Last week I read Running on Empty: Contemplative Spirituality for Overachievers by Fil Anderson (WaterBrook Press 2004). When I started reading it, I rushed through the first several chapters as I am prone to do. (Sometimes I enjoy finishing a book more than actually reading it.) Anyhow, somewhere towards the end of the book the subject matter started to sink into my brain and I slowed down. Now I'm rereading it and trying to savor the thoughts. The basic premise of the book is that too often we think that we have to be busy to be good Christians, and that God loves us for what we do. So we have to be reprogrammed to slow down, accept God's unconditional love, and simply enjoy His presence.
Anderson writes, "Our relationship with God is not the result of our efforts. Rather, a loving and gracious God acted on our behalf, granting us a most benevolent gift. Coming to see that God has searched me out and found me--and not the other way around--was breathtaking... The truth that God could love me just as I was, without my doing a thing for him, seemed too good to be true" (p. 43). He tells early on in the book how his misconceptions of God and self were physically draining him and led to physical and mental breakdown. I can relate to that. The stress of trying to work for God, yet not knowing how to depend on Him, has taken its toll on me at times. I'm reminded frequently that God only promised our daily bread, not our yearly rations.
One of Anderson's recommendations is planning regular times to be still before God, getting away from all the distractions of life and listening more than listing our requests. The past couple weeks I've been doing a bit of that. I have a path in the woods behind my house, and when I'm not busy riding my bike around it, I have a log where I like to sit or lay back and simply enjoy the creation. Sometimes I read this book or some Scripture, sometimes I think and pray, and sometimes I just sit and listen. I've learned a couple things in the process:
1) My trail illustrates to me our freedom in Christ... Before I cleared the path I had occasionally wandered in the woods, but I was always nervous about either getting lost or going off my property and possibly running into hunters. Now that I have the path I know where the boundaries are and I feel free to wander, knowing that I can't get too far lost. That's a bit like the role of the Law. It provides the boundaries so we know where we are safe. Yeah, we occasionally go outside the lines, but we rarely stay there for long when our heart is at home with God.
2) One day I was pondering how someone like Ray Boltz can openly proclaim his homosexuality and say that "I feel God's love more now than I did when I was living a lie." I'm not going to judge whether he has a real relationship with the Savior or the theological basis for his beliefs. But what I did realize is that we all have some particular sin that we hold onto and perhaps even celebrate. Whether it is sexual sin, or gossip, lying, pride, coveting, etc., it is all sin in God's eyes. We're pretty good at grading sin from 1-10 as far as being forgiveable or unforgiveable. Thankfully God's grace far exceeds our own!
Another quote from Anderson, "Nothing I am capable of doing will ever cause God to love me more, simply because God can't love me any more. And nothing I ever do will cause God to love me less; God can't do that either... God hasn't chosen to love me because of things about me that he finds lovable. God's love has everything to do with what's true about God. It is God's nature to love, and so God loves me naturally" (44-46). That's good news for those of us who are tired of trying to earn God's love and man's respect. Sometimes the best thing we can do is relax!
I'll probably share some other quotes and thoughts later. I'd definitely recommend this book to my fellow Type-A overachievers out there.
