The ancient monk John Cassian notes that there are people “who have given away worldly wealth in gold or silver or lands [who] are afterwards agitated about a knife, a pencil, a pin, or a pen.”25 We can so easily major on minors.
Giving, therefore, must come from a place of inner freedom and not from compulsion or mere necessity. Thus giving needs to come from a place of grace. This can only be the fruit of the renewing work of the Holy Spirit. And this freedom is living in joy in the goodness of God rather than in the quest to secure our own future and our own security.
Giving is more than an act of the hand. It is a grace that springs from the heart.
Thought
Giving becomes a grace when it blesses the receiver and transforms the giver.
John 12:26
January 26
The Imitatio Christi
The Christian life has to do with beliefs, worship, prayers, community, and service. But the very heart of a life of faith is following Christ’s way in the world. The way Christ lived and acted is the example that we are called to follow.
Christians have not always followed Christ’s way in the world. There has been violence instead of peacemaking; controversy instead of reconciliation; division instead of cooperation; legalism instead of grace; condemnation rather than welcome. The list goes on.
What this highlights, however, is that Christ will always continue to challenge us in the way we think, live, and act. To live the way Christ lived will be a lifelong challenge and process for us.
Gregory of Nyssa reminds us that “those who have an equal zeal for the good must thoroughly imitate and follow the pioneer of our salvation, and must put into practice what he has shown them.”26
Christian zeal must be patterned on Christ. We must not live our own agenda seeking God’s blessing. Instead, we must humbly seek to do only God’s will and way.
This calls us to ongoing conversion and repentance, for the way of Christ is a way that is so different to our natural inclinations. Thus, the imitatio Christi is grace we must receive through the Spirit, so we can live this grace in joy and faithfulness.
Reflection
The way of Christ calls us to the way of peace-making, self-giving, and suffering.
John 10:27–29
January 27
Holding and Being Held
No matter how great we are, we still have the need for love and care. And at times, when strength fails us, we need to be held and carried. This is all the more true in the spiritual journey. No matter how mature we may think we are, we will always be spiritual babes.
The Christian life is a life lived towards God. In reflection and prayer we seek to be attentive to the God who is with us and who calls us forward.
At times, and particularly in difficulty, we need to cling to this God, seeking God’s presence and help. And in times of vulnerability and need we need to be held in God’s love and in the care of others who need to nurture us.
Thomas à Kempis reminds us: “Hold fast to Jesus both in life and in death and commit yourself to His steadfast love, for He alone can help you when all others fail.”27
Here a double movement is identified: holding and being held. Clearly, the former flows out of the latter. God holds us and we cling to God. We call out to God but God is drawing us by his love and power.
Thus, it is never a matter of hanging on for grim death, but being secure in the great love of the Father through Christ. In that love lies our final security and safety. Finally, we are more held than we will ever realize.
Thought
Being held is no affront to our ability, just as being loved is no negation of our personhood.
Isaiah 55:6
January 28
A God Seeker
One cannot seek for what one does not know at all. One seeks for what one already knows. We thus seek the God we already know in some way.
Meister Eckhart makes the helpful point that having once tasted the goodness of God our appetite for God increases. He writes: with people seeking God “if they get no taste of divine sweetness, they drag; but if a man lies in wait until he does catch the taste of the divine, ever afterwards he is a glad seeker of God.”28
What needs to be noted is Eckhart’s emphasis on waiting and
seeking. This is insightful because we cannot orchestrate or demand the appearance of God. God is not at our beck and call. God comes in his own way and time.
Waiting and seeking not only point us in the direction of humility, but invite us on the pathways of contemplation. It is a walk of faith. It is prayer in darkness. It is seeing in anticipation. It is living in hope.
When the seeking heart finds, the seeking does not end. In fact, the opposite is the case. The search increases just as love may deepen when the beloved has been embraced. Once having tasted, the longing for more may become insatiable.
As a consequence, there is a certain restlessness about the Christian life. Having come home to the heart of God we seek to enter more fully into the purposes of God. Thus longing and journey are the hallmarks of the Christian way rather than rest and fulfillment.
Reflection
Having found we still seek. Such is the Christian journey.
Hosea 6:1
January 29
The God who Wounds and Heals
God is no favorite teddy bear or Father Christmas. God is the sovereign Lord of the universe whose ways with us, bathed in both mystery and revelation, will always challenge us.
One wonders whether the God of contemporary Western Christianity has anything very much to do with the God of the biblical story. It seems we have made God into a benign and convenient figure who is there to support us in our needs. Instead of God as Lord, we have made God the divine butler simply there for our own wants.
Gone is the sense that God is sovereign and that we are invited into both the joy and journey of a life of worship, prayer and obedience. When God is seen as central, rather than ourselves, then the focus of our lives is not how we can “use” God, but how we can be drawn more fully into God’s purposes. These purposes are not according to our agenda. They may be strange and difficult.
The desert father Abbot Apollo speaks of a God who “makes the sore and bindeth up: . . . woundeth and His hands make whole . . . bringeth low and lifteth up . . .”29
The way of God with us is one of correction and blessing. It is the way of the cross and the resurrection. But one can’t have one without the other. So with us—sorrow and blessing are part of the tapestry of the Christian life. We are, after all, the cruciform people of God. The purposes of God to bring shalom to the world will call us into both suffering and service and our own ongoing purgation will invite us into confession and healing.
Thought
We are healed through wounding and in a little dying lies the gateway to life.
Mark 10:45
January 30
For the Other
Ours has become such a self-preoccupied and pragmatic age that the call to serve the other sounds most strange, even alienating. Yet, it is at the heart of Christianity.
While our contemporary world still knows something of those who are lesser serving those who are more powerful, generally speaking the