New Chains (an essay)

The first snowfall of the year brought about five inches of snow upon a chilly November afternoon. There were no "first snow" musings upon the introductory flakes but rather an instantaneous transition into the bold Michigan cynicism that comes along with having ones travel plans interrupted. Cars spun out, trees bent and branches fell. By six o’clock when darkness fell and the snow had not yet abated I returned home to find our internet had gone out. The dark, snowy evening was simply asking me to start a fire. So I obliged. As the hours wore on I sat (or lay) in front of the flames taking the ambient heat into my weary bones, something was missing. My mind raised some unknown objection. It felt as if I had misplaced my keys or a well-loved book. It was difficult to place but I finally pin-pointed the unease: the internet, it remained down.

No Netflix.

No Amazon music.

No Twitter.

I caught myself asking the subconscious question: ‘what am I going to do?’ and was appalled at my reliance upon something I once considered so trivial.

I hate that a wireless signal has become so ubiquitous that its absence creates a void within my heart.

I understand that utilities are conveniences which we cannot escape in our lives any more than we can escape our need for food or shelter, at least not in 2015 America. That’s not a bad thing necessarily. In fact, it would be wrong to decry and fight against the tide of technology. What is problematic is when anything takes a place upon some altar of our hearts. When anything, good or bad, becomes so ‘necessary’ to us that it pains us to let it go, we are treading upon dangerous ground. The throne of our hearts is meant only for our true King: Jesus and we should guard ourselves against getting so attached to things that we try and live our lives with divided loyalties.

Paul speaks of these inappropriate desires in his letter to the Corinthian church. [Note: the context for this verse is idol worship, but the underlying principle is transferable.]

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for the food, but God will do away with both of them.

Now, nourishment is obviously a necessity but the need for food (in this case) should not hold sway over our hearts. Nothing should have so much control over us --- nothing, not food or family or money. Christ alone should rule our hearts. We should allow no impediment to occupy the throne of our hearts. We live in this world but we must not be ruled by it, not only because it dishonors the Lord, but because it will ultimately leave us empty and unfulfilled for we were made to be satisfied only by one thing--- Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus himself posed the question more pointedly, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”

Most of us would never think of our desire for a premium latte or access to Hulu as something we would forfeit our soul for, but the space these things occupy in our hearts and minds can often lead to bitterness and consternation when we are required to relinquish them.

“What will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Jesus continued.

We must continually keep our hearts in check; continually be self-diagnosing ourselves in order to determine where roots of materialism and pride are worming their way into the cracks of our hearts. No thing should in anyway come between us and our savior. No lingering doubt should exist in our hearts if we were asked to give up our possessions or our luxuries.

A.W. Tozer wrote of the aim of the believer who strives for such a state. “The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately and forever.”

May it be so with us.

The Shift (a short fiction)

Part One: The Shift

Jimmy D. dug into the left hand batter’s box carving a trough in the dry infield dirt. Although not a superstitious man he had maintained his elaborate at bat ritual throughout his career: holding out his hand in petition as he cleared the dirt from around the plate. Finishing, he adjusted each batting glove, right, and then left. Some said these mannerisms infuriated opposing pitchers but it had certainly never been his intent. Part of it he had done ever since Little League, maybe before, and the other part helped his loading mechanism giving the leg drive to generate power. As an older player, generating power and driving the ball was essential once the trim, svelte days of youth had passed like a wisp of a cloud in the clear blue sky.

The pitcher was a young dark-skinned man (man? Try boy) who looked to be half of his age. A lefty, he threw from a ¾ arm angle that made it difficult to pick up the ball leaving his hand. He threw consistently from the same keyhole, never changing his release point. In short, the kid would probably do well in the league. “Not today though,” Jimmy told himself. He was not going to get shut down by a seemingly pre-pubescent boy whom he could have conceivably sired after seventeen years of professional baseball, at least not in this at bat.

In the brief seconds during the pitcher’s wind-up, Jimmy Darnell Leamington surveyed the field as a cartographer might survey a hitherto unexplored valley. The second baseman was positioned close to first and the shortstop had shifted over and was standing nearly on second. Only the third baseman, a former teammate of his a decade before was playing the left side of the diamond, about midway between second and third. This was the way baseball was these days. Unless you proved yourself able to spray a single anywhere at any time, teams were going to shift you. In the age of statistics and sabermetrics, the facts were simply incontrovertible. If you shift pull hitters, especially left-handed hitters, you are going to get outs. Jimmy couldn’t refute this. He had seen it work too many times against him to believe otherwise. However, he could not bring himself to act accordingly. If you’d drop a bunt down the third base line, a former manager had told him in a moment of dugout tension years ago, they pull back and play you straight away. The truth was though that Jimmy couldn’t bring himself to do it. He wasn’t a great bunter but he was serviceable. He certainly wasn’t too proud to drop one down if it meant helping the club win. What he couldn’t abide however was the thought that the other team had him beat. If he dropped one down he’d make it to first easily, but he’d lose something too, something he had kept intact after seventeen years of baseball when seemingly everything else had been taken from him. Even the game itself had been taken from him for a time. No, there were some things that were too precious; too pure to relinquish. “Let them take it from me,” he thought, “let them try.”

He grew up in a middle-class neighborhood with middle-class parents in a suburb of Detroit. There were plenty of kids around his age so he never had any trouble fielding a team. He was particularly outgoing during his younger years (this would fade in middle-school) and he formed friendships easily. Most of these were on the diamond but many carried over into school and other areas of his life. He was a boy always at the center of activity and his house a hub of social contact (much to his mother’s chagrin sometimes). Once, a spaghetti dinner was interrupted by the crash of a tree limb against their house and a frenzy of boys scattering in all directions.

His town had a history of a significant Hasidic Jewish population and they could be seen walking to synagogue in their shtreimel and rekel. His two closest friends, Jered Racklin and Matt Trater were both Jews although not of the Hasidic temperament. For nearly five years they were inseparable and for five years the three formed the core of some spectacular city league teams. Jered dominated opposing hitters (he would go on to play ball at Western Michigan). Jimmy largely played short (even then he wasn’t a particularly great fielder) but he could destroy a baseball with such skill and force for his age that by the time he reached high school, scouts warily could be found sitting behind home plate. Matt was the least accomplished of the three, usually serving as Jimmy’s double-play partner. Even in Little League he never hit much, but what he lacked in offense he made up for in defense. He prided himself on his ability to reach any ball hit in his direction. After school he used to make Jimmy hit grounder after grounder forcing him to range far to his right and left before he had to go to Hebrew school. At the time, Jimmy couldn’t understand Matt’s devotion to anything but baseball. Baseball was Jimmy’s world. The sun, the moon, the stars all orbited the plain chalk diamond. Nothing mattered more that the game. That is what probably precipitated the slow dissolution of their friendship in middle-school. As Matt drew deeper into his faith and heritage, Jimmy couldn’t help but view it all with scorn. If there was a god then surely he would understand the need to practice every day.

In the end, the friendship faded not out of any slight or infraction but simply because it was always shrouded in the shadow of the great monolith that was home plate. This was a deeper faith and its god too, required sacrifice.

He takes a pitch on the inside corner for a strike and steps out of the box. Jimmy scans the beautifully verdant field from right to left. The tall light towers illuminating the impending twilight. Night came quickly to Traverse City even in late May. The smell of the lake came wafting in from left field and vast squadrons of fish flies dart about in the air above like drunken dancers enjoying the cool evening. It wasn’t long ago that this field sat empty and derelict, a product of the game’s precipitous decline. Much of what had been had been lost, abandoned. Historic stadiums left crumbling like the memories they represented. For Jimmy, who got called up to play for the Braves in ’21, there was always an ache of what might have been. What if, he pondered in his honest moments, what if I had got another chance at the bigs? The 21 games in which he appeared (mostly as a pinch hitter) never gave him the chance, he reasoned. After starting the next year at AAA, he hit well, but by August the corruption that had infested the sport became too top-heavy to ignore. At the age of 26, that October, just when he was entering his prime, the owners (many of whom were themselves were under indictment) gave up the league that long had been an American institution. The collapse left a hole not only in a country’s consciousness but also in the hearts of the men whose lives were dedicated to it.

That offseason was the longest of Jimmy Leamington’s life. He was an eight year veteran of the minor leagues and found himself firmly resting upon the seat cushions of his couch. Never had felt less sure about his future; less confident about his prospects. It wasn’t that he wasn’t considering other career options, but rather that he couldn’t even conceive that there were other options.

As a boy eminently talented, he progressed through each level of ball with the unwavering confidence of the next step; the next inevitable goal. Whether it was the Varsity team, or the draft, or rookie ball, there was never a doubt in his inner mind. Yet there he was, a man who had devoted his life to one singular end, left without a path to follow.

The world was alive with sound; a cacophony of noise pressing in upon him from all sides. In Atlanta, during his time there, the volume had been oppressive, enveloping, but one could at least lose themselves in it, normalize it away, like diving underwater, blocking it out, like a pristine island rising from a tumultuous sea. Even in Gwinnett this had been manageable with the drone of the carousel’s calliope music dulling the noise of its edge. Here though, he could make out each voice, distinguishing tones if not entire conversations.

Here on the shores of Lake Michigan the game took on a different feel.  It was as if you were trying to complete complex mathematical equations in your living room. Your father and mother might be discussing AARP benefits with the TV blaring. In fact, Jimmy could almost make out a couple having that very discussion seated behind home plate. He would never complain, he had been through too much to complain. In fact the beauty (if it could be called beauty) of baseball’s demise and rebirth was that it ignited a passion in its fans; a passion for the purity; the simplicity of the game. From those whom he had talked with (there were few divisions between player and fan these days) there was a longing for the simplicity of a game of baseball; the pitcher’s wind up, the arc of the batted ball, the leathery slap of ball against glove. Much of the commercialism that had defined the game in the late 2020’s had abated, leaving a population which craved (and appreciated) the very existence of an organized league even if it existed only in cities like Elkhart, Dayton, or Traverse City. No, he could never resent the evolution of the game. Instead, he simply evolved himself, incorporating a tuning-out ritual into his loading mechanism. “The world swirls around, but never in,” he told himself before each pitch, “always out, never in.” Slowly he let out his breath.

The pitcher released the ball, a white speck against the navy blue backdrop of his uniform. A batter has approximately ¼ of a second to decide to swing or not. Only ¼ of a second to think: “fastball? Change-up?”. Beyond that it is simply an issue of bat speed. Can the bat reach the ball (with the correct placement) to successfully transfer the energy of the 95(ish) mph ball back outward. Truly, Jimmy had once (drunkenly) pondered, it is a miracle that anyone could catch up to a pitch let alone direct it with any skill or precision. Yet he had watched and played with ballplayers that could place a ball seemingly wherever they desired. Jimmy D. had never had, nor claimed to have that level of proficiency. In truth, Jimmy simply let his hands and muscles direct the outcome. For seventeen seasons that had been enough. No overthinking, no calculated plans of attack, simple physics and luck.

Tonight; at this moment, when the last of the pigeons and gulls were settling in on the exposed girders and wires; the pedestrians with their paper bags full of trendy apparel slowed to catch a glance, Jimmy swung with the intensity he had managed to maintain throughout his career from Little League to college to the minors, the majors, Japan, and back again. He swung with such bestial ferocity that his eyes momentarily shut and the world for a moment stilled. They opened again, as he broke for first, he saw no indication that anything had occurred or that any time had passed. The night seemed to slow and exhale laboriously. His feet dug in the soft clay composite and he pushed off with his tremendous calves. It was only when he saw the back of the pitcher unceremoniously turned toward him, with his head tilted upwards as if in prayer to the northern night sky that he broke into his customary trot. The ball flew, a pin-prick satellite in the night sky, out past the fence in right-center (390ft) and was momentarily lost to most observers before landing in an aisle way about twenty rows up into the bleachers.  In the silence, Jimmy made no conscious thought, no jubilation, no contemplation. It was all still part of the mechanism--- the drowning out. Passing second he caught the gaze of the opposing shortstop. No malice, he noted. Still he continued, unencumbered in his home run celebratory rounding of the bases. It was only when he saw Javier Deville, the on deck batter; standing at home plate that he had any conscious memory. It was simply a number: 480.

Four hundred and eighty, generally a number of little significance. However it had over the last two years become the focal point of Jimmy Leamington’s public life. It was, of course, the number of home runs he had amassed over his seventeen year minor league career. To some, minor league home run totals might be a point of derision rather than acclaim but this particular number’s significance came because it fell one short of 481--- the career minor league record set by Hector Espino. Espino (June 6, 1939 – September 7, 1997) was considered the greatest player in the history of the Mexican Leagues, sometimes called The Babe Ruth of Mexico. He played in both the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol during the summer and the Liga Mexicana del Pacifico during the winter. During the course of his storied career in which he became a Mexican sports icon he rejected offers from the Cardinals, Mets, Padres, and Angels. Over his long career he accumulated many records most of which had already fallen before Jimmy had even begun playing but no one had gotten within ten of his home run record.

No one, until Jimmy did it last August, on a hot, sweaty night in Covington, Kentucky. Since then race for the record had become the focal point of Leamington’s career and the Traverse City Plover’s marketing dollars (which largely consisted of billboards along M-37 and his regrettably larger-than-life face on local busses).

He had tried to not let it affect him; not let it affect the way he played or the play of his team, but it was inevitable. Everyone was aware of it. Attendance figures, which had never been astronomic since MLB’s collapse, rose markedly since the race began (although you could say the race had been on for 17 years). His teammates stopped chiding him for strikeouts or grounding into a double play as they had years before when his age and physical limitations had been sport for an array of dugout humor.  This fact seemed to frustrate Jimmy the most since he prided himself on being an unselfish player willing to give himself up for the team. Nothing infuriated him more than grounding into a double play. He felt like it was letting his team and himself down. Yet despite his attempts to stay on point, the race had affected him. Though he would never admit it, he took deeper cuts at fastballs; he expanded the strike zone when he chased juicy hangers around the letters. He was after all, a man like any other.  His failures stung like any man’s. His victories were as sweet as any. As he stepped on home plate after slapping hands with a dozen cheering teammates he wasn’t tallying his wins and losses on a scoresheet or mentally marking the location of the pitcher’s fastball (just a bit up and out of the strike zone) he was basking in the glory or mankind, which though fading is nevertheless intoxicating. 

The Bondservant

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1:6,10

The church walks a fine line between existing within, and ministering to, the culture that surrounds it and capitulating to the pressures from that culture. Just as Jesus came on His Father’s business into this world, and, more specifically, into the Jewish near-Eastern context He sought (and succeeded) in drawing the unrighteous and sinners near without being Himself drawn in. Such should our mission be as well--- to live within, and witness to, the society around us without having our identity and mission in Christ compromised. The balance is tenuous indeed--- focus too much on separating ourselves from the world and we risk becoming inappropriately isolated and disconnected from those we are called to love; conversely, if we allow ourselves to become complacent, we compromise our commitment to Christ, who called us out of our old lives of willful indulgence and hedonism into a new life of authentic surrender. We should strive, like Daniel exiled in Babylon, to honor our God without compromise yet also without antagonism; to bear witness by our devotion rather than our division. It is not that we engage with culture that is at issue but rather how we engage culture. We must taste with discernment, judging always the contents and purpose and placing them beside the standard of Jesus Christ. There are times in which we must stand, and stand firm for Christ against evil, indignity, or oppression to be sure but we must always be kept in check by the love which is ours through the Father who loves and has compassion on lost sheep and lost men alike.

We, too, should always be on guard for the cracks and fissures that sometimes appear in the foundation of our lives. They begin often innocently as playful indulgences or insipid doubts--- thought experiments really, but, like persistent dripping over centuries erodes caverns; these frivolous sins and doubts erode our commitment to Christ. All sin springs forth from a desire for the control to satisfy our wants and passions. Here too, even the most stalwart saint is vulnerable to minute and fleeting indulgences that create an avalanche of sin and doubt. How many of us who frequently serve the Lord today will persevere to the last? How much of our earnest devotion will burn away like the dew in the heat of the day?

Paul speaks to those in the Galatian churches who had traded their true Christ for cheap substitutes; false Christs with no power to save. He scolds them for their fickle faith which ran to serve the convenient; the expedient gods. They had warmed to the musings of teachers of style rather than substance. The appeal of social godliness (i.e. following the Mosaic Law) had trumped their devotion to the freedom of Christ.

In contrast, Paul challenges those who claimed that he was striving to please men rather than the Lord. In defiance, he states: If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. What was true in 1^st century Palestine is true today. We must remain in constant submission to Christ, determining with whom our allegiance lies. While we live in, and engage with the world, our souls must ultimately choose (not once, but continually) what our purpose will be. The desires of this world are not always cloaked in self-indulgence but even the altruistic desire to affect change or give meaning is vapid compared to the complete fulfillment we find in surrender to Christ. It is His purposes which give us meaning and freedom. Any attempt, even if well intentioned, of finding meaning apart from Christ is futile and sinful. Each of our actions and decisions is born either from a desire to serve men (this present existence) or to serve the Lord. If we claim ourselves to be Christ’s slaves we must abandon our claim on the temporal, fleeting results of this earth. This does not mean abdicating our place in, or responsibility in helping to bring the kingdom of God to a hurting world. It simply means that we serve as ambassadors in this world rather than citizens tied closely to its successes or momentary pleasures. We are a royal priesthood in Christ Jesus.

Let us today decide whom we will serve.

A Lesson (Overheard)

Many years ago I attended a conference of a campus ministry. The event was several days long encompassing worship, teaching, prayer, and service. The last night of the conference (which happened to be New Year’s Eve) was to feature a concert with several nationally-known bands. The venue was packed with 3000 college students having just experienced a day of teaching and worship. The headlining band was Switchfoot, who, at the time had just broken out into the “secular” market with their album The Beautiful Letdown. The opening act, on the other hand, was a folk artist whose style contrasted greatly with Switchfoot’s southern California rock stylings. As the folk artist began her set, many of the attendees made their way toward the exits preferring to return when the main act arrived.

After the folk artist had finished her performance, the stage was reset, the drum kits and guitars brought in. Gradually the people, too, returned, taking their seats in anticipation of Jon Foreman and Co. I had taken for myself one of the quickly abandoned seats and now sat in the second row from the front.

The seats filled in around me and I was able to overhear the conversation of my neighbor. In reality, everybody was able to hear their comments for they had to shout to be heard over the pre-show playlist. Their exchange went something to the effect of: “That [folk artist’s name] was horrible. It was just her and a guitar. Yeah, she just sucked.”

I’ll be honest, I was somewhat ashamed by their comments but I was even more ashamed when I looked directly ahead of me in the first row and saw the folk musician sitting in for Switchfoot’s set pretending not to hear the criticism coming from directly behind her.

The Biblical author James tells us that our words are “a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be this way.”

We live in an age of citizen journalism and personal expression unprecedented in all of human history. We all have a platform whether it is our circle of friends, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. And that’s a good thing. It encourages government accountability. It gives voice to the voiceless. It allows the disenfranchised and lonely to find a people to identify with. Truly innumerable good flows from our technological advances. Yet… yet we often use our voice, our platforms to tear down, to criticize, to bludgeon our enemies rather than love them

.

Can a fountain send out both fresh and bitter water? James asks.

Our voices; our platforms give us the opportunity to speak life and hope into the world and into the lives of our circle of influence. We must wield well this piercing weapon of our words. Truth and honesty we must speak, but always they should be tempered with the additives of grace and love. Let us speak well; speak richly with words that build up; words that bring life.

Especially with an election approaching…

Beginnings and Endings

I’ve been thinking of life today as more fluid with less defined beginnings and endings yet pressed on toward the goal of full salvation. My best, most Christ-like moments are neither my beginning nor the end of my story. My most loathsome sins are neither the conclusion nor the start. Beyond conception and death (though that too, is not final) there are no true beginnings or endings here on earth. Our initial salvation began not with our momentary assent but with God’s prevenient grace which sought us and drew us imperceptibly through the peaks and valleys of our lives. Even our conversions are not truly complete until we see Christ face to face. Instead, they are a halting, staggering ascent on the best days, a dreadfully regretful decline on our worst. Still, this is (thankfully) not the end of us; the end of our story. We are drawn along always, on our best days and our worst by the thread of His grace which is offered in spite of our sin and regardless of our victories.

We tend to view life as a novel with a beginning, middle, and a conclusion because it is neat, orderly, and makes a simple testimony for church services. In doing so, we both rob the Lord of the glory He would otherwise receive for the pardoning grace which covers ALL of our faltering steps and only serves to confuse the sinners (that is, all of us) when we compare such sanitized repentance fables with our own messy, incomplete, yet grace-filled biographies.

My true life is not a solid ascent. It is a story of transcendent peaks, pathetic falls, and seemingly mindless slogs. Yet I am drawn on, ever on, by the pursuit of the one whose pardon covers it all; the one whose beauty pulls me back from the brink a thousand times (and a thousand more); and for whom even a passing glance or a solitary word is enough to devote my entire existence to. So I go on, some days running, some days erring, some days pulled, toward the promise of my full inheritance by His limitless grace.

The Witness of Life

“Men, why are you doing these things? We are also men of the same nature as you, and preach the gospel to you that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

Acts 14:15-17

Paul implores the people of Lystra, who were attempting to deify Paul and Barnabas who had been healing and preaching, to honor God not mere men. They go so far as to tear their robes in anguish at the misunderstanding of the people. To clarify their thinking, Paul gives them a stunning refutation of the worship of mere idols. His words, which were spoken to a very spiritual yet ungodly people two thousand years ago, are particularly relevant for our world today. He acknowledges their spiritual fervency by calling them to: “turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in it.” Paul calls them to worship a bigger God, the living God, not a mute idol, not some dead pantheon.

In a world such as ours, which questions absolutes, worships honestly yet incompletely, and settles for cultural traditions rather than a living God these are words which should challenge us. Who do you worship? Is it a partial understanding? Is it an incomplete picture?

Even as believers we pick and choose the elements of the Lord we worship. We love Jesus the teacher but don’t like his challenging words of judgement. We love the freedom of grace but ignore the prickly realities of truth. We love the power evidenced in Acts but grow uncomfortable when we ponder its role today. Do we Christians worship the true God today? The whole God? The living God?

“In the generations gone by He permitted all the nations to go their own ways; and yet He did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

Paul shows the people the real world, everyday examples of the grace of God--- the common grace. This parallels his exposition in Romans 1:18-21.

How often do we attribute those acts to the power of God today? How often do we see God working through the rains and harvest and food and gladness? In the agrarian culture he was speaking to, these things were equated to sustenance and bounty; goodness and plenty. These are the thing the living God provides. The good things in live, Paul says, the things you need to live and live well, come from God. They come from God in a very real and tangible way. Do we acknowledge that?

For those of us who identify themselves as Christians, do we praise God for all he does? If we, who claim to honor God and praise God, don’t acknowledge him, who will? How can we call those who do not yet know him to praise him if we ourselves are silent to the countless ways he provides for us?

The world needs to hear the call to worship the One God, the true God, the living God who has bestowed grace, common and saving upon us and we all need to praise him for all he has provided.

Eating the Unclean (A short note)

The next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. And he became hungry and wanted to something to eat, but while they were preparing it, he fell into a trance and saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth. In it were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air. And there came a voice to him: “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” This happened three times, and the thing was taken up at once to heaven.

Acts 10:9-16

Peter’s revulsion at the notion of eating the unclean animals is by no means irrational. All of his life, training, and social upbringing told him that this was not only immoral but also abhorrent. He does not understand the context of this vision at the time (as is so often the case when we are being taught or led) but comes to understand its significance when visited by Cornelius, the gentile, who, along with his whole household not only accepts Christ as Lord but is also given the Holy Spirit. 

Undoubtedly, Peter came to see the connection between the vision and the real world circumstance. This was a time, of course, when the question of whether the Gentile was able to follow Christ (let alone experience the filling of the Spirit) was very much still in debate. The (understandable) Jewish bias against Gentiles and Hellenistic Jews was deeply rooted in the hearts of the early Christ-followers (showing that we are all in the process of becoming more Christ-like).

Despite Peter’s initial complaints in the vision, he surrenders his will to the Lord when the parallel challenge occurs. Just as he had when the Lord sought to wash his feet, he gave over his misunderstanding and pride to the Lord.

The implications of the gospel constantly challenge our preconceptions. It is human nature to seek comfort above all things. The gospel, though, is constantly affecting us, shaping us into the image of Christ through the Holy Spirit. Though our very soul might cry out in protest, we must follow the challenge of the Lord no matter how disagreeable or uncomfortable. The aim of the Spirit is not our comfort but our sanctification. The Lord is concerned with making us holy first and foremost. Our happiness or comfort may follow but only after we have surrendered our will. In fact, true happiness and comfort can ONLY come following true surrender. The critical paradox of faith is that only in surrender can we ever experience true happiness.