I recently posted the following tweet -
Learning to live out the tension of walking in rest as a King’s son & still living out of desperate dependence upon His grace for each step.
A friend ask me to explain on facebook and this is what I wrote…
I know that was a ridiculously long answer to a simple request for a rephrase, but it has helped me to form these words. Now my own A.D.D. mind has a better understanding of what I was saying…
Okay… Here goes my attempt – (note – Matt, I hope this is helpful to all of us A.D.D. types, but I am writing it because I think it’s helpful to try to articulate what I am feeling.)
Learning to live out the tension = Not turning away from one truth in order to follow something that is equally true.
Example – God is sovereign is a timeless truth. He has delegated us to walk in authority here on this earth is equally true. If we just hold to God’s sovereignty, we can become complacent waiting on God to do what He has commissioned us to do. If we only hold on to our authority, we can become self-centered and strive out of the flesh, lacking His power to effect any real change on the earth. Holding these truths in tension means that we live life aware of and connected to both of these truths.
Walking in rest as a King’s son = sonship is the core of my identity. When I can really begin living out of that truth, it frees me to live from a place of rest in my heart, because my heart is at home in my Father’s heart. It’s about stillness, and about stopping. For me it means that Brad has to completely stop trying to impress anyone, or allowing my identity to be shaped by what others think of my. Only what my Father thinks matters when it comes to who I am. It also means I need to stop allowing the gifts that my Father gave me to define me, but realizing that they are gifts from Him, and that they fit “the me” he created me to be. It even means that every part of me must stop allowing my identity to be linked to God’s “calling” or purpose for my life. Regardless of the call, I am my Father’s son, and at the times when my heart is really aware of that, then my heart is at rest, at home in His love.
Living out of desperate dependence on His grace for each step = My heart is passionately and actively leaning in to Him as the only source of my life. I recognize that I will never be weaned off of His grace. I need Jesus as much as I ever have. Common church culture accidentally teaches us that as we grow in the Lord, that we should not require as much of His grace. (Sometimes this is mistaken for ‘the victorious Christian life”.) We become sin managers, trying to avoid failure, but the truth is that I will never out grow God’s grace. My heart needs to ‘desperately’ dive into His grace at each step. I feel like if don’t acknowledge my need for His grace and life to fill me, that I always strike out on my own and find myself worn out and beaten up, crawling back to Him needing grace and mercy. So I think desperate dependence on Him means that I am aware that His breath/ Spirit is the only thing that satisfies and I actively and passionately desire that breath to fill my every heartbeat.
Learning to hold on to both of these truths is sometimes hard for me. When I am meditating on the Father’s invitation to live at rest, it is easy to abuse the invitation and get complacent and forget about my need for His Spirits life. When I am more aware of my desperate need for Him, I can slip into a place of trying to stir things up on my own, thinking that my zealous activity can make things happen.
The truth I am shooting for is found in the life of Jesus. John 1:18 says that Jesus “is in the Father’s bosom.” His home is and always has been the Father’s heart. He lived in complete dependence upon the Father, doing only what He saw the Father doing. In the life of Jesus, living at rest as God’s son and staying desperately dependent on Him come together in a way that seems natural and normal. So, my quest in living out these truths in proper tension is found in following Jesus.
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