1.4 Power Fuels Purpose
Listen to this week’s segment:
This blog was born out of two deaths in 2021: my three-year-old granddaughter, Millie, and my faith. It is a travelogue of my second journey in search of meaning. Its primary intended audience is – me. You see, only as I write do I get a good glimpse of what I think, and only as I review it in black and white do I understand what I believe. That is my goal: to come face-to-face with what I genuinely think. My secondary goal is to leave a record of this exploration for my grandchildren and their children, hoping it may benefit them one day. It is not my intention to offend or convince but to merely think out loud. I hope it will be of some help to you.
As a catalyst for my thinking, I engaged John's account of his friend Jesus. I read it as one would “a Rorschach reading or inkblot interpretation,” as Crossan warned against by adding, “which is when an ancient text means whatever your modern mind decides it means.” Nevertheless, for this exercise, I trusted myself to interpret.
As I begin this segment, I must acknowledge, "Today is a blue day, dark blue, almost coal blue.” It's the kind of day where my soul shrinks and folds into itself, tempting me to follow it in, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to come back out. I can't describe it as a feeling, like sadness, melancholy, or depression, because it's a state devoid of feeling - an emptiness. If you have experienced the grief that follows an "out-of-order loss," you know exactly where I am. Alone.
There's nothing anyone can do to help when I reach this point. No amount of cheering me up, questioning me about triggers, or pitying me seems to make any difference. I've been here before, and I just need to settle into the cold, dark "belly of the whale" and hope that he retches soon. Or, lie back in the pitch-black, cave-like tomb and listen for the sound of the stone rolling away. It will come, and so I inch forward.
Soon after I wrote the above two paragraphs, I looked out my office window and saw a flock of birds migrating south, and it reminded me of Wendell Berry’s, The Peace of Wild Things.
In the previous segment, we discussed changing our perception of ourselves. Rather than considering ourselves separate from other parts of creation, we must understand that we are just as important, no more or less. We share the same life force that enables the stars to shine, the trees to grow, and the flowers to bloom. You can feel it by closing your eyes, putting your fingertips together in your lap, and focusing on the pulse in each hand. Try it. This energy courses through us, empowering us to live our daily lives. Bundled with this power is our purpose, which we will explore today.
Several years ago, Rick Warren wrote a book called The Purpose Driven Life, and it flew off the shelves. It has been translated into 137 languages and sold over 50 million copies in multiple formats, demonstrating that every person has a deep, indwelling hunger to know their purpose. Even when we know it, we find ourselves doubting, "Is this the right one, or should I be doing something else?” The success of Warren's book also epitomizes our tendency to look outside of ourselves for purpose instead of within. Let's see what John says.
1:14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Imagine planting a seed and returning later to find a fully grown plant with a beautiful yellow rose in bloom, looking identical to the picture on the seed packet.
You clip the stem, put the rose in a vase, and place it in your kitchen. For days, every time you walk through, you see its beauty and smell its wonderful fragrance. Just like the flower, John is saying the seed of the creator's plan came to life, showing us what the plan should look like in real life, in real time.
John’s consciousness unfolded as he witnessed a spiritual idea become a physical reality in and through Jesus. Through his consciousness, teachings, and actions, Jesus acted as God would act, and John saw the results: deeds of Grace and truth. (“He looks just like his dad.”)
I had to lean in and look closer at the words "grace and truth." These words have a religious connotation that I find myself flying past them and not giving them much thought. I had to remind myself that John was not writing high-minded scripture but his simple account of Jesus’ extraordinary life. Grace. Truth. I wanted to take these words off the shelf, dust them off, and see how they appear in a man's daily life. Could they show up as action words in mine?
The key to understanding Grace in everyday terms is “unearned favor." John is saying that Jesus was full of the unearned favor of his father. Think about this. None of us earned our life, but it was a gift from our parents. The conditions you and I were born in could never be earned or deserved. A good father favors his child for no reason other than the fact that they are his child. Even more so an only child. A child experiences this favor, “acts of grace,” in the form of security, nourishment, education, and all the many things that go into raising a child. Each of these is Grace in action. We earn none of these.
Jesus understood that his life was a gift of Grace from his heavenly father. He allowed it to fill his consciousness and flow through him, resulting in actions of Grace and truth. Just as a good father would do, Jesus did things for people that were unmerited and unearned. “Grace in action” means you and I can do something we could not have done with natural talent and strength. Jesus was clear that his actions were not his own, from his own strength, but powered by his father's Grace. He encouraged John (and you and me) to do likewise.
I began to think of this ability to put Grace into action as "spiritual adrenaline." With Grace, we can do something we otherwise would not be able to do. To “act out truth" is to use this adrenaline to put truth in motion.
The contractor who builds the architect’s building, according to the architect’s plan, is putting truth into action. The seed becoming a flower is also an example of truth in motion. The life force within you and me, causing us to grow and develop, is truth in motion. Likewise, it is our creator’s “grace in action” and something we could never do on our own.
I had to spend some time reframing Jesus’ most important commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself," from a principle or platitude into daily activities. When you take steps to do so, that is putting truth in motion. However, I needed help because my physical body is wired for self-preservation and survival. It desires safety, security, satisfaction, and convenience. It seeks my interest, even at the expense of others.
In contrast, "love my neighbor as myself" is counterintuitive, and requires self-sacrifice and spiritual adrenaline. This is “grace in action,” the vital link between knowing the truth and the ability to do the truth. Grace converts what we believe into how we believe. Like the lady in the above picture, I need to train regularly, but starting slowly, and allow this life force to grow the muscles needed to lift heavier weights of love. John says Jesus was full of it - and we can be, too.
“Love means to actively work toward the long-term best interest of another. Love is not desire — it is to will the good of others. We say, ‘I love chocolate cake!’ But really we want to eat it. We love something or someone when we promote it’s good for its own sake.”
This spiritual adrenaline is within us, ready when we need it. We don't earn it. It's just there, but I have to choose to use it and begin to train. Try it and see. For the next few days, spend some time in contemplation, thinking about your family, friends, or neighbors. Watch for an idea to arise, something you could do for them, something small but meaningful. It can’t be manipulation, as in doing something to get something. That's like lifting empty weights and will not produce results. You'll know the right move to make because there will be some initial resistance, but it will seem “right" in your solitude. Do it and watch how something makes it easier than you expected. That something is Grace. Do it again. And again. And it will become an obsession, a "Magnificent Obsession."
Dallas Willard also says, “Grace can not be earned, but it's not without effort.” Similar to adrenaline, it appears amid our efforts and enhances them. However, if adrenaline in our body is not used to fight or flee, our heart will still beat faster, and our muscles will fill up with blood, but they won't do anything. Similarly, nothing will happen if my thoughts of love do not result in actions.
“Grace is spiritual WD-40”
If we could “Love our Neighbor” with our strength, we would naturally do it and not need grace. The cornerstone of Jesus’ teaching was to replace my natural desire for self-preservation with the unnatural ability for small acts of self-sacrifice. This is "the most important commandment" and differentiates a life lived from my spiritual consciousness from a life lived from the physical. I am beginning to see that I don't have a spiritual or physical life, but one life filled with everyday actions. The determining factor is the consciousness from which I act. Just like going to the gym, I must choose it daily.
This is where "two roads diverged in a yellow wood" for me. I could choose “what to believe” or "how to believe.” In other words, I could continue to focus on things like the right religion, denomination, creed, etc., or follow the example and encouragement of Jesus and focus on using grace to put love into action. In the words of Robert Frost, I choose to take "the one less traveled by.” That will make all the difference.
These 14 verses in 1.1-1.4 provide an overture for all John will say about Jesus and give a good abstract of his story. I would do well to stay here and contemplate these verses and their tangential insights for the rest of my days. Despite that, I intend to walk John’s path, read the entire story cautiously, think deeply, and watch closely. I want to hear what he says and what he doesn't say. I want to inspect what he does and what he could've done but chose not to. In doing so, I will gain daily insight into what I should do, how to do it, and thus “how to believe.” Then perhaps, I might perceive God as one who does not shield me from grief but is a companion* with me through it - a personal trainer growing my capacity to love purposely.
(*) I intentionally did not say, "Walk with me through it" because that might imply that it has a short duration with an end in sight. Those who have experienced grief understand there is no destination, but we live with it for each of our remaining days.
Key Takeaways
The word becomes flesh when it goes from my consciousness through my heart out into my actions.
This spiritual adrenaline or grace only kicks in as I start to act, to put truth in motion.
Love is not a feeling but action, action towards the long-term best interest of another,
Next, in verses 15 - 30, I’ll have to tiptoe through a minefield of my preconceived ideas about Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, the lamb of God, and the sin of the world. I am looking for fresh insights that I can use daily to revitalize this life I have been given.
