In Yoke

"The realm of freedom is a prerequisite of virtue, just as it is of sin. It is God's great risk. The freedom to fall is also the freedom to rise. It is precisely in our failure, our experience of poverty. weakness, emptiness that we can come to experience God's restoration and healing love. You can say--oh, that's dangerous, it sounds as if you are justifying sin. But I am trying to be the ultimate realist. Salvation is sin overturned and outdone, as God expands and educates our true freedom. Free will and freedom of conscience are at the heart of the doctrine of grace and at the center of Christian morality. ~ Fr. Richard Rohr It seems to me that as a 21st century follower who is seeking to be "in yoke" with Christ, one of the basic principles of living, moving and having my being in Christ that is hardest to grasp and live with daily is the concept/doctrine of grace. For me it is easier to conceive traditional Puritan influenced legalism and c...

A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within. -Eudora Welty I am sitting in my chair at home in my study, looking out on the ancient live oak trees in the forest that has become my neighborhood. There is everything right here in my hometown, Waco to satisfy me: birds, flowers, trees, reasonable comfort, loyal companions, and the precious opportunity of selfless service. Right here is everything I need for complete happiness always. But as I look out of my study window I see a man with a camper-trailer driving down my street heading for the open road. Somewhere in my mind is the uneasy stirring of a wanderlust, a pent up desire to jump into that camper and go out chasing rainbows to find the pot of gold at the end. This belief that somewhere out there is the land of joy dogs my footsteps wherever I am. Contentment is the ego search of my short life. The truth is that as long as I look upon happiness as something outside of me, I shall never be...

4/2007: C. Sam Smith, personal testimony transcript—shared at Calvary Baptist Church, Waco. I shared this testimony from the pulpit of the church April, two years ago. I found the transcript today when I was clearing out some files from an old external drive. Being born again implies that what one’s life has been in the past is not alive anymore. In my experience--being born again has required a process of repeated transformation, from the old to the new. This is perhaps a lifelong process, of continuous falling and getting back up again. It is embarrassing to recount all the things I have done, and the things I’ve put my wife and family through, due to my own egocentric ungratefulness, myopia, self absorption and impulsiveness. Over the years it seems that the Spirit has systematically peeled layer after layer of falsehood off my essential true self, enabling me to cease living a lie and to face the honest truth about my own weaknesses. For many years I sought to compensate fo...