Dear Bruce, Weekly–Dealing a Blow to Destructive Patterns
25. January 2008 by BruceSmith.
Dear Bruce,
Why is it so hard for me, after being a Christian for year, to deal with habits and issues that seem to plague even non-Christians? It seems like I am too prone to do the wrong thing too often. I don’t feel like I am a bad person. In fact, many great people I know have the same tendencies, but don’t seem to worry about it as much. Should I be so concerned with doing better? Or should I just relax and accept that I am human? I do want to become the person God wants me to be. Please, help.
Dave
Dave,
You are right in giving thought and concern to issues that continue to creep up in your life. Sin is a reality we all deal with and we ought to pay attention to its destructive nature. Some people do not take enough care in living the life God has called them to and so live a life beneath that which God calls them. When we just accept the sin in our lives we fail to recognize God’s call to a holy life and the fulfillment such a life offers. Sin is a problem. There is an approach we ought to take, and we can be increasingly victorious though never perfect this side of heaven.
Whether it is Adam and Eve in the Garden, Moses striking out in anger, David finding himself a deceitful, adulterous, murderer, or the darkness of our own hearts and desires, sin is present. We must, like Isaiah, abhor the sin, cry out to God for healing, and fall into the arms of Grace extended to us.
I hope you will continue to fight the fight, rest in His grace, and pursue the life He has called you to. Others around you are not your standard. God’s standard is the only standard worthy of your affections.
Below, please find an excerpt from Soul Storm (www.soulstormsite.com), which offers one literary legend’s approach to the sin in his own heart. Perhaps, you will find the kind of resolve and insight John Donne seemed to be crying out for. As you read, remember the words of Paul as he wrestled with the same reality, “…its the good I want to do that I fail to do…”. Paul goes on to affirm that where sin abounds, there grace abounds all the more. His grace, according to Paul, then compels us to strive further to remove the stain of sin, and to pursue the life God has called us to.
Read on!
Donne In
John Donne (1572-1631) was, perhaps, the greatest writer in the grand lineage of the many great Seventeenth-Century writers. Once a Roman Catholic, trained at Oxford, and eventually an ordained minister in the Anglican Church, he was a marvel with language. Not only a great preacher, he was also a heavenly magician with the pen. His use of words captures the soul like few in history. Donne’s ability to put to paper what most of humanity can only feel somewhere deep within but not express is seemingly beyond our realm. His writings, though rarely matched, are the inspiration of many great poets and writers of prose. The depth of psychological insight, drama, and emotion lead us to the heavens and to a place of passion we did not know existed within us. He was a complex person and his thoughts were deep and meaningful. They offer us much insight into our discussion on finding God amidst disaster. Two of his Holy Sonnets offer us the divine view of suffering, pain, and ultimate purpose. Donne deals with our battle for proper affections in this life and the temptation to settle for less than God has for us. As we will see shortly, Donne actually prays for more battering that he might be made into God’s image. He also demonstrates for us, in his famous sonnet on death, that even in what we so often view as ultimate disaster, God has the last word. So, let’s take a look.
Sonnet 14
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You
As yet but knock, breath, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
Let’s pause here to look at these first few lines. What is Donne saying? He is actually asking, beseeching God, to batter him. What if such a battering of our lives, our souls, would bring salvation-would we dare voice such a prayer? Donne continues by reminding God that up to this point the Creator had only brought a knock, a breath (small quiet wind), and some warm sunlight to lead him down the right path. According to Donne, this has not been sufficient to captivate his affections. What a contrast to the health, wealth and prosperity “gospel” we hear so much today! Donne goes a step further and calls on God to overthrow him, to forcefully break, blow, and burn him in order that he might be made new. One of the greatest writers in history, a man of God, suggests this is the road to newness of life.
We continue.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit You, but oh! To no end;
Reason, Your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived and proves weak or untrue.
In these lines, Donne is telling why this battle within him is so intense and his struggle so severe. He suggests that his soul is overrun by an enemy which holds him captive. Though Donne labors to “admit” God in his life, it does not come to fruition because his worldly passions get in the way. Reason, which should convince Donne of his need to offer all to God, does not even do the job. Though common-sense should defend us against the snares of this world, we too often fall prey to the allures of sin. Sin is pleasurable for the moment. The problem is that those “moments” become habits, and those habits become addictions, and those addictions become our destruction.
There’s more.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto Your enemy.
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to You, imprison me, for I
Except You enthrall me, never shall be free;
Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me.
At this point Donne is crying out to God with abandon about his dilemma. Though his love for God tugs him, He cannot escape the grip of worldly living because of his marriage to things which are at war against God’s purposes. In New Orleans, and America for that matter, we claim such piety. We suggest we are a “Christian” nation. And yet, are we not married to so much that is in opposition to God’s agenda?
All that Donne has written in this sonnet leads up to the crescendo of the last few lines. It is here that we see Donne’s need of a soul disaster for God’s purposes to take root. Donne cries out for the storm to come. In a stirring, emotional torrent Donne begs God to break the bonds of marriage to his former life. He cries out for the Lover of His soul to break the knot that ties him to a false love. Rather than freedom to love the harlot of sin, Donne now hungers for the imprisonment of being confined to God’s plan. That imprisonment is indeed where true freedom is found. His use of paradox in these last few lines is riveting. He shows the value of this divorce of soul in light of his being jailed in the love of God. The enthralling power of God, he urges, is the key to freedom. Again, he throws himself before his Maker in surrender of the old life, taking on a blessed future.
That brings us to the last line. “Nor ever chaste, except You ravish me”. Its worth reading again isn’t it? Chaste. Ravish. The two terms could not be more opposite. Much debate and inquiry has been made of John Donne’s use of these words here. The language, in that day, would have been jolting to the reader. In keeping with his matchless use of the English language, Donne is reaching for words which take the reader as far as possible in order to demonstrate just how severe our need of God’s love really is. We live in a culture where the chaste man or woman is ridiculed. In our city, the recklessness of sexual immorality runs wild. In our nation the promotion of sexual freedom is destroying the fabric of family life. In this last line Donne shocks the reader by calling on God to ravish his soul. Some scholars suggest the original usage of the word conveyed rape. Rape, by definition, is a taking by force what is not given or offered. Donne is suggesting that our need of a relationship with God and our obedience to Him is so great that we ought to allow the force of God’s rapturous love to overtake us and make us chaste unto Him.