April 17 - John 9: Looking for the Linear Path

Jesus said, 'You're asking the wrong question.  You're looking for someone to blame.  There is no such cause-and-effect here.  Look instead for what God can do.   (9:1-2)

The disciples' question in the opening of this chapter well exemplefies our pattern of linear thinking.  If someone is blind, suffering, miserable, addicted, or broken then there must be a reason, a cause that has created this situation.  We want someone or something to blame, we desire a reasonable explanation, something to point to as the problem.  Then, we can get to work fixing the cause and alleviating the effect.  This is our human nature at work.  Jesus is saying, stop looking for the linear path and "look instead for what God can do."

I recognize myself in this pattern of linear thinking.  I'm analytical, trained in breaking processes down to their minute steps to find a bottleneck or an area to improve to create greater efficiency or quality.  This can be helpful when applied to an assembly line or a development process.  It'smuch less effective when I attempt to limit God according to my analysis.

In The Pressure's Off, Larry Crabb addresses this prevalent pattern of thinking among Christians.  I'm going to include a lengthy selection from the book that identifies how linear thinking can sneak in, disguised as spirituality, and affect our relationship with God and with others.

"... I'm troubled most by the often unstated and unrecognized assumption that lies beneath our resolve to experience a better life.  The assumption might be called the law of Linearity.  It goes like this:

"Choose what you want out of life, figure out what you have to do to get it, then follow the rules.  Select the B you desire, then perform the A that leads to it.  There's an A - a strategy - that leads to every B - a goal.

 "That's the Law of Linearity.  Let me offer a few examples.

• Do you want to be spiritual?  Then practice spiritual disciplines, not to create space for a merciful and sovereign God to work in the depths of your hungry, humble soul, but rather to generate the level of spirituality you want.  There's a line between the practice of spiritual disciplines and the experience of spirituality, an arrow pointing from the practice (A) to the experience (B).  You are in control.  B follows A.
• Do you want this crisis with your daughter to resolve itself well?  Consult with a seasoned counselor who specializes in adolescence, not to discern where the Spirit is moving through this trial in both of your lives, but rather to build a bridge between you and your daughter that will allow the two of you to soon meet in a healing and warm embrace.  There's an A that will lead to the B you desire.  Don't be concerned that reconciliation with your daughter has become a higher priority than drawing near to God.  Go after the better life you want.
• Do you want to overcome your sexual addiction?  Join a recovery group of men who are serious about moral purity, not to revel in God's grace and to discover how badly you long to know Him, but rather to find the help you need to keep  you away from pornography.  The point is getting your life together, not getting closer to God.  And there's a way to do it.  The Law of Linearity says so.  Be practical.  Figure out what it takes to solve your problem.

"Let me put it more generally.  We all want our lives to work well, to become better than they are or to remain as good as they are.  When that desire becomes our goal, the objective we most value, then we like to believe the Law of Linearity is operative.  We want to believe there's an A we can do that will lead to the B we want.  Our lives then become a sustained effort to discover and follow whatever principles will provide a life that lets us feel pretty good.

"And it sometimes works... But you might end up farther from God.  And you will end up farther from God if you think of these principles as methods to produce the better life you want....

"The spiritual journey is not about living as we should so life works as we want.  It's not a linear path.

"It's not about growing up into the maturity of a good self-image and developing the energy to do good things;  it is about growing down into the brokenness of self-despair and deepening our awanress of how poorly we love compared to Trinitarian standards.  It's not about working hard to get it right so we can present ourselves before God to receive the blessings we desire;  it is about coming before Him as we are, honestly, pretending about nothing, becoming increasingly convinced that we can't get it right though we try as hard as we can, then listening for the whisper of the Spirit.  'Welcome!  You're home.  You're loved.  You'll be empowered to speaks with your unique voice as you heard the Voice of God singing over you with great love.' "

I was blind.  Now I see.