Going from hearer to doer
How the messiness of real life is just as important as the pristine truths we embrace
So how are you guys with Greek tenses.
A little rusty, maybe?
C’mon! You never learned what aorist/perfect/imperfect/prefixed preposition means?
Ok, well I didn’t know or care about that stuff either until I started reading this lil’ thing:
Behold: Wuest’s Word Studies From the Greek New Testament for the English Reader, Volume One, by Kenneth S. Wuest, copyright 1950.
It’s really hard to describe what it’s like to read through this book so here’s a picture of one of the pages. I’m picking a very strategic page here because I’m gonna refer back to what Wuest says in a moment (so read it through if you can. I believe you can tap the picture and then zoom in if you want). I’m gonna focus on the part starting with “Follow Me:”
So here’s why I’m even bothering you with this random academic book.
A couple weekends ago, I was up from midnight to like 5 am with a lovely bout of food poisoning. Between periodic episodes that involved rushing to the bathroom to allow my body to do the horrendous things it sees fit to do in such circumstances, I picked up this book (that I had just gotten in the mail) and started reading it from the beginning, which means I’m reading through Wuest’s Greek language insight on the book of Mark.
I literally read this book for at least 2 hours straight, possibly more. I couldn’t get enough of it. When you start looking at the Greek tenses of certain words, the stories told about Jesus become so real you can almost touch them. Like I said, it’s hard to describe how helpful this seemingly tedious information about Greek tenses and grammar is. You’ll just have to believe me or go get yo’self your own midcentury Greek word study.
So Ian and the kids wake up and it’s Sunday morning and I tell him I’ve been sick all night and that I’m not going to church because I’m still feeling iffy. They take off for church, I lay down on the couch and pick up right where I left off in the book, reading for another 2 hours, possibly more.
By the time they come home, I feel literally high on Jesus.
This book has made me slow down and really put myself in the stories about Jesus on such a level, that I feel this immense wonder and peace toward God and man. Nothing can break my calmness.
And it’s no wonder, because who has the luxury for four hour quiet times? Not me, ever. And it’s such a shame because that’s some life changing time right there.
But the day goes on, right? The kids have their needs, life has it’s needs.
At some point I get all snippy at Gus and Gb for fighting and I ask myself, “Where is the calm and collected Cas from this morning? Do you mean four hour quiet times, in all their splendor, aren’t enough to keep me from my bad habit of getting frustrated at my punky little offspring?”
Do you know what? Amazingly enough, I believe the answer to that question is yes and I know this because of what Wuest says about Levi/Matthew’s calling in Mark 2 (as noted in the photo above), specifically the latter part of it.
But the command was not merely, “Follow Me.” It was “Follow with Me.”
“…Our Lord did not… merely command Levi to become His follower. He welcomed him to a participation in His companionship… It was a side by side walk down the same road. And this blessed fellowship is for every believer in the Lord Jesus.
(Emphasis mine)
Four hour quiet times, though refreshing, and, as I said above, important and life changing in their own right, are not the panacea of sin and character development that we assume they are.
As I watched the effect of my protracted time with God wear out that afternoon, I realized this is why God gives us things like motherhood, or jobs we hate or health problems that hold us back: so that we can practice living out what we have heard with our ears from the Bible. (For more info on this, see James 1:22-25).1
The trick is to have the quiet times, and then to walk out those quiet times.
Yes, the Bible is this almost magical book that has the power to change us and strengthen our faith and do surgery on our hearts, but “the word,” whether that’s Jesus Himself or our Bibles sitting on our laps, has to become flesh, as it were, if we are ever going to see the sort of change and growth that God longs to work in us.
The word must develop legs and arms and a head and a heart (preferably your legs, arms, head and heart) and then it must live it’s life alongside it’s attentive Creator—it must “follow with” Him. And it must, because all of God’s words, whether that’s Jesus Himself or our Bibles sitting on our laps, are so full of electric, pulsating life that they have no rest until they have been allowed to live, move and have their being among and within us.
“Follow with Me.” Let’s go together: the holy with the unholy, the strong with the weak, the Lord with the servant. An unprecedented pairing.
To me, this is a huge encouragement, particularly for the wiles of motherhood. I have never been so drop kicked and wasted by my sin as I have in my 8 year tenure as a mother to small children. And every mom I know always says the same thing I just said. “I never knew how selfish/angry/whatever I was til I had kids!”
Here’s the deal: God didn’t give us kids so we wouldn’t know how selfish or angry we’ve been up until now, if you’ll forgive the double negative. He didn’t hand us this job and then walk away, expecting us to do it accurately and perfectly, just for the sake of getting it done. He made us mothers for the same reason He decisively wrenched Levi from his tax collector booth: for the journey type of communion with Him. The type that is deepened by not only the truths we embrace and the joys we experience alongside Him, but also our missteps and trials.
The reason “Follow with Me” is so encouraging is because of the vast ocean of grace waiting on the other side of those words.
If life in God, as His follower, was really all about me doing things perfect so that I could accomplish a bunch of things for God and make Him so proud, then anything that brought out my sinful imperfections (i.e. child raising) would threaten my walk with God.
But because, as Wueste put it, it’s about participating in His companionship in a side-by-side walk down the same road, the impurities that naturally rise to the top of our lives when the heat gets turned up become the entire point of this journey. And that ocean of grace is present at all times as we walk, waiting to make the whole thing possible. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me…”
But let’s be very clear about the nasty character traits this road with Christ has helped us discover about ourselves. It’s not just about realizing how messed up we are. I think a lot of Christian moms sort of stop there. They become keenly aware of their failures (thanks to their children), and they get stuck in that place, bemoaning their sins constantly and bearing them up unnecessarily. And when I say “Christian moms,” I include myself in this, in case you erroneously think I’ve arrived or something.
This journey isn’t just about realizing we are selfish. It’s about the healing ocean of grace behind that realization.
When we are perpetually forced to run to God for a dip into that ocean, “the word,” with all it’s God given electric life included, is given a chance to root deeper and deeper into us. The conditions become ideal for that rooting to take place.
We can’t just hole ourselves away to please God or find relief from the weight of our failings. We must walk, we must fall, we must read His words in hope, and we must gratefully receive every single bit of grace that is coming to us because of the road we are actively walking on.
Chocolate chip cookies only happen when you mix the wet and dry ingredients together.
And changes in our souls only happen when we allow God’s grace ocean to ram into the dry shores of our bitter failures, with Jesus Himself standing there, lighting the place up in all the grounded joy of His indomitable life.
God didn’t call you to walk with Him because you’d do it perfectly. He didn’t give you kids because He just needs someone to handle raising them right now and He knew you’d do a great job. If anything, it’s the opposite. He gave us kids (or whatever is refining you at the moment) because He loves us, and He loves walking side by side with His people towards their refinement. He gave you kids because they are exasperating: exasperated is where the magic happens.
So let’s stop being so surprised at our failures that we feel the need to live in their constant shadow.
Let’s not forget to see the big picture of this journey-style communion with the Word, mostly how utterly important the dirty, humbling, inconvenient walking part is.
And let’s not forget that Levi didn’t call Jesus: Jesus called Levi.
He called him knowing his weaknesses and imperfections.
He called him because He had an ocean of grace burning a hole in His proverbial pocket for anyone willing to “follow with Him” despite those weaknesses and imperfections.
He called someone like Levi because the Word will not rest until it lives, moves and has our entire being at the disposal of His limitless, life-charged glow.
“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” (NIV)
Great article and a great reminder, Cas!