Faith as Process

We become faithful people when we choose to enter in to God's process of shaping us into faithful people.  

When we say it this way, we're acknowledging that we're not in control of the outcome that God has in mind for us (individually or collectively).  We enter into the process of doing what we can to create space in our lives (and the community's life) for God to move in whatever ways in which he chooses to work.  

We may never know the ways in which God chooses to work.  All the more reason to dedicate ourselves to be in process and live in radical acceptance.  We are only able to control the process we dedicate ourselves to, never the end results.  That process creates space for God's movement.  And so the process is our goal.  It's all we can do.

The rest we leave to God.  And we learn to accept whatever that is.    God may have specific goals and ends in mind for us.  

That's his prerogative.  He's God.

A Faithful Process

Faithful living, in fact, is not particularly results oriented.  It has always been about the process of becoming.   God gradually transforms us more and more in his likeness as we dedicate ourselves to the spiritual disciplines that facilitate this process (acts of mercy and forgiveness, prayer, communion, worship, etc.).  There is not a one-to-one relationship here.  15 minutes of prayer does not make us 15% more holy.  I'm just saying that grounding ourselves in spiritual disciplines (or grounding ourselves in the process of becoming people who do spiritual disciplines) opens up the possibility of God's action in ways that might not otherwise exist.  

We might say, then, that being faithful people is, fundamentally, the choice to dedicate ourselves to the process of becoming faithful people.  I understand that is cyclical language- and I think it works.  We become faithful people when we choose to enter in to God's process of shaping us into faithful people.  

More on this tomorrow.

Expanding our Focus: Part II

For Part I: Click Here.  It was posted on January 24.

I know many in our community are past the initial wave of recovery.  Many of us have seen our loved ones become sober and carry on in the journey of recovering their lives.  Many of us who have substance use issues have found sustained sobriety.  Many of us have never had a loved one deal with a substance use issue nor have dealt with it ourselves.  

What if my issue is not substance-related?  How does this process talk apply?

We are all in constant need of spiritual principles that expand our view of the world beyond ourselves in order to live out God's call to be a loving and forgiving people whose life (as a community) points to God's character, actions, and values.  Recovery grounds us in the kinds of spiritual disciplines that connect us with this calling.  In fact, every week I'm coming across more and more articles calling upon Christians to reexamine the 12 steps and to take them seriously as a guide for faithful living.  

We all need a guide for faithful living.  Some cheeky person will undoubtedly email me and say, "We have one, the Bible."  Yes, true, but let's also be honest- it's quite confusing and complicated.  It helps to have some of the key ideas distilled so that we can more attentively focus on them.  The 12 steps, which serve as the basis for many recovery principles, do exactly this.  

They continue to offer guidance and help push us in the direction of "meaning" long after we've left "crisis mode."  

Process as Meaning-Making

From yesterday:  

Discovering meaning in (or for) our lives pushes back chaos, crisis, and the all-encompassing sense of unmanageability.

Meaning comes from things like:

* Connection to God
* Community
* Self-awareness
* Rituals or habits (from spiritual disciplines to exercise, we benefit from regularity)
* Work 

In each of these areas, we are all always works in process.  Yet, at the same time, if our process is not a dedicated one then we are unlikely to receive meaning from any item on this list.  

Dedicating ourselves to each of these processes is, in a way, the work of faith and recovery.  Granted, recovery has specific things in mind for each area.  The act of learning to own and dedicate ourselves to basic recovery principles provides us with the alternative vision for life that we need to step out of the insanity of managing things that we cannot control.  

When we step out of the insanity, and dedicate ourselves to this process, we open up the possibility of finding meaning where, previously, there was only chaos.  

The Lives of Others

From yesterday:  

We simply cannot live through someone else and so this version of life will never provide the meaning we crave.  We need an alternative.  We need something else to dedicate ourselves to that adds meaning back into our lives in the midst of all of the chaos.  

That meaning, I think, comes from a conscious, intentional dedication to process.

Discovering meaning in (or for) our lives pushes back chaos, crisis, and the all-encompassing sense of unmanageability.  "Meaning," as a concept, is not a thing we find when we know the right place to look.  It is the sum of various seemingly disparate life parts that we cobble together.  I am obviously not an expert at this and so I'm not prepared to unpack the exact ways in which someone finds meaning in life, but I will point to a few of these "life parts" that I know help.  

* Connection to God
* Community
* Self-awareness
* Rituals or habits (from spiritual disciplines to exercise, we benefit from regularity)
* Work 

Process falls under nearly any of these categories because, as I wrote earlier, we're all in process of becoming a person who can: connect with his or her creator, participate in community, examine self, maintain habits, and dedicate ourselves to whatever our work is.  

More tomorrow.