Sip, Don't Guzzle

One of the reasons that I love wilderness ministry so much is the near-endless metaphors I see for life.  One of my dear friends has worked as a guide at YoungLife Wilderness Ranch, and I think they say it well:  "Life is like the trail, and the trail is like life."

One of the reminders I need most consistently is that of daily dependence.  The truth of it is, we were never made to be "one and done" creatures.  Our bodies aren't made that way, our hearts aren't made that way, our spirits aren't made that way.  I get this reminder frequently in the wilderness when I have to remind myself (and others) to be continually sipping from water bottles.  To be frank, staying hydrated can be incredibly inconvenient.  I have to stop, dig out my water bottle, catch my breath, and try to sip carefully without dumping it all over myself.  (Okay, so it doesn't sound all that bad...but think about trying to drink from a full wide-mouthed Nalgene with a fully-loaded 85L pack on without losing your balance on a narrow, rocky trail.)  Not only that, but I have to make these stops frequently.  How much more convenient it would be to chug one or two water bottles with breakfast before hitting the trail and have that hydrate me for the day!  Unfortunately, our bodies can usually only process about a quarter of a gallon every hour; that's a maximum of 4 cups of water per hour.  Drinking a ton of water all at once won't really benefit me much at all, and it will mostly just pass through my system...leading to other inconveniences along the hike.  It's much more beneficial to be taking small sips here and there throughout the day.  (Thus the glorious invention of the hydration bladder!)

As we say on the trail, "sip, don't guzzle."  

It's easy for me to slip into the habit of working off my own strength during the week (or month...or year...) and fooling myself into thinking that I'll "catch up" with Jesus eventually.  When I invariably get behind on a year-long Bible reading plan, I brush it off with the thought that I'll just cram all of the week's readings in over the weekend.  If I haven't been spending regular time in prayer, I tell myself that I'll dedicate hours to journal and pray sometime soon...eventually.  (Here's hoping I don't try and extend this mentality to fasting...)  Sometimes in my 'urgent' mentality, staying dependent on the Lord can seem incredibly inconvenient.  I have to stop what I'm doing, dig out my Bible or my journal, carve time out of my too-hurried schedule, and sit and be quiet and wait on Jesus.  Not only that, but I have to remind myself to stop and be still frequently.  It would be so much more convenient to be able to just load up my spirit on time with the Lord and have that carry me through until I feel thirsty again!  Inconveniently, my spirit needs more than just a 'one and done' relationship with the Lord.  Fortunately, He is not satisfied with just my weekends or the time that deem free enough to spend with Him.  Christ wants all of my life, and He wants me to invite Him into every corner.

In my relationship with Christ, I need to fight against the instinct to guzzle.  I benefit so much more from taking "sips" throughout the day:  listening to Scripture while at work, finding things to thank Him for throughout the day, stopping to see the sunrise or set while marveling at His colors painted on the clouds, praying for students before making course check-in calls, spending mornings reading from His Word, journaling regularly, praying without ceasing.  These are all things that I wish I could say I did with regularity.  I wish I could say that I don't see this ongoing need as an inconvenience, or worse, as a challenge to my independence.  ("You're telling me I need You every minute of every day?  I bet I don't!  I bet I can do it all by myself!")  

If I refuse to acknowledge my need for water along the trail, I grow weak, get headaches, and become a liability to my travel group.  If I refuse to acknowledge my need for Christ throughout my day, I burn out, become irritable and frustrated, and grow distant from the community around me.  If I try to guzzle too much water at once, it passes uselessly through my system and makes me have to pee a lot.  If I try to cram all of my time with Jesus into a few short hours once or twice a week, I don't really retain anything and end up not really seeing how He wants to change my habits and thought patterns.  

Lord, give me the grace to sip from Your Word throughout the day.  Remind me of how You are the only one that truly satisfies my thirst.  Let me see this ongoing need for You as a blessing rather than an inconvenience.  Let me be like a tree planted by streams of water, constantly soaking You in and growing in You.  Guard me against self-dependence and free me from the busyness I so eagerly embrace.  Give me quiet times with You, and may I be satisfied only by You.

Oh to Grace how great a debtor

If, as the ancient hymn asserts, I'm daily a debtor to Grace, to whom or what am I indebted? 

Like most of my millennial peers, when I don't know the answer to something, I find myself typing "www.google.com" before I even have a clear understanding of how to phrase my search.  (What Would Google Say? perhaps becoming the new go-to for my generation...more thoughts on that later.)  Well, a Google search offers audio pronunciation, phonetic spelling, a fairly thorough etymology, translation options, and multiple definitions of the word "grace."  Nestled in all of that, the closest thing I could find to a description of Grace worthy of debt was "the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings."  For a quick definition from Google, I think that's actually pretty good!  But knowing the definition is much different from understanding the concept.

In his book What's so Amazing about Grace?, author Philip Yancey spends about 300 pages trying to recapture the deep meaning of Grace, something he describes as "the last best word."  In his first chapter, he quotes a counselor who beautifully describes why Grace has lost much of its meaning:

"Many years ago I was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these:  the failure to understand, receive, and live out God's unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people... We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace.  But that's not the way we live.  The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions."  (italics mine)

I can have all of the tools of theology at my disposal in regards to understanding Grace, but unless I allow it to change my thinking and my habits I am no better off than a Google search, parroting back the definition without any meaning.  Perhaps it is hard to understand Grace because there is something in our nature that inherently does not want to accept Grace.  It offends our sense of "I can do it all by myself!"  We much prefer a system that asserts that we earn what we want and we keep what we earn.  In this 'bootstraps' mentality, we feel like we have a right to whatever it is we have worked for; Grace demands that we recognize that it is something we cannot and will not ever earn.  

In our relationship with God, we try to avoid the debt to Grace by working our way to Him.  As Yancey says,

"Even when we have committed a wrong, we want to earn our way back into the injured party's good graces.  We prefer to crawl on our knees, to wallow, to do penance, to kill a lamb - and religion often obliges us."

Legalism and religion often offer ways in which we can try to make deposits in our account with God.  Contrasted with faith and relationship (in which we have nothing but God's Grace to rest on), legalism feels secure because it tells us that we have something to offer, that we bring something to this transaction, that we can be in some sort of control.  Legalism lets us think we can avoid the debt to Grace, because who likes going into debt?  Relying on Grace, however, means that we give up anything we thought we could offer, and we approach God simply and purely on the basis of Christ's sacrifice.  

Not on our sacrifice, not on our terms, not in our own merit.  

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ..." (Philippians 3:8-9, ESV)

This is the daily debt we owe to Grace:  that we count anything we once thought we could offer as "rubbish" and come to God with nothing but a desperate prayer that He will see us as covered by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  And He does.  He extends Grace to us, and we receive "the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings."   If, as Yancey quotes, "we read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace.  But that's not the way we live," we rob ourselves of experiencing that "free and unmerited favor" and we instead spend our lives striving to earn a place at God's table...something we can never hope to do.