ben bartosik

“There was a transitional moment of delicious uneasiness, and then – instantaneously – the long inhibition was over, the dry desert lay behind, I was off once more into the land of longing, my heart at once broken and exalted as it had never been… There was nothing whatever to do about it, no question of returning to the desert. I had simply been ordered – or, rather, compelled – to ‘take that look off my face’. And never to resume it either.” – CS Lewis in Surprised By Joy

It’s often in the unexpected that we find what we’ve been looking for.

Much of life is lived out on what I call “the road”, that is to say in the ordinary, everyday, un-extraordinary, routinely normal parts of our existence. You’re just moving along doing whatever it is that you do – work, school, chores – the daily grind. Life is just passing by as you motor along in auto-pilot, barely paying attention to what’s around you. This is life on the road. Living at this kind of steady forward pace, never anticipating that anything of any real significance could take place here.

But it’s often when we’re least expecting it that God meets us.

The disciples were out fishing when Jesus showed up and called them to follow him.

Moses was tending to the sheep in the wilderness when God spoke to him.

Levi was sitting at his tax collector’s booth when Jesus called him.

Paul was on his way to Damascus to actively put an end to God’s work when Jesus got a hold of him.

And two of the disciples, while walking on the road to Emmaus, encountered the newly resurrected Christ.

They weren’t expecting God or looking for him. They weren’t ready or prepared. They weren’t special or extra spiritual. These were regular people just living life as they always did, out on the roads of everyday life. In the hustle and bustle of work and routine. This is where God chose to meet them This is where he chose to reveal himself and call out and ultimately change the entire direction of their life in an instant. Fishermen to disciples. Shepherds to  great leaders. Tax collectors to followers. Condemnation and judgement to a life of grace. Discouraged and alone to faithful and hopeful. This is the essence of repentance. An unexpected encounter that ultimately turns you toward the life that God calls you to live. It changes everything about you, making you an entirely new person as you step forward in a new direction towards the life God calls you to live.

I absolutely love this. It’s an encounter that doesn’t confine itself to church or sundays or preachers or saints. It’s the gospel and it’s for everyone, everywhere, out on the dusty roads of life.

“I will endure the night, for the promise of light.” (Local Natives)

The Horse and His Boy is easily my favourite childhood book.
It’s the story of a journey in self-discovery. A runway orphan named Shasta is seeking to find his true place in the world and in the process uncovers more about himself than he ever thought possible. There’s this really wonderful part towards the end when Shasta, feeling bitter and tired and fairly alone, finally and unknowingly encounters Aslan (God). In his misery, he points to all the worst parts of his life and how pitiful his existence truly is. Aslan responds:

“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the large voice.
“Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion,” said the voice.
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two the first night, and -”
“There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion. I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the [tombs]. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”

This is a moment of reflection. Of looking back and seeing something that wasn’t obvious at the time but now seeing it clearly as though a new light had just illuminated the darkness. It’s fitting that this realization was paired with another one,”he knew the night was over at last.” The morning light often sheds new perspective on the previous night. Shasta’s entire journey has just been changed. God was actually there all along.

Let me tell you another story about this kind of discovery.

In the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen 28) we find Jacob on a journey from Beersheba towards Haran fleeing the wreckage of his own actions. His brother hates him for stealing his birthright, swearing to kill him. His father and mother have sent him away as a result of this, forcing him to leave his home and find a life somewhere else. You can imagine how he would be feeling about his life at this point. Misery, bitterness, failure, loneliness. He had been travelling all day and decided to stop for the night. He sets up camp and falls asleep and has a dream in which he finally and unknowingly encounters God. In this dream God speaks to him: ”I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac… Behold I am with you and will keep you wherever you go…” Then it says that Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” Again, the morning brings a new way of understanding the night that was just endured. God was with him the whole time; Jacob is simply now aware of it. And that awareness has changed his entire story.

In both of these journeys God reveals something overwhelmingly powerful about our darkness; that he was actually there with us all along. Nothing has really changed and yet this realization changes everything.

Sometimes the best mysteries are the ones that are never solved.

Curiosity is an incredibly powerful thing. It is an all-compelling, all-consuming state of unrest and inner resolve. To not know is to be compelled to find out. This is a universal human tendency; mystery excites our natural longing to discover.

I can’t help but draw the connection to our faith.

Maybe the reason so many Christians lose interest in Christianity is because the mystery has gone. Like a romance that has passed the new and exciting discovery phase, our relationship with God similarly becomes stale, boring, and predictable. I wonder if this is because our god has become stale, boring, and predictable.

The trouble is that this is nothing at all like the God I see described in scripture. The God that I have come to love is a never ending surprise; full of mystery, excitement, and newness. Revealing himself in a thunderous voice from a mountain one day and being born in a barn as a human baby the next. He can’t be predicted and he can’t be comprehended.

Theology is important but not at the cost of finalizing the curious, compelling, all-consuming search for who God is. When we do that – we stop seeking, and when we stop seeking – we stop finding, and when we stop finding – we stop. Period. Faith is not about stopping. Faith is all about seeking. It’s about asking. It’s about growing. You won’t discover anything if you stop looking. And seeking is essential to our faith.

Ours is a God who conceals.

A God who remains hidden.

A God who doesn’t just come right out and explain who he is or what he’s doing.

A God surrounded by mystery.

To not know is to be compelled to find out.
There’s a lot I don’t know. Yet the more I discover, the more I realize there is yet to still uncover. It’s a never ending mystery. The ending is never spoiled. The search never goes cold. The puzzle is never solved. I think it’s highly significant that in the Hebrew Scriptures God chose to lead his people through the wilderness from within a cloud. Leading from within concealment. This mysterious nature of God is what compels us to keep following him.

“The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice… clouds and thick darkness are all around him.” (Ps. 97)

Tension is a good thing.

I have spent a lot of time dwelling on the disagreements within our faith and have come to a startling conclusion. There’s a lot of them.

Christianity, or faith in God rather, has been engaged in theological difference since its inception. As soon as somebody stated that there was a god, someone else quickly asked what this god was like and the myriad of answers has been flowing ever since. The early church wrestled with all the same things we wrestle with today. Service structure, doctrine of belief, practices of faith, matters of importance, biblical interpretation; nothing has changed. As soon as somebody makes a claim, somebody else is there to challenge it and like an eternal struggle of tug-o-war, it just keeps going back and forth. Do you remember what the worst part about tug-o-war was?

When the rope broke.

Tension is what allows us to keep pulling. Tension is what keeps the game going. Tension is a good thing. When that tension disappears everyone just ends up in the mud.

Our faith has a lot to do with tension. The stretching and strain that occurs within the difference. The back and forth that can only come from two forces wrestling over an honest and humble search for truth and understanding. The sheer joy and excitement found in the knowledge that the outcome is uncertain but, like children, the fun is in the pulling anyway. Tension is a very good thing. It keeps the game going.

Just make sure you picked a strong enough rope.

Ask yourself: restoration or destruction; which are you living for?

Both choices have to do with kingdoms and both choices have to do with your heart and both have everything to do with Jesus’ prayer in Mat 6. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

A kingdom is a realm in which the ruler’s will is carried out. Where the ruler is lord and they get to call the shots, make the decisions, and receive the glory. Where what they think and believe is true  and right and where everything and everyone else who contradicts their will is wrong.

I’m continuously reminded of the desire of created beings to be king. We build kingdoms of finance, politics, ideology, race, religion, social status, and belief where we rule and our will is done. There are many of these kingdoms on earth. Some are big. Whole nations or even cultures are ruled by them. Others are small; sometimes only ruling over a single human life. Regardless of their size one thing is constant: These are kingdoms made by human effort and as such, we rule them. We proclaim ourselves as rulers of kingdoms built by us in which our will is carried out. These are kingdoms based on greed, selfishness, pride, violence, and hatred.

And these are not the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God, on the other hand, is a realm where God’s will is carried out. Where God alone is Lord and God alone calls the shots, makes the decisions, and God alone receives the glory. This is a kingdom that begins in the heart and is built outward in our actions. It is a kingdom based on faith, hope, peace, joy, grace, forgiveness and love. When we build this kingdom of God the kingdoms of our own humanity are torn down.

Every day we are faced with kingdom building decisions. Which conversely means every day we are faced with kingdom destroying decisions.

The question is; which kingdoms are you building and which are you destroying?

[The following is a repost off my old blog (March 8, 2010)]

~

“I feel like a newborn baby just trying to say your name.”
(Jason Upton, First Language)

I’ve been sitting on this idea for a couple of days now.

On Monday Night we had our second Sr. High prayer and worship night, Monday Night Awakening. It’s actually really interesting as we do these to see the way in which each night has sort of had it’s own feel and personality to it. Whether it’s the people who come out, the Spirit’s leading, our lack of formal structure, or a combination of all three, both nights have felt entirely different and entirely awesome.

This past week sort of just turned into a revelatory moment of quiet reflection on God’s character for each of us. It just quieted down and it was almost as though no one could speak for the longest time. A few random thoughts and verses were shared but for the most part it was silent and awe-inspired. I think God just shut us up and had us listen. A real sort of, be-still-and-know-that-I-am-God kind of thing.

I’ve been loving this song by Cory Asbury now for the past few months, Do You Know The Way You Move Me? It’s this 22 minute epic reflection on the way God feels about us. Over the last few weeks I have been listening to it over and over again and finding such joy and peace in it’s words and on Monday Night, I was rendered speechless at the ridiculousness of it all.

My mind just sort of drifted to the question, how does God see us?

And the answer I found was that He sees us as children. Little kids. Just over-confident, silly, attention seeking, stubborn, selfish, adorable little kids.

And I had this scenario play out it my head that I wrote down after. Maybe you’ll relate to it…

I feel like a little kid again.

Like we’re nothing more than a bunch of children who were told to go wait outside while dinner was being made and to be good and play nice and not get dirty before dinner. But of course, we’re kids. We’re kind of stupid that way and the mud just looks so fun and inviting and really, who can resist throwing a dirt clod at your brother or sister when the option presents itself?

So of course, we do just that. We roll around in the mud, throwing dirt at one another, having a wonderful time with no thought or care about anything else. As I said, we’re kind of stupid like that.

But then, all of a sudden we remember it’s almost dinner time and we were told not to get dirty. We look around at one another and we’re all just filthy, there’s really no clean spots left – we’re a mess. And like kids do, we start freaking out about the dirt. Worrying that our dad is going to punish us because we’re so dirty and we disobeyed. Some of us try to clean it off ourselves in some ground water in a ditch but that just makes a bigger mess. Others try to make excuses and blame one another for the dirt, “it was Bobby’s fault, he through a dirt clod at me!” And still others, try to find somewhere to hide because we just know that Dad is gonna be mad. However, we’re all so preoccupied with the dirt that we don’t notice that our Dad has been watching us the whole time from the Living Room window. He sees a bunch of kids and he’s just shaking his head and kind of laughing to himself at our silliness and the way we’re handling the whole situation.

So then he opens the door and calls out to us to come for dinner and we’re just terrified at this point. There’s nowhere to go and it’s time to face our Father. We approach the front door slowly at first, hesitantly and unsure as we begin the trek across the yard towards him. He looks stern at first but as this group of dirty little kids, heads hung low in shame, some with muddy tear stains smeared across their faces, gets closer he can’t contain himself and he smiles and laughs at our ridiculousness and tells us to stop being silly and run to him. And so we do, we’re laughing now and we all jump on Him in a big hug because he’s our dad and he doesn’t care about the mud, he just loves us. “It’s only dirt,” he says, “and it will come off.”

This picture, this story was so vivid in my mind I was actually laughing to myself at the thought of it. We’re nothing but little children to God. He actually delights in us. He finds joy in us. He finds us funny sometimes. He laughs at us and he smiles at us. Sometimes he’s disappointed because we don’t listen and ignore what’s best for us; but he knows we’re just silly little confident kids. And then sometimes, we actually try to show our love for him back. We make a funny little, poorly written card or just go in for a hug and God is just so happy as a Father would be. He loves it when we express our love, small and childish as it may be. It’s a moment he delights in. This is what brings him joy. His children. Us.

Isn’t that ridiculous?

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption as children, by whom we cry, “Abba! Daddy!” The Spirit himself bears witness with out spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:14-17)

Thanks,

Occasionally it takes me a while to ‘get‘ things.

I was listening to a sermon a few weeks ago that I was really struggling to understand. The speaker was making some pretty significant points without spending much time on them and I kept having to stop the audio track and go back and listen to it again and again. Now, I’m normally not one who has a hard time figuring out what someone is trying to say but for whatever reason I was having some real problems with this one.

The sermon was given by a guy named Peter Rollins while he was guest speaking at Mars Hill (Grand Rapids). It was entitled Pyro-theology and apparently it has to do with a book he’s going to be releasing shortly. I guess I should have figured that it was going to be thought provoking as soon as he opened with “what I’m going to speak about for the next 35-40 minutes is going to be very difficult and I’m sorry for that, and I hope that you disagree with me because that would make it easier…” Little did I know just how significant this stuff would be.

So what is pyro-theology? According to Rollins’ own blog it is “a new term that might help to differentiate my own theological project for those of others.” This kind of stuff is both exciting and scary to me. He continues, Pyro -theology is:

“not a systematic, constructive or narrative theology. It is not concerned with building upon, supporting or altering the current understanding of Christianity. Nor is it interested in calling the presently existing church to a deeper fidelity to its ideals. Rather it represents a fundamental questioning these ideals and signals an approach to faith that claim the central event of Christianity is nothing less than a type of white-hot fire that burns up all we believe about ourselves, our gods and our universe.“

This is similar language to that which he was using in his sermon, and I’ll admit, I was lost. It seemed radical, inspirational, and even a little heretical. What does one do with something like this?

And how do I even begin to make sense of it?

The answer, believe it or not, came to me almost 2 weeks later while I was talking to a friend about doubt and idolatry. [I love how God works.] I was in the middle of a challenge that to doubt God’s intent or character is to doubt God himself and that when we do that we’ve actually formed in our minds a false god. Most of us then get scared of our doubts and retreat back into what we think we know of God rather than following those doubts through to the end. To actually embrace our doubt of God is having the courage to hold up our false god and put it to the test against the real and true God; and when we do that we have taken the step towards refining our faith.

This is when it clicked.

All of a sudden I understood what he meant by Pyro-theology. “The truth then is not that which remains after the fire which burns away the old ideas, but rather the fire itself.” (Rollins) God is described as an all “consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:29). I think I finally understand what that means. So often we (re)create god for ourselves in our own image, after our likeness, based on our ideals, because of our experiences and in doing so we no longer worship the real God. We have traded him for a false impression.”For my people have committed 2 evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jer. 2).

It’s a scary thing to think that we might have exchanged the true God for a false one; but it’s scarier to consider that we may have actually done just that. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.“(Prov. 1) That fear comes from the thought of being willing to hold up our ideas of who we think god is and let the true and real and mighty consuming fire of the living God burn all that is not Him away to ashes. Sometimes we forget what fire does. It burns things to the ground. When we’re willing to step forward in both faith and doubt and let God do what God does, in the end we will know him better and worship him more. I have a feeling that this is what Job meant in chapter 42 after encountering that terrible and powerful refining fire:

“Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things to wonderful for me, which I did not know… I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

God give us the faith to follow our doubt and the courage to embrace our deepest fear.

Darkness can be overwhelming.

I recall a time driving home from my cottage late one summer night. It was about 1AM and I had decided to drive home that night rather than wait until morning. [I have this thing about sleeping in my own bed if I can help it.] At this point in my driving career I wasn’t overly familiar with the route to my cottage, even though there’s only 3 or 4 turns, so I wasn’t 100% confident going into this voyage. I was by myself, it was late, and it was dark.

The other important factor is that my cottage is up in the Kawarthas; farm country. This means no lights, few towns, and a lot of long dark stretches of empty highway.

Did I mention it was dark?

I’m driving, driving, driving. These roads feel like they’re going to last forever. Driving, driving, driving. I’m beginning to get a little worried. What if I’m going the wrong way? What if I missed a turn? What if I get lost? What if nobody finds me for weeks? [Admittedly I was probably more worried than I needed to be; but it was late and I was alone in my car somewhere between my cottage and civilization and sometimes we overreact in those kinds of circumstances.]

After passing through a lightless, closed down little nothing of a town I made a turn and began a slow climb up a long, dark hill. The trees around the road just made the night seem even more foreboding. It was as though the dark was a never ending void but closing in around me at the same time. I neared the top of the hill, certain that this emptiness would just continue with no end. I rounded the top and out of the darkness came…

Light.

Down in the distance I could see the lights of Uxbridge, my destination, cutting through the dark nothingness and filling me with comfort. I knew where I was going. I wasn’t lost. I had hope.

Hope is an amazing thing.

When you’re lost, scared, alone. When the darkness of life’s trials becomes overwhelming.
Hope is like a light.
It pierces right through the dark and guides us home.

Jeremiah was a guy who had a tough go of it. 40 years in the ministry, following God’s call to be a prophet to his people; he was rejected, outcast, and mocked by his own hometown. With no wife or family to speak of, this guy understood loneliness. Nobody responded favourably to his words. On the edge of despair he writes, “I am the man who has seen affliction…I have forgotten what happiness is…my endurance has perished.” This has been a long, dark stretch of highway for him. There’s nothing left. The temptation is to just let the darkness win. It’s too big. It’s too much. There is no end in sight.
Many of us have been here. Where the darkness is just too overwhelming and there doesn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. The temptation to give up becomes all to real.

But in the midst of his darkness Jeremiah finds that faint yet powerful light. “But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lam. 3)

As overwhelming as darkness can be; hope is stronger than darkness.

Like the dawn of a new day coming up over the horizon, hope offers us a fresh start, a new chance, a way home. As followers of Christ we have hope. We don’t have to stay in the darkness.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1)
“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8 )

Christ is our light. He is our hope.
And both are more powerful than darkness.

“Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones.”
(Coldplay’s Fix You comes to mind)

Who Do You Follow?

“Believe in yourself, follow your dreams, and you can accomplish anything.”

We’ve all heard this before. It’s been indoctrinated into our heads and hearts since we were babies. From parents, to teachers, to advertising, to television, music, and movies; this feel-good-self-esteem boosting philosophy is everywhere. The truth is that it’s so much a part of who we are and how we think that most of us would struggle to even see the problem with it. And that was the kind of reaction I was expecting when I began my final talk on this series.

I knew going into this last one that a line was going to be drawn. It was coming down to a rather uncomfortable choice that was going to have to be made by anyone who has been following so far and sharing some of my convictions on this cultural and generational problem.

Ultimately this line came in the form of a question: Who do you feel your life belongs to?

Most of us, if truthful, would probably struggle to imagine our life, our direction, our choices, our dreams in the hands of someone else. The reason for this comes down to trust. We are a generation who has been burned, let down, and disappointed by far too many people. So the only ones we really trust are ourselves. That we will one day get ourselves to where we want to be in life.

We like Christianity and faith when it becomes therapeutic and makes us feel good and ultimately reaffirms the trust and faith that we have in ourselves. But this doesn’t work. It grows stale and old because when examined, the life of a Christian (or better yet, a Christ-Follower) is about putting to death that trust that we have in ourselves and learning to fully trust another.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)

Following Christ means denying myself not believing in myself.
Following Christ means picking up my cross not picking up my dreams and ambitions.
Following Christ means trusting him entirely and realizing that there is nothing else to trust in.
Following Christ means following Christ.

I think sometimes we don’t grasp the enormity of that.

But back to your life and who you feel it belongs to. Do we actually have the right to make the decisions regarding the direction of our life or is that just some misguided human sense of entitlement? (I realize it’s a loaded question.)

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

“When you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go… Follow me.” (John 21:18-19)

Accepting Christ is just the first step. Self denial is the hard part. It’s about surrendering everything we want, everything we need, everything we feel we deserve and handing it all over to God. We have to give up our rights and turn them over to the one who knows us entirely and loves us completely. That’s trust. That’s surrender.

Surrender and trust are really unpopular words in this culture of entitlement and selfishness. They don’t really fit in at all.

But that’s the line that the call of Christ draws. What other choice is there?

Who Is At The Center Of Your Universe?

This month in SrHi I’ve been working through a series on self-centeredness.

In December I was at a youth conference in Toronto and was drawn to an afternoon seminar hosted by Walt Mueller on the growing trends of Narcissism in the current generation (0-35 yrs old). For the next 2 hours he unpacked cultural trends, media examples, parenting issues, and more as he convincingly demonstrated just how far gone we are. Since then I have been unable to shake these thoughts. I have purchased two books on the topic, Generation Me and the Narcissism Epidemic, and have been noticing elements of this everywhere I look. It has become a topic very close to my heart.

So I decided to act, realizing of course that it is very difficult to battle a creeping cultural trend that has been at work for 30+ years and reenforced in subtle ways by about every major influence in a young person’s life. Thus began the January series, “This Month Is All About Me.”

Week one was entitled “Who Do You Serve?” and it was aimed at the self-serving, me-first nature that exists in so many of us. I used a number of cultural examples, including clips from Seinfeld and My Super Sweet 16 to make my point. The goal was to create a very visual understanding of what kind of behaviour I was referring to and then hold it in direct contrast with the life and teachings of Jesus. We looked at John 13 where we find the King and creator of the Universe, God himself, washing the disciples feet and calling all who would follow him to that same kind of radically selfless servanthood.

Last night’s talk, “Who Is At The Center Of Your Universe”, came out of my realization of just how difficult it will be to try and challenge such a subversive cultural trend. It’s become so deeply entrenched in us for most of our lives, often in seemingly innocent or well intentioned affirmation and encouragement. To illustrate the kind of shift I was talking about, we did a little historical astronomy lesson looking at the movement of a geocentric worldview to a heliocentric one. It wasn’t an easy switch. But what changed it was perspective, the use of a telescope in this case.

Perspective is a powerful thing. It’s the kind of thing that can come about like a shock or a splash of cold water, knocking you out of your own self-centeredness and into a different way of viewing the world. For most of us, the world revolves around our needs, our wants, our desires, the things we think we deserve. We get caught up in our own selves. The disciples did this in Mark 9, arguing about who among them was the greatest. Jesus smacks them out of it with a little perspective by picking up a child, overlooked and marginalized in that society, and tells them to take care of the low and the needy. “If anyone would be first, he must be last and servant of all.”

If we’re gonna resist this culture of self-centeredness, we need a shift in perspective. We need to be smacked out of our selfish thinking by encountering and taking care of the low, forgotten, and marginalized of our world. It’s amazing how trivial many of our own issues become when we come face to face with those in real need.

Please join me in praying for this generation. That God would hit us all with a little perspective.