Love Life Word Work

I love a quote that agrees with me and so I love this quote from Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.

No, not one shall be forgotten who was great in the world. But each was great in his own way, and each in proportion to the greatness of that which he loved. For he who loved himself became great by himself, and he who loved other men became great by his selfless devotion, but he who loved God became greater than all. Everyone shall be remembered, but each became great in proportion to his expectation. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal, but he who expected the impossible became greater than all.

The book is an exposition/commentary on the sacrifice of Abraham. It’s a little bit shocking in places and a little bit heart-rending in other places. If you read it well it will change your life.

In our early morning study-prayer group we have been working on this little book for more than a year now. We take a couple pages each week, reading and discussing and talking about our lives, praying for each other before we leave.

The book is TrueFaced written by the team of Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. I love this book. We all do. Rob Frazier, our group leader, recommends it highly. Even though it’s written by three men, it doesn’t seem like it came from a committee. It is a very personal book written for personal people.

The sub-title of the book is “trust God and others with who you really are”, which is the one of the essences of love. How can we love and be loved if we can’t trust enough to allow others to see beneath our mask? A quote from Shakespeare adorns the cover below the sub-title: “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”

These are the masks, the personal covers, that keep us from lives of grace, hope and love. This book is a comfortable refuge in which we can get used to the fact that there is an alternative to this lonely, frustrating thing we call “doing the best we can”.

The authors write in the first chapter,

We wrote TrueFaced for those who pant for a life worth living… for those who have tasted of their destiny, but have lost its flavor in brokenhearted disappointment… for those suffocating under hope-stiffling masks… for those longing to see their God with eyes no longer filtered with fear, self-disgust, and desperate proving.

I found a home in this book. It’s a great place to live for a while and be reminded daily of these freeing truths.

Chapter two is entitled “To Please or to Trust”. It uses the metaphor of “the room of good intentions” as contrasted with “the room of grace.” Attempting to please God by acting on good intentions - we have all tried it and know how frustrating and ineffective it is. But the room of grace is the way of trusting God with who we are, allowing Him to accept us. It does take some getting used to. We are prone to return to the old ways. But the room of grace is always there for our good if we receive it.
And it is the only way to please God after all. Trust = faith. And faith is, after all, our justification in the sight of God.

In Chapter three, speaking of our sin issues, the grace and acceptance of God is shown to be the practical means of dealing with sin problem.

The environment of grace provides me with truth, acceptance, healing, safety, perspective, freedom, and power that I did not before know; these realities are foundational to resolving my sin issues.

On the other hand, good intentions and the stiving associated with them do nothing but “suck grace—and therefore power—right out of the room.”

There is one chapter each on the gifts of grace love, repentance and forgiveness. Repentance is treated in a refreshing way. The grace-filled gift of repentance is contrasted with the striving, ineffective willpower-based intention we all have gotten caught up in many times. True repentance is a gracious meeting with God and other people in which love and grace is showered upon us. It is a room with a warm hearth. It is a homecoming.

When I was a child I went with my family to a performance of Scottish highland music and dance. I liked it just fine but I kept thinking, when are they going to do the sword dance? I was all ready to see the guys come out and swing swords around, dancing around and swashbuckling with them - but no. They just gently laid two swords down flatways on the floor and proceeded to do fancy footwork around the sword blades. It was alright - it obviously meant a lot to them, but, to be truthful, I was disappointed. There was no danger, no threat of violence. I was underawed. They never even came close to getting cut on those things, assuming they were even real swords.
But I am not underawed concerning our real-life sword dance. How can I be? In the realm of actuality the art of the dance is not symbolic, it’s for keeps. We dance not because we choose, but because we have no choice. We dance under threat of violence, in the overwhelming fear of the unknown, for our life or our death and the separate but equal dread of them both. We dance spontaneously, not according to a prescribed set of steps (however well-meant that preset plan might be). And we dance not in the spaces between the flats, but right on the sharp edge of the freshly-honed blade. Extreme sword dancing, we can call it.
But maybe that metaphor is a little extreme. Maybe that picture of life is over-the-top. I don’t think so. Consider the bad dreams that wake us up in the night. Those ought provide a clue, or a key, to the dread and anxiety that baseline our reality. So dancing on the edge of the sword? I think it’s a great metaphor. Just let’s wear some good strong-soled shoes and let’s look to the master of the dance —the Lord of the Dance. He ought to be able to help.

This is my good friend Wood Buddy. He likes to try new things.

On this particular day he is inspired by the Olympic Games. He wants to jump the Empire State Building.

Too bad, Wood Buddy. Try again another time.

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