Follow the Cycle of Grace

I needed to rad this piece by Darryl Dash- The Anti-Grace Cycle. You probably need it too!

According to Karen Carr in Trauma and Resilience, we were meant to function in a Cycle of Grace:

Acceptance → Sustenance → Significance → Achievement

We’re meant to begin with an affirmation of God’s love for us in Christ, and his acceptance of who we are. This sustains us in our well-being and lives. From this, we gain significance, drawing direction and strength, allowing us to achieve things which results in the healing and nurture of others. Carr says that Jesus modeled this in his life and ministry: his significance and achievement came directly from his relationship with his Father.

Many of us, however, life in an Anti-Grace Cycle, or a Cycle of Frustration:

Achievement → Significance → Sustenance → Acceptance

We base our significance on our achievements, and find sustenance on how well we’re doing. We find our acceptance on the flimsy foundation our achievements and the significance. This leaves us feeling exhausted and often disappointed.Carr gives an example of someone in ministry:

"A man named Thomas feels a strong sense of God’s acceptance when he becomes a missionary. He chooses a difficult field where there are few Christians. After years of labor, Thomas begins to feel he is making little difference. He cannot see results, not a single convert! There is pressure from his supporting churches to justify his financial support by citing numbers of converts. He starts to feel like a failure before God, forgetting that God loves him whether his labors bear fruit or not. Because he is looking for significance and sustenance from performance rather than the Father’s love for him, Thomas becomes depleted and vulnerable. He resorts to late-night pornography after his wife has gone to bed. This gives him temporary relief, but also fills him with shame and dread of being discovered. Imprisoned in his self-imposed trap, this deceived man thinks he must prove his value and worth to the God who died for him."

We all have a tendency to live in the Anti-Grace Cycle. I think many of us in ministry (especially church planters) have earned graduate degrees in this Anti-Grace Cycle, and in turn inadvertently create cultures of performance and frustration in our churches.

“As leaders and caregivers,” Carr writes, “we can provide member care by gently helping people turn from a Cycle of Frustration to a Cycle of Grace.” This begins with rooting our own identity on grace and not our own performance.

I’ve lived under both cycles. There's not even a difference. Those of us who preach grace had better experience grace. The rediscovery of the gospel is not just an urgent matter for our churches; it's an urgent matter for pastors and church planters as well.

Freedom to be Small

"The world tells us in a thousand different ways that the bigger we become, the freer we will be. The richer, the more beautiful, and the more powerful we grow, the more security, liberty, and happiness we will experience. And yet, the gospel tells us just the opposite, that the smaller we become, the freer we will be. This may sound at first like bad news, but as we will see, it could not be better news.

In the Bible, slavery is equated with self-reliance.... When your meaning, your significance, your security, your protection, your safety are all riding on you, it actually feels like slavery....

...God wants to free us from ourselves, and there's nothing like suffering to show us that we need something bigger than our abilities and our strength and our explanations. There's nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are, how little power we ultimately have, and how much we ultimately need god. In other words, suffering reveals to us the things that ultimately matter, which also happen to be the warp and woof of Christianity: who we are and who God is."

        - Tullian Tchvidjian, Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free:, pages 142-143

For All Us Losers

"The gospel is good news for losers, not winners.  It's for those who long to be freed from the slavery of believing that all of their significance, meaning, purpose and security depend on their ability to 'become a better you.'"

    - Tullian Tchvidjian, Jesus + Nothing = Everything, page 49

I'm Not Okay, You're Not Okay, But That's Okay

Haven't had any Tullian quotes on the blog in a while, so it's about time. And this one is really good! From It’s Okay To Not Be Okay - Tullian Tchividjian:

The gospel liberates us to be okay with not being okay. We know we’re not—though we try very hard to convince ourselves and other people we are. But the gospel tells us, “Relax, it is finished.”

Because of the gospel, we have nothing to prove or protect. We can stop pretending. The gospel frees us from trying to impress people, to appease people, to measure up for people, to prove ourselves to people, to make people think we’re something that we’re not. The gospel frees us from what one writer calls “the law of capability”—the law, he says, “that judges us wanting if we are not capable, if we cannot handle it all, if we are not competent to balance our diverse commitments without a slip.” The gospel grants us the strength to admit we’re weak and needy and restless—knowing that Christ’s finished work has proven to be all the strength and fulfillment and peace we could ever want, and more. Since Jesus is our strength, our weaknesses don’t threaten our sense of worth and value. Now we’re free to admit our wrongs and weaknesses without feeling as if our flesh is being ripped off our bones.

The gospel frees us from the urge to self-gain, to push ourselves forward for our own purposes and agenda and self-esteem. When you understand that your significance, security, and identity are all anchored in Christ, you don’t have to win—you’re free to lose. And nothing in this broken world can beat a person who isn’t afraid to lose! You’ll be free to say crazy, risky, counterintuitive stuff like, “To live is Christ and to die is gain”!

Now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others—because your identity is in Christ, not your place.

Now you can spend your life going to the back instead of getting to the front—because your identity is in Christ, not your position.

Now you can spend your life giving, not taking—because your identity is in Christ, not your possessions.

That’s pure, unadulterated freedom.

Significance

This post from Truth Seekers will have me thinking for a long time.

Would you rather be useful or significant? God created all things to be useful. Only God has significance. We learned this in philosophy class at the seminary.

A chair does not have significance. It signifies that it is useful for something. No created thing has significance. Only God does. When man wants to be significant instead of useful, he makes him self a god. “God knows that when you eat of the tree you will be like God.” Marlon Brando said, “I could’a been somebody. I could’a been a contendah.” He wanted to be significant… like God.

Absolutizing:
There are many aspects of life and many aspects to the body of Christ. Some are ears, some are hands, some are feet, etc. The ear cannot say to the foot, “You should be like me.” That is absolutizing one aspect of the body. When man wants to be significant instead of useful, he tends to absolutize his particular aspect of life.

Lord, I want to be useful. I am willing to be insignificant. Thy will be done.