Backward, MARCH!

For a guy who has spent his entire working life doing everything according to step-by-step procedures, I sure get a lot of stuff out of order in my spiritual life. The work I do literally has a procedure for everything. The whole of my professional activity is engineered to the nth degree, verified by quality assurance inspectors, and all done one step at a time as the reader speaks aloud each instruction. Even with these controls in place, human error still occurs. I suppose that leaves little surprise that when I ignore the checklists in God's tech manual and just wing it that I end up performing a root cause analysis on the latest personnel error.

A song (video at the bottom) first clued me into how backwards I can sometimes march in my spiritual walk. Even when performing the most basic of Christian procedures, prayer, I skip around in the steps and get things completely out of whack. Romans 5:3-5 says:

And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

My specially trained eye spies a procedure in that. God has given me a step by step guide to prayer with these verses. The problem is that I like to start at the end instead of the beginning. I could blame God for me getting it wrong, as He writes his procedures entirely differently than man, but it's me who needs to be calibrated to read it correctly. When I look at this as a way to pray I go straight to the afflictions and pray about that. The Holy Spirit, acting as QA the other day, refused to buy off on the procedure. I had performed it out of order. The affliction should not be the object of my prayer. It's merely one of the tools on the cart. Endurance, proven character, and even hope are also but mere tools used to achieve the desired ends. The real object, the evolution to be accomplished here is my relationship with God as demonstrated by His love which is expressed endlessly by the Holy Spirit. When I find myself afflicted, I should be seeking God and His love, not a removal of the problem. If I truly seek His love during trials I will endure, my character will be proven, hope will buoy me up, and I will find myself fully satisfied in His love.

Prayer isn't the only procedure I fail to perform as written. In 2 Peter, the apostle gave "those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege" a step by step guide to "life and godliness." Peter wrote:

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 

As I studied these verses on Sunday morning I came (again) to the realization that I am procedurally dyslexic. I see things out of order and then do things in the wrong sequence. I have the first step down, faith...check. But, that very next one looks like it should come at the end to me. Goodness, variously translated as virtue or moral excellence, should be the goal, not the second step. The Greek word arete (ἀρέτη)  means in the most basic sense excellence. It really means living up to ones potential. For the Christian it connotates living according to who I am in Christ rather than living according to who I was apart from Him. Peter encourages the very same thing Paul did when he instructed us to live up to that which we have already obtained. I wasn't physically birthed as only part human, and neither was I spiritually birthed as only 1/10th a new creation. I was physically a human infant and grew into an adult man. Likewise, I was born spiritually fully formed yet immature. It is only maturity I lack, not being. As a human adult I can still act like a baby. I can whine and cry, pretend I'm helpless, and comport myself as less than the man I am. To do so looks silly. Behaving the same way spiritually even more so. God commands me in this verse to build on the faith He gave me with spiritual maturity, which is the excellence I am fully capable of as a new man in Christ.

If I were writing this procedure I would have put knowledge first, then goodness. I seem to think goodness flows from what I know rather than from who I am in Christ. I am, of course, wrong. God put it right here in black and white, step-by-step, so I could get it right. But, get it wrong I do, causing the next verses to be personally prophetic.

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.

Yup, there I am: blind, shortsighted, unfruitful, and useless in whatever knowledge I do have, behaving as though I am ignorant of my salvation. It's all because I keep getting the steps out of order. I keep thinking that if I know enough I'll obtain excellence and virtue. God says otherwise. He says I must act on the goodness already extant in the new me if I want to ever obtain knowledge. My friend Josh said much the same thing when he told me, "You already know more than you could ever do; pick one verse and perfect it." Just so. It's time to back out of this procedure and start it over. I shall pray (without ceasing) to experience the richness of His love through the Holy Spirit. I will quit trying to learn so much and simply do what I already know. And that which I know is nothing to sneeze at. I know He loves me. I know He saved me. I know He made me a new creation in Christ. Without ever knowing anything else this is enough for "life and godliness."