http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16665488/a-modest-proposal-about-modesty
Every year as summer approaches, the world hastens to embrace its warmth. Restaurant patios shake out their snowy dust, kids trickle back into parks, sunscreen appears in the checkout aisle, teenage lifeguards ready the pools, vacation ads become relentless — and the clothing departments transform overnight.
Oversized sweaters vanish; swimsuits now welcome shoppers. Spaghetti-strap dresses stand in place of trench coats, and short shorts overtake long pants. A flock of oddly named tops — crop tops, tank tops, halter tops, tube tops — sidelines the long-sleeve section. Weatherproof boots no longer necessary, strappy shoes (of questionable durability) line the shelves.
The first glimpses of summer often appear on in-store mannequins and online models. For Christian women, that glimpse often causes not only anticipation, but anxiety, as that nagging and perennial question emerges: How might we dress modestly?
Asking Questions Carefully
So, how might we dress modestly? Of course, true modesty springs from the heart’s disposition, not the closet’s contents, and extends well beyond the clothes we keep. As one author states, “The external signs of what we call ‘modest behavior’ — not bragging, not showing off your body too much — are ultimately signifiers of modesty, not modesty itself” (Shalit, A Return to Modesty, xxv).
At the same time, when the summer months roll around, a choice in clothing still stands between us and the sun. So, to answer the question, I often find myself asking another: Would it be wrong if I wore this? I imagine many women can relate. In the pursuit of modesty, we tend to censure our clothing for sin — which can be an immature approach. Though the Bible commands modest dress (1 Timothy 2:9–10), it doesn’t include a list of modesty dos and don’ts. Were we to hold up an outfit and ask Matthew or Peter to tell us yay or nay, godly or sinful, we may get little response. “Thou shalt not wear . . .” is, well, nowhere.
As a result of Scripture’s supposed silence, we can begin to define “modest” as “not too immodest” — not too much like the world. That’s when the tricky questions really start firing: Are these shorts too short? Is this shirt too revealing? Are these pants too tight? And so we sift through summer clothing racks, hunting for items that won’t look too much like the way the world dresses in warm weather.
As such, we place modesty’s meaning (and expression) at the mercy of the masses, whose sense of “too far” only seem to inch further away. The tendency is not unique to our age. As early as the second century, church father Tertullian addressed the issue, in a work suitably called On Modesty:
The modesty of which we are now beginning to treat is by this time grown so obsolete, that it is not the abjuration [the rejection] but the moderation [the restraint] of the appetites which modesty is believed to be; and he is held to be chaste enough who has not been too chaste. But let the world’s modesty see to itself. (2)
So long as society sets our standard of dress, “modesty” simply means being less immodest than others. But “let the world’s modesty see to itself,” advises Tertullian. How might we? Is there a way to leave the house knowing not just that we tried our best to avoid worldliness, but that we actively aspired to godliness? Don’t we long for more than looking good without feeling too bad?
Perhaps the apostle Paul can assist us. Though the Bible is quiet on wardrobe particulars, it is loud on wisdom principles. One in particular from 1 Corinthians may help us to wade into the summer with truth and grace, rather than imprudence or stress.
‘Is It Helpful?’
Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul tackles a similarly sensitive topic for first-century Christians: food. What can they eat, and what can’t they eat? The Corinthian believers want to know. (Sounds familiar!)
“In what ways does the desire to wear what we want when we want rule over us?”
Though Paul responds to this tension multiple times, we’ll focus on what he says in chapters 6 and 10. In both places, he begins by quoting a maxim the Corinthians themselves held: “All things are lawful” (1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23). In other words: No food is unclean. Because in the new covenant, “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11). So, what can they eat? In theory, anything.
Even so, that’s not the end of his response. Upon declaring all foods clean, he adds, “. . . but not all things are helpful.” Eating this or that food isn’t inherently sinful — but that doesn’t make it helpful. “Not wrong” doesn’t spell “automatically good.” Could the same be said of our clothing?
God’s word outlaws no outfits, but that doesn’t mean every outfit “helps” — benefits, profits, serves, encourages — ourselves and others. So, while the questions “Is it wrong?” and “Is it too [blank]?” tend to flounder around, maybe we can begin to anchor our dress in another direction: Is it helpful? Following Paul’s lead, let’s consider the helpfulness of our clothing choices in two areas.
1. Is it helpful for my soul?
Paul first mentions lawful-yet-unhelpful matters in 1 Corinthians 6. There, he equates helpfulness with what is personally profitable: “‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (verse 12). In other words, we “help” our faith along only so far as we flee anything that seeks to dominate us — govern us, control us, dictate us — apart from God. What our hangers hold is no exception.
Do we fidget over how to appear expensive, or fit, or even perfectly unkempt? How much hold does an approving or affectionate glance have on our heart? In what ways does the desire to wear what we want when we want rule over us? If someone we respect and admire were to question our swimsuit choices, would we mutter to ourselves about “legalism,” or would we walk away from the conversation open to the notion? “Inward examination,” writes Kristyn Getty,
should not make us fearful. It is necessary as we seek to fix our eyes on Christ. We don’t keep the course of steadfast faith accidentally. It’s a costly path that requires diligence, repentance, and the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work. (ESV Women’s Devotional Bible, 1551)
If we value Christ above everything, then we will gladly consider whether any one thing (even our favorite dress) is competing for our affection. And when we do, we’ll grow in godliness and increase in joy. Happy is the woman who has no reason to pass judgment on herself for the clothes she buys, for she knows that her purchases proceed from faith, not fashion (Romans 14:22–23).
2. Is it helpful for my neighbor?
But dressing “helpfully” reaches beyond what bolsters our own faith. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul expands the meaning to include what is loving toward others: “‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (verses 23–24).
When it comes to our clothes, we have the same freedom as Paul’s first-century readers. Neither dietary laws nor dress codes bind new-covenant Christians, no matter the era. But also like the early church, we have the same responsibility to use that freedom helpfully. “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13). A proper response to our freedom in Christ, explains John Piper, is not simply to assert our freedoms.
No, that’s not the way a Christian talks. We ask, “Will it be helpful? Will it be profitable? Will other people benefit from my enjoyment of this?” . . . That’s the principle of love.
With great freedom comes great love toward God and neighbor.
But how does that love dress on Monday mornings and Saturday nights, in church and at the pool? We must answer for ourselves. What is helpful for me (as a Coloradan wife and mother of little ones, with long-standing battles against pride and envy) may differ from you. Only let both of us answer the question “How might we dress modestly?” in a way that lovingly, sincerely seeks others’ good (1 Timothy 1:5).
For pews and grocery stores alike brim with people God loves, people for whom Christ died (John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 8:11). Given the astounding lengths to which the Godhead went to save them, might we be willing to adjust the length of our shorts?
“The principle of helpfulness enables us to be serious about our clothes without being legalistic about our clothes.”
Perhaps we have a friend sensitive to her size. More than likely we have sisters in Christ, whether teenage girls or peers, looking to us as models for modest apparel. Remember likewise our brothers, who may battle against lust. Though never responsible for others’ sin, we should seek not to provoke it unnecessarily (1 Corinthians 8:13). Maybe a new acquaintance, an unbeliever, learns that we’re Christian, and because we dress so differently, this person wonders aloud about the God we say we serve — not just with our lips, but with how we look too.
From Heart to Head to Toe
If we’ll let it, the principle of helpfulness enables us to be serious about our clothes without being legalistic about our clothes. Humbly we stand before the mirror, asking God to reveal to each of us, as women with different temptations and contexts, how to dress helpfully.
The more we prize God’s gaze above the world’s, the more we will take every outfit captive to obey him (2 Corinthians 10:5). The desire to honor him with our hearts can’t help but reach from head to toe.
Together, may we become so enthralled with pleasing and proclaiming God that we care more about “good works” than fitting into current fashion (1 Timothy 2:9–10). Sometimes, perhaps even often, the two can coexist. But when they cannot, may we happily decline to dress like the times for modesty’s sake — which is to say: for God’s glory, our joy, and others’ good. Seen this way, “How might we dress modestly?” sounds a lot less like a nagging question, and a lot more like an invitation.
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Give Me More of God: ‘Habits of Grace’ for the Hungry
Audio Transcript
Let’s start off there in Isaiah 55. I want this to set the tone for our whole approach. I don’t know what kind of approach you bring to the spiritual disciplines. I want to bring an Isaiah 55 approach, which I think is not a one-time approach. I think it’s a lifetime approach of these habits of grace (or means of grace or spiritual disciplines). I would love to spend the whole time on Isaiah 55. That’s the plan tomorrow at a church in Pepperell, Massachusetts. I’m very excited about that. We’re just going to start with the first two verses (Isaiah 55:1–2) to set the tone for our conversation here about these habits of grace.
Look at verse 1: “Come, everyone who thirsts.” That’s you. You thirst in your soul. God made you that way — to thirst. The question isn’t whether you thirst. It’s whether you know it, admit it, recognize it, and own it. It continues:
Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;and he who has no money, come, buy and eat!Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
The context for this amazing invitation from God through Isaiah to Israel, seven hundred years before Jesus came, and to us in the church, is in Isaiah 53. This suffering servant has stepped forward in an enigmatic way — which we now see with far more clarity in Jesus — to bear our sins. And in chapter 54, the invitation goes to Jerusalem, to Israel, to God’s old-covenant people. They’re brought back from this predicted exile. And then, in Isaiah 55, the doors swing open to the Gentiles, non-Jews like me. As far as I know, there’s no Jewish blood in me. I’m not Jewish at all. I’m a rascal Gentile. Maybe most of you are Gentiles.
The invitation of Isaiah 55 has swung wide open to the non-Jews, to the Gentiles, and he appeals to us on the basis of a soul thirst, a soul hunger: “Why do you labor for that which does not satisfy?” The implication is, “I’m going to satisfy you. I’m offering you satisfaction for your soul. You are hungry; you are thirsty. Come eat; come drink.” You may say, “Well, that sounds good, but how do you drink God? How do you eat Jesus? I would like to take the invitation, but practically, what does it look like in my life today, tomorrow, or the next day? What are some of the actual initiatives and steps to drink God and eat God and receive this invitation? How do I come to the waters? How do I receive it? How do I seek my soul satisfaction in Jesus?”
Moving Toward the Means of Grace
The answer to that question in significant part in the Christian life is that God gives us means. God, in his sovereignty, has appointed to use means. Here’s our outline for these few minutes. I have three points to organize this, and then we’re going to do Q&A.
First, we’re going to talk about the God of grace. We have to start with God. Sometimes, discussions about spiritual disciplines get off on the wrong foot because we think, Spiritual disciplines — it’s my spirit, my discipline. I have to do this. This is all on me. This is my initiative. We’re starting with the God of grace.
Second, we’ll look at his appointed means of grace. God has appointed means, and he specified the means for us.
And third, we’re going to end with the end of the means. Do you get that? If you have means, they are means to an end. If they’re the means of grace, we need to say what the end of those means is.
God of Grace
Earlier today, we looked at 1 Peter 5:10. This is a great text about the grace of God:
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
He’s the God of “all grace” — all kinds of grace. Earlier, we talked about various trials. But he has various graces, a bounty of various graces. Sometimes, we have our favorite kind of grace that we like to really emphasize, and we don’t avail ourselves of the bounty of his graces. We get into a singular grace and forget about the double grace and the triple grace. So let me spell that out.
Grace of Justification
The grace of God justifies by faith alone. Do you know the term justify? That’s about how you get accepted as a sinner by the holy God. What is the ground of your acceptance, of your being in right relationship with God? And the answer is the grace of justification, and that comes through faith alone. You don’t do anything to earn his acceptance. It is fully by grace, received by faith alone. This is Romans 4:4–5:
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
In other words, you are justified, you are accepted by God one hundred percent, through faith alone. That’s the grace of justification. Some people may say, “Well, that is so amazing. I’ll just walk away now. What other graces could I ever need or want?” But he’s the God of all grace. He has more grace. Isn’t this amazing? I mean, the grace of justification is phenomenal enough, and he has more grace.
Grace of Sanctification
He’s also the God of the grace of sanctification. You have a God of grace who sanctifies you, and he sanctifies through faith. But in sanctification, you get involved: you start to do things, desire things, will things, initiate things, act things, read things, pray things, and gather with believers.
This is Titus 2:11–12:
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
“The grace of God has appeared.” I love that expression. He’s talking about the incarnation. Isn’t that a great way to think about Advent? The grace of God has appeared. That’s what we’re celebrating in Advent and at Christmas. The grace of God has appeared, and some of us might expect he would next say that it’s the grace of justification of the ungodly. That’s not what he’s doing here. He did that in Romans 4. He could do that here, but here he says,
The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.
And if you say, “Oh, that doesn’t sound like grace — ungodliness and worldly passions, I kind of want to live in those,” then you don’t know grace. It’s miserable to live in ungodliness and worldly passions. God is too gracious to just accept you based on Christ alone and then to leave you in the misery of sin. He’s more gracious than just to accept you apart from your being made holy, apart from the grace of becoming progressively more holy and godly. This is grace to be sanctified.
Grace of Glorification
And the grace of God glorifies. This is 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12:
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
What’s happening now in sanctification is one degree of glorification to the next, but a day is coming, at Christ’s second coming, when the body will be raised, and you will be fully glorified by the grace of God.
So, God’s grace justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies. That’s the God of grace. That’s the foundation. Everything we want to do here is not starting at the center point of us, but it is positioning ourselves based on the God of grace and what he has to say.
Means of Grace
Next is God’s appointed means of grace. What are the “means of grace”? What’s that? What’s that language? We’re used to hearing about spiritual disciplines, and that’s okay. I’m not on a campaign to rid the world of the term. It would be a fruitless campaign. There has been a particular emphasis in the last generation. There were some books in the late 1970s and early 1980s that really started talking about spiritual disciplines. D.A. Carson, a theologian I love and respect, says, “Means of grace [is] a lovely expression less susceptible to misinterpretation than spiritual disciplines.”
I like that. I think it’s right. Means of grace is an older term. This may be due to my own flaws and failures, but the term spiritual disciplines lands on me first and foremost as something I must do. It puts the center on me. The effort must be on me. But when the emphasis is on means of grace, then it starts outside of me. Now, what I’m doing is just positioning myself to get under the waterfall, under the flow of his grace. He’s told me where the grace is coming, and I’m just adjusting. That’s the work I’m doing. I’m adjusting.
Maybe my favorite means-of-grace quote is from a guy named J.C. Ryle a little over a hundred years ago. He was a bishop in the Anglican church — a man’s man. He was a cricket player and played some rugby, and he loved talking simply. He was very learned, but he loved talking simply. He was a good preacher. Here’s what he says about means of grace:
The “means of grace” are such as Bible reading, private prayer, and regularly worshiping God in Church, wherein one hears the word taught and participates in the Lord’s Supper.
Did you hear those? He said Bible reading, private prayer, and then he talked about church. And in church, the word is taught. He mentioned the Lord’s Supper. That’s part of the church. We’ll pick that up in a second. Ryle continues:
I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification. I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul, and strengthens the work which he has begun in the inward man. . . . Our God is a God who works by means, and he will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high and spiritual that he can get on without them. (Holiness, 26)
If I walk around my house and want light, I don’t say, “Light on.” Well, I know you can train a computer to do these things, but that’s because you’ve trained it with a particular means. Or if I want some water, I don’t just walk around the house going, “Water. I’ll have some water.” And you don’t just walk around in the wilderness or in the Christian life going, “All right, God, I’ll take some grace. I’ll have some grace right here. Drop a package of grace.” There are means. If I want the light on, I hit a switch.
Now, that’s not a testimony to me. I haven’t done anything great. I don’t walk around the house flipping on lights going, “Look what I did. I turned on the light,” because I don’t have a clue how to do electrical work. The city is providing electricity. Electricians have wired it up. I’m not doing anything that redounds to my glory when I’m accessing these means. I’m just doing what the appointed channels that are given are supposed to do. I’m turning the lights on. I go to the faucet and turn it on. There’s no big celebration of my ability when I turn the faucet on, but I’m engaging the means.
Are you engaging God’s given means in the Christian life, or are you just wandering around the house hoping to have light and water at the appointed time, walking around outside hoping he’ll just hit you with grace?
Now, the question is, How do we put ourselves on the path of God’s grace? Let me give you one passage, and then let me give you a couple huge swaths that dominate the Psalms, and then I’ll give you examples from Hebrews. That’s how we’re going to set these up, in these three big categories.
Teaching, Fellowship, Bread, Prayers
The Bible verse is Acts 2:42. This is in the early church in this honeymoon period where it’s all exciting. The Holy Spirit has fallen. There are thousands of converts, and there isn’t persecution yet, and everybody is happy, and they’re sharing their stuff, and everybody wants in. What are they doing? People want the spectacular stuff. The Holy Spirit does the spectacular things and they’re adding to their number every day. We all want that stuff, but what were they doing when that exciting stuff happened? Acts 2:42 tells us what they were doing:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
That’s pretty ordinary. These are not surprising answers when J.C. Ryle says Bible reading, prayer, church, and the Lord’s Supper. And when Acts 2:42 says “the apostle’s teaching” — that’s the word. “The fellowship” — that’s church. “The breaking of bread” — I take that to be both the celebration of the Lord’s Supper and the community sharing of a meal. And then there are “the prayers.”
So, you can take the pie of God’s means of grace, and you can cut it in four slices like Acts 2:42 — or like J.C. Ryle. I like to cut my pie in three slices, so it’s like a peace sign. I cut my pie in three slices, and here’s how I summarize the means of grace. I find this helpful for getting at practical application. First, hear God’s voice in his word. Second, have his ear in prayer. And third, belong to his body in the fellowship of the local church.
I find it helpful that at any stage of life, I can always think of the great spiritual disciplines to be doing. It’s easy to make a list of twelve, fifteen, or twenty and start to think, “How am I going to ever do these? I’m going to have to go monastic to be able to do all these things.” Or I can ask, “What are the operative principles of God’s grace? Am I hearing his voice in his word? Am I accessing the wonder of having his ear in prayer? Am I belonging to his body? Am I in real-life covenant relationships in the local church?”
Seeking God in the Psalms
Where else does this matrix come from? I’ve mentioned the Psalms. I’ll give you a little homework. Just read the Psalms and look for three things in the Psalms. It’s the longest book in the Bible. If you’ve read the Psalms and you know the Psalms, this will resonate right away. How often do the psalmists talk about God’s voice and his word? Psalm 119 is dedicated to the power of God’s word. How often they talk about God’s voice, his revelation, his word!
Second, how often do they plead to have his ear, and they express with confidence that he hears them? This is one of the amazing things in the Psalms — how much they’re talking about God’s listening and God’s ear hearing the psalmist. They say, “Hear my cry, O Lord.”
And then last, there’s often a fellowship context. There’s a corporate context. They often speak of praising him in the assembly of his people — with the great congregation.
So, I’m just taking the Psalms’ language of voice and ear, and I’m bringing in this New Testament metaphor of body for this little summary. But let me show it to you briefly in Hebrews.
God’s Voice, Ear, and People
I’m going to have to move quickly because I want to show you some texts in Hebrews for these categories, mention the end of all the means, and then do some Q&A. Here’s the pattern in Hebrews.
Hear His Voice
First, we hear his voice.
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. (Hebrews 1:1–2)
Let me pull several things out here. First, how amazing that God speaks. He reveals himself. He is communicative. What can you say? God is talkative. He likes to talk. We have a nice thick book because God loves to talk, and he reveals himself in nature. God loves to reveal himself. One of the tragedies in our sin is how dull our ears and eyes have become to his self-revelation and how talkative he is. Open your eyes and your ears to his word.
So, God speaks, and he speaks climactically in his Son. The Gospel of John calls him the Word. It’s as if, if God had one thing to say, if he had one word to say to humanity, it’s Jesus, his own Son. The eternal second person of the Trinity came among us, revealed not just on a page but in a person. So, Jesus is the full embodiment of God’s self-revelation, his Word. God speaks. He reveals himself in his Son climactically. His Son has this group of apostles, and God has his prophets in the Old Testament, so that we have this book of revelation of God speaking to us. It’s a remarkable thing that God has revealed himself.
“Hear God’s voice in his word, have his ear in prayer, and belong to his body.”
And in that book, Hebrews 12:25 says, “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.” When you access Scripture, whether you’re holding a paper Bible, whether you’re looking at it on your phone or computer, this is no mere record of what God said in the past. This is what God is saying to the world, what he is saying to the nations, what he is saying through his Spirit to his people — and to you. This is a living word.
The word of God is living and active. God continues to speak to his people, by his Spirit, in his word.
Have His Ear
We’ll focus on Hebrews 4:14–16 and then Hebrews 10:19–23. I’m going to read these two passages quickly and listen to the things in common. In common, there’s a mention of a great high priest. His personal name is Jesus. He’s passed through the heavens, so he ascended. He’s in God’s very presence. Therefore, he says, “Hold fast to our confession of faith in him,” and, “Draw near to God through him,” and do so with confidence. You can see that in both passages. Hebrews 4:14–16 says,
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Prayer is a means of grace. We find grace to help in time of need. This drawing near is more than just prayer, but it is not less. Prayer is a fitting application of Hebrews 4 and Hebrews 10. Here’s Hebrews 10:19–23:
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
We have a great high priest. He’s ascended. He’s seated at God’s right hand. Right now, in this moment, the risen and glorified God-man sits in glory in heaven, and he’s ready to provide fresh supplies of grace through his Spirit, by his word, and through this grace of hearing us. He not only reveals himself, but he would pause, he would stoop, he would say, “I want to hear from you. I just spoke; now what do you have to say?” That’s prayer.
Belong to His Body
Lastly, we come to fellowship. Belong to his body. The two best texts on fellowship are both in Hebrews. Hebrews 10:24–25 says,
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
What’s significant in Hebrews 10 is that the many, the church, are instructed to watch out for “some.” Some are neglecting assembling together. And he says to the many, “Watch out for them; bring them in.” And the way he says to do this in the gathering, in the fellowship, is that they consider one another to provoke them to love and good deeds. That’s the language of how “to stir up one another.” It’s literally provoke. This is a good provoking. A lot of times, provoking is bad, like provoking someone to anger or something like that. This is provoking them toward good. You poke them and prod them. How would you provoke them? How would you stir them up not to anger but to good? How do you provoke them to do good?
And there’s this amazing power of words. He says, “encouraging one another.” You can encourage them by baking them a pie, or giving them some food, or helping them move. But often, we encourage one another through words. We have these weird holes in the side of our head, and words go into the hole and into the brain, and it can go down into the heart, and it can feed someone’s faith. It can give them spiritual courage when they’re weak, when they don’t have it in them. They might think, “Ah, I need to get myself into Bible study and do this intense study. I don’t have the energy to do that. I’m not feeding my own faith.” Well, you know what? You have a hole in the side of your head. I’m going to stick some words in there and try to give you some courage and try to feed your faith through these ears.
The second passage is Hebrews 3:12–13:
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
Again, we have the power of words to speak into each other’s lives, to put grace in a soul through an ear, and to watch out for each other — to give each other grace. In God’s word, we’re receiving grace from him. And in prayer, we are receiving grace from him even as we reply back to him and express our needs in prayer. But in fellowship, there’s this mutual giving of grace. You’re receiving grace by the care, the words, and the provision of brothers and sisters in Christ. And now you’re being a means of grace. You have the opportunity to be God’s channel of grace to a brother or sister.
So, hear God’s voice in his word, have his ear in prayer, and belong to his body.
End of the Means
Let me finish before questions here on, third and finally, the end of the means. Very briefly, what’s the end? Why are we doing this? What’s the end? You might answer, “Growth.” Grow for what? Why do you want to grow? What do you want to grow into? Something that looks impressive for your glory? What’s the growth for?
Let me give you two texts in particular that get at the end. What is the end of the Christian life? Jonathan struck the note well in the last session in Philippians 3. Consider John 17:3. This is Jesus the night before he dies, praying to his Father for his disciples to hear it. He says, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” That is such a stunning prayer. This is the great end. This is eternal life. This is the goal — knowing God and Jesus Christ — as he prays for his disciples before he goes to the cross the next day.
Here’s how Paul is going to say it in Philippians 3:7–8, which Jonathan quoted in that last session:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
That’s the end: knowing Jesus. There’s no greater end. Knowing Jesus is not a means to anything else the human soul was made for. We pursue the means of grace toward the end of knowing him and enjoying him. He’s the one who said, “I am the bread of life [keep Isaiah 55 in mind here]; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). And “on the last day of the feast . . . Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink’” (John 7:37).
And that’s how the Bible ends, with Isaiah 55. Did you know that? You thought, “Oh, it’s Revelation 22.” Well, Revelation 22:17 is Isaiah 55:
The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.
So, take the water of life. Take the bread through hearing God’s voice in his word, having his ear in prayer, and belonging to his body in the fellowship of the local church. There’s a framework and matrix in which you can evaluate God’s principles of ongoing grace in a season of life.
Now, I did not specify here exactly how you should hear his voice in his word. I didn’t tell you all you should do to pray. And your local church is going to establish those corporate habits in the local body.
Question and Answer
If you have a question, and you think it would be helpful for the group, then let’s ask the question and we’ll have some Q&A for a few minutes.
Question: What is the definition of grace?
It helps to put it in a context. Sometimes people will put it in the context of mercy. For me, in this context of these means of grace or habits of grace, it is the favor, the blessing, and the power of God. Despite your deservedness, he’s giving it to you in justification. It’s not just justification and your full acceptance, but it’s also power for the Christian life and power that’s coming. So, grace is very important. Grace for the Christian is not simply a past reality. Sometimes, we can have this sense of, “This is amazing grace that Jesus came and died at the cross. Wow, look at all that grace. Look at all that grace in the past. Therefore, out of gratitude, I need to expend my effort to thank him for his grace.”
But the God of all grace doesn’t leave grace in the past. There is grace in the past. But you also stand in the present through grace, and you will be glorified through grace. It is all of grace. You have entered a sphere of grace. The Christian life is lived in grace, and we press on in faith banking on God’s future grace. Grace is coming. The reason we keep going on the journey is not because the grace is so great in the past that we’re going to marshal our energy to get to the end, but because the grace of the past shows me the God of the present who will give grace for the next step, and the next step, and he will get me to the end by his grace. That’s not a precise definition, but it gets at the reality of God’s empowering of our Christian life and accepting us fully in Jesus Christ.
Question: What is the place of journaling in the habits of grace?
First of all, let me say this: you don’t have to. Nothing in the Bible says you should journal. When we talk about other means of grace, we need to say that prayer is not an option. Accessing God’s ear is not an option. The local church is not optional. Journaling is totally optional. If you want to try it, great. I am helped when I’m engaging God’s word to engage actively with a pencil in hand. I engage my whole soul better when I write some things out. It can be helpful to do some journaling.
There have been seasons in my life, especially when I was younger — before I had a wife, four kids, and a full-time job — and I made use of that for more journaling. Sometimes, I’d journal my whole devotional time. I’d read a passage and work through it and basically type out every thought. I would think, “Man, this keyboard is amazing because I can type things so fast.” Then I’ll go back and forth. Sometimes the digital engagement feels like it’s so mechanical. It doesn’t feel relational, like communion with God. So, I would go back to my written journal.
I’ve been all over the place over the years with journaling. I think the best headway I’ve made and the way that it’s been most useful is when I’ll just write a little bit and not try to set my standard too high. I think the places when I would journal for a while and then just kind of fall off the wagon or whatever is when I would start writing and writing and writing and peeling the layers of the onion of my soul, and then I feel like, “Oh man, I can’t even start journaling unless I have 45 minutes.” That’s not going to be helpful. That’s not going to work.
One thing I tried at one point, and I’ll often do this, is to try to write a sentence a day. If I have my Bible reading plan, I’ll go along with that. I think it’s really helpful to have a plan, not just to come to the Bible and flip open and say, “Oh, I’ll just read Titus again. I just always read a short one. Titus or Philemon every time, or Jude.” Have a plan that’ll get you through. And then at the end, what if you’re thinking in your time that you’d just like to capture something? It’s not an assignment. It’s not schoolwork. This is an opportunity to further enjoy what you are enjoying by making it into a single complete sentence. You might say, “Oh, isn’t it amazing that he is the God of all grace?” That’s it. That’s it for the day. That’s November 16, and then move on. Come back the next day and have one thought for November 17.
I had a Word doc called “Sentences,” and my goal was to write one sentence a day. It could be a prayer; it could just be how amazing a passage was. That may be one way to do it. Set yourself a really low bar. You don’t have to do this. Do a really low bar. Try a sentence a day. And you know what? If you get to the end of that first sentence and you think, “I’d kind of like to write a second sentence,” go ahead. Just go hog wild. That would be my advice. See if it’s helpful for you. It’s not helpful for everybody. It doesn’t have to be. As far as we know, Jesus kept no journal, and he did fine.
Question: Could you elaborate more on Bible-reading plans?
This is where you’re getting into habits, right? Sunday morning, you don’t want to think, “Hmm, should I go to church this morning?” Or when you get into a car, you don’t want to think, “Hmm, should I put a seatbelt on this time, or should I challenge the odds?” Good habits are things you don’t want to expend the mental energy on making decisions that you should have already made, and you should do. Put the seatbelt on when you get in the car; when you wake up, read the Bible; if it’s Sunday morning, go to church.
These are good habits. These are life-giving habits that save your life. So, when I get up in the morning, I don’t want to rethink it all over again like, “Huh, well, it’s a morning, what should I do? Should I read a Bible?” Just make the habit. I want to hear his voice first. What you do first each day is revealing. Is it news first? Is that what your god really is? That’s what the secular world would have you think. News is god. You can’t live this day if you haven’t done your news. Baloney. There was no news 150 years ago. It’s made up. You know what’s not made up? That God is still speaking by his Spirit through his word. That’s a really good voice to start the day with, the voice of God in the word by the power of the Spirit. Set the trajectory for your day.
If your day is crazy busy, like so many of us, we’re just being bombarded by the tides of the world’s pace and speed. One of my biggest thoughts in the morning is that I just want to engage God’s word without hurry. I don’t know if there are any computer programmers or those who are in the industry where you talk about getting into a “flow state.” I’m looking for something kind of like that. I want a devotional flow state where my phone is more than an arm’s length away. I’m not watching a timer. If some thoughts of to-dos come in my head, I’ll scribble them down and move them out of the way. I want to get into a flow state with God’s word. I want to have enough margin.
Sometimes people ask, “How long? How long in the word?” I want enough margin to lose track of time. I want enough margin that my heart would be warmed and not just information running through my head and then rush off to the day and check my box and move on. I want some heart work to be done. I don’t think you need to walk away every day with a life application. If those happen, that’s great. That’s gravy. The goal in engaging God’s word is, “Father, would you warm my heart? I pray that when I’m reading here in this chapter, in this paragraph, that it wouldn’t just be information through my head. Would you help me to feel how I should feel in receiving your word?” That’s the battle for me every morning. That’s the prayer. “Father, help me feel how you would have me feel from this text.”
Having a Bible-reading plan can be helpful to go right into what you will be reading that day. The plan I do is about three hundred days a year. You have 25 days a month. It’s called the Navigators Bible Reading Plan. That’s one you can use. I would say have a plan and then take the assignment of that plan as God’s will for you that morning. That’s what I do.
He orchestrates my life. He knows all the details, and he’s seen to it that I’m going to be reading these passages, and the Holy Spirit can work at those passages. I take that as God’s word to me for the day. And I want to find something I can linger over where there is not just mere reading, but what the old saints called meditation — which is not eastern meditation, where you empty your head and do a mantra. It’s meditation where you fill your mind with God’s word and seek to feel the significance of his word in your heart.
The Puritans would talk about having a sensible benefit from God’s word, that you have been in some way affected by it, in some way moved by it. It might be a holy fear, it might be a rebuke, it might be excitement, it might be the joy of comfort, or it might be a fresh sense of God’s goodness, but we should feel some sensible benefit. Often, I’ll read through those passages, and sometimes something will strike me as, Oh, that’s so good. Stop, pause, reread, think about it, pray about that, write that down as my one sentence in the journal. Or sometimes I’ll read through the passages, praying, “Father, what is your word to me today?” I’ll go back and look at those passages again. I’ll find some place to kind of camp out for a minute, to linger, unhurried, and to try to press into my soul in meditating on God’s word.
Question: Do you have any advice for prayer during spiritually dry seasons?
I think the main thing I would want to say about prayer is to bind it to God’s word. I’m trying to create this relational context here by talking about hearing his voice and having his ear. This is communion. This is what the Puritans would talk about as communion with God. It’s not just Bible reading and prayer; it’s Bible meditation and prayer together being communion. One great thing about prayer — and what’s so important about it — is that it’s a conversation with God. We don’t start the conversation.
When you feel dry in your prayer life, the first step isn’t I; the first step is him. I want to hear from him. How can I get access more to his word that my prayers might be responsive? I think sometimes we can feel this obligatory sense since we all know we should be praying. I mean, the Bible is just very clear: we should be praying. And because we know that obligation, there’s a sense of, “I need to be praying. I should be praying.” And we can lose sight that prayer is responsive. We’re the creatures; he’s the Creator. He’s the Redeemer; we’re the redeemed. I need something to feed on and respond to in prayer. So, I would say going to his word and slowing down in his word — to feed on it and meditate on it — is where we should start.
And then, the Puritans would talk about prayer being “the proper issue of meditation.” This is where meditation is going. As you linger over God’s word and seek to feel its effect in your heart, a warming of the heart — that naturally should lead to a response of prayer. That’s the point where prayer is fed and ready to respond. I think that’s the way I would encourage you to go about it individually.
But here are some other things on prayer. One of the greatest gifts in the Christian life is prayer together. If you’re feeling a dryness in prayer, it is a beautiful thing to be in a prayer gathering with fellow believers. Sometimes, in the rush of our modern lives, we maybe don’t avail ourselves of the prayer gathering in our local churches like we could. I don’t know that I’ve ever been to a prayer gathering and left disappointed. It seems to always go better than I was expecting.
It is a sweet thing to hear fellow brothers and sisters pray, to be there, to be in a spirit of prayer, to not have to be the one praying, to hear brothers and sisters pour out their heart before God, to get to know Jesus better because they know certain things about Jesus that I don’t. So I know him better through hearing them pray. Utilize corporate prayer, prayer with roommates, family, or with the church. Those would be some good ways to jump-start. But it’s all based on word. There has to be word there first to feed prayer.
Question: How might you respond to someone in your life — maybe a friend or family member — who is not appreciating the essential means of grace in the Christian life?
There were some people when COVID happened in 2020 who were ready for it, thinking, “We’re going to fight for this. We’re going to be on the phone; we’re going to be texting; we’re going to have gatherings in our home.” Some people thrived in 2020. And some kind of limped by and saw for the first time what an unbelievably rich and essential means of grace it is in the Christian life to have each other. And then others drifted away.
We have people that were in our church four years ago, and they haven’t come back. Those twelve weeks that we didn’t have services together were significant to them. It was the last straw of falling back. So, what might we do for somebody who doesn’t appreciate that means? I think I’d go back to the power of our own words. It is an amazing thing to not have to coerce somebody. You can’t. Christianity does not teach forcible church attendance or conversion (though you’d be surprised what some people might want to say today when they get down about things culturally). It’s not Christian to force someone, but everybody has these holes in the side of their head. And that’s what those passages in Hebrews are talking about.
It’s striking, this power of words. I would encourage you to seek to win them through words. Could you say, “Hey, would you come this Sunday with me? Let’s go out to lunch afterward and talk”? Or in a conversation, maybe you have a chance to share something that was fresh. What fed your soul that morning? How might that come out in the conversation? “You know what I read about Jesus this morning? It said, ‘No man in the history of the world has ever opened the eyes of the blind.’ Isn’t Jesus amazing?” And you know what? That got in their ear. And maybe the Holy Spirit would be pleased to give that a flame and to draw them in.
So, think about how your words could be a means of grace. Even though they’re not committed to having their words be a means of grace in your life and others in the local body, your words could still be a means of grace for them.
I would say pray for them and pray for the things you might say to them that could breadcrumb them along. And at some point, it’s worth having the conversation. It’s worth finding a resource that might be helpful toward saying, “This is an essential means of grace in the Christian life.” You might say, “It is often forgotten in our day. A lot of times, people focus on the individual things — individual Bible intake and individual prayer — and the corporate means of grace are neglected. That’s sad. I don’t want you to miss out on that.” Seek to win them and pray for them. But, yes, it’s hard. And that’s a significant issue in our day.
Question: To what degree should we confront people regarding the means of grace and exhort people toward them?
To the degree that God has given you influence in that person’s life, to the degree that you can speak. For example, if they’re a family member, if there’s some kind of friendship commitment there, and they’ll hear from you, I think you want to encourage consistency. I would say it’s also to the degree that it’s available in a church commitment. A lot of churches have a thing called membership. That’s a good thing. You commit to each other; you make covenants, because anybody can do life when it’s easy and it’s simple and it’s fun. You make covenant commitments because you need each other when it’s hard.
That’s one of the reasons for a marriage covenant. A local church covenant is not a marriage covenant. It’s not a “till death do us part,” but it’s saying, “I am going to be the church to you. You be the church to me.” I need people to be the church to me. I need other people in my Christian life (like Jonathan was talking about). You need them. So we say, “Let’s commit together. For however long God has us in this place, we’re going to be the church to each other — in good times and bad times, sickness and health, all of that.” Encourage, if it’s possible, a covenant membership in a local church. There’s an appeal there.
Sometimes, the only appeal to people is, “You have to do this. You have to be here for the church. You have to give.” And there’s never this appeal of, “You need this. You need this so badly. You’re joining this church. You’re covenanting with this church. And there’s great joy in being God’s means of grace to others. But oh my, how you are receiving. What grace for you to benefit from that now, while you’re in your right mind spiritually.” You’re saying to people, “Hey, watch out for me. Get my back. Don’t let me have a hard, unbelieving heart. If I start going nuts spiritually, will you come get me? Would you get in my face? Would you tell me to come back?” That is a precious grace that might save a soul from hell.
So, there’s a great hedonistic appeal to a brother and sister. This is not just me saying, “Do this for others.” There’s joy in that. But this is an appeal to you. You need this. If you’re in your right mind spiritually, you need this. And if you don’t think you need it, you may not be in your right mind spiritually.
Question: What would you do if your small group was spending time together but not getting into enough substance in the Bible and prayer? Or what if people were really extroverted and needed to learn how to be alone with God?
My experience in the Twin Cities has been that there is such inertia in modern life away from people gathering that usually we all have way too much individual time. I don’t know how much television has done that to us, or cars, or modern life in general.
Here’s the thing: these categories of introverted and extroverted are fairly recent. We all need people, and we all need time alone with God. Jonathan Edwards talked about how a soul that loves Jesus loves to get time alone with him, extended time alone with him to enjoy him. And he sends us back to bless others. There’s an amazing pattern in Jesus’s life. Watch this in his life. He retreats from the masses for prayer. They didn’t have their own copies of the Bible then, so he’s probably going on memorized Scripture and meditating on Scripture. He’s communing with his Father in prayer. Jesus is perfect, and he was retreating to pray by himself to get away. But then, what does he do? He doesn’t stay there. He doesn’t go to the monastic ideal. He comes back.
There are these rhythms in his life, and maybe that’s the way to go with fellow believers. You might say, “Hey, we need some rhythms in our lives like Jesus. It’s a great thing that we’re together all the time, and that’s awesome because most people in modern life are not together enough with fellow believers. We’re getting a lot of time together. This is really good for the Christian life. And I’d like a little bit of time to feed my soul too, like Jesus. Jesus got up and got away. He retreated and he came back. Can we do some Jesus patterns in here?”
You could say, “Give me a little bit of space, and when I come back, I’ll be much better for listening and loving and ministering.” Let’s talk further if I can add some more to that.
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Original Sin Can Make Us Compassionate
What’s the most unusual holiday tradition in your family? One of the more unusual ones in mine is to eat haggis for breakfast the day after Christmas. As if the culinary onslaught the day before wasn’t enough, here we are, barely minutes into the morning, ingesting offal, suet, and oats (with a fried egg on top).
It may not be a common tradition, but it is a telling one. It’s one of the few tangible reminders that my family has Scottish roots. At some point in the early twentieth century, the family made its way down from north of the border, and ever since we’ve all found ourselves being born in southeast England. It wasn’t a decision I was involved in, obviously. And given the choice, I’d probably have preferred to grow up around the rugged hills of Galloway with a lilting Scottish accent.
The fact is, much of our lives is shaped by decisions made by our forebears. The choices of previous family members have determined many details of our lives even before we’ve begun deciding anything. It’s not always comfortable to think about (we prefer to think we are masters of our own lives), but it’s incontrovertibly true. We find our lives to be, in many ways, the product of other people’s choices.
And what’s true of our physical family is also true of our spiritual family. One of my Scottish forebears made a decision, and ever since, successive generations have been born rooting for the wrong side when watching Braveheart. And one of my spiritual forebears made a decision that has meant we all were born very far from home.
Corruption in the Family Tree
The apostle Paul summarizes the defining moment this way:
Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)
The first part describes what happened historically: through one man disobeying God, sin entered what had been a pristine world. The second part helps us see what was happening theologically: all of us sinned. Paul is not just saying that Adam kicked off a trend, like that ice-bucket challenge a few years back, where someone started it off and eventually everyone ended up doing it. No, Paul is saying something more profound and tragic:
By the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners. (Romans 5:19)
By Adam’s act, all of us are constituted sinners. His sin made us sinners. Not just in status, but in our very nature. We’re not born neutral, and then discover sin and consequently become sinners. We’re born sinners, and that’s why we sin. We can’t do otherwise. This is the doctrine of original sin, and it often gets bad press.
Gift of Original Sin?
The doctrine of original sin goes against so much of our instinctive Western individualism. It can feel unfair. But just as my eating fried sheep’s offal every late December is tangible evidence of my family background, so too the propensity of all of us to sin is evidence of where we come from. Original sin might be a hard doctrine to accept, but it’s one of the easiest to prove. There are around 7.7 billion pieces of evidence for it walking around the planet today.
“Original sin might be a hard doctrine to accept, but it’s one of the easiest to prove.”
If, however, we deeply accept what the Bible tells us, the doctrine can transform us for the better. Most importantly, we will cherish what Christ has done for us all the more. This is Paul’s purpose in Romans 5 — to show how Adam’s actions are a photonegative of Christ’s. We were in Adam, made sinners through what he did. But by God’s grace we are now in Christ, made righteous through what he has done.
When I first became a Christian, I was barely aware of how deeply rooted sin was in my life. The more I’ve come to appreciate this, the more I’ve realized just how much Jesus achieved on the cross.
Seeing Others Through Adam
But original sin hasn’t just deepened my appreciation for the cross; it’s changed how I see other people. Properly understood, it should make us more compassionate. The very part of this we often find difficult — our helplessness through Adam — can soften our hearts to one another.
Adam’s sin makes all who succeed him sinners by nature. The presence of sin in our lives is inevitable. We can’t help it. It doesn’t mean we’re not responsible, or that there aren’t consequences for our sin, or that God isn’t right to condemn and punish it, but it shows just how helpless we all are apart from Christ. We’re sinners and can’t be otherwise. When we see another lost person sin, we’re watching them be the only thing they know how to be. It doesn’t make it less wrong, but it makes it all the more understandable. We can’t snap ourselves out of this. We can only be reborn out of it.
This shapes how we see all of humanity, even at its ugliest. It explains the world to us, showing us how even with unprecedented wealth, education, and technology, we can’t seem to get our act together as a species. We may be cleverer, healthier, and cleaner, but we’re not better. We see the ongoing pattern of sin, that inherent Adamness, repeating itself in each new generation. No human advances will get us out of this.
This doesn’t mean we don’t do what we can to encourage social reform or pursue justice. God’s common grace means there are ways we can restrain aspects of our sinfulness. We rejoice over efforts to abolish trafficking, racial discrimination, and abortion. But we do so knowing the deeper issue hasn’t been resolved: sin is native to us, and sinners are going to sin.
How Original Sin Warms a Heart
How does original sin make us more compassionate? We see opportunities in nearly every area of life. For instance, parents, this doctrine teaches us that your child’s sinfulness isn’t just the result of your imperfections as a parent. Even if, somehow, you’d made all the right parenting choices at every moment along the way, your child would still be a sinner.
“The doctrine of original sin makes the gospel all the more urgent, and all the more precious.”
I’m not a parent, but I encounter plenty of sinners. A pushy driver cuts me up in busy traffic: fine — it’s just a sinner being a sinner; no need to get upset. My wallet gets stolen: I’ll cancel my cards and make whatever arrangements need to be made, but I’ll also pray for the thief — he or she needs the new heart only Jesus can give. I meet someone with highly complex issues that has made him or her hard work to be around — I’ll do what I can to understand what’s going on under the surface, but I can feel assured that I already know what’s most deeply needed.
Every person I meet, no matter how different from me culturally or ethnically or economically — this lens of original sin helps me to understand what that person most needs deep down. However bewildering another culture may be to me, the underlying superstructure of the human heart is the same. Our birth certificates may state that we were born in London or Peshawar or Madrid or São Paulo. But spiritually, we’re all born in Adam.
The best-raised child will still be fallen. The most advanced human civilization will be no less sinful than the least. It makes the gospel all the more urgent, and all the more precious. Every human I set eyes on today (including the one in the mirror) has the same ultimate need and helplessness. By nature, we’re all descendants of Adam, whatever is on the menu for our post-Christmas breakfast.
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Pray and Obey Anyway: How God Meets Us in the Valley
Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
This brief sentence at the end of the eighth Screwtape letter may not be as life-changing as other sentences have been for me, but it has certainly been faith-sustaining. I realized this recently when I noticed just how frequently I return to it. I quote it twice in my book on Narnia. Whenever I give a talk on C.S. Lewis, I find myself quoting it (even when I haven’t planned to). In counseling sessions with students or members of our church, the words frequently roll off my tongue. Most importantly, I know how often I preach it to myself in the midst of dry times.
Law of Undulation
The sentence appears in a letter from Screwtape to Wormwood about “the law of Undulation.”
Undulation is a fancy word for “wave-like rhythm.” The law of Undulation refers to a permanent feature of human life in our mortal condition. Screwtape derisively refers to humans as amphibians, creatures with one foot in the spiritual world (like angels) and one foot in the material world (like animals). As spirits we belong to the eternal world, but as animals we inhabit time.
“In all areas of our life, periods of emotional richness are regularly followed by periods of dryness and dullness.”
While our spirits can be directed to an eternal object, our bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual flux. The result is undulation — “the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.” In all areas of our life, periods of emotional richness and bodily vitality are regularly followed by periods of dryness, dullness, numbness, and poverty.
Peaks and Valleys
Screwtape explains why God has subjected human beings to the law of Undulation. Fundamentally, God aims to fill the universe with little replicas of himself. He intends for the lives of his image-bearers to be a creaturely participation in his own life as our wills are freely conformed to his will. God wants us to be united to him and yet distinct from him.
Troughs, especially spiritual troughs, serve this larger purpose. At times in the Christian life, God makes his presence manifest and felt. He makes himself sensibly present to us, with an emotional sweetness that empowers us to more easily triumph over temptation. Obedience flows from us like rivers from a living spring. Prayer is like breathing — the most natural and normal overflow of God’s felt presence in our lives. These are the peaks of the Christian life.
But then come the valleys, the troughs. God withdraws himself, not in actual fact, but from our conscious experience, from our felt reality. In doing so, he removes the emotional support and spiritual incentives that made obedience seem so natural and effortless. In these times, God is calling us to carry out our duties without the emotional richness and relish that his felt presence provides (though not apart from his sustaining grace). In doing so, we grow into creatures whose wills are more fully conformed to his own.
Desiring Versus Intending
This brings us to the faith-sustaining sentence, “Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys” (Screwtape Letters, 42). We can break it into parts in order to understand it better.
Lewis here makes a distinction between “desiring to do God’s will” and “intending to do God’s will.” This distinction is produced by the law of Undulation. Doing the will of God feels hard in the valley. It’s heavy and burdensome because the emotional sweetness of God’s presence is not felt.
In these times, we feel divided from ourselves. At one level, there is no desire. This is the level of the passions, those almost instinctive and intuitive reactions to reality that are closely tied to our bodies. At that level, we feel no desire to do God’s will because God is sensibly absent. His presence is not felt, and so our passions (i.e., desires) are not stirred up. But at another level — the level of reason and will — there is intention. This level is higher (or perhaps deeper) than the level of passions. Here there is a deep and fundamental commitment, even a deep and fundamental and enduring desire to do God’s will.
In such moments, we are like Christ in Gethsemane, saying, “Not my will, but yours be done.” “Not my will,” that is, “I don’t want to do this; I don’t desire to drink this cup.” Nevertheless, at a deeper level, “Your will be done.” That is, “I still intend to do your will, and this intention reflects a deeper and more enduring desire in my heart.”
Gap Between Want and Ought
Lewis expresses this division elsewhere in a discussion on prayer in Letters to Malcolm. Prayer, he notes, can feel irksome. “An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome” (113). And this is deeply unsettling to us, since we were made to glorify God and enjoy him forever. “What can be done for — or what should be done with — a rose tree that dislikes producing roses? Surely it ought to want to?”
If we were perfected, Lewis says, prayer would not be a duty, but a delight. So would all of the other activities we classify as duties. In fact, the category of duty is created precisely by this gap between our spontaneous desires and our real obligations. In other words, the distance between what we desire to do and what we ought to do is what creates the whole category of moral effort.
Lewis, however, insists that duty exists to be transcended. Angels don’t know (from the inside) the meaning and force of the word “ought” (115). Someday, God willing, we too will live beyond duty. Prayers and love to God and neighbor will flow out of us “as spontaneously as song from a lark or fragrance from a flower” (114). Until then, however, we live in the realm of duty, in which our desires and our obligations are frequently divided.
Lewis knows how to encourage us here: “I have a notion that what seem our worst prayers may really be, in God’s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling and contend with the greatest disinclination. For these, perhaps, being nearly all will, come from a deeper level than feeling” (116) — though, we should add, not from a deeper level than God’s grace.
God-Forsaken?
Returning to Screwtape, what frequently smothers our desires is that we “look round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished.” The “seems to” is crucial. Every trace of him hasn’t actually vanished. All of reality continually testifies to its Maker. The heavens perpetually declare the glory (Psalm 19:1).
But in the trough, our perception is diminished. Our felt reality is often out of accord with reality. And thus God “seems to” have vanished. This seeming is potent. We mustn’t underestimate the power of appearances, of seemings. But neither must we make our periodic (and even enduring) seemings the dictators of our actions. Lewis shows us a better way.
Acknowledging Our Valleys
What should the Christian in the trough do? Begin with honesty. Acknowledge the trough. Name the valley. If God seems absent, say so. Out loud.
More importantly, say so to God. The patient in Screwtape “asks why he has been forsaken.” He directs his observation upward, to the God who seems to have forsaken him. In doing so, he follows in a great biblical lineage.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? (Psalm 13:1)
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? (Psalm 10:1)
O Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? (Psalm 88:14)
In the face of (seeming) divine absence, faithful saints cry out to God and plead, “Why?” and “How long?” and “Arise, O Lord!” They echo Jesus on the cross, who himself echoed the psalmist: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; Psalm 22:1) This is what faith looks like in the trough.
“In the face of God’s apparent abandonment, the faithful Christian still obeys.”
The cry of desperation and confusion is faith in the face of felt divine absence. That’s why Lewis contends that prayers offered in the state of dryness please him in a special way. Unsupported by rich communications of the divine presence, lacking the emotional sweetness of the peaks, these prayers come from the deep places of the soul, the heart of hearts, which contains our deepest and most persistent longings and commitments.
And Still Obeys
The sentence crescendos with these final three words: “and still obeys.” In the absence of passionate desire, in the face of God’s apparent abandonment, the faithful Christian still obeys. God’s felt absence is never an excuse for sin. The poverty of our feelings, the dryness and the dullness — these can never be used to justify disobedience.
And make no mistake: that is the demonic stratagem in the troughs — to prey upon our experience of divine absence in order to lead us to abandon him altogether. Which is why the satanic cause is never more in danger than when every sensible support has been knocked out and we cling to Jesus anyway. If we, apart from eager desire to do God’s will, and with God’s felt absence pressing upon us, still cling to Jesus and seek to walk in the light, what else can the devil do?
Even more than that, such faithful obedience, over time and through the valley of shadows, is frequently the pathway to renewed experiences of God’s presence. As Lewis’s hero George MacDonald put it, “Obedience is the opener of eyes.” Faithfulness in the Master’s absence leads to the delight of returning to the Master’s presence. “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master” (see Matthew 25:21).
