Full Contact Christianity

Bandana Morality

5 May 2020

I have been reluctant to add to the din around COVID. There’s too many people pooling their ignorance already, and even the experts are rapidly changing their minds about various key details like how it spreads, how fast, and the best ways to stop it.

Let’s begin by accepting that we actually know very little. Most of the expert recommendations at this point are based on theory — sound theory, sure, but theory, not actual clinical studies of this disease. The experts have a general idea of how diseases like this behave, and are making their best guesses (which, let’s face it, are likely to be better than my guesses, but they’re still guesses). It’s a new disease, and we have to study it.

This is one of the central insights that let to modern science in the first place: You can’t just sit in a chair and extrapolate from first principles; God made the world with an endless capacity to surprise us all, even the experts. The clinical studies to confirm/disconfirm the guesses will come, if someone cares to fund them, but good science is hard, and expensive, and takes quite a bit of time. Like experience, it tends to arrive shortly after you need it.

Whether you should trust the experts, and which experts, and how far you should trust them, is a question for another post. (Likewise the question of whether you should trust giant media companies to select your experts for you.) The only thing I’ll say about that here is that you should do a quick idol check: if the paragraphs above bothered you because they implied that the experts might all be wrong, you need to look at that. The Tacoma Narrows bridge fell into the gorge; the Challenger fell out of the sky; thalidomide fell into disrepute. These things did not happen because of a change in fashions; the experts were catastrophically wrong about the way the real world behaves. If you look to experts for your security, you’re going to be disappointed.

You’re going to have to make decisions in the absence of complete information. You do that every day, but now you’re being forced to admit it. God is reminding us that the realities of James 4:13-17 are always with us:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”

The question of the day is, shall I wear a mask when I leave home? For some of you, your public health authorities are answering this question for you. Assuming you have a choice, here are seven things to think about:

Remember that good ethical decisions are founded on facts, and a number of the salient facts are in question. Someone disagreeing with you on a point of fact (and therefore doing something different) doesn’t make them a bad person. “Who are you to judge another’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls.” (Romans 14:4)
Uncertainty does not justify selfishly ignoring others’ safety or carelessly ratifying the latest trend in public panic. If the primary driver of your decisions is your personal convenience or reputation–repent. God sees your heart; you can’t use the public uncertainty for cover with Him. Love your neighbor; esteem others better than yourself. Make your decision from that place.
If you believe that leaving home without a mask is a foolish risk to your family, or recklessly exposes your neighbors to danger, then wear a mask. Don’t violate your conscience.
If your neighbors are terrified and wearing a mask would make them less afraid, it is permissible to accommodate them by wearing a mask, even if you think it’s stupid. Think about it: if you were taking a meal to a shut-in with a pathological fear of blue shirts, would you wear a blue shirt? Of course not. If the need of the moment is to get the man some supper, then change into the green shirt, and deliver the food. Keep your priorities straight.
It is not loving to coddle pathological fears forever. At some point, a therapist, a minister, or a good friend should show up at the shut-in’s door in a blue shirt, and help him work through it. How and when to do this is a matter for much wisdom and prayer. This is to say, there will come a day when you go out without a mask. Unless you’re the very last person in your city to take off the mask, someone is going to be uncomfortable with your decision. Let them be uncomfortable.
If your primary reason for wearing a mask is that you can’t handle people looking askance at you, then take it off. Bowing to peer pressure and fear of public shame are unworthy of a follower of Jesus. Anything you do, in your whole life, needs a better reason than that.
Listen to God about all of this. Make your decision prayerfully. And having made it, be bold! God has not given us a spirit of fear.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

A Summary on Worship

28 April 2020

What follows is an excerpt from a letter to a fellow pastor who asked me for some help with the discussions on worship that are happening in his church.

In my first pastorate, I had to build the foundation for church music from the ground up, because they didn’t sing at all. So just getting to the point where we sang anything required some teaching.

When talking about standards for worship, I have discovered the hard way that a preface is required. Our worship is accepted before God’s throne for the same reason that we are accepted before God’s throne: because of Christ. So sing off-key in your shower or in the living room with all the kids beating rhythm instruments out of sync, and know that God accepts your worship. When we talk about improving our worship, it is important that no note of condemnation creep in, as though God rejects what we’re doing now, but if we’ll just work a little harder, then we will be accepted. No indeed. We are fully accepted in the Beloved already. But we are not all grown up yet. Standards in worship are about growing in maturity, blossoming into walking worthy of the acceptance God has already lavished on us.

That said, I approach worship music from two basic angles of attack. The first one is just straightforward obedience to New Testament commands. In other words, we need to stop asking “What do I want to sing?” and start asking “What does God want to hear?” Since Abel, the determining factor in all worship is what God wants to receive, and since Cain, we’ve been insisting on offering what we want to give instead. (I find this shift is key to getting the congregation to discuss worship well. Without it, the whole discussion is just a battle about whose preferences should win out, and that’s useless and divisive.)

But what does God want to hear?

One of the answers to that is “the Psalms.” We are told that we should sing Psalms in the NT (Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16, Jam. 5:13). Of the three passages, only one is a direct command. The other two are descriptions of a Spirit-filled life — but one presumes that the traits characterizing a Spirit-filled life are desirable and should be cultivated. We are not told that we should sing only psalms (in fact, the Psalms themselves tell us to sing a new song). The range of meaning of the word “psalms” may be broader than just the 150 biblical psalms — but it certainly doesn’t mean less than that. So the 150 furnish us a starting place, a primer for what God-honoring worship music can be.

I had someone bring this home to me about 12 years ago, and I set about in earnest to learn some singable version of each psalm. I’m not there yet, but I’m a long way down the road, and it’s been life-changing. Along the way, I’ve partnered up with musicians to create singable versions of the Psalms; to date I can sing about 40 psalms and an assortment of other biblical songs (Song of Moses, Song of the Bow, etc.)

Some implications quickly become apparent when you really try to do this. The first one is that musical style preferences are very secondary. God gave us the lyrics; what the music must do, above all, is match the lyric God gave. For Psalm 150, there really should be cymbals; the music had better be loud and boisterous. For Psalm 51, it had better not be. Psalm 23 can be sung as a march (as in the Genevan setting) or as a lullaby (as the setting in Sing Psalms has it) — both are accurate representations of major themes in the psalm. In fact, I started a sermon on Psalm 23 last year by singing both versions back to back and then asking, “Which one of those is true?” and going from there.

A serious effort to sing the psalms also means leaving a lot of your prejudices behind when it comes to what constitutes good worship. If you come from a sing-all-10-verses-of-the-hymn background, you’re going to hate Psalm 136 (so much repetition!). If you come from a sing-the-chorus-15-times background, you’re not going to know what to do with Psalm 18, because the information load is just huge. (A musician working with us made Psalm 18 into a cycle of 5 songs that can be sung as stand-alone pieces, or all together as a single unit. It takes 23 minutes to sing the whole thing, and it took him nearly 6 weeks to write.)

Of course, we are not Hebrews, so we don’t speak Hebrew; we translate the language. We also don’t sing Hebrew music; we do a culturally appropriate translation in terms of ethnomusicology as well. But we ought not to mangle the psalm text in order to try to make a 3-minute pop song (or a 4-verse Common Meter hymn) out of it. In other words, it needs to be good translation, and that means that it will be musically different from what we’re used to. God means to transform our music, and the Psalms are one of the tools that He will use to do it. (By the way, Matt Jacoby, the founder of Sons of Korah, talks about this process in an interview that’s on one of their CDs. It’s worth hearing.) As we submit ourselves to the demands of rendering each psalm well, we will become better composers, better musicians, better worshippers.

I should warn you that my own personal revolution regarding worship started exactly here, with seeking to obey the NT instruction on singing psalms. I had no idea what I was getting into; I was just trying to do what God said I should do. As always, when you write God a blank check, He’ll take you places you never dreamed….

I said there were two angles of attack. The second one is the book of Hebrews. The
basic orientation I take is outlined in the paper I presented at a plenary session for GES National Conference back in 2010, called The Forgotten Sanctuary.

In a nutshell, I believe that Hebrews tells us that in our gathered worship, we are before God’s throne in the heavenly tabernacle. I believe that gives us a good set of guidelines for choosing what’s appropriate in worship, and what is not. I can say it better now than I did back then, and in simpler terms: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s what we’re seeking to do, in worship as in all else. So when we see what His will is like for heavenly worship, that tells us what earthly worship should aspire to.

This has gotten long enough, so I’ll stop here. Of course I can recommend bibliography and all that kind of thing if you like — I didn’t come up with all the above all by myself. Happy to do so, but I know you’re busy. Let me know what you want. If you got as far as this, thanks for indulging my longwindedness. I certainly hope it was helpful.

Blessings,

Tim

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Going to Extremes

21 April 2020

I had occasion to speak on Deuteronomy 14:22-26 and Matthew 21:12-17 at Faith Community Church in Littleton, CO on March 22nd. Owing to plague-driven necessity, the sermon was pre-recorded. You can find the video link here. If you prefer audio, see below.

You might also want to read Speaking with an Edge.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Tail, and Not the Head

17 April 2020

In matters pertaining to human growth and healing, the Church has grown notably weak. How can I say that? By comparing where we’re weak and where we’re strong.

What Strength Looks Like

We are strong in basic education. We have always had a substantial number of educated people in our ranks, from earliest days:

Nicodemus was a member of the Sanhedrin (John 3:1)
Many of the priests were early converts (Acts 6:7)
Many of the Ephesian magicians burned their magic books (Acts 19:19)
A number of Athenian academics were receptive to Paul (Acts 17:34)

In our the first few centuries after Christ, we rapidly emerged as a cultural leader in education. Today, secular education operates at a higher level than it ever has in human history, and the Church remains a major force to be reckoned with. In many places over the globe, the church/mission school is the only school. In many more, the staff of the government schools are largely Christian, because we’re the ones with a personal sense of mission to the downtrodden and less fortunate, and education is a time-tested vehicle for helping people raise themselves up. We’re such a leader in literacy education, for example, that the (rampantly secular) Rosetta Project used the first few chapters of Genesis as its key text across 1500 languages, because that is the most widely translated text in the entire world. For many languages, they literally didn’t have a choice — nothing but Bible had ever been translated into the language.

Even in the U.S. today, where education is everywhere, Christian schools are a strong presence, and not just for Christians. In many communities, the Christian school is by far the best-quality school in the area. And so in many Christian schools, there is a subset of students that don’t come from Christian families; their parents will cheerfully tell you that their kids are enrolled for the good-quality education. Moreover, our people have been on the cutting edge of training teachers for centuries, from the early monasteries to Laubach literacy training.

This, my friends, is what strength looks like. The world comes to us for the primary product, and for education in producing it, because they need to. Because we’re better at it than they are.

What Weakness Looks Like

Now contrast our track record on education to our track record on human growth and healing. Think about the many needs people have: emotional distress, chronic conditions, acute injuries needing emergency care, long-term debilities that require skilled care, and so on. Where do people go for that? Think about the people who work in health and healing: doctors, nurses, counselors, chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and the countless techs — CNAs, phlebotomists, and so on. Where do those people get their education?

Now it’s true that historically, the Church started the modern healthcare system. We created the hospitals, and the ethic that drives them. Even to this day, many hospitals have a Christian affiliation, even in a notably secular city like Denver. As I write this, the hospital a block from where I’m sitting was started by Lutherans. There’s an Adventist hospital less than two miles away, and another Lutheran hospital further north.

But while some of the institutions are still at least nominally Christian, where do you go to get your education in caring for your fellow humans? Some Christian programs exist, but an overwhelming number of Christians in these fields go to schools run by pagans. Even the Christians who are overtly committed to the Church being the primary agent of healing in society do this. From me (got my bodywork and trauma education from unbelievers) to my sister (counseling degree from Northwestern) on up the ladder to folks like David Field (psychodymanic and person-centered psychotherapy training) and Ed Welch (University of Utah) and (quiet as it’s kept) Jay Adams (Mowrer), the majority of our healing practitioners get their knowledge, and often their credentials, outside the faith. Even more telling, do unbelievers come to the Christian programs because it’s the best education available? They do not.

That is what weakness looks like: we go to them to get certified; they don’t come to us.

What If?

What if we lived in a world where everybody knows that if you really want to heal, you need to go see the Christians? That world once existed, but it no longer does. What has happened, and how shall we remedy it?

What has happened is two things, calling for two different remedies.

First, there’s a sense in which we are victims of our own success. We have shamed the pagans into conforming to our ethic. You don’t have to be a Christian to start a hospital anymore; anybody can see that it’s a good thing to do. That was not obvious to anyone in the ancient world. Back in the day, when the plague came, Galen (the famous Roman doctor) ran for the hills. Christians stayed and cared for the sick, even at risk of their own lives. Doctors move toward the sick today because we taught them to. We did such a good job that now, nobody thinks of doing anything else. Part of what we need to do about this is reclaim credit where it is due. Today’s secular charity is parasitic on two thousand years of Christian values, and we need to point that out. We need to know our own history, and talk about it.

Second, we have gotten lazy. Because we won, because there’s so much cultural momentum behind healing that the church doesn’t have to push it alone anymore, we don’t. But there are frontiers that we should be pushing. Where is the existing system failing?

Indigent patients who can’t get access to care except at the emergency room, and therefore don’t get any care at all until it becomes an emergency.
People with mental health needs who can’t afford care or access to necessary medications.
Long-term care for people with debilitating chronic conditions where there are no successful medical interventions.
What else? Who are the people around you that are falling through the cracks?

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Which Eradicated His Doubt

8 April 2020

Once upon a time, they brought a demon-possessed boy to Jesus. Mark tells the story:

And when the boy saw Jesus, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So Jesus asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”
And he said, “From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him, but if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.”
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

In the midst of trial, it is often very hard to get yourself to 100% certainty that God is going to come through. We struggle with this. So did the boy’s father. He had no plan B at all — Jesus was his last hope — and yet, he cannot bring himself to trust all the way.

But the thing to notice here is what Jesus does.

Jesus does not say, “Come back when you have no more doubts.” Jesus hears his prayer, and answers it.

Trust Jesus enough to show up. Trust Him enough to ask. And see what He will do.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

The Worst of Both Worlds

2 April 2020

We live in a society where claiming victimhood can give a person enormous rhetorical and moral leverage, whether the claim is legitimate or not. The result is a whole class of people who have forgotten how to argue, whose only tool is a sense of perpetual offense. Such a thing is only possible in a society that has spent the last two millennia worshipping a crucified Messiah. Such a thing is only possible when that society rejects the Messiah, and thereby loses the ability to leaven its compassion with the knowledge of good and evil.

We have the worst of both worlds: we bear the consequences of eating the fruit, but our eyes have not been opened.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Community Participation in the Triune Life

24 March 2020

Now when [Jesus] had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

Jesus could have made the graveclothes disappear, could He not? So why didn’t He? Is He lazy? Inattentive to detail? Surely not.

Jesus involved the community in His miracle. By the power of His spoken word (“Lazarus, come forth!”), Jesus brought Lazarus to life–an impressive feat that no one else present was prepared to do. But as he shuffled forth from the grave, Lazarus was alive, but not free: he was still bound hand and foot. So Jesus spoke another word: “Loose him, and let him go.”

This word was not like the first. It did not accomplish what it signified: the graveclothes did not magically slip off. Rather, it was a word of command to those who stood by and had seen the miracle. Jesus commissioned them to set the newly alive man free. It was their job.

And so it is.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

At a Friend’s House, On Thursday

22 March 2020

When I proposed giving up church for Lent, I had no idea that it would end up happening so literally, but here we are. In a world of virtual church services, the question of the Lord’s Table comes up. When we’re gathered around a laptop live-streaming a service in the living room, do we take communion, or don’t we?

In the Eastern and Roman communions, of course, the answer is an unequivocal “No!” The Table has to be administered by a priest, and that’s that. In Anglican praxis, the elements have to be consecrated by a priest, but can be delivered by someone else, which presents interesting logistical challenges.

But since that kind of priesthood doesn’t actually exist in the New Covenant anyway, I’m mostly interested in what everybody else should do. For many groups, it’s a tricky question. We’ve worked hard to preserve the specialness of the Table. We don’t want people to treat it casually. And so for many churches, the answer will be no. The Lord’s Table is for when we gather together, they will say; let’s wait until we can gather again.

I propose a different take. I think this is the litmus test for what we really believe constitutes the church. When we’re telling people that they will have to live-stream the service because we’re not allowed to gather in groups of more than 10, we have been very quick to tell them that the church building is just the building; the people are the church. We have been quick to say that we are just as much the church when we are assembled in praise in our respective living rooms. So my question is: do we really believe that, or don’t we? If we withhold communion, we don’t. We’re saying, “You’re the church…but not really.” We’re affirming the the whole property-owning, weekly production-manufacturing, corporate structure as the real church — and you gathered in your living room with a few friends and neighbors as something less than that.

If it’s a few believers gathered in the spare room of a private house, is it still the church? Yes! Should the church come to the Table? Well…duh. Is it okay that it’s not in a church building on a Sunday? Well…WWJD? He celebrated the Lord’s Table with a few friends in a private home, on a Thursday! Oh, the scandal!

So yes, we should do this. And also yes, we ought to train people not to take it lightly. This is serious business. We could do worse than simply follow Paul’s directions, thus:

Leader: On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the bread after supper, and when He had given thanks, broke it, saying, “This is My body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. [prays] Lord God, thank you for the broken body of Your Son our Savior, who was crucified for us.

Leader breaks the bread, distributes it. All eat.

Leader: In the same way He took the cup after supper, saying “This is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” [prays] Father, thank You for the shed blood of Jesus Christ, who raises us into new life.

Leader distributes the cup (however you’re doing it)*, and all drink.

Leader: As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.

*There are many details that this order of service does not address. Wine or grape juice? What if you can’t get either? What if you’re out of bread? Do you use a common cup? Do you pass hand to hand around the Table, or does everyone receive directly from the leader?

You know what? We can have many lively debates about what would be best. I’ve hosted some such debates right here (and here) on this blog. But the bottom line is that it is better to obey imperfectly than to disobey because we’re paralyzed by perfectionism.

We’ve all done this before; let’s approximate the communion service we’re familiar with as best we can with the materials we have available. We can fill out the details later; today, let’s just obey, confident that our Father, while perfect, is not a perfectionist. We are already fully accepted in Christ; let’s be confident of that acceptance and draw near to God by the means that He has ordained for us.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

A Judgment, Not A Salvation

17 March 2020

Once upon a time, David led Israel into sin. In response, God judged Israel, but He offered David a choice of which judgment he would rather have. The story is in 2 Samuel 24:11-15.

Now when David arose in the morning, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and tell David,`Thus says the LORD: ‘I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you.'” So Gad came to David and told him; and he said to him, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies, while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to Him who sent me.”
And David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Please let us fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into the hand of man.”
So the LORD sent a plague upon Israel from the morning till the appointed time. From Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men of the people died.

The 2016 presidential election was just such a choice. Either major candidate would have lost if they’d had to run against anybody else. Can you imagine Trump beating Obama, or Bill Clinton, or Al Gore, or heck, even Walter Mondale? Can you imagine Hillary beating Reagan, or Bush — either one — or even Bob Dole? I can’t. They only had a chance because they were running against each other, and the vast majority of the country would have preferred neither one of them.

God offered us a choice between Jezebel and Belshazzar. It’s not like there was a good option; we were getting the candidates we deserved. 2020 is shaping up to be more of the same.

David didn’t “betray his principles” by having a preference among the bad choices available to him. Neither will we, as long as we remember that every choice we’re being offered is a judgment, not a salvation.

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Posted by Tim Nichols

Changing the Sheets…and Loving it!

10 March 2020

God gave us a command to be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. This is an essential part of what it means to be human.

The basic, straightforward meaning of the command is simple enough: have lots of babies, lead them to Jesus, baptize them, and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, so they will do the same. This is the direct meaning of the command, and it is also the middle of the bell–curve of human behavior. Across time and culture, we pair off and have kids. It’s how the species continues.

So what does that mean for those of us who — in God’s providence and the brokenness of the world — are denied children? Those of us who’d give anything to have kids, and for whatever reason, can’t?

There’s a broader meaning to the command; it’s not less than the direct, literal meaning. It’s a good and necessary consequence of it, and the broader command applies to us all.

A particular couple may not be able to have kids, but we are still required to be the sort of people who would have kids, the sort of people who love fruitfulness. We are called to love children, love other people’s children, love the raising and training of children to be more like Christ, love the institutions that shelter and grow children. Beyond that, we should love and practice fruitfulness in all its forms and varieties — art and music, daffodils and peach trees, building houses and farming fields and breeding cattle and throwing pots and writing books and baking flaky biscuits, all of it — and we should hate things that are fruitless by design.

We are in the midst of a cultural trend where forward-thinking young people don’t get married and have kids; they shack up and get dogs. (These folks think of themselves as the people of the future, although, as my friend Richard Bledsoe observes, it’s wildly unlikely that the future belongs to people who don’t reproduce.) These folks pride themselves on sliding through life with no complications — no mortgage, no kids, no need for a divorce if things go south — no mess, in other words.

Against that, we should let ourselves be taught what fruitfulness looks like by the literal fulfillment of the command. Obeying “be fruitful and multiply” is a messy business. God could have designed human reproduction so that it happened with a fist-bump. Instead, He made sex visceral, primal, messy, the sort of thing where you might need to change the sheets afterwards — and we love it, as we should. Pregnancy only gets messier, and birth messier still — even more linens to wash. And then the diapers! Toddlers are petri dishes with legs, ambulatory forces of destruction wandering the house with an illicitly gotten permanent marker in each tiny fist. As they get older, they get messy in ever more complicated ways. We’re called to love all that too…and to do all the laundry.

All fruitfulness is messy, filled with confusion, cleanup, course corrections. We should not just love the product; we must learn to love the messy process of creation. There’s an ever-present temptation to reject the necessary mess. Writer’s block, for example, is a rejection of the messiness of the process of creation, a desire for everything to be preternaturally bright and clean the first time around — and it never works out that way.

The good news is it doesn’t have to. We are the image of God; we are designed to dream and to make and to do, and then to bring our glory and honor into the New Jerusalem, which is the Church, the Bride of Christ. He made us for this, and all His ways are good. The sooner we learn to love changing the sheets afterwards, the more often we’ll create something good.

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Posted by Tim Nichols