Resurrection 11 Passion, Are We Breathing Spiritually?

[HKHaugan]

Resurrection 11 Passion, Are We Breathing Spiritually?

It's been reported in the media that a certain quarterback has turned 40. Will he or will he not retire? He's too old to keep on playing. What's interesting is the context in which we view people. In sports you are decrepit when you reach middle age. Now think of business. You really are just getting under way when you're 40. In politics 40 is too young to be mature enough to be in office. Pick any profession and its context determines your value. Pick a neighborhood you live in, a car you drive, where you vacation, the clubs to which you belong, schools you have attended, the religious denomination of which you are a member; all of them are contexts by which you are evaluated. It even gets more detailed when matters of appearance are considered; fat, tall, skinny, dark, light, clothing, hairstyles. Also, think about bumpers stickers and how people want to be identified by issues, places and things. We all have contexts that spring to mind when we see people.

Now here's the rub:

All you have to do in any worldly context to become irrelevant, including denominational ones, is to retire. Ask clergy that have and, if they're honest, the majority will agree. Your sought after opinions, when you were actively employed, are sacked. You are no longer asked to be on committees or consulted for advice. To try and bridge that gap is to face rejection or polite avoidance. Institutionally, you are forgotten. For many who thrived on recognition and challenge, the guillotine has dropped. Worldly contexts fail in their promise of personal fulfillment. Just what is all this about anyway?

I'm glad you asked.

Let's jump immediately into Scripture. Isn't it comforting to know that underneath all of the shenanigans of human judgment we have one major spiritual context? We are images of God (Gen.1:26). And...if we take the next step to believe in Jesus, we become children of God (John 1:12) who are always growing, learning and sharing. Who we are spiritually gives us the largest breathing room when it comes to seeing the ultimate reality and potential in ourselves and others. We are not dependent on any world context for meaning and purpose. All the other contexts wear out and when we depend on them for breathing room we end up hyperventilating. Ultimately you need to drag around a breathing apparatus of some kind, some activity that can make you feel good about yourself. Alas, it too runs out of oxygen.

But, as a child of God we have our recognition and fulfillment spiritually in our relationship with the Lord Jesus. We breathe spiritually. What started with Him in our spiritual rebirth continues into eternity. In this world every next moment is another opportunity to be spiritual, personal and relational wherever we are in a new and sometimes more freeing way. We pray to be used. This is not only true of retirement, it is true when we move to another place, end a relationship, change jobs, go on vacation, perhaps even serve using specific spiritual gifts where we were formally employed. The “Here am I, send me (Is.6:8)” never ends. It can be local or distant. As a personal child of God and younger brother or sister of the Lord, we are able right up to our last breath. We are a people of the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit our lungs.

However, this doesn't mean other contexts are bad. What it means is they are usable. It's all in how we use them. If we use them to justify ourselves we end up empty. But if we use them as children of God the Holy Spirit guides and fills them. We are spiritually breathing within them. There is no retirement or wearing out in being a child of God. You're always growing up, maturing and finding new insights for the mind, projects in which to invest the heart and people you meet with whom you share spiritually. So in Christ you are always open to what might happen in every next moment, encounter and occasion. Every day is full of events both new and continuing. Rather than how good we are in some secular context, that context will end. There's nothing to breathe with, no air left.

But if, as a child of God in Jesus, the Holy Spirit is our oxygen. We see every next moment as a grand opportunity to exhibit His principles, then we don't wear out even if our body does. So we do the best we can in the tasks given and second, to find those moments when we can share our faith with people while we are on the way to, at and from work, or wherever we've been. The basic principle we hold as believers is to make the Lord look good. Translated into the workplace, that principle gets us to want to make our boss look good or make a colleague look good. The followup to that is, if we are breathing spiritually, we will be looking for ways to be helpful to the others with whom we work, being relationally alert as well as professionally proper.

Simply put, it is our spiritual context that defines our attitude in the worldly contexts in which we find ourselves.

The spiritual context for Jesus was His Father's will. Everything He said and did was according to His Father's will. Jesus' will is His Father's will so that means Jesus' will is what we will. That's our context. The risen Lord Jesus is our context.

There are other words that carry the same meaning but in different ways. Perspective, mindset, paradigm are words that describe a 'frame of mind,' the ideas it accepts and believes. But what about the heart, the kind of non-verbal sense of right and wrong as the individual presents himself? Here we might say that what drives the heart is its trust factor, its passion, what possesses it. The final question has to do with our spirit. What drives it? What enables the mind and heart to step out in action? You have to go back to what the heart trusts, its passion. Now we are down to the bottom line. What our heart has passion for needs to be expressed and that modus operandi is faith. Faith is the living attitude that believes in its goals, the passion to trust those goals and the power to take that passion into each next moment and put the whole person into achieving it.

But there is a difference between the world's goals and spiritual goals. Everyone is born with and uses their capacities of mind, heart and spirit---belief, trust and faith---every day, but to what end? To name a few, there's the Lombardi Trophy in football, the World Cup in soccer, the gold medal in the Olympics, the top position in a business, high rank in the military, high office in politics and a PhD in education. But those moments of achievement end. What then?

In the Oscar winning 80's movie Chariots of Fire, centered on the Scotsman Eric Liddell, a Christian who was chosen to represent England in the 1924 Olympics. His life choice was to be a missionary in China. His sister Jenny, questioned his decision to run. She felt it would sway him from his mission. He said to her, “Jenny, God made me for China but He also made me fast and when I run I feel His pleasure.” He had a passion within a passion and he was both a witness in his talent as well as being a witness in his profession. He died in 1945 in a Communist prison in China. Overwork and malnutrition finally did him in. He was a self- denying witness for Jesus to the very end. He was a living illustration of a mind, heart and spirit moving in a spiritual context. That's our calling. Whatever level of passion for Jesus we have is unique in each of us so that we can let our personal passion loose. This is our heart's drive and our spirit's work. Everything will fit in place if we do.

On a more personal level, the church we attend in the Summer up in the mountains had a retired pastor, nicknamed 'Chief', of a church that had some 2500 members. When he came to this smaller mountain church he became an usher. He also had the gift of remembering people's names. After the first time we walked in he would greet us by name. What we later found out was that every person walking through the door was put on a list and prayed for by him and his wife every week. When asked about his new 'job' he would proudly announce himself as the assistant to the head usher.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go (Joshua 1:9).”

The passion Jesus had for being His Father's Son, to give His life for His Father's people, His people, the Spirit's people, is the passion that gave Eric Liddell his passion for China and being a witness through his talents. It was Jesus' passion that gave 'Chief' the blessing of a congregation and in his retirement, the Spirit to be the assistant to the head usher.

The passion of Jesus is given each of us to be Resurrection people. When Jesus tells us we are salt and light He's referring to the passion for Him that people see without and sense within. Care to dare to share. Caring, daring, sharing. That's spiritual breathing. That's what a Resurrection people do.