Truly Loved, Truly Known (a poem)

Loved but obscurely known,

at ease can long endure.

Superficial at best,

intimately unsure.

Unloved but truly known, 

the deepest of our fear.

When pierced by rejection,

Short days become long years.

Unloved and hardly known,

lives of men are spent lost.  

Hurts beget solitude,

hearts hidden deep in frost.

True love and deeply known,

for heart doth yearn and long.

Freed from masking pretense,

humbled and rebuilt strong.

Loving and yet unknown,

Abba found His lost race.

This action all His own,

revealed Himself in grace.

Inspired by Tim Keller's book 'The Meaning of Marriage'.  

"To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.  To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.  But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.  It is what we need more than anything.  It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty live can throw at us."

A Dream about Killing Sin, Part 2

After writing my original post, I realized that the problem with saying we must 'be killing sin', is that it more often than not carries the idea of doing so in order to find acceptance with God. Rather, it should be that because we find acceptance with God, we can go on in killing sin. John Piper states that 'The only sin we can defeat is a forgiven sin' when he talks about how to go about it.  It seems that defeating sin can only come when we live out of a place of security in Abba.  If it's coming out of any other place it is most likely in order to achieve or receive something, i.e. self-righteousness.

So the question for me lies not in the 'how to' of combating some certain sin.  In my opinion, there has been an inordinate amount of Christian material written towards this end.  The question then, for me, is how do I find security before God.  This took me back to a quote I recently read by Tim Keller as he talked about marriage.

"To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us." 

It's my understanding that this security comes when we are fully known and truly loved.  This takes place only when we reveal the deep recesses of our minds, hearts and souls.  The fear he speaks of, however, is no small thing; that we would be fully known and not loved often paralyzes us from revealing much of anything to anyone.

The benefits of revealing our self to Abba are exponentially greater than our perceived risks.  That we could live without pretense, no longer would I feel the need to wear a mask around others.  What a relief!  I would no longer have to fake it.  I would be humbled by my complete and utter dependence upon His grace, rather than on my ability or performance.  I could live.  I could have life to the fullest, no longer hindered by my deep shame and sin.

John Donne seems to be wrestling with this in his poem 'A Hymn to God the Father'.

WILT Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;	5
For I have more.
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sins their door?
Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in a score?	10
When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done;
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by Thyself that at my death Thy Son	15
Shall shine as He shines now and heretofore:
And having done that, Thou hast done;
I fear no more.

A Dream about Killing Sin

I had a very strange dream last night (which is not uncommon). It frightened me, and I awoke at around 5 full of all the details.  After chewing on it for a while this morning, I'm still curious about what it was communicating to me.  Here's a summary of the dream and what I've learned so far.

I was in a large, older home, which seemed to be located out in a heavily wooded area.  Somewhere in the dream I began talking with a large panther/cougar/cat of some sort.  This cat promised to leave me, to not harm me, and so I began to feel safe.  Towards the latter part of the dream I was outside of the house with lots of children (mine included).  They were playing in what seemed to be the outer part of the house which had been desolated, and looked condemned   Boards, bricks and other parts of the houses structure were falling down, lying across each other and preventing direct entrance into the house.  There was only one door to enter by, which was high off the ground and only accessible by crawling through the broken boards, rickety stairs and the houses broken frame.  I felt an urgent pull to get through that door.

A friend was there with me (not sure who, but he felt friendly).  This friend warned me about the cat which was lying below the door, underneath the dilapidated stairs.  As I crawled up towards the door, I looked down at the cat, which looked as though it had died long ago and already begun to decompose.  Its hide was rotting, leaving it looking like matted fur on old bones.  I told my friend not to worry, the dead cat wasn't a problem.  Then I began to cross over it towards the door.

I remember standing on the rotted beams of old stairs above the dead cat, looking down at it with fearful disgust.  That's when it moved towards me, still mostly dead, but able to come at me before I knew to move out of the way.  I fell through the stairs to the ground beside it, frightened that it would finish me off, angry that it had lied, and disturbed that it was still alive.  I began to try and run away from it through the tangled mess of timbers and brick, but it kept getting closer, its claws grasping the back of my shirt.  It caught up to me, pulled up beside me and whispered 'Kill me'.

I've been reading through James with my kids in the morning, not accidentally this was our passage today.

"You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”

So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet." James 4:4-10 The Message

It seems that this dream was playing out the warning I've consistently been hearing of late to be diligently killing sin.  John Owen said 'be killing sin, or it will be killing you'.  I've honestly never liked this idea.  Why can't I just be done with it?  Once it's killed it's gone for good.  The reality is sin lingers, maybe half-dead or mostly dead, but always capable of killing me.  I flirt with it often, not fully engaging it, but teasing ideas and old behaviors.

Humility states that if God is not drawing me near to himself, if he's not helping me purify my inner life, I would be fleeing towards sin.  The proud man says he has done away with sin, that he's doing alright now, dismissing the warnings of friends and not heeding the call of a wise and loving Abba.  Oh how I need grace to draw me near to a compassionate Father and away from a death-filled life.