Musings

The last year and a half that Matt and I lived in Chicago, we had the privilege of being interns in our church's ministry training program, Chicago Plan. One year we talked a lot about what it means to be "missional." At the end of the year, each intern wrote and presented a paper in response to all of our discussions. When I wrote my paper, I was again working through the reality of God as a Being. So, while it is written in the context of Chicago, Holy Trinity Church, and my job at Jimmy John's, may it help you to consider whether you've had similar experiences in your own context.                 The Bible is not God. The Gospel is not God. But there is a Creator who is Ruler over all, who defines reality and truth. He is just. He is Love. There is a Savior who frees the enslaved and brings hope to those in despair and loves so deeply that I often can’t understand it enough to be emotionally affected by it. There is a Comforter who brings peace to troubled

Relationship with someone I have never seen with my own eyes, and whose voice I've never audibly heard, but whose presence is everywhere (including within me) can be challenging. Specifically, I have had various times throughout my relationship with Jesus when I've realized He seems more like an idea than a Person. Those realizations usually make sense of my spiritual apathy. As I again try to realign with the reality of Jesus' person, I'm looking back on previous times I have worked through this and sharing some things I wrote during those times. Like most Moody students, one of the best classes I ever took was Images of Christ in the Novel, taught by Dr. Rosalie De Rosset. Below is an edited version of the first paper I wrote for that class, 4 years ago: My image of Christ is blurry. In the last year I’ve become a little flustered with how abstract God is to me. It’s shocking to be raised in an evangelical church that emphasizes relationship with Christ, only

    I have always squirmed when people talk about being "nothing" without Christ, being able to do "nothing" on our own, etc. In our self-esteeming culture, it doesn't easily integrate with our personal philosophies. I've never been the type to beat myself up; I don't really struggle much with feelings of failure. But through reading (again) The Search For Significance (by Robert McGee), I've realized that's because I don't often try the things I would probably fail at. So my confidence is based on my own performance just as much as a discouraged person's lack of confidence is based on their performance.      So how have I been dealing with this? By thinking more about my identity in Christ. It's a concept I had heard references to for years, but didn't really start to grasp it until a Moody professor taught me and my classmates to notice all of the references to Christ in the first few chapters of Ephesians. In looking at thos