Journeying from Eden to Heaven

'Journeying from Eden to Heaven' was delivered at the Headstart Leaders' Spiritual Retreat, 16-18 September 2005. It is part 4 in a series of 4 reflections under the title 'Come Away With Me'.

Medical textbooks are rife with definitions of pain. The American Society of Anesthesiologists define it as an unpleasant sensory or emotional experience, associated with actual or potential damage, or described in the terms of such damage. You mean like a slap in the face, or a dagger in the heart? Nice.

Life is painful. There is no escaping it. At best we are making things bearable. Antibiotics, air-conditioning, clean water – all have made living a little better, but there is no running away from the pain of being alive.

Since the day we were expunged from Eden, nothing about being alive is pain-free. We have lost the the easy care-free joy of abundance, and enjoying all of creation as a gift – everything we need we have to sweat and bleed for. We no longer enjoy the unbroken fellowship with our Creator, and all our relationships are marred with jealousy, anger, self-centred demands. The same fallen people populate churches, so it is no mystery that we have problems there, if not more glaringly so. But though we have been banished from Eden, Eden has never left our bosoms. We will always be homesick for a better reality and our best technology and psychotherapy will not end suffering.

Every day is painful – waking up is hard, clients are hard, bosses are worse. Small things hurt us – a snigger, an unreturned phone call, unreciprocated smile. Just when we thought we got things together, something big comes along and whops us on the side of the head – a close relative dies, you crash your car, a lawyer sends you a threatening letter. Shit happens. Murphy’s law works overtime. If we are honest with ourselves, though, the greatest pain of all is loneliness. And we are all lonely. Deeply, achingly, intractably lonely.

None of our aspirations for spiritual advancement get very far because all our neat formulas and plans simply fall apart. Our progress is derailed. Our attentions are diverted to self-preservation. Our joy is sapped and life becomes dreary and mere survival is all we can hope for.

As a physician, I appreciate what pain does for the patient. Without it, patients would never turn up to have their medical condition investigated. The pattern of pain tells us the likely cause. And pain gives us a useful way to monitor the severity of the problem and how it's responding to our treatment.

I can see two major schools of thought in approaching psychological/emotional pain in Christian circles. One – is to deny it, steel yourself with verses about faith and the pure joy of trials and march on like good Christian soldiers singing ‘It’s a happy day’ all the way. Crabb remarks: ‘common in fundamentalist circles, (this approach) crushes the soul under the weight of academic truth and proud obedience.’ The second – is to palliate it. Find every possible means to relieve our pain. Indulge our desires, enjoy the creaturely comforts, furnish our homes with pretty things and taste the best this world has to offer. Neither are in touch with reality. No amount of denial will take away suffering, and no amount of partying will satisfy our hungers.

Larry Crabb in his insightful book, ‘Finding God’, shows us we have a choice to make: either we try to rebuild/recapture Eden in our lives, or make our pilgrimage towards Heaven. He contrasts Lamech and Enoch, both the 7th generation progeny of Cain and Abel. He says:
‘Lamech declared: “I will build my city! I want my pleasures now.” Enoch said: “I will build God’s kingdom! And trust God to one day build a city for me to enjoy.” Because God cares deeply about his children, many times he chooses to relieve our suffering and solve our problems. But because his love is.. rooted in what he knows is best for us, he provides us with something more interesting to live for than ourselves. He catches us up in the supernatural reality of living for an eternal kingdom.’

David Seamands tells us to 'choose our pain' - the pain of grumbling and fighting it, or the pain of understanding it and allowing God to do his healing work and propel us towards heaven. Henri Nouwen suggests that we turn pain from an enemy into a friend. Instead of pouring all our efforts into eliminating pain as quickly as possible, we can befriend it, listen to it, and let it speak to us of our deepest need and of God's presence in our pain. That way, both our highest pleasures and deepest pain point us forward to God and Heaven. A fantastic Mamak Rojak or Thai dish becomes a foretaste of glory, driving me forward, not an obsession with the world, cementing my feet in a perishing world. The most teeth-grinding of hurts and frustrations propel me to look further, they become engines of growth and not excuses for narcissistic self massage.

C.S. Lewis once said: ‘If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.’ We have a greater purpose than fixing this life, it is to know God and enjoy Him. Pardon for our sin is more important than immediate healing for our pain. The chief end of man is to glorify him, it is not the chief end of God to gratify man. Our focus must shift from finding ourselves or making life better, to finding God who is constantly chasing after us.

The lessons of David and Job teach us that. Pain is the ever-present vehicle that drives us to our God. The equation is not about how much pain we suffered vs how much relief/deliverance we received. It is about how much of our unbelief is eroded and how much of God we come to know for ourselves. But these lessons begin with brutal honesty. We must dare to ask, ‘Where are you God when it hurts? What kind of God are you to allow this kind of pain in my life? Why should I worship you?’ Who knows how he will answer you.

The invitation to ‘Come… with me by yourselves and rest for awhile’ is repeated over and over again in our lives – that we find rest. Rest from the abdicating distractions and anxieties of the world. Rest from the paralyzing sins of our past. Rest from the illusions of who we really are. Yet our ultimate rest is in heaven – where there will be no weeping or crying. Every little Sabbath we take is a small step towards the great Sabbath Rest. And while this journey is often bitterly painful, it is precisely this pain that drives us forward and enlarges our hearts for the Lover of our souls.

Reflection & Dialog:
1. What are the biggest sources of pain in your life?
2. What do they tell you about yourself, your needs, your passions/commitments?
3. Come to God with your pain and speak honestly with Him about it.

Part 1 - The Tragedy of Restlesness
Part 2 - Coming into the Present
Part 3 - Return to the True Self
Part 4 - Journeying from Eden to Heaven

Return to the True Self

'Return to the True Self' was delivered at the Headstart Leaders' Spiritual Retreat, 16-18 September 2005. It is part 3 in a series of 4 reflections under the title 'Come Away With Me'.

While we reenter the present in terms of time and place, we also need to come back to our true selves in person. We are getting ourselves reoriented in time, place and person, so to speak. The reason is if we are not ourselves, who are we, and how can we relate to God from a false substitute? The true self remains restless to be found.

We are often so caught up in pleasing our clients, our bosses, our spouses, and our parents that we don’t know why we do what we do anymore. We lose ourselves to the opinion of others. The demands of making it has put us on a treadmill of improving our salary, investing in our security, and amassing things – from little trinkets and gadgets to houses and cars. We have become what we own. We pride ourselves in our abilities to lead, manage, produce results – we soon become what we can do.

The false self, or ‘old man’ of the Bible, is the who we are apart from God. From birth, our existence is marred with pain and loneliness. However, as we grow up, the wrong message is unintentionally whispered in to us: ‘If you… I will love you…’ If we finish our food, our parents will love us. If we do well in school, they will love us. If we go to university and succeed in life, the will love us. If I own the swankiest bike, my friends will love me. If I show great leadership, my colleagues will adore me. Advertisements and billboards scream to us: ‘Buy this, do that, look good, you haven’t truly lived until…’ And so it goes on and on throughout life till our entire person is constructed on these things.

We have lost our true selves on the altar of popularity, possessions and power. Our true inner man who IS, complete and real, apart from any of these external things have been snuffed out when we exchange our true identity with these things.

How do we now unlearn and deconstruct the very fabric our lives. How do we reclaim our authenticity and personhood? How do we come home from floating around as ghosts pleasing others, amassing things, and trying to do greater things?

The before and after of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness is instructive:
Forty days of starvation and desolation, Jesus was vulnerable. When we are lonely and weary, we want to feed ourselves with things, with affection, and with power.

When the devil tempted Jesus to turn stone into bread, He rejected it saying, ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ To grab for our material needs apart from God is to deny that all creation is God’s and a gift to us. When we give in, we make the pursuit of things greater than the pursuit of the Creator. We want our worth in things we can see.

When the devil tempted Jesus with all the kingdoms of the world, with authority and splendor, here was a quick means to popularity – Jesus could build his empire and have the world worship him at his feet. He replied, ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’ We want our worth in what people think of us. But for Jesus only how the Father looks to him mattered, the opinion of others/the world was meaningless.

Finally, Jesus was tempted to display His greatness once and for all by free-fall diving and a supernatural stunt in view of the whole city. If am God’s Son, and I am loved as He says I am, I will surely be delivered in spectacular fashion! But Jesus replied: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ There was absolutely no need to prove himself and his worth in God’s eyes. We want our worth in the power we have, in our abilities and achievements – Jesus saw his worth only in the Father’s eyes.

We need to recover our real identity of the Beloved, who IS, in the safe place of God’s presence. Jesus shows us how. Before the temptation, God had spoken in a voice at the Jordan: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ And this was way before he had done anything. He was a mere carpenter’s son who had not even preached his first sermon, healed his first sick, or performed any miracles. Experiencing our belovedness and seeing our true selves in God’s eyes makes us complete, lacking nothing.

Secondly, even IN the wilderness – when the euphoria has faded, when there was no one to affirm us, no things to remind us of what we have, no support base to encourage us – Jesus quoted Scripture. Basil Pennington says: ‘Here we have an antidote to the false self: a daily feeding, a steady immersion into the Word of God. When we are daily fed by the Word of God, when it nourishes us and nurtures us, it forms our mind and heart in the Truth. It uncovers and peels away, one by one, the deceptions of the false self. It grounds us in the Truth and enables us to discern, in the light of that Truth our true selves in.. our relationship with God…’

If the institution of the Sabbath teaches us anything it is this: we ARE complete and fully alive, even apart from our work. We can assure ourselves that when we stop – we don’t cease from existing, we don’t cease to live. When God stopped on the 7th day, He did not cease to be the God he was before he created. When Jesus refused the things, power and popularity offered by Satan, he didn’t cease to be the Beloved. I AM, and I can JUST BE. Just Be-ing is a lost art today. Solitude helps us restore our identity apart from work. The more we are able to let go, the more of God we can have, and the less of things do we need!

The key is to replace our false self-view with God’s true view of us. Accepting God’s acceptance of us is a lifetime of unlearning and relearning. Being authentic with one another, embracing our ordinariness, not trying to be someone else – we bloom and find joy in who we are, warts and pimples all the same. In stillness and in God’s presence we can truly say: ‘Nothing is important, I need nothing else – only God. Only God.’

Reflection and Dialog:
1. How important is others’ opinion of you – in the workplace, at home, in church?
2. What are some things you feel you must have or achieve to be have ‘made it’?
3. What steps will you take to find the Sabbath-Rest?

Part 1 - The Tragedy of Restlesness
Part 2 - Coming into the Present
Part 3 - Return to the True Self
Part 4 - Journeying from Eden to Heaven

Coming into the Present

'Coming into the Present' was delivered at the Headstart Leaders' Spiritual Retreat, 16-18 September 2005. It is part 2 in a series of 4 reflections under the title 'Come Away With Me'.

One of the reasons we are REST-LESS, is that we are often not in the present. We are too caught up regretting the past and worrying about the future that we cannot live in the present moment. We may be reading our Bible or praying, but our hearts are somewhere else – the unsolved problems at work, the difficulties in your relationships, etc.

The first question God ever asked Adam & Eve after they sinned, was: ‘Where are you?’ Shame over the past and fear of the future abdicates our souls from the present. We are no longer able to live in the present and we have been fleeing God ever since. They could not ‘walk with God in the cool of the evening’ as they used to.

How can we possibly enter God’s rest, if we are not even here? God is in the present, God is here, and we can only meet Him here and now. How much of our life is wasted being all over the place, bouncing back and forth between the past and the future, but never settling in the present?

Coming away with Jesus means to enter into the present and to enlarge the moment. We have to be able to let go of the past and stop worrying about the future and come to God, saying: ‘I am here.’ When we are in touch with the Eternal One, time seems to stop for us, and we step out of time for a while. Time then is no longer about minutes and hours but about love and meaning.

Henri Nouwen in his book, ‘Here and Now’, says: ‘the real enemies of our life are the “oughts” and the “ifs.” They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future. But real life takes place in the here and the now. God is a God of the present. God is always in the moment, be that moment hard or easy, joyful or painful.’

But how do we let go of the past? The past is full of regrets. Things we should’ve done and should not have done. The shame of our sins cripples us, and we are filled with self-loathe or imprisoned in self-hate. When we hate ourselves we will hate the world. When we can’t forgive ourselves we can’t forgive anyone else. The past continues to haunt us.

The really good news of the good news is that there is a way out. When David kept silent, his bones wasted away. Guilt festered, his loneliness intensified, and the anguish was destroying him. He said: ‘When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"-- and you forgave the guilt of my sin.’ (Psalm 32:3).

The key to freedom is disclosure and forgiveness. Receiving forgiveness enables us to forgive others. That is the point of the parable of the unforgiving slave (Matt 18:23-30).When we have been given unlimited forgiveness, we can also freely forgive. Canceling others’ debts to us is a choice we make, and sometimes a long-drawn process, but it is for our freedom that we release others. We certainly need more grace in our churches – we need help relieve the burden of Christian perfectionism, and not find ways to replace the sting of death with more guilt and legalism.

The uncertainties of the future paralyse us through fear. We are afraid – of failing, of losing something or someone. But Jesus insists that the ‘anxieties and worries’ of this life only choke us. They will asphyxiate our lifeline with God and retard our progress spiritually until we face our fears. David devotes countless psalms to fear – often for his own life, over injustice, betrayal, false witness, and even God’s judgement. But each time, he finds deliverance in the goodness of God and ‘taking refuge’ (over 43 times). Pride keeps us from ‘humbling ourselves,’ and ‘casting our anxieties on Him.’ (1 Pet 5:6-7)

Finally, we need to cultivate a sense of awareness. We learn that the only time we can experience life and God is now. We reenter the moment. With simple disciplines we learn to be aware of ourselves and God who has always been there. We learn to breathe again. Chew our food. Smell the grass. Let the simplest day-to-day experiences arrest us and penetrate our beings with the Presence of God that is there. We need only to come home into the present.

Reflection and dialog:
1. What deep regrets, hurts or fears do you have? How do they impair your relationship with God?
2. Confess, receive His forgiveness and ask for grace to forgive those who have wronged you.
3. Have there been moments that when you felt God’s immanent presence? Share that moment.


Recommended Reading: Here and Now, Living in the Spirit by Henri Nouwen

Part 1 - The Tragedy of Restlesness
Part 2 - Coming into the Present
Part 3 - Return to the True Self
Part 4 - Journeying from Eden to Heaven

The Tragedy of Restlesness

"The Tragedy of Restlesness" was delivered at the Headstart Leaders' Spiritual Retreat, 16-18 September 2005. It is part 1 in a series of 4 reflections under the title 'Come Away With Me'.

If I were to ask you to just rest and do nothing all of today, what will you do? Grab a newspaper, turn on the TV, logon the web, maybe do some shopping or balance your accounts? If I told you, your food & clothing for all of this year is taken care of – what will you do with your life? Book a holiday? Climb the Himalayas? Read all the books you’ve bought in the last year? The tragedy of our ultra-modern life is there simply is no time for rest, and even if there was – we no longer know how to.

Our culture is such that we are constantly distracted – by ads, news flashes, SMS-es, latest movie releases, etc. We have made life so zippingly fast-paced, that we can’t catch up with ourselves any more. Anything we do, buy, read today is obsolete by the time we lay hands on it – somebody is inventing something better right now, a new discovery is being published today, the way you operate has been superceded by a smarter method. Sadly, though we are so breathless playing catch-up trying to stay focussed we no longer know what is rest much less how to get it.

At a time when we need to recover our humanity and meaning the most, we are swept away by a tide of artificial substitutes. Hollywood, MTV, the tourism and food industry make sure of that. What entertainment and every kind of sensual indulgence offers is a quick-fix, temporary relief, fleeting moments of pleasurable but imaginary escape which leaves us only more hungry, empty and lonely than before. But then, we’ve got to get back to work – who has time to think about it?

In a similar situation of exhaustion and starvation, Jesus, recognising the urgent need for recovery and nourishment intervened:
‘"Come away by yourselves to a lonely place and rest a while." (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) And they went away in the boat to a lonely place
by themselves. (Mark 6:31-32, NASB)’

I love the passage for what it doesn’t say as much as what it does. Jesus doesn’t say, ‘Go away for awhile and come back ready to work again.’ He doesn’t send you away only when you are fatigued beyond use, and for the sole purpose of rehabilitating the workforce. And it isn’t one of those company motivation and indoctrination retreats just to make you more aggressive and productive.

The invitation is threefold: it is to ‘come away’ (NASB) – drawing away/detaching ourselves from the work when it has become damaging to the soul. Work itself is not the enemy, it is when work has overtaken the heart that perspective sorely needs to be restored. There are warning signs and we must learn to recognise them.

Secondly it is to ‘come with me’ (NIV) – a leaving of the things that have robbed you of your inner joy and tunneled your spiritual vision, to return to the real heart, purpose and goal of our lives, Jesus.

And thirdly, for a good reason: ‘they had no leisure so much as to eat’ (KJV). No leisure, so much as to eat! This rendition in the KJV makes a sharp point and Maslow would be quick to point out – that if the disciples were so consumed by the work they couldn’t even eat, you can imagine how spiritually and emotionally starved they must have already become.

We will explore in further sessions this important invitation. What are the things that erodes our lives, keeping us from our true identity and a growing intimacy with God?

In the face of massive opposition and danger, David says: ‘One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,’ but if he can’t get that, he’ll settle for just one day. ‘Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.’ (Psalm 84:10, NIV). He makes the difficult choice of choosing, like Mary, ‘the better thing.’

In my final year of Masters, I suffered a serious health problem. I was so stressed from working on my final dissertation, and studying for the exit exams, and leading a church, and speaking in the student CF, I developed peptic ulcer disease that required large doses of opioids for pain-relief. In that difficult period going through gastroscopies, ultrasounds and drug therapy – I discovered I also had gallstones and fatty deposits in the liver. I was obese, and the repressed stress had been burning away at my stomach lining. I was forced to work through the deeper issues at work. By God’s grace and much, much love from my wife and others around me, I soon realised I was chronically depressed, easily irritable, quietly bitter and prone to rage. Compulsive overeating was one of the complications of my masked depression. Coming to terms with my adrenaline addiction and stress-burnout pattern, I learnt some crucial skills for early recognition and intervention. The first few months were tough-going, subjecting myself to rigid monitoring and journaling my feelings, but in time the hard labor bore fruits of much peace, improved relationships, and best of all – I lost 20kgs of weight!

You may not have come to such serious consequences of stress-burnout in your life, but we all need to learn the skills of recognizing it, hearing Jesus’ invitation to ‘come away’ and give ourselves permission to rest. We need to move from denial, through anger (blaming everyone else for our restlessness), to acceptance (that we need rest), to change (taking responsibility for getting rest.)

Reflection and dialog:
1. Have you suffered burnout recently?
2. What steps led to it? What were its consequences for you?
3. Were there early signs of stress and burnout for you?
4. What steps do you need to take to ‘give yourself permission’ to rest – do you have difficulty doing that?


Recommended reading: Unmasking Male Depression, by Archibald D. Hart

Part 1 - The Tragedy of Restlesness
Part 2 - Coming into the Present
Part 3 - Return to the True Self
Part 4 - Journeying from Eden to Heaven