Steps

             Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)

 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:31-33) 

In Dallas Willard’s Renovation of the Heart, he discusses the steps (for lack of a better word) from self-will to God’s will for us. The first step is surrender. We become willing to let God be God, though we may not like it, and we may not be consistent in acting on it. The second step is what he called abandonment. It’s the first step completed. We learn to function within His will. The third step is contentment. We learn through experience that living within God’s will is not the nightmare we envisaged. We no longer wonder whether or not God will do what we want. And the fourth step is participation, in which we actively and eagerly seek to do God’s will.

It seems to me that what he’s describing is sort of like the Kubler-Ross stage of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair/depression, and acceptance. Of course, any process could be substituted, but the key isn’t the fact that both Prof. Willard’s steps and the Kubler-Ross stage are descriptions of a process. The key is that neither is a clean process. You probably won’t wake up one morning and find yourself completely content to do God’s will and never discover that you’re only grudgingly willing to let God be God again.

Instead, as circumstances change, you’ll bounce around among the steps. The good news is that as we experience these steps, we can learn how to work within them to move to the step we wish to be on. And that brings me back to the verses above. It seems to me that I’m on step one: surrender.

As I read the verses, I’m frustrated with God. It’s nice that Jesus is “the way.” I’m glad He’s the way, but that’s old news. We have eternity worked out. I mean, it’s OK if He is, and I’ll accept that He is, but what I really want is for Him to either be my GPS or be the construction crew that makes the road on which I travel easy. It’s wonderful that He has eternity all worked out for me, but I’m more interested in that teeny, tiny bit of eternity known as “now” or as “the next six months.” Let me pull out my notepad and a pen. So, now, what’s the plan?

And when God says, “The plan is surrender, abandonment, contentment, participation,” all I can do is grind my teeth. What do I do about a job? My stories? My trailer? My plan as an autodidact?

Over the years, I’ve seen and heard about field treatment and inventive medical treatment. It’s all about sleight of hand. You get the victim focused on what you’re saying or doing that is distracting or silly and slip in the needle or the scalpel before they have a chance to realize what you’re doing. You plunk a kid down in front of a TV so you have a few minutes to get work done. I suspect that God does some of the same. There are things that He does in which He involves us, but much of what He does happens without our noticing. And if He’s going to do something big, He’s likely to distract or busy you to do it.

This is one of the things I wonder about when I get involved in projects, as I have been for the past several years. How much of my making boxes is a way to practice patience without the agony of just sitting there? How much time do I spend fussing about this or that, while God is doing something bigger and more important elsewhere in my life? There was a time when I was teaching myself road rage. I discovered that listening to books on CD interrupted the irritation. I didn’t mind waiting at the red light because it let me listen to a story. Working on plastic canvas while listening to a speaker/teacher lets me listen more.

But if all this is the case, the questions become a little simpler. What step am I on right now? In what area of my life?  How can I move toward participation?