For Whom We Wave Our Flag: The Purpose and Power of Politics
This July 25th marks 50 years since Pope Paul VI sent shockwaves throughout the planet with release of the encyclical, Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”). Against major, cultural opposition, he reaffirmed God's design for sexuality in marriage, and warned what will happen if intimate communication of love is divorced from its natural transmission of life:
(1) Infidelity and Moral Decline,
(2) Lost Respect for Women,
(3) Abuse of Power,
(4) Unlimited Dominion over the Body.
Of course, tragically, these have not only become our cultural fabric, they further underly pervasive poverty, broken homes, sexual confusion and violence.
And perhaps more subtle but most deadly, as the root of "contra-ception" literally means "against life"-- which is to say, against God who is life, the contraceptive mentality has ushered in "faith" that is about worshipping fleeting emotions, experiences, people and places in the name of God. That is, worshipping ourselves.
Karol Wojtyla, the man who would become Pope St. John Paul II, understood contraception as a "using of persons." I'm suggesting here that a "contraceptive mentality" extends to a using of Divine Persons. This happens when "faith" becomes only about what They "do" for us, the "powerful experience"... divorcing "spiritual climax" from a life of self-sacrificing love. From living daily as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If you’re attuned to our movement’s media (ILoveMyFamily.us), you know we’re about humbly availing to all God desires of us. You know how important we think it is to have a living encounter with Jesus Christ, and to be availed to the power of the Holy Spirit alive in and through us. You know our proclamation of amazing miracles that beg belief! However, these "streams of living water" (John 7:38), this "breath of life" (Is. 42:5) .. is meant to form us into virtuous disciples of Jesus Christ, to model Him, to do what He did. Real faith is not revealed on Tabor, but on the road to Calvary. It is proclaimed most resoundingly in the darkness and the desert, in our extraordinary ordinary, in the mess without which we wouldn’t need a Messiah.
Too many today have come to measure faith in terms of mountaintop moments, or abandon it altogether for lack of understanding God alive in the everyday world.
If I were to ask you to name an impressive Christian leader today, likely the person you suggest would only be known on the basis of his or her mountaintop moments, Books. Sermons. Videos. Posts. That's all great, but nothing compared to the faith proclaimed by a mother or father with a sick child in the middle of the night, or a spouse who chooses to remain faithful to her spouse in spite of infidelity, or so many women and men who face significant obstacles in their homes, at work and in the world every day!
I'm not impressed with the "faith" of anyone who has had any number of "spiritual climax" moments. I'm impressed with the person who finds their mission, God alive, in the real, regular, messy, seemingly inconsequential world and brings it every moment of every day.
Our purpose on this Earth is "nuptial marriage" with God. Enduring love and life, not just climax moments, is the nature of marriage. The nature of family. The nature of love. The nature of God.
So if you've been blessed with a mountaintop experience, realize such power has a purpose: more fully discover and live with Him in the valley. Revival is wherever you are. #Revival #LiveIT
[No proclamation is more loving or poignant than one which says “I Love My Family.” Join us: ILoveMyFamily.us.]