by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, you talk a lot about surrendering your life to God. I have two questions: (1) Do you honestly think you can do that? and (2) How do you negotiate the frantic, unexpected overload of sound bites and conflicting demands on your time any better because you’re trying to surrender your life to God? I know this may seem pushy and cynical, but I am sick of religious crap and am just wondering how much you are saying is real for you and how much is phony? (I have other questions but they depend on your answer to the first one.)
Good questions. Your questions remind me of the man many years ago who was sent to investigate me for heresy. I’ve wrestled a lot with both of these questions. Sounds like you’re a serious player.
Question number one is easy, and the answer gets at the heart of my own spiritual journey. Sometimes I hate to write these pieces every week because I can see so many ways my life is far from “totally surrendered to God.” But at another level, this attempt at total surrender has been the doorway to the life I got three degrees and helped build a business looking for—but never found.
I’ve come to believe two things about “being totally surrendered to God.” First, since Freud’s postulation of the unconscious, most thinking people believe that much more than half of the content stored in our minds is not even accessible to us—memories, painful facts, sins, resentments and experiences of all sorts hide from us when we try to call them back, etc. If the “unconscious” is a real phenomenon, then if I did surrender all of my life I can see to God, two-thirds of my life might not be committed at all. And the next morning after the “surrender,” a long-buried lust or lie or memory of hurting or cheating someone (or someone hurting me), or a scheme to get even, may jump into my mind full blown along with attached unsurrendered feelings of anger, guilt, resentment or lust—none of which were conscious to me when I surrendered my life. In other words, I don’t believe we even have access to most of our past experiences when we consciously surrender our lives to God.
A common example of this not being able to access material in our own minds happens to students all the time. Let’s say that you prepare thoroughly for an examination in school. During the exam, you come to a question that you studied for and had the answer down pat the night before. But though passing the test is very important, you cannot remember the answer. Finally the bell rings, and you have to turn in your exam. Then, walking down the hall two minutes later, the answer appears “out of nowhere.” There are many other examples of not being able to access information in our own minds.
Since every life contains some sins, guilt, selfish attitudes and lusts that are not ever conscious when we decide to “surrender our whole lives to God,” I believed that all I could do was to decide, “Do I really want to surrender my entire present, past and future to God?” And I make that surrender.
With that decision (for me) came the realization that the journey to wholeness in Christ is largely a matter of being willing to face the unsurrendered areas of my life and surrender them when they appear—though I may have been in denial about them for years.
But by trying to live my entire sleeping, eating, working, playing life for God, I have seen things that have been hurting my closest relationships for years that I might never have owned. And as a Christian I have steps to take to surrender them. (Confession, making amends, etc.)
So when I finally surrendered, I gave God permission to help me see unsurrendered acts, thoughts and character problems Only then could I confess them, make amends when necessary, and ask God to help me not to wander in areas of my life where I might repeat those acts and patterns of thought that put me in the hidden “control seat” of my life instead of God.
There were a couple of areas which seemed to be so important to my inner security and comfort that I didn’t in any serious way consider surrendering to God to the extent that I could say “I will trust you for the amount and/or fulfillment in these two areas and I will do your will even if it means giving up my financial security and my sex life in order to be the loving and non-manipulative man you created me to be. And I am willing to trust you to guide me in working out how to deal with these as well as every other area of my life.
When somehow I made that surrender to God, the surprise was that intuitively I knew my life would never be the same. My perception of my whole life and all my close relationships came into focus in a different way. And at the same time I realized that I had never really trusted God with my life before—though I’d said the words of surrender. But as a sub-conscious level I knew that I was not going to surrender my sex life nor my financial security to God. And although I was not doing anything dishonest or immoral about getting sex or financial security—I was uneasy about the suspicion that my spiritual growth was going to stop if I didn’t finally offer these things to God.
And finally making that that decision and surrendering everything to God led me to discover the answers to your second question: “How do you negotiate the terrific overload of your life any better because of having surrendered?” (I’ll write about that here next week.)
Writing about the real dynamics of what goes on in the lonely silence behind our “adequate faces” may seem irrelevant or even not Christian to some of you. But at this stage of my life, I am sick of my own unreality and failure to risk rejection in order to share as honestly as I can what is true for me about living and loving for God. And the truth about “surrender” for me is that, as scary as it was the first time, the willingness to take that step each morning is making me feel at home in my own skin—and at our house.
“Lord, help me not to try to run other people’s lives as I am learning so late to trust you and walk peacefully and with you and other people with an open heart to love your hurting lonely people —even those who discount us. I do love the people you have introduced me to in the past. And I am sad when I think that my attempt to surrender to you as something that will cause them to back off and find more sane and reasonable friends. But I know that the beautiful, sinful, and trapped new people being freed to whom you have introduced Andrea and me—the tribe of those who will not, cannot, stay locked inside with their fears and dishonesty, people who want to risk going with you on your scary creative adventure of turning loose, and perhaps walking together with us into the future.” Amen.
“Surrender is the stage of “final satisfaction” because we discover in that moment of surrender that the God who seeks us is also the God we seek; that in being found of God we find God in the only way God can be found; that in being thus defeated we are in the only possible way victorious.”
John Knox, Limits of Unbelief
Is surrender ‘going overboard’ on our faith if we want to be great human beings? Alfred North Whitehead said, “…a certain excessiveness seems necessary in all greatness. In some direction or other we must devote ourselves beyond what would be warranted by the analysis of pure reason.” Alfred North Whitehead, The Adventure of Ideas
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you. Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life—and place it before God as an offering.”
Paul’s letter to the Romans 2:1, THE MESSAGE
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I was a basket case when I became a Christian divorcee (lost joy, divorced and terribly lonely) but my life is changing a lot—for the better. I’ve become a Christian, but I don’t seem to have any of the gifts the leaders in our church do. I can’t preach, teach, and I don’t know enough about the Bible or theology to answer peoples questions about the faith to help people decide about Christ. It seems like people like me with no religious gifts or qualifications are just supposed to write checks, pass the plate and shake hands at the door. I hate to say this, but the truth is if that’s all there is, it won’t be long before I am bored out of my skull! How can I get some qualifications to help people find God?
Very real question! I don’t know what you were told being a Christian means, nor what kind of Christian Formation classes are available in your group but by the time I was 23 I’d helped bury all the members of my family except my mother. I’d broken my neck in a car wreck and only a great doctor and a lot of painful therapy allowed me to recover and start learning that I was pretty well powerless over a lot of things in my life. Then when I was 27, my mother discovered she had cancer and only had a few months to live—she was 64.
I am telling you this because about that time I came to what I felt was the end of my rope and made an attempt to surrender my life to God. I had been drinking quite a bit and did not think I had much to offer God.
But during the next few years I worked hard trying to be a good Christian and taught a kids Sunday School classes.
About that time I met a man who was very real and honest with me. When I told him I didn’t feel I had the correct qualifications to talk to other people about surrendering their lives to God, he laughed and said, “you want me to help you?” I nodded.
He asked me to tell him my life story. So I told him about the pain and loneliness of losing my family and about my failures as a man, a husband and a parent.
I don’t remember exactly how he worded his response to my story, but what I heard was, “what are your other qualifications for leading people to God?”
Other qualifications??
“Yea, the pain you experienced in helping all the members of your family die and learning how to clear up their things after they were gone qualifies you to understand, listen to and help people who are going through that pain and fear (of dying for instance) in ways a Bible teacher or professional theologian never could unless they’d been there. Same with you breaking your neck and facing possible paralysis and your divorce after you became a Christian.”
“These are credentials for helping people find God??”
“Well, did God help you through these crisis and the pain you walked through?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then the story of each of these events that were so painful to you at the time, can be a drawbridge you can let down and walk across into other peoples lives who are suffering as you have. You can go to people and ask them to tell you about what happened to them. Then you can tell them that you experienced these tragedies and share your story with them—they will know you understand and will not be as lonely and scared because you obviously made it through the experiences. And as you offer to be with them and help them in practical ways, you may have a chance to point over your shoulder and tell them what it meant to you to have the sense that God was with you—perhaps through other Christians, or prayer—and when you got to the end of yourself you surrendered your life and will to God.”
“How will telling my story, my experiences help them find God? Seems to me they want help not stories.”
“When his followers asked Jesus why he always told stories to people He said that “if there is no readiness, any trace of receptivity soon disappears. That’s why I tell stories: to create readiness, to nudge the people toward receptive insight. In their present state they can stare till doomsday and not see it, listen till they’re blue in the face and not get it.” (Matthew 13:12, The Message)
“You mean I’m going to preach to them at a family funeral?”
“Of course not, but you asked about credentials and I’m just telling you that pain, failure, and loneliness have been my greatest credentials—the fact that I am a Christian and I love people when they have problems that I’ve had, has given me more credibility with some people than Billy Graham or Henry Nouwen—if these people (Billy Graham or Henry Nouwen) have not been through the same experiences and survived with God’s help. And what I learned is that if I go to love the people in trouble and not try to evangelize them, they will wonder why I came. Especially people I’m not related to and from whom I don’t want anything.”
“But, what if they don’t ask about God?”
“My job, as a Christian, is just to love them (Matthew 25)—to visit them and open my life to them and “to live generously”. Doesn’t sound very effective. But my job is not to be effective but to love people, and besides until I get to know someone and walk alongside them a little, I don’t know how they are already coping and what they may need.”
“You mean, as a Christian, you just go through your days and weeks finding ways you might be able to love people you are with?”
“That’s about it—and after just hanging out with people, you would be amazed at the incredible things that happen to some of them when they feel loved by someone who’s not trying to change them out somehow.”
“But the point is that it’s not my knowledge or academic credentials that are my real credentials for loving people from God’s sake, but stories of the pain and failure that God helped me get through. These stories are stored in my memory and become my human resources.
“He said, “Then you see how every student well-trained in God’s kingdom is like the owner of a general store who can put his hands on anything you need, old or new, exactly when you need it.” Matthew 13: 52, The Message
“You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. . . . I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14, The Message
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I’ve been secretly wondering if I’m a real nut case—I’m highly motivated to do well and be a good Christian—but I resist doing things that are difficult and or will take a lot of time—even if the payoff for me will be great. I don’t tell anyone about this problem because my vocation involves complex and time consuming research and writing—which I love but which I put off and put off until I miss a deadline. Am I alone with this problem?
I don’t know how many others have this problem, but I sure do. I may wake up feeling very uneasy with a strong urge to “escape.” Suddenly, I sit up in bed, wondering, “What’s the matter with you?” As I reflect on our family life and my job, I realize that things are really going very well. We’re all healthy and have enough to eat, and no major problems are undermining the comfort of our life together. I am in the midst of writing a book. But I have the feeling that it is dull and no one will read it—or if they do, they will think I am naïve. So I will have to go through the agony of reworking the manuscript again to try to reproduce in writing the pictures which I see in my mind. And this is very difficult for me.
At this point I saw my problem. For some reason I was trying to avoid writing, the very thing I love to do. Why? As I thought back over my life, I realized that I have often avoided things I really wanted to do, just because they were difficult. I remember as a skinny little boy wanting to have a well proportioned physique. But I would do almost anything, including feigning sickness on occasion, to avoid heavy muscle-building work around our yard. I love to learn, and yet in school I avoided studying for exams as long as possible.
I said here, last week, that later, as an adult, I strongly resisted the notion of committing my life to God—for many years. Although I was strongly attracted to the idea and suspected that it was the better way, the suggestion of “total commitment” made me angry and was repelling. Such a commitment would no doubt fill my life with difficulties and force me to examine my true motivations at every turn. I was convinced that I would have to give up the normal joys and goals of living.
Throughout my life a strong desire has often forced me to overcome my resistance and try the more difficult thing: to begin doing the calisthenics, work, study in school, and finally, to become a Christian. In each case, when I chose what appeared to be the difficult course, I learned a strange truth about life: often the difficulties were actually the doorways to growth and fulfillment. Yet, I have spent much of my life, both before and after becoming a Christian, unconsciously avoiding painful and uncomfortable situations.
I realized this morning that most of the insights that have been of value to me in relating to other people were distilled from my own difficulties and pain in trying to wrestle with the problems of life. Some of these things—the conflict with loved ones, the blundering mistakes in trying to learn to pray at home—some of these seemed funny when I wrote or told about them in retrospect. But at the time I was facing the situations they were difficult, agonizing encounters from which I wanted to run—and often did.
I cannot recall a single person who has been of real help to me in learning to cope with life who has not personally faced some great difficulties or suffering in his or her own experience, even though he or she may have seemed profoundly positive and joyful.
The second thought that struck me was that the experience we call “joy” does not usually come from the trouble-free and effortless periods of life. Rather, joy seems to be distilled from a strange mixture of challenge, risk, and hope. And as I have met in groups with other uncertain Christians to share the difficulties in our families, vocations, and relations with other people and God, the effect has often been one of deep joy and insight into life—even though the difficulties themselves may not have been overcome.
But if this is true, then I should not run from the risk of difficulty and responsibility as I have done so often. I should quit trying to avoid necessary hard tasks but instead thank God for them. Because these things seem to provide the main doorways to character and firsthand knowledge about life. (I am not saying that one should go out looking for personal pain and difficulties. This tendency can be a mental sickness called masochism. It has been my experience, however, that one will find plenty of problems and pain to face just trying to do God’s will.)
My restlessness this morning must have been because I did not want to face the difficulty of writing these pages to you. But doing it has brought a great sense of peace about today. And I hope that for the rest of the day I will spend less time running from the tasks and problems that may lead me to life and wholeness.
People then should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters. Suffering is nature’s way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and… to the non-egocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. Rollo May, The Art of Counseling
Where there is no strife there is decay: “The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.”
Heraclitus, As quoted in The Story of Philosophy
Father, thank You that Your Holy Spirit seems to use my hours of conflict and suffering as “teachable moments” in my life. Help me to distill from difficulties a way of living that is whole and gutsy and does not sugarcoat reality. Give me the grace not to reject those Christians whose circumstances have been such that they claim they have never personally faced fear of failure and the frustration of suffering through something difficult. Thank You that Your presence with me in my weakness often brings endurance and hope.
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Romans 5:3-5
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, you seem to be writing a lot about the importance of surrendering your entire life to God. I have some fear about trusting God that much. Were you afraid to really turn loose? What’s the real skinny on actually deciding to?
P.S. And also, can you guide me to other writers who have helped you regarding the idea of surrender?
The simple answer is “yes,” only I wasn’t just a little afraid to surrender totally. I wasn’t sure it would even be safe to. I had started my real Christian adventure by committing “as much of my life as I could to as much of God as I could understand.” That commitment allowed me to come out of the spectator section onto the playing field and become a “visible” serious Christian. But when I first heard that God was calling me to “surrender my whole life” to him, I was very fearful. I had been baptized and confirmed and made some serious commitments and changes in my disciplines, behavior and attitude.
But there were some problems. People in my close relationships seemed to think I was controlling them (while I thought they were trying to control me.) And certain things plagued my intimate relationships, arguing with my spouse about some of the parameters of our most intimate life (ego, money, sex, and who’s really in charge here). Whatever the issues, I had an inordinate need to be declared “right,” even in arguments about who said what, etc.
I could not surrender to God because that meant I might have to acknowledge my self-centeredness and quit trying to make sure I always turned out to be the “good guy”—or that I might have to quit thinking some clearly un-Christian thoughts that occupied a lot of my time. Although I managed to change enough habits and behaviors that were very important and made me more vulnerable than I’d ever been, I just wasn’t willing to risk trusting God with my whole life that much—in a blank check sort of way. I didn’t trust that God would work the above issues out in ways that would make me happy or allow me to do well in a competitive world. This wasn’t all conscious, but I now can see it was very real and confining. So I just muddled along, experiencing a lot of anger and rejection in my most personal relationships—and ironically, honestly helping a lot of people.
But finally, in a treatment center, the pain got big enough to drive me to the end of my rope because of the threat of losing my family’s love and respect altogether. That put me in a position of powerlessness. I saw that with all I’d learned during my studies in theology and psychology, I couldn’t make anyone forgive me nor love me. At that point I finally really surrendered everything to God. I stepped through the portal of fear-filled pain in me and awareness that I was powerless to change my family’s opinion of me. And I simply surrendered my entire life (including the future) to God.
What has happened since that time has not been easy, but the sense of peace and the new perspective on just about everything has surprised me beyond anything I can describe to you.
I saw that God doesn’t evidently want me to spend all my energy focusing on “being good” or being “more religious,” but rather to focus on trusting and loving God, facing my denied selfish habits and learning how to be real and loving toward the people in all the different everyday areas of my life. But I now realize that I couldn’t possibly have kept all the rules, perfectly, or the disciplines, or loved perfectly—without a lot of denial and rationalization. I finally had to admit that in spite of all my determination and ability, I am powerless to transform myself into what I thought God wanted me to be.
About that time I was told that the faith that can transform our lives is not religious but “spiritual.” Whereas a religious person wants to know how to do the religious behaviors and disciplines and services that the religion prescribes, a spiritual person (particularly one who is committed to the God Jesus called Father) wants to know and do what’s real and loving in and outside of any church with which one affiliates. I finally got it that if an individual person is being the person he or she was made to be, that person will no longer focus his or her life on ‘goodness’, but rather on being authentic and trusting, while loving God and loving and helping other people become all they can be under God.
That was when I began to understand why I hadn’t been able to “give up” and surrender to God. In grad school I had learned from psychologists that everyone has several basic ‘drives’ that guide us to the things we need in order to survive: hunger, thirst, sex, autonomy, power, closeness, etc. But in our fear of not getting all we need, we have twisted these normal and natural instincts and exaggerated them to make sure we get what we decide we want (are entitled to)—based on what we are taught by our materialistic culture that we “deserve” if we are willing to work hard enough for them.
So I discovered that if I want to be the person God evidently designed me to become, I have to try to surrender my entire life to God, and then face my compulsively exaggerated and twisted focus on some of those basic instincts, and then confess the ways I have hurt and used other people in my life by using anger and subtle manipulation to get more than my share of money, possessions, prestige, sex etc., And as I saw these unacceptable facts and events in my life, I learned to make amends. When I tried to do these things, my worship and trust of God felt natural, and strengthening. (See Matt 5:23-24)
Now when I go through the daily process of facing, confessing, and making amends for my harmful actions toward God and the other people hurt by these self-enhancing behaviors, then the instincts and need to be right usually shrink toward being normal sized. And my experience over a number of years indicates that God will not try to make me into a super-pious saint. But instead, God is gradually allowing me to feel at home in my own skin and enjoy using and sharing the gifts and abilities he has given me to help other people to move toward becoming all they can be as God’s children. And most of the time I’m not afraid of getting old and all the shriveling that involves, (although it’s true that women don’t give me a second look any more (except maybe to see if I’m going to make it across the street safely). And that tells me that I’m not exactly “ruby-lipped and 22. But I am happy, really happy, and in love with my wife, Andrea. And I know that deciding to surrender my whole life to God was the biggest step on this leg of the adventure in loving we’re on.
And I’m still fascinated and passionate about learning all I can concerning God as God is revealed in Jesus, and about living that kind of loving.
Thanks for asking.
God, forgive my frightened stubborn avoidance of surrendering my life and my will. Help me to surrender this day and just trust you. Teach me how to love you more, and how to love other people and help them become what you made them to be. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear.” 1 Jn 4:17 (THE MESSAGE)
P.S. The following are a few statements of faith from people whose writing has helped me along the way in looking for the courage to surrender:
“If then, thou desirest to obtain freedom and grace, freely to offer thyself into the hands of God is the first essential. The reason why so few attain to inward light and freedom is because they cannot endure wholly to deny themselves. ‘My words remain unalterable: Unless a man forsake all he cannot be my disciple. If therefore thou desire to be my disciple offer thyself unto me with thy whole heart.’ “ Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, p. 253.
“Men often take their imagination for their heart; and they believe they are converted as soon as they think of being converted.” Blaise Pascal, Penses, p. 78.
“But conversion is not realizing that it is possible. It is a conscious submitting of all we see of ourselves to all we understand of God. The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.” Blaise Pascal, Penses, p. 79
A prayer to enter the deeper life: “Lord Jesus, I believe that thou art able and willing to deliver me from all the care and unrest and bondage of my Christian life. I believe thou didst die to set me free, not only in the future but now and here. I believe thou art stronger than sin, and that thou canst keep me, even me, in my extreme of weakness, from falling into its snares or yielding obedience to its commands. And, Lord, I am going to trust thee to keep me. I have tried keeping myself, and have failed, and failed most grievously. I am absolutely helpless. So now I will trust thee. I give myself to thee. I keep back no reserves. Body, soul, and spirit, I present myself to thee as a piece of clay, to be fashioned into anything thy love and thy wisdom shall choose. And now I am thine. I believe thou dost accept that which I present to thee; I believe that this poor, weak, foolish heart has been taken possession of by thee, and that thou hast even at this very moment begun to work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure. I trust thee utterly, and I trust thee now.” Hanna Whitehall Smith: The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life, p. 54
“Here in this inner region, in this root of man’s being, he [God] is still subduing his enemies, he is conducting his mysterious education.” F.D. Maurice quoted by H. Richard Niebuhr, Christian Culture, p. 228.
(The following is a thought I jotted down while reading Alfred North Whitehead’s Adventure of Ideas.)
Looking out on a clear beautiful day one would assume the only light in the sky was the sun, but wait for night and you will see the stars—which could not be seen at first because of the brilliance of the first light you saw. To see the beauty in the heavens we must look further—maybe a deeper conversion, a deeper life for us all. J.K.M.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, the heroes in the Bible seemed to have much more vivid encounters with God than I do. I’ve been wondering what it might be like to have an encounter with the living Lord. And if I did, would anyone believe me? How would I tell if it was real?
Good question. Some years ago, not long after I had made a decision as an adult to commit my life to God, I was thinking of how little we know about communication. I tried to imagine the live television pictures from the moon hitting my brain with pinpoint accuracy after traveling untold thousands of miles through the fantastic speeds of the earth’s and moon’s orbits and their joint travel around the sun. This kind of communication is more than my father could have even imagined. As a matter of fact, I remember seeing a demonstration with him of the first live television equipment at a university exhibit when I was a boy. I overheard people saying that television was interesting but would never be feasible, because it could only transmit a stationary picture for a few feet.
Just now I thought about the intimate experience I am having as I communicate with you through this book in your mind, perhaps across thousands of miles . . . conceivably over years of time. And yet even if I am dead when you read this, my living mind is meeting yours, and we are sharing to some degree the communication I am experiencing as I write. It is eerie, but it is true.
We may be just beginning to learn about the transmission of information between persons and between God and people. If God is personal in nature and we are to pray, “Our Father . . .” as Christ suggested (Matthew 6:9), then we should expect some sort of response in meaningful terms. It may be that our ability to tune in to God’s frequency is blocked by our own self-centered absorption. Perhaps our sin is like “filling our receiving screens with snow.” Yet occasionally people get very clear “pictures” of God’s answer to a prayer in terms of a meaningful word or image. And whether the contact was actually with God or not, sometimes the depth of the experience carries with it the power to change the life of the person praying, and through him or her, the lives of many others.
Several years ago a good friend named Alan told me about a startling encounter he had just been through. My friend is an intelligent professional man and in some ways a little cynical about things he hears. I certainly do not know if the experience had a transcendent reference, but my friend had been deeply moved by the account he related.
A Christian, an automobile salesman, who was a friend of Alan’s, decided he was going to make hospital calls two days each week as a part of his response to Christ’s admonition to visit the sick. During a routine telephone call to a man named Bennie Abernathy, with whom he had talked earlier about buying a new car, the salesman, Bert Johnson, reached his potential customer’s wife. She said, “Mr. Johnson, I don’t think my husband will be needing a new car. He is in the hospital and has incurable cancer. He will probably never get out.”
Bert thought, “I’ll go by to see him, just to say ‘Hello.” When he got to the man’s room in the hospital, he had a very superficial conversation. Bennie was nice enough, but Bert didn’t know him very well and had no idea how he felt about death. Finally, just before leaving, Bert decided to get in at least a word about the real situation. He turned to the sick man, “Well I hope the Lord gives you peace about all this,” nodding toward his body.
When the man heard Bert, his face lighted with a wonderful smile. “Let me tell you something,” he said. “All my life I have never really known what I felt about God. I have heard that a person must ‘commit his life to Jesus’ or ‘be born again’—but I didn’t really know how. Yesterday I was lying here, very depressed, because I did not know what to do to tie my life into God. In desperation I decided to pray. I simply asked God how I could come close to him.” The man’s face was very sincere and intense as he remembered his experience. Now he looked into Bert’s eyes with great clarity. “And do you know what’s happened as I prayed? I saw Jesus—here in this room, as real as you are. He was standing over there (he nodded toward the corner), and there were people coming to him. As they got to where he was, each one would reach inside his own robe and lift out his heart . . . and hand it to Jesus. First there were grown men, all kinds, and then there were the children…” Bennie paused as he saw it all again in his mind against the wall in the corner of the room. Bert did not know how long they sat like that, but finally the man looked up calmly and said, “Then I gave him my heart, too—and he took it, put his other hand on my shoulder and smiled as he said, ‘Peace.’ And then he was gone.”
Bert could only nod his head slightly as if in agreement. “That’s . . . wonderful,” he said softly.
The man in the bed went on thoughtfully, “You know, Mr. Johnson, I realize this whole thing sounds absurd, but it’s true. It’s the truest thing that ever happened to me. And I am going to tell every person who comes in that door before I die.”
And he did.
. . . All I can do is indicate indirectly certain events in man’s life, which can scarcely be described, which experience spirit as meeting; and in the end, when indirect indication is not enough, there is nothing for me but to appeal, my reader, to the witness of your own mysteries—buried, perhaps, but still attainable.
Martin Buber, I and Thou
A miracle is “not contrary to nature,” but contrary to what we know as nature.
Augustine, The City of God
In the dispute concerning the true God and the truth of religion, there has never happened any miracle on the side of error, and not of truth.
Blaise Pascal, Pascal’s Pensées
Lord, sometimes in my cynicism I feel as if prayer is autosuggestion and that we are playing games with ourselves when we talk of communicating with you. And then I see the miracles of modern science and realize that we are already experiencing things which point beyond our intellectual horizons to a time when people may be able to communicate mind to mind across thousands of miles. With regard to you, we seem to see though a dim lens now; but I believe with Paul that someday we may communicate face-to-face. I believe, and I appreciate your help with my unbelief. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete . . . . We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright. We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us.
I Corinthians 13:9,12
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I have had many successes—president of my company, more than comfortable financially, elected a deacon at my church, my kids are grown and in good colleges. But I’m not as satisfied or fulfilled as I thought I would be after all this and am a little disturbed about the lack of satisfaction I’m experiencing. Do you ever feel this way? R.T.
Good question. In the fall of 1945 I was an entering sophomore at Tulsa Central High School which had 3,500 students. I was coming from a middle school that essentially sent its students to another high school, so I didn’t know many kids at Central. After the first day of bumping through the crowded halls on four floors, any self-confidence I had ever had vanished. I came home and complained to Mother, “I don’t know anybody in this school. This feels awful”
She said quietly, “Everybody coming in there is lonely and feeling inadequate. and they are all jumping into a bigger frog pond as minnows. You can just trust me on that. But if you’ll learn the people’s names and speak to them by name, you’ll get to know some of them. And you’ll also really be helping them, because all people want to be known.” I didn’t have anything else to do so I did what she suggested—except I didn’t just speak to a few kids. By the next fall I had memorized the name of virtually everyone whose picture was in the yearbook.
I also went out for basketball, and I was only about 5’ 7” tall. Fortunately I grew to six feet between my first and second years. In my senior year we did not lose a single game during regular season.
Near the end of school each year there was a big musical show at Central called “High School Daze.” A king and queen of the school were elected, to be announced and crowned the first night of Daze. I had become president of the senior class; we’d had a great basketball team; and I had won a few other honors. Then in the Spring of 1945 I got elected “king.”
I remember sitting in a room backstage alone, all dressed up in a tuxedo with a big red cape looking at the crown they were going to put on me. The school queen was a beautiful girl, and I was crazy about her. But as I sat there alone waiting for the “coronation” to begin, I had a strange hollow feeling inside—not at all the excitement and anticipation I’d thought I’d have. I asked myself, “Is this all there is?” And in that moment I knew a secret: being “king” is not the meaning of life. But I didn’t know what was.
After college some notable successes came my way in a couple of different fields that you know about, R. T. But the successes didn’t answer my question, “Is that all there is?” The thing that did lead to the answer I was seeking were the pain of failure and losses in my personal life (loss of my entire family of origin by the time I was twenty-eight, and then going through a painful divorce for which I was primarily responsible—in the midst of my greatest outward successes.)
Finally, in several stages, I saw my incredible self-centeredness and that even though I was sincerely committed Christian I was in denial about the fact that I had unconsciously put myself in the center of my life instead of God and was unwittingly building a Christian kingdom in which I was the king instead of Jesus Christ
When I discovered that many years ago now, I was horrified. And after much struggle I finally confessed my self-centeredness and the resulting sins and consciously surrendered everything in my personal and vocational lives to God.
I’m telling you this R.T. because since that surrender, what I began to learn to do as a sophomore in high school sixty-six years ago has become the way I’m trying to live my life now—that is, paying attention to and getting to know people around me—all kinds of people. Only now I’m loving them and specifically trying to help them find hope and self acceptance in life because that is what God is continuing to do for me. And as they ask me—or it becomes appropriate, I tell them what I’ve discovered by trying to surrender my life to God.
Mostly I’m not consciously running for anything now or trying to win some kind of prize or “game.” And that change of purpose brings peace and happiness into the present. But it’s the sense of God’s love and guidance that has been teaching me to enjoy life—whatever is going on that I’m facing. I’m eighty-two now and I’m learning how to live for God while walking toward death. And in doing what I believe God wants me to do now, I’m enjoying this final stage of life more than any so far!
I’m telling you these things because many years after I was “King Daze” and found a real King to live for, I came to see that everyone out there is lonely and sometimes feels inadequate at some level. And that if I can just get to know a few people personally, listen to them and help them in ways that I feel God would have me to, I can always have a life of meaning and I will never have to be alone, or bored. Of course sometimes I still wake up lonely or afraid, but now I know that’s just a natural part of life—sort of a spiritual “bad hair day.”
Lord, I’m so glad that you don’t leave us when we’re winning—or losing. Thank you that you keep teaching me that the values that aren’t your values are not nourishing very long. It’s good not to have to get an increasing supply of them all the time in order just to feel “normal.” Thank you that you can actually free us (in this life) from that rat race to success in which it’s so easy to get lost. I love you very much. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
“…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, a lot of my friends talk about being “blessed” all the time when something good happens to them. Recently a neighbor felt “blessed” because her husband got a raise. And last month a friend at work said she felt blessed because no one was hurt in a car wreck she was in. But Jesus said we’re blessed when we’ve just lost that which is most dear to us—things like that. So… what does being blessed really mean for a Christian?
Good question. I wrestled with that one for years because I came to God because I had already lost a lot, and already was at the end of my rope! Feeling terrible, I finally said, “Lord, just tell me straight. What good news do I have to share about being blessed when I’m at the end of my rope?”
And then my answer came. One morning I was stunned to read about Jesus’ telling his disciples to consider themselves blessed when they “lost what was most dear,” when they were “persecuted,” or even “at the end of their ropes.”—as if these tragedies were actually God’s delivery vehicles for sending us His blessings?
Ridiculous!
Then reading through all the beatitudes in Matthew 5, I saw…and my world changed. “Wow!” I thought. “Maybe the best news I can bring to an anxious world terrified of failure, personal rejection, and loss of loved ones is this: As I’m surrendering my life to Him—with all my failures and broken relationships—the Lord is giving me the courage, honesty—and willingness—to face, and walk through some of the most difficult problems this world has to offer, with my eyes wide open! And for me that has been wonderful news.
Before now, it hadn’t crossed my mind that the willingness, honesty, courage are the blessings from God I didn’t know to request. Yet they turned out to be doorways to the understanding and love I’ve always longed for.
Lord, thank you. Your “blessings” are Good News indeed when it comes to spiritual maturity—even if they sometimes feel a little like sandpaper. Amen
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Matthew 5 (The Message)
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I am so over-committed that I wake up often on the verge of panic. The problem is that I’m a minister and can’t even find the time to pray anymore. It seems like I’m swimming like crazy but the shore is getting farther away. Have you ever had this experience? If so what did you do to get back on solid ground?
Oh yea, periodically as a new Christian, I wanted to help people and to be a part of everything Christians were learning or doing that appeared to be God’s will. But before long I had made more commitments than my calendar could possibly hold. I cut down on sleep, exercise, and play time with my family. But things got more and more chaotic, until one night I woke up in a nameless panic, staring with saucer eyes into the predawn blackness. I began thrashing around in my mind for solutions that didn’t involve failing or being shamed by having to admit I couldn’t fulfill all my commitments. Thoroughly revved up, I jumped up to another frantic day of jockeying appointments, meeting deadlines, and short-changing my family—promising that I was almost caught up. But something told me that wasn’t true, and in addition my frantic life was far from Jesus’ “peace that passes understanding,” but though I felt guilty giving up projects that seemed so “Christian”, I felt like I was about to drown—and the shore was getting further and further away.
My stomach was in a knot, my chest tight, my mind a buzzing bee hive that had been upset. As I tossed up a “please help me” prayer and lay down on the floor to do a few token sit-ups, a bizarre memory flashed on my inner screen—an old newspaper story: Before dawn on a cold December morning, three duck hunters in waist-high rubber waders—were thrown into the icy black water of an unfamiliar lake when their small flat-bottomed boat capsized. Thrashing around in the dark trying to swim ashore, all three drowned. The article said the accident was particularly tragic since the water where the boat capsized was less than five feet deep—but the men didn’t know. Had they not panicked, but simply put their feet down, they could have waded out.
*
I shook my head, smiling at my own blindness. I’d been struggling so frantically to take over Jesus’ job and save the world that I’d almost gone under, when all I had to do was stop, be still, and let my full weight down on God.
So I did—right then. And when I did that, I saw clearly that I am not God and I made some calls and cancelled some things. I’d been participating in and out of a need to be more than I am.
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10 RSV)
Lord: Thank you that even when we’re in our worst messes you’re love is always close enough to stand on—if we will just quit thrashing, remember that You are God, and let our feet down!
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I go to church every Sunday but during the week I seem to rush from one activity to my next appointment. How can I find God during the week?
After several busy years of public witnessing and teaching as a new Christian, my spirit turned gray. I felt less and less intimate with God. One day, as I read the dramatic account of the judgment day scene in Matthew 25, I got a simple picture about how I might spend more intimate time getting to know Jesus.
The “Son of Man” Judge/ King divided the judgment day crowd into two groups: the sheep (the good guys) on his right and the goats (bad guys) on his left. He told the sheep they would be with him forever because they had cared for him, clothed and fed him, and visited him. The good guys said, “Sir, we don’t remember doing any of that for you.” The Judge replied, “Oh yes, when you did those things to a specific person who was overlooked or ignored, you did them to me.”
Then to the goats he said, “Get out you worthless goats. You didn’t feed me when I sas hungry, or care for me in any real way.” The goats objected, “When did we see you hungry, thirsty, sick or imprisoned and not respond?” The Judge replied, “When you didn’t do those simple things for someone overlooked or ignored, you overlooked and ignored me!”
Jesus seemed to be saying to me that morning, “Keith, I’m with you Sundays at church. But during my work week, I live with people who are poor, lonely, sick, imprisoned, or feeling marginalized—especially any such people who are at the end of their rope. If you want more intimate time with me between Sundays, that’s were you can find me.”
Soon after that, I visited a friend in the hospital, dying of cancer. As I listened to him share his experience of dying, I began to picture Jesus sitting inside my friend, cradling his heart. I could almost see the Lord smile and mouth the words silently, “Keith, I’m glad you came…I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.”
Matthew 25: 40 (The Message)
Dear lord, thank you for offering us on the job training for heaven with you…learning your quiet ways of loving the little ones you died for. Amen
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, I’ve been going to church off and on for years, and I’ve always prayed to God, even if I didn’t attend church. But lately prayer has gotten pretty boring—like talking to old people who don’t listen and just repeat the same stories. But you act like you think God is real and might say something important… or at least interesting. If that’s right why do you feel that way?
The truth is that for a long time prayer was just something I did because I believed there was a God and I was taught that Christians pray. But through a series of sicknesses and deaths in my family of origin, I found myself the last member of our family at age 28. I was at the end of my rope, and didn’t know what to do. I decided to surrender my whole life to God.* At that point I didn’t know how to live for (and with) God in business, at home or how to handle anger, fear, etc. that I still faced on a regular basis as a Christian. But after that attempt at surrender, something happened to me. Without knowing just how it happened, I found that God became more real to me than I could have imagined. The relevant point here is that I started praying about some of the real and non-religious questions and relationship problems that affected my important day-in day-out happiness, self-esteem, and sense of value (or lack thereof) in everyday life. I was told to just offer the issues to God, and pray for guidance in dealing with them. This made prayer a lot more interesting. (Just as I listened to my Dad better than I ever had when I finally got the courage to ask him about sex.) But my prayer life changed most drastically not too many years ago.
One night a few years ago I sat up in bed in the dark, unable to get back to sleep. “God,” I prayed, “I love you. But to be honest, my prayer life is just not working. Please give me a hand.”
I opened the Bible to Matthew 18 and tried to read, but my spirit wasn’t in gear. Then I had a strong nudge: “Focus on what you are reading. It’s for you!”
Jesus was telling his disciples, “I’m telling you once and for all…” (That sounded very serious) “unless you return to square one and start over like children you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.” Suddenly God seemed to say, “Keith, you can’t see reality from My perspective—or what I think is the best thing to do—unless you become like a little child again.”
Next, I asked myself, “Is there anywhere else that Jesus said we should approach God as a child?” Immediately I remembered that the Lord’s Prayer—the only prayer Jesus ever gave as a model—began “Daddy” (Matthew 6:7-13)
DADDY? Really? Calling God “Daddy” felt sacrilegious, but…all right. I’d try. I bowed my head. “Daddy, I am a lost little boy trying to get you to help me control everything and everybody around me instead of listening to you as your little child.”
Instantly tears came, and I grasped the problem with my prayer life. When praying to “Our Father” I prayed adult to adult, as if God were a peer with expertise in an area I hadn’t mastered (whom I could fire if I didn’t like his advice.)
When I prayed to “Daddy,” I totally REPOSITIONED MYSELF as a listening child. Simply saying, “Daddy” brought what all my studying and meditation experience had not: a new set of ears. Although there was a lot more that I learned about God—and myself—by that one change of perspective, that attitude of being teachable was a new beginning.
Jesus said: “I’m telling you once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in.” Matthew 18:2-5 THE MESSAGE
Daddy in Heaven, thank you for teaching me to lay aside my controlling knowledge and skills, and come to you with childlike eyes wide open and ears listening, so you can re-parent me to be like your Son… Amen.
* Described in some detail in Chapter three of The Taste of New Wine.
by Keith Miller | Christian Living, Weekly Devotional
Keith, what can I do with my depressing feelings of guilt and failure? I’ve tried talking with my family members, but I can tell they’re getting really tired of hearing my sad story.
Years ago I formed a terrible habit guaranteed to keep life from being boring, but which rained gloom and doom on my own house. At times, all kinds of unrelated failures and lonely feelings from the past came out to dance with me, and I would tell my family members how miserable and sad I felt about my failures and inadequacies. I painted my feelings in the blackest and most discouraging colors I could think of, asking them to pray for me. As we talked, they become sad and depressed, too, and sometimes felt guilty, thinking I was blaming them. When they lovingly tried to help me by making specific suggestions or offering solutions, I had “good” reasons why none of their suggestions would work.
Sooner or later they would give up, or it was time to be somewhere else or go to bed. My previously happy and carefree loved ones were now long-faced and unhappy, while I felt better. When I went to bed on such nights, I’d go right to sleep.
It’s as if my family were living with a live skunk. I’d call them all together and spray them with my skunk oil of depression and doubt. Then as we talked, they got those smells all over them. I was the only one that went to bed “smell-free.”
While in a small group of Christians trying to learn how to turn our lives and wills over to God, and to love others as God loved us, I came to see that my “center-of-the-world” habit of dumping my depressing feelings on family members was sort of like vomiting—I certainly felt better—only I was vomiting on the people I loved. God showed me through these fellow adventurers that this kind of “dumping” was a form of victimizing my family by getting them to “carry” my sense of failure and regret in the name of “sharing my reality.” And one day I stopped in mid-whine and faced the fact that, although it temporarily made me feel better, it wasn’t a very loving action toward my family members.
After that, if a reason to talk about my painful feelings came up, I used a different approach. I began by saying something like “This is how I’m feeling right now, but these feelings are not about you.” And when I finish sharing the feelings, I say, “I know these feelings are not your fault. I’d just appreciate your praying for me as I’m dealing with them.” And then I get off the subject and ask about their lives.
Better yet, I now share a lot of these painful emotional storms with my fellow strugglers on God’s adventure in groups outside my family—and ask these strugglers to pray with me there. In addition I have discovered that I can hear fellow struggler’s honesty and suggestions about options I might choose better than I can from my family members, and that these Christian companions are not as likely as my family to absorb and carry my feelings.
“Make this your common practice. Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so you can live together whole and healed.” James 5:10 THE MESSAGE
Lord, I am grateful that you give us a safe fellowship of recovering sinners in which to face our feelings and learn from them. When I share my sins with other people on the same spiritual adventure I’m on—and do not “dump” them on my family, expecting them to carry my feelings for me—I can get real help, while learning to be more loving and supportive of those closest to me. Amen
by Keith Miller | Christian Living
Keith, I am a deacon in the church and people tell me I’m a good witness for Christ in our community. But behind closed doors in our family things are often very tense, snippy and hard-headed. There are certain things concerning the roles of husband and wife that I insist of because I was taught that way and I’m not willing to consider changing because I’m standing on principles. How can a Christian give up the principles he was raised on without violating his integrity?
The longer I am involved in the Christian life, the more clearly I see that the beginnings of significant lifelong changes often hinge on seemingly insignificant discoveries and decisions in the intimate arena of personal relationships.
Some years ago about twelve of us got together to form a small group. We were trying to find out how we could learn to be God’s people away from the church during the week. This was a new adventure that was exciting for most of the group.* The idea was to attempt various experiments in our lives during the week and then report to the group what happened to us. We decided that we would not tell anyone outside the group what we were doing, since some of our experiments (like listening) involved our spouses, children or friends.
Our plan was to begin in our families and work outward into the world. During the first week we were to look around, listen in our homes and see what we were doing to bug the people we live with, and then pray about our behavior to see if we could change it. Usually in prayer groups we had looked for those things other people were doing to bother us and then pray for them to change. This is a very different approach.
The next week was an interesting one. One member of our group was a lovely, pleasingly plump, white-haired woman, who was very attractive. At the first meeting I remember thinking that Lillian looked almost angelic . . . with a slight twinkle in her eye. She didn’t seem to have any problems and prayed sweet, sincere prayers. Frankly, I wondered how she got in our group. Lillian had not said much so far, but she came into the next meeting like a rodeo rider out of chute four. She was so excited she was practically bubbling over. When I asked the group about the experiment, all Lillian could say was, “You all, it’s the shirts!”
All I could think to say was, “Would you like to talk about it?”
She went on, “I’m from the old South. And when I got married, my mother told me ‘Don’t you ever iron any man’s shirts. That’s not wives’ work.’ So after the honeymoon, twenty-five years ago, I told my husband I was not going to iron his shirts. he was a struggling student at that time, and we didn’t have very much money, but he had to send his shirts out. After a few years, he developed a rash on his neck and had to wear shirts that required hand ironing. So for sixteen years Bill has been getting up on Saturday mornings and ironing his own shirts—right in front of me—while I fixed breakfast. We were both Christians, but about that time we started going to different churches.”
She stopped talking and put her fist against her mouth, and her bosom shook with an involuntary sob. In a moment she went on with tears in her eyes: “This week I discovered that all my guilt and self-hate as a woman, all of the wrangling and separation I’ve caused in our marriage, stem from the fact that I wouldn’t iron Bill’s shirts. I’ve prayed all week, and I don’t know if I can do anything this late to change things for Bill . . . But I’d like for you to pray for me that I will.” And we did.
Well, I don’t know what Lillian did at home those next few days, but the following week Bill showed up at the meeting, smiling from ear to ear. And they came to the group together regularly, like two happy kids, until Lillian died suddenly of a stroke a year later. But you know, that couple found each other, found a new kind of life together after twenty-five years.
What is that experience worth in terms of changing the world? I don’t know, but watching it happen changed the rest of us in that group somehow. We began to see that the closed doors in our lives and relationships which we have been trying to batter down with argument and reason all these years—that those doors often swing open when we become willing to oil some small rusty hinges, change some little things . . . like the shirts.
“Indeed, this need of individuals to be right is so great that they are willing to sacrifice themselves, their relationships, and even love for it. This need to be right is also one which produces hostility and cruelty, and causes people to say things that shut them off from communication with both God and man.”
Reuel Howe,The Miracle of Dialogue
Lord, help me to have the courage to look for the little inner walls and fortresses in my relationships, behind which I protect my pride. Forgive me for camouflaging these defenses and calling them “matters of principle” when so often they are only means to keep from having to admit that I have been wrong and wanted to be number one. I guess this is what has always made you so threatening to me. When you expose my self-justifying defenses, I either have to confess them or put you down . . . which is what I guess we tried to do on the Cross. And I still try to put you down when you get close to revealing the motives I have hidden. Help me, Lord, not to cling to my “rights” but to unclench my spiritual fist so that I can be free to follow you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Let your attitude to life be that of Christ Jesus himself. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his privileges as God’s equal, but stripped himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave . . . and . . . he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, to the point of death . . .
Philippians 2:5-8 PHILLIPS
