3 Gifts

My, it's been a long time since the last post. Part of that has had to do with travel I've had to engage in for work — trips to Hay River, Edmonton and Ottawa in the past two weeks, and a lot of preparation for those trips the week prior. And part has had to do with a recurrent weariness concerning the state of my little part of the overall church.

The weariness was particularly heavy just prior to departing for Hay River. But then I received from God the first of three gifts: Miroslav Volf's book Free of Charge. Waiting in the airport, on the plane, and in the hotel, I simply devoured the first half of this book, in which Volf portrays God as giver, and outlines both our motivation for and possibility of giving as God gives. All of our giving, of course, involves the giving of things we have first received from God — a reality that makes it impossible for us to deal with God on a mutually advantageous transactional basis. There is no making deals with God — we have nothing He needs (indeed nothing that didn't originate with Him) nor any way of enforcing any "contract" we might strike with Him.

I was also particularly struck by his observation of three distinct motivations for giving: the pure delight in the one(s) we give to; the need of those we give to; and finally, giving to support the other in his/her giving. These three motivations were ably illustrated for me by the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that I caught in the hotel in Ottawa. I don't typically watch much television, but the few episodes of this program I've seen have certainly involved giving to people who were very much in need. Often those needy families were also involved in giving to their communities, and the rebuilt home served to allow that giving to continue. And, of course, it was impossible not to see the pure delight the design team had in the children whose rooms they designed, and the joy they experienced in the delight of those who received their gifts.

Certainly both of these gifts left me feeling immersed in the reality of God's presence, and ongoing work of restoration of His creation and establishing of His kingdom.

The third gift came after my return, and was a bit different. I was listening to recordings of N.T. Wright speaking at Wycliffe College in Ontario earlier this year, on Romans 8. I was particularly struck by the progression of "groanings" in the passage. First, creation is groaning as in birth pangs, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. Secondly, we too groan. And finally, the Spirit groans in making intercession on our behalf because we do not yet know how to pray as we ought. Wright suggested that often the vocation of the church is indeed to groan at the very place of the world's pain, lifting it up to God who in Christ has fully entered into the pain of the world and who in the Spirit continues to brood over the world — much as He did in the beginning, brooding over the chaos that was being formed into an ordered world — intent on bringing the new creation to fulfillment, in and through His called people.

It was as if God spoke to him, assuring me that this weariness, this "groaning" if you like, over the state of the church, was not without it's purpose. Rather it was part of the working together with God in entering into the place of the world's pain, a pain that looks to the perfection of God's church as its hope of redemption.

To be sure, I very much do not know how to enter this pain redemptively on behalf of the world — to pray as I ought. Rather it is by faith that I must trust that indeed the prayer I cannot yet pray is being actively being brought to the Father by the deep groaning of the Spirit within.