How often to I subconsciously reduce spiritual life and faith to something that I want to get, to obtain, to learn, to achieve. An award, hours of service, a recognition, some profound awareness that is beyond what anyone else has every thought or even thought to think. Spiritual life is not like the rest of life (especially American life), in that there are no rankings, no levels of achievement, and nothing really to "get." Rather it is a life that is lived."...grow in the awareness of what we already have." This reminds me of one of my favorite sections of Scripture, Ephesians 1. The writer talks about how because of Jesus' faithfulness in life and death, God has made him "above (and beyond, exceeding) all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come." And then at the beginning of the next chapter, the writer states that we too have been given the same status and title of Jesus. We are "raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms"!!! In other words, in the spiritual life, we have been given everything Christ has been given. We are brought into the life of Christ.
But how often to I forget that? I want to achieve more. I want to prove myself to God. I want to pray myself into his life and into his approval, forgetting that I am already there. I am like a person frantically searching the house for my lost glasses, only to realize they are right on top of my head the whole time. If I would just stop, look around, become aware, I would experience the fullness of God's love and the abundance of life with Christ in the here and now.
There is nothing more to get. There is everything in simple awareness.
---
photo is from the underground market in guatemala city, taken in dec. '08
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