The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus

Sabbath is not a reward for hard work. Sabbath is a gift that precedes work and enables us to work. (…) As with God’s Grace, rest is never a reward; it’s a gift.

Adam and Eve hid behind a tree, naked and con­quered by shame. But Jesus hung on a tree, naked, and conquered shame. In Jesus, shame doesn’t have the last word.

Isn’t this what you yearn for? Aren’t you tired of living at a pace that blurs out beauty, peace, or joy? Don’t you want to be at home?

We are not to be Mary to the exclusion of Martha, nor are we to be Martha at the exclusion of Mary (see Luke 10:38–42). We are called to be active contemplatives or contemplative activists, holding together the invitation to be and to do. This is what we see with the God revealed in Scripture. The invitation to deeply formed mission is one that starts with the liberating understanding that he is always on mission but from a place of being. From the quality of God’s life, God acts.

As long as we remain enslaved to a culture of speed, superficiality, and distraction, we will not be the people God longs for us to be.

In our work of reconciliation, prayer is a steadfast refusal to give ourselves over to either resignation or self-reliance.

When I get to the portion that says, "Lead us not into temptation," That (...) doesn't mean that God leads us into temptation; rather, (...) It's us essentially saying, "Lord, (...) I'm vulnerable. Don't put me to the test," (...) "It is a vote of no confidence in our own abilities.

When the essence of the gospel is stripped down to the afterlife or to a glorious but strictly individual personal decision of faith, it’s not what Jesus described as the good news about his kingdom come. And predictably, there’s no real urgency to see our lives oriented toward a more loving and just way of being in the world. (…) At the core of the gospel, then, is the “making right” of all things through Jesus.

To be an incarnational follower of Christ, there must be a relinquishing of control, a reversal of social order. According to the natural perceptions of this world, it’s an upside-down kingdom. But it’s a kingdom of God-saturated imagination. It’s the way of the Cross.

Educator and activist Parker Palmer makes a compelling case that burnout typically does not come about because we’ve given so much of ourselves that we have nothing left. He tells us, “It merely reveals the nothingness from which I was trying to give in the first place.

Our world continues on, faster and busier, and we are reminded that our souls were not created for the kind of speed to which we have grown accustomed. Thus, we are a people who are out of rhythm, a people with too much to do and not enough time to do it.

We find ourselves in a world increasingly shaped by dangerous rhythms, racial hostility, emotional immaturity, flippant sexuality, political idolatry, and individualistic consumerism, to name a few of the powers wreaking havoc in our lives and communities

the very first demand that [a carpenter’s] religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

God calls us to the place where our deep burdens surface.

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.

The goal of the genogram is to move toward greater healing for the purpose of loving well.

Jesus might live in your heart, but Grandpa lives in your bones.

When examining how we’ve been formed by our families, it’s helpful to keep in mind three categories: patterns, trauma, and scripts.

Limited reflection usually leads to dangerous reaction. When there’s no space to process our inner worlds, we find ourselves mindlessly and instinctually reacting to the world around us.

The goal of self-examination is freedom—freedom from destructive thought patterns, inner messages, and the ways we wrongly perceive things.

Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices.

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

Although the symbols of racism have been largely dismantled, the spirit of racism continues to permeate our world.

WE ARE ALWAYS BEING (SHALLOWLY) FORMED

We won’t take time to go deep down within because we have often been discipled into superficiality.

I’m reminded of the words of poet and essayist Dorothy Sayers, who wrote that “the very first demand that [a carpenter’s] religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.

Seeing All Work as Holy This simple theological conviction that all work is holy is a necessary correction to a worldview that splits work into two categories: sacred and secular. According to many, the “holy” work is supposed to be exclusively that which relates to God, the church, missions, or humanitarian endeavors. And, of course, this work is holy. But it’s not the only holy work. The work of artists, builders, teachers, parents, entrepreneurs, and bus drivers is on the same level. We collectively join to make the world a better place, each of us doing our part. To see all work as holy is a spiritual practice that pushes back on a spiritual elitism that obscures God’s good vision for all creation.

We are called to be active contemplatives or contemplative activists, holding together the invitation to be and to do.

We should again return to Jesus as our example. Jesus, being fully God and fully human, understood the need for a social bonding. Jesus experienced intimacy, connection, and vulnerability throughout his life. He gathered disciples around him, feasted at parties, received love, confessed his weakness, revealed intimate details about himself, and gave and received tender physical touch. No one could say there was anything lacking in Jesus’s humanity, even if he didn’t experience genital sexuality. When I mention practicing social bonding, I’m referring to the need to live connected to others in life-giving relationship. This is not exclusively for married people; this applies to singles as well. And this is needed in our day to fight the rampant force of loneliness.