What Do You Believe About God?

We’ve talked quite a bit about the process of formation this week — about how formation happens in two different ways, that what we’re trying to secure on the first level of formation is ultimately meant to be given to us by God, and that such relief from the heavy burden of our ego is found when we’re able to place our cares in the hands of God.

But doing so doesn’t happen automatically. How do we know God is worthy of that trust? 

So much of this has to do with what we believe about God and what we believe about ourselves. For instance, if we don’t believe in God, that second level of formation won’t exist for us. In that case, the first level — how we interact with the world and what we come to believe about ourselves and other people in it — is all we’ll have. 

But if we do believe in God, that shifts things around a bit. What do we believe about God? What does God have to do with us? What kind of entity is God? 

Our beliefs about God inform our beliefs about ourselves. These are the existential questions. 

When I write reflections for you to consider in this space, I come from an orientation of belief in God. Specifically, I am a follower of Jesus. This means that the person of Jesus — his life and teachings — do much to inform my understanding of who God is and who I am. 

I believe that the more we get to know Jesus, the more we come to know God and ourselves. (This is one reason I’m creating the Gospel immersion course, to be offered here in the fall: so that we can better get to know the person of Jesus, and therefore better get to know God and ourselves. Can’t wait to share this with all of you!)

But what about you? What do you believe about God? How does that belief inform your understanding of yourself? 

Trusting God with Our Ego

Yesterday and today, I woke with a feeling of heaviness that seemed to show up out of nowhere. As I have carried the feeling around with me and tried to understand it, the only word that has resounded again and again is the word sad. 

For some reason I didn’t fully understand, I felt sad. 

This morning, as I came before Jesus in prayer with these feelings, I hardly knew what to say and barely had the energy to stay with him in prayer. I just kept coming back to that same word: sad. 

So I told him I was feeling sad.

And even though our prayer times lately have included a lot of walking and talking together, this morning I just wanted to stop and have him look at these feelings of sadness I felt. I didn’t understand them, but perhaps he would help me see what was there and why it was there.

I stood before him and looked into his eyes and just told him, “I’m feeling sad.” I told him I didn’tunderstand where it was coming from, but there it was nonetheless. And slowly, slowly, I heard him speaking to me. 

My grace is sufficient for you. My yoke is easy. 

Jesus helped me see that my sadness stemmed from getting twisted up inside the first level of formation these last few days. Without realizing it, my ego has gotten mired in the things I have been given to do. When the stakes seem high or the way unclear, when the plans have gone awry and I have needed to keep moving forward, I have feared failure. I have feared my intentions won’t matter and my efforts won’t be enough. 

And then the world seems like a huge and scary place. 

But Jesus looked at me this morning and said, “My grace is sufficient for you. Cast your cares upon me and let me care for you. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. This is my work through you. I will see it through to completion in the way I intend it to be done.”

There is something immensely relieving about not having to hold all the pieces of our worlds together. It really does create a lightness of being that’s a bit inexplicable, a sense of participating in something larger than us for which we are given an easy role to play. As it turns out, our worth and performance is not on the line as we’d imagined they were. 

This is what comes from trusting our ego into God’s hands instead of holding on to it ourselves. 

Can you relate to this struggle with the ego? Does it ever feel like a huge and unbearable burden to bear and maintain? What is it like for you to consider trusting God with your ego instead? 

How Do the Two Levels of Formation Interact?

Yesterday we explored the concept that formation happens on two levels — one level concerned with self-protection and one level concerned with discovering and recovering the truth of ourselves in God’s eyes. 

In the comments section, Katy asked a great question: 

How do you think those two types of formation interact with and inform each other? 

I think there are probably many layers to the answer. I suspect in our times of reflection together in this space, we will continue to revisit these two levels of formation to consider concrete ways that either level is or has been at work in our lives and to discover ways in which the two interact. 

But today, as I considered this question, I did land on one way that I believe these two levels speak to one another and teach us something about who we are and the quest each of us are taking toward wholeness and ultimate security in God. That way is this: 

The first level of formation that is concerned with protecting and promoting the self — when examined — teaches us much about the identity and security we ultimately will find in God. 

The thing about the first level of formation is that it is wholly devoted to acts of self-preservation. All that we believe and choose and seek on that level has to do with our ongoing longing and hope for security, acceptance, and love. On that level, our greatest fears are being alone and lacking significance. Everything we choose to believe about the world and how we then interact with it is geared toward self-preservation and a hope that we truly matter. 

The recovery work on the second level of formation — the level where we continually discover who we are to God and begin to abide in relationship with God — eventually teaches us that everything we sought so valiantly to attain and keep on that first level of formation already exists in our relationship with God. 

With God, we eventually discover the reality of full acceptance and love that never ends and can never be taken from us or lost. With God, we discover the reality of always being wanted and sought out. We’re never left alone, and are our value is immense and esteemed and unchanging. Our existence carries intention and meaning to God.

These are, paradoxically, hard truths to grasp.

Although in God we ultimately find all that we sought with all our might on the first level of formation, such reality is not readily apparent. It takes time to discover. We must get to know God and get to know ourselves. Eventually, those two entities — God and ourselves — must begin to interact and form relationship in order for us to eventually receive and settle into these gifts of security, acceptance, and love God has to give us.

And again, discovering and settling into the truth of ourselves in God is a process that lasts our lifetime. 

What is your response to this idea? Where are you in your process of understanding yourself on either level of formation? 

Formation Happens on Two Levels

I’ve been reading a little book by David Benner called The Gift of Being Yourself — a very profound and rich little book, I might add — and it has me thinking a lot these days about the self and how it is formed. 

This morning, for instance, I got to thinking about that moment when I was 19 that I’ve mentioned here before when it felt like scales fell from my eyes and I realized everything about myself, my life, and my faith was quite different than I’d always thought it was. In that moment, I began a more conscious understanding of and participation in my formation as a person on two distinct levels. 

The first part of that process was learning how I’d been formed over the course of my life in conscious and unconscious ways. Who had I become, and why? 

This level of formation is happening all throughout our lives whether we know it or not. We’ve talked about this previously, too, but in each moment of our lives, depending on what we choose to do, how we choose to respond, how we spend our time, and even the feelings and thoughts we have in response to different situations, our personhood is being formed. 

Ultimately, this first level of formation has to do with beliefs we form around the experiences we have.

It’s a kind of formation we dictate and control — whether we’re aware we’re doing it or not — based on the kind of person we want to be or the quality of life we want to have. It is most often concerned with self-preservation and self-advancement.

But there’s a second level of formation, and our awareness of this second level emerges like a process of recovery. 

Think of it like cleaning a window that has been coated with thick paint that’s been there for years. We take a rag and pail of solution to it, and slowly, slowly the window becomes clear. We eventually can see the window as it was originally created to be seen, rather than the years of paint coated over it. 

This second level of formation is like that. It is a process of discovering the person we really are that was determined about us by God before we were born. It is the person God intends for us to be and knows us to be at our core, and it is the person God is steadily desiring to bring more and more to the surface. 

I say it is like a process of recovery because who we are at our deepest core level, as created and determined by God, already exists in the fullness of God’s awareness but not the fullness of our own. Our lifetime with God in Christ is meant to be an ongoing process of recovery of the person God made us to be.

In reading this, do you have any sense of connection to either level of formation at work in your life? What has been your understanding of the process of formation that happens in us over a lifetime? What is your response to knowing these two types of formation exist?

Trust in the Messiah

I’ve recently been reading through a number of Paul’s letters to the churches that he wrote throughout his life and have found them to be an interesting complement to the Gospels. The Gospels allow us to learn who Jesus is by following him along in the narratives of his life. Paul’s letters expound on those narratives by telling us what it all means. 

So in Paul’s letters, we’re helped along in our understanding of what those of us in the Christian faith believe. 

This morning, as I spent time in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, I was brought to a moment of noticing what has been happening here on this site in the last week and a half and how it relates to what we believe in the Christian faith.

In this space for the last week and a half, we’ve been talking pretty consistently about the notion of rest. We spent several days with a meditation that began with the image of a large and sturdy rock. We were invited to sit down and rest a while on that rock, then to notice the flowers at our feet, and then to notice the presence of Christ sitting with us in that scene. 

We also talked about Jesus being the salt in our lives — of his saltiness being the flavor we taste and the density that buoys us as we experience the ocean. We considered what it would be like to have encountered Jesus on earth during the days he lived here, and we held inside ourselves the idea that he comes to where we are — no matter where we are — and is present to us there. We also considered his role as the Good Shepherd and his intent to lead us beside still waters and feed us on lush green grasses. 

All of this, to me, seemed like an ongoing invitation to rest and to allow Jesus to be the one who is with us and does the “work” of being what we need and providing for us.

So as I read through a section of Paul’s letter to the Galatians this morning, I noticed a convergence between these meditations we’ve considered over the last week and a half and the foremost premise of the Christian faith.

The bedrock of the Christian faith is our trust in Jesus as the Messiah. Paul says: 

Convinced that no human being can please God by self-improvement, we believed in Jesus as the Messiah so that we might be set right before God by trusting in the Messiah, not by trying to be good. 

— Galatians 2:16

There is something foundational about our belief and faith in Jesus. Who he is matters. And our ongoing relationship with him is the essence of our formation process.

Today, I invite you to consider the question: who is Jesus to you? Is he — or could at some point be — the Messiah in whom you place your trust?

Who Are You Becoming?

Yesterday we talked about the busyness of life and taking an intentional moment to slow down, be still, and just breathe. Today I want to invite you to notice all the activity in your daily life and how it is forming you. 

One assumption of this space is that formation happens continuously.

What we think about, how we respond, and how we spend our time impacts who we are becoming. Those little moments and decisions change us, moment by moment. We grow in tiny increments each and every day.

Do you pay attention to how you are being formed? 

There are a lot of ways formation can happen. Sometimes it happens intentionally — we sit down each day and pay attention to our interior world and how we’re connecting to God, self, and others. We make decisions about the way we want to spend our time or how we want to respond to a given situation. We choose to take up little habits or disciplines that build our character a bit more in the direction we desire.

But formation also happens when we’re not paying attention. We respond, we form opinions and beliefs, and we spend our time in certain ways that we don’t even think about. We just do it automatically. We take in opinions and responses of others and allow them to shape what we think and believe. We don’t even notice it’s happening. We feel things and allow those feelings to form our core beliefs. We don’t even realize our core beliefs are being shaped.

Formation happens continuously — sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

Take a few moments and consider what sorts of things are informing your thoughts, beliefs, and behavior right now. How do you spend your time on any given day? What thoughts preoccupy you? What or who do you rely upon for information to impact your opinions and beliefs? 

When you look at your life right now, how are you being formed? And who might you be in the process of becoming, as a result?

How We Are Like the Trees

Over the weekend, I stumbled on a video that made me think of you. 

It made me think of you for a couple reasons, actually. 

First, it offers a moment of stillness and rest. The pace of this video is slow and contemplative. The narrator’s voice is sweet and gentle. The images are lush and beautiful. The environment is hushed. That’s what this online space seeks to offer you with each daily post: a moment of stillness, gentleness, reflection, and quiet. 

The video’s message itself also speaks so well to the reason we gather in this space. We are always forming. Formation is forever and constant. We can learn much from our friends, these trees. 

Approximate run time: 2 minutes, 56 seconds

“It is not easy to grow so much for so long.”

This is so true, isn’t it? You are growing. You are always growing. There is always an opportunity for more and more reflection on that growth. It is not easy to grow so much for so long. 

Today, I invite you to be gentle with yourself in the midst of all that growth. 

Just notice what the video evoked in you. Could you relate to the trees? Did the music or a particular image speak? How did the video meet you in your present moment? How does it invite gentleness inside your soul?

Cultivating a Quiet Heart

A few weeks ago I stumbled on a line of a psalm that I keep returning to ponder every couple of days. It says: 

I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.

— Psalm 131:2, The Message

I find myself reading these words over and over again. These words articulate one of my greatest desires and greatest questions. 

As desire, they speak of my longing for stillness, particularly before my God and as I go about my daily life. I want to carry around inside of me a heart that’s prone to peace and calm. I want to be a person who can sit before God in stillness and peace. I desire to be content inside myself.

But the words articulate a question, too. They cause me to ask, Is this true of me? 

The word “cultivated” implies ongoing intent.

I think of a gardener or farmer who must cultivate his soil for optimum growing conditions. This may mean breaking up hard, clay ground. It may mean turning and turning and turning that ground so that is gets soft and loose and crumbly and so that his hoe or spade can go even deeper into the ground below, pulling the rich, dark treasures of hidden, moist soil into the mix with the crumbly remains above. It may mean watering that ground on a regular basis. It may mean giving certain portions of that land a rest from activity in any given planting season. 

Have I cultivated a quiet heart? Am I continuing to do so? These are questions we’ll always need to ask ourselves because failing to cultivate means leaving our hearts to become barren, wild wastelands, empty and devoid of life or the promise of life.

How do we cultivate a quiet heart? 

I’m curious to learn your experience of a quiet heart. I’ve found that a quiet heart comes about, for me, when a few conditions are present:  

• When I’m given room to speak the truth inside me
• When I feel fully accepted and loved
• When I’m not worried about the future

In my mind, this comes down to being parented well by God. The psalm, in that same verse, speaks of resting like a weaned child on its mother’s breast. This child has no need to fear simply being where she is. She’s not worried about her next meal. She’s nothing other than her complete self in that moment. She knows her mother will respond to her cries and needs and desires. There is complete trust and satisfaction.

What is your experience or non-experience of a quiet heart? What are the conditions that allow you to cultivate a quiet heart? What are the challenges you face in this? 

We Are the Chambered Nautilus

This past weekend, I attended a retreat to complete three years of training in the ministry of spiritual direction. For this week s entries on StillForming, I ll be posting reflections gleaned from the retreat that made me think of you and this space throughout the weekend.

During this past retreat weekend, our theme was the chambered nautilus shell. Have you seen one of these? They are sea creatures that are circular in shape, and they keep growing in ever-broader circles around and around their center over the course of their lives.

Image credit: Micro Macro

The nautilus is predicted to have been around for 500 million years — that’s 285 million years longer than the dinosaurs! — and yet this unpretentious but beautiful creature has never changed it’s basic makeup in all that time.

As our retreat leader suggested, there’s a lot to be learned from something that hasn’t changed in 500 million years, isn’t there?

One thing about the chambered nautilus that has stuck with me is the way it keeps growing forward while always remaining attached to its past as a growing little sea creature. As you can see in the photo above, little ridges on each chamber piece, calledsiphuncles, keep the individual chambers attached to one another. As the nautilus grows new chamber pieces, the new pieces attach to the old so that the nautilus always carries its complete story everywhere it goes.

I love that the nautilus keeps growing new chambers, around and around in circles, until the day it dies. In this way, it never knows just how full its nautilus life will ultimately become. It just keeps growing, never finished until its life reaches an end.

Our lives are like that too.

We are always forming. Every moment of our lives is an experience of being formed in some way. And we, too, circle around and around in our growth process, often bumping up against familiar themes, just living through them in new places.

That’s one reason I named this site the way I did: because formation is a foundational part of the human experience, and we will always, so long as we are human, be stillforming.

A poem by Ranier Maria Rilke companioned with us through the retreat weekend, which I found beautiful:

I live my life in growing circles

which move out over the things of the world. 

Perhaps I may not achieve the last

but I will surely try.

I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,

and I have been circling for a thousand years,

and still I do not know

if I am a falcon,

a storm,

or a great song.

— Ranier Maria Rilke

This poem speaks to me about the formational process of our lives. It speaks to how we are ever growing in widening circles, circling ultimately around the truth of God in us and our core identity, and yet we will never fully realize all that we truly are. That knowledge is only in the mind of God. Our job is to simply live.

Do you think of your life this way, as an ever-present process of formation? Does that thought comfort you in any way? Distress you? How might you relate to the speaker in Rilke’s poem above?

I Am Not I

For Christmas, and in honor of this website, a dear friend gave me a collage print she’d created and framed. The collage has the name of this website, “Still Forming,” at the top, formed from letters cut out of magazines, with a huge white gardenia and golden leaf nestled in the center. In the bottom left corner of the collage, she pasted the words of a poem we both recently discovered. It’s a poem that speaks to the spirit of this site, about how we are not yet what we will one day be.

————————-

I Am Not I by Juan Ramon Jimenez

I am not I.
          I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.

————————-

When I read this poem, I tend to think that the one “walking beside me whom I do not see” is Jesus. It is, after all, his image we are being conformed into, his image we will one day be. And I think it is true that he walks beside us, remaining calm and silent while we talk, forgiving us gently when we hate, and will remain standing for us when we die.

And sometimes when I read this poem, the one “walking beside me whom I do not see” is the person I will one day really be, the person I am slowly becoming in this life, the Christianne that is the truest manifestation of herself, the purified and holy and fully loving me, the Christianne God intended me to be when he spoke me into existence. That “I,” the true “I,” is slowly becoming more and more like Jesus, someone who is calm and gentle and forgiving and loving, who is brave and willing to walk where I am currently afraid to walk, who will stand before God in the end, unblinking and full of love.