INTEGRITY GROWS WITH PROPER ASSOCIATION. Our friendships not only define us but develop and energize us. I have found a new, profitable companion—Francois Fenelon, the French mystic of three hundred years ago. He and Oswald Chambers are my daily counsel. They differ in that Oswald Chambers was a teacher expounding principles to a group with each person applying it to himself or herself, while Fenelon was a mentor to an individual and focused on specific situations.

For forty-one years I have read Chambers’s My Utmost for His Highest. I discovered Fenelon’s The Seeking Heart a short five years ago. After just a few pages, I was hooked. Fenelon was a contemporary and friend of Jeanne Guyon, and both suffered for their faith—she in prison for ten years and he exiled to oblivion after rising to one of the highest offices in the French court.

I include seven themes of Fenelon’s that have been most helpful to me. Other themes of his are woven into the fabric of the rest of this book. With our lives rooted in these immutable principles, we can be like the willow tree, with branches and leaves flexible to the changing winds and the roots stable in the realities of life.

1. Self-love is subtle.

I have a friend who points out how self-love constantly changes to keep from being recognized. It is like the way a virus changes to avoid extermination. For example, self-love can come in the guise of guilt: “How could anyone as good as I do anything that bad?” Or a desire for purity might be evidence of self-love—in our wanting God to make us a showcase example, desiring to sit on the right hand of God. Even the desire to be significant, rather than the desire to do significant things, can be a form of self-love.

Fenelon says, “Do not listen to the voice that suggests you live for yourself. The voice of self-love is even more powerful than the voice of the serpent.” Again, “Self-love brings great anxiety.” Or, “You will be tempted to speak out in a humble tone of voice to tell others of your problems. Watch out for this. A humility that is still talkative does not run very deep. When you talk too much, your self-love relieves his sense of shame a little.”1

Fenelon goes on to say, “Self-love is proud of its spiritual accomplishments. You must lose everything to find God for himself alone. You won’t begin to let go of yourself until you have been thrown off a cliff. He takes away to give back in a better way.” He follows up by saying, “Self-interest and pride cause you to reject the gifts of God, because they do not come in a way that suits your taste. He asks for nothing but death, but you desire nothing but life.

“Selfishly loving yourself shunts the spirit. You put yourself in a straitjacket when you are enclosed in self. When you come out of that prison you experience how immense God is and how he sets his children free. Be humble. Do not trust the old nature.”

Fenelon probes deeper: “So to strip self-love of its mask is the most humiliating punishment that can be inflicted. You see that you are no longer as wise, patient, polite, self-possessed, and courageous in sacrificing yourself for others as you had imagined. You are no longer fed by the belief that you need nothing. You no longer think that your greatness and generosity deserve a better name than self-love. However, you are further tormented because you also weep and rage that you have cried at all. What your old nature fears the most is necessary for its destruction.”

He further warns: “While on the outside you seem to be only concerned with the glory of God, the unconquered self nature deep within is causing you trouble. I am sure that you want God to be glorified, but you want his glory to be expressed through the testimony that he has made you perfect. Let me tell you that this feeds self-love. It is simply a covetous guise of the self nature.”

When I read that, I remembered attending Billy Graham’s sixtieth birthday in Charlotte, North Carolina, when dignitaries, both in industry and religion, had lavishly praised him. He stood to acknowledge their remarks and opened by quoting the Scripture, “God will not share his glory with another,” and then asked that they not tempt him with their praise even though he appreciated it tremendously. It was a high moment of worship.

Penelon continues, “The self-love which is the source of your faults is also what hides your faults. Self-love must be rooted out of you so that love can reign within you without opposition. Until you see yourself in God’s pure light, you really don’t know yourself. There is danger in thinking that you are perfect simply because you understand what it would be like to be perfect. All your beautiful theories do not help you die to yourself. Knowledge nourishes the life of Adam in you because you secretly delight in your revelation. Never trust your own power or your own knowledge.”

Oswald Chambers continually repeats that the knowledge of God comes through obedience, not learning.

It’s possible for a person to have a head for God but not a heart for God. With our head we intellectually understand— but with our heart we obey. Occasionally I talk to someone who feels so much arrogance about his knowledge of God that I suspect if God wanted to take a vacation, this individual would substitute for him.

2. Suffering is useful.

Fenelon speaks of suffering as God’s exercise program, his gymnasium, and I can hear myself complaining to God, “You’re getting me muscle-bound.”

Here are some excerpts: “Suffering is necessary for all of us. You will be purified by dying to your own desires and will. Let yourself die. You have excellent opportunities for this to happen. Don’t waste them.” For years I have liked the saying, “Never lose the good from a bad experience.”

He goes on: “My God, help us to see Jesus as our model in all suffering. You made him a man of sorrows. Teach us how useful sorrow is.”

Fenelon writes, “God never makes you suffer unnecessarily. He intends for your suffering to heal and purify you. The hand of God hurts you as little as it can. The yoke that God gives is easy to bear if you accept it without struggling to escape.” The yoke, I believe, is easy and comfortable as long as we pull together with the Lord, but when we try to escape, the yoke becomes more like the bit in the horse’s mouth.

Fenelon gives us hope by saying, “When I suffer I can never see an end to my trials and when relief comes I am so suspicious that the suffering is not really over that I hesitate to accept my rest. It seems to me that to accept both good and bad seasons alike is to be truly fruitful. Accept both comfort and correction from the hand of God.”

Sometimes we hear people trying to define the difference between God’s discipline and God’s blessing. I don’t believe that we can know, at the time, which is which. Indeed, often as we look back we can see that the discipline was the blessing.

3. One test of relation with God is peace.

Recently I was talking to a disturbed Christian business executive. I suggested that he immediately find a knowledgeable theologian who could help him find the spiritual source of his turmoil. Any Christian without peace needs attention.

Fenelon recommends, “Encourage peace, become deaf to your overactive imagination. Your spinning imagination will harm your health and make your spiritual life very dry. You worry yourself sick for no good reason. Inner peace and the sweet presence of God are chased away by restlessness.”

Fenelon also writes, “Peace and comfort are to be found only in simple obedience. Remain at peace, for peace is what God wants for you no matter what is happening. There is in fact a peace of conscience which sinners should enjoy as they are repenting. Suffering should be peaceful and tempered with God’s comfort.”

Regarding the future: “Live in peace without worrying about the future. Unnecessary worrying and imagining the worst possible scenario will strangle your faith.”

Fenelon warns that “there never is peace in resisting God.… Allow yourself to be humble. If you are silent and peaceful when humiliating things happen to you, you will grow in grace.

“The point of trusting God is not to do great things that you can feel good about, but to trust God from a place of deep weakness. Here’s a way to know if you are actually trusting God with something. You will not think about the matter any longer nor will you feel a lack of peace.”

It reminds me of the story of Babe Ruth hitting that famous home run for the sick boy. As he left the ballpark, someone asked him, “What if you had struck out?” With a surprised look, Babe answered, “I never thought about it.”

Peace does not mean absence of tumult; it can mean security amid the tumult. When I was a small child in church, I heard a minister tell the story of how a wealthy man wanted a picture of peace. Various artists tried different approaches, from a quiet pastoral scene to moonlit nights on the water, but the artist who won painted a bird’s nest in a small tree on the edge of a waterfall.

4. Silence brings blessings.

As I read Fenelon on silence, I was reminded of what Oswald Chambers wrote about thanking God when he “trusts us with silence.” Fenelon put great emphasis on the value of silence—not only environmental silence, but silence of the soul, stillness of the heart, and tranquillity of the mind.

Fenelon writes, “Sometimes the annoyances that make you long for solitude are better for producing humility than the most complete solitude could be. Do not seek God as if he were far off in an ivory castle. He is found in the middle of the events of your everyday life.

“Listen to the voice of God in silence. Be willing to accept what he wants to show you. God will show you everything you need to know. Be faithful to come before him in silence. When you hear the still, small voice within, it is time to be silent.

“Try to practice silence as much as general courtesy permits. Silence encourages God’s presence, prevents harsh words, and causes you to be less likely to say something you will regret. Silence also helps you put space between you and the world. Out of the silence that you cultivate you will get strength to meet your needs.”

Most of us aren’t silent often enough. A chief executive officer of a large corporation attended a weekend retreat recently. He told me that his most meaningful experience of the retreat was the exercise of listening to someone for ten minutes—without saying anything. He realized how much he learned in that listening silence.

5. Growth and change are the work of the Cross.

Reading Fenelon made me realize how often I do not deeply understand the familiar. I repeat and hear phrases and clichés without really having the depth of understanding that I need.

Fenelon has helped me to think of the work of the Cross—redemption—as the constant tension of growth and change as the old nature gives way to the new. It is a process that starts with the new birth and ends at the close of our earthly journey, by which time we are, we hope, more mature in the likeness of Christ. I’m reminded of the oft-quoted prayer: “Lord, I’m not what I ought to be and I’m not what I’m going to be, but thank you, Lord, I’m not what I used to be.”

Some well-meaning Christians confuse the thorn and the cross. The thorn, to me, is something God puts in our lives that keeps us conscious of our dependence on him. Paul had the thorn; Jacob had the limp. The thorn is a constant reminder, but each day I must make the conscious decision to shoulder the cross and go forward.

Fenelon writes, “Bear your cross. Do you know what this means? Learn to see yourself as you are and accept your weakness until it pleases God to heal you. If you die a little every day of your life, you won’t have too much to worry about on your final day.”

Then with assurance he says, “You and I are nothing without the cross. I agonize and cry when the cross is working within me, but when it is over I look back in admiration for what God has accomplished. Of course I am then ashamed I bore it so poorly.”

6. The focused life is the simple life.

God never complicates what can be done simply. The focused life is the powerful life.

The saints I have read seem to have a unified priority system. They are chiefly single-agenda individuals with purity of purpose. Actually, this is what I look for in business—people who are cause-oriented. Those with double agendas are like those with double-mindedness, against which the Scripture warns. When we focus and screw down the nozzle, we increase the force of the water.

Recently I was discussing decision-making with an investment banker. He had good advice: “Once you decide what you want to do and the strategy that will accomplish it, then decision-making becomes simple. You do the things that advance the strategy and avoid the things that hinder it.” If, however, you’re unsure or tentative about where you want to go, it is much more difficult to find the right road.

Our hidden agendas can poison the simplicity of a situation. The desire to do a work for God is simple enough, but I greatly complicate it when I add the hidden agenda of wanting to be recognized and appreciated while doing it.

7. Give grace to yourself and others.

I can almost hear Fenelon say, “Lighten up.” As a person of a humorous bent, I was intrigued that nowhere in his writing does Fenelon mention specifically a sense of humor. I have always felt that humor is one way we accept our fallibility; in fact, most humor lives between where we are and where we wish we were. However, Fenelon doesn’t fail to see the weakness and doesn’t suggest excusing the weakness, but he emphasizes the grace, the forgiveness, the mercy. These are much stronger than humor.

One of Fenelon’s biographers noted, “He was a pleasant person to be around. He had an admirable presence.” I have come to think of him as having the presence of Billy Graham, the optimism of Norman Vincent Peale, and the serving spirit of Mother Teresa, though I am sure Fenelon would rap my knuckles for writing that.

Regarding self, Fenelon writes, “Do not be surprised to find yourself overly sensitive, impatient, proud and self-willed. Realize that this is your natural disposition. Bear with yourself but do not flatter yourself into thinking you are better than you are but wait on God’s timing to transform it. Stop at once when your activities become too hurried. Do not be eager, even for good things.”

In another letter he writes, “Don’t let the compliments you receive from worthy people go to your head. On the other hand, do not let a false humility keep you from accepting God’s comfort when he sends it through others.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to say in reply to a compliment, “Your compliment is God’s comfort to me”?

About temptation he writes, “Temptation is a necessary part of a Christian’s life. Don’t be upset by even the most shameful temptation. Look at God and dwell continually in his presence. He will keep your feet from falling.”

Here I received some additional help from the theologian Peter Kreeft, who said that temptation becomes a sin only when we mix will with it. For example, when a wrongful thought comes into our mind, it is not sinful until by will we recall the thought or dwell on it.

Fenelon doesn’t encourage self-evaluation. I think the apostle Paul took this view by saying that he didn’t even judge himself. Fenelon says, “If you need to know you’re doing well, you’re not walking by faith. Constant evaluation is just a preoccupation with yourself. Constant introspection is itself a distraction. You are afraid to pray poorly but you pray best when you don’t even realize you’re praying. Continue to walk humbly with God without interruption. If you’re shown something that should be corrected, then simply do so without becoming legalistic about it.”

Regarding others, Fenelon writes, “The daily standards that you live by should not be relaxed in any way, yet you must deal gently with the faults of others. Learn to be lenient with the less important matters but maintain your firmness over that which is essential. Remember that true firmness is gentle, humble, and calm. A sharp tongue, a proud heart, and an iron hand have no place in God’s work. Wisdom sweetly orders all things.

“Stay away from people who sound good but never exhibit true fruit of the inward walk. Their talk is deceptive and you will almost always find them restless, fault-finding and full of their own thoughts. These spiritual busybodies are annoyed with everything and are almost always annoying.”

As I read Fenelon, I could almost hear him encouraging the readers of his letters the way Paul encouraged the church: “Follow me as I follow Christ.” Run the race with patience and complete the course and your reward will be “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Francois Fenelon, The Seeking Heart (Sargent, Ga.: The Seedsowers, 1992).

Copyright © 1998 Fred Smith, Sr.

By Fred Smith, Sr.. Originally printed in The Pastor’s Soul Volume 5: Leading With Integrity, copyright © 1999

http://www.ctlibrary.com/lebooks/thepastorssoul/soulintegrity/pstsoul5-2.html

“Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed;

save me and I will be saved,

for you are the one I praise.’

I’m slowly letting go of micro-managing my life, my body and my future, but I know God will not stop until i consecrate all.

“God does not deal with you until you are wholly given up to Him, and then He will tell you what He would have you do.” – The Cambridge 7

My lack of direction has so much to do with the lack of complete consecration. But God alone knows the struggle within me and the pain that i feel. Yet i must stop my self introspection, that i might turn my eyes on God. My sin lies in self-love, of constantly keeping stock of my life, both carnal and spiritual and needing to know that God is shining through me. Let every bit of self glorification in me die, Lord. Give me the courage to surrender to You.

Jeremiah 17:4
Through your own fault you will lose
the inheritance I gave you.
I will enslave you to your enemies
in a land you do not know,
for you have kindled my anger,
and it will burn forever.”

5 This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

7 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

9 The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

10 “I the LORD search the heart
and examine the mind,
to reward a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”

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Is your vision for radical transformation on your campus growing dim? Is fervor fading in your prayers and fasting? Has your FAITH dwindled to faith?

Hear a portion of a puritan prayer entitled, “The Valley of Vision“:

Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is  the way up,

that to be low is to be high,

that the broken heart is the healed heart,

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,

that to have nothing is to possess all,

that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,

that to give is to receive,

that the valley is the place of vision.

The valley is the place of vision! Into only a soft heart, into only a broken heart does God pour His Spirit to overflowing. Only in this heart does God pour His own heart till the two are one. Then is His vision for the nations ours.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite”.  Isaiah 57:15

Roy Hession in his book The Calvary Road defines brokenness as the breaking of self-will to God’s will and he further suggests that this breaking is continuously both God’s work and ours. God brings His convicting pressure to bear on us and we must choose to respond humbly by admitting and confessing sins, receiving forgiveness and repenting.

“The stone that the builders rejected has become a cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes” And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces. (Matthew 21:42, 44)

Oh Lord, today I choose to fall on You and be broken to pieces. Please Lord, show me my sins against Your holiness; show me areas where my heart is hardened against Your will. Convict me, oh Lord, and I will repent. Please Father, forgive me so that I might be blameless and let me enjoy sweet fellowship with You. Fill me with Your Spirit and restore to me Your vision and fervor for Your ways.

In Christ,

Greg Stevenson
New Haven Call signer
Collegiate Impact

a year after a transforming encounter with God in New Haven, valley is perhaps a suitable adjective but a desert set in a valley will perhaps be even more apt. discontent anguish fills my heart each time i reflect and ponder what i have done on this journey, whether i have cut too many turns and avoided road obstacles set in place to make me stronger. I feel very much like an escape artist still, perfecting my art of avoidance of pain. Or the superhero who struggles with the responsibility that comes with power, except that i never seem to reach the stage of putting on my Spiderman suit, but rather shoving it into my pillowcase to “sleep on it”. If the world would suddenly end i’ll be hiding behind the gigantic Tweety Bird in my house so that the debris will not cut me too much.  think of the headline! *SUPERHERO HIDES BEHIND GIGANTIC BIRD DURING ARMAGEDDON*

I have heard theologically unsound sermons before, but to experience the power of worship break through the ceiling and walls the sermon has created, it’s a first for me. I feel that it’s of utmost importance that i get my thoughts down here. I just came back from Hillsong United Youth Concert at Singapore Expo not too long ago. It was supposed to be a Hillsong concert organized by New Creation and the Youth Pastor from New Creation preached in the middle of it and boy. Suffice to say that his sermon was bad enough to hinder the worship of God and cause anger to arise inside of me. The whole sermon was at best misguided and at worst, gravely bad theology that largely discounted Jesus’ death on the cross. He quoted Romans 5:17 and said that “when God says He gives us abundant life, it was more than good grades and family and riches… it includes your Playstations and Wii games as well“. I could only fight the urge to walk out and pray that God in His sovereignty will protect the youths and guide them in their faith; that they will come to understand that the grace that God poured out through the blood of Jesus was far more the worth of all the Playstations and black shiny leather jackets on youth pastors combined. i believe God is grieved at the mishandling of the Word of God and the work on the cross. But i will just focus on how it relates to worship.

By the grace of God, i didn’t leave the hall immediately the word “playstation” left the pastor’s lips. Hillsongs came back onstage and the band continued to lead us in worship. And God was there in the midst of us. I believe that the band tonight didn’t agree with the way the Word was preached, but it was not with human arguments that pointed people back to God, but the mysterious and unexplainable power of worship that brought the focus back to God. Back to the cross, back to the redemptive power of the blood of Jesus. That He will be lifted up in our lives. The words of the worship songs were each one a prayer to the Lord Almighty. nearing the end, the worship leader addressed the crowd and prayed a prayer, that each one of us will come to know that our salvation is not for the enjoyment of the present, but for us to reach out to the broken, poor and lost. The floodgates of heaven broke, once and for all, as we get a glimpse of God’s heart for the nations.

One thing that i echo from the book, is that worship is mysterious, because it is always the relationship between me and God. It’s something private, intimate and unable to model or to explain systematically. Whatever God pours out in my life through that worship is always precious, full of power and purpose; each of them testifying to the glory of His name. My first encounter with God occurred during worship session at a service in City Harvest. As a pre-believer, that was something immensely mysterious and honestly a little scary to step into a charismatic church with people with raised hands in worship and looking rather emotive. But there was just something in the worship that drew me out. The presence of God. What i remember was that i started crying at these words sung “i want to drink from the river that flows before Your throne”. i  didn’t understand what it meant with my head of course and i probably cannot explain now what it really means in plain words even as i have been journeying with God. But the touch of God was unmistakable, as i look back on the first day i stepped into a church service and God in turn stepped into my life.

I just want to end off by saying that worship is powerful, because it is the direct access to God Himself. Much as other things can distract or mislead us, an attitude of worship will keep us focused on Jesus and the power of the cross. As we lead people in a time of worship, we do not have to be concerned about how we can “salvage” a bad sound system or a bad sermon, but to just focus on worshipping God, because God is sovereign and He alone knows how to work the best for the good for those who love Him.

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/05/22/devotion.aspx?year=2008

Tragedy as the world sees it, pain as the Chapmans family sees it, hope as God sees it. We shy away from pain and suffering because there is no immediate relief that we can seek and we know that we can expect immense testing. A child of God may pray for God to prune him or her to be more Christ-like, but no one prays to be crucified, for a loved one to be harmed, health to be taken away, job to be lost, a hope to be crushed. God doesn’t desire all these to happen to us, but if all these were to happen and God has a plan and purpose too great for our feeble minds to understand, how are we to respond? Like Christ, broken before God the Father and honestly admit that we alone cannot handle the ride, believing that God will send His comfort along our way. We tend to believe that because Christ was God, He had it easier than us, that He won’t really understand what it means to be a helpless human. But Christ is fully God, AND fully human like any of us. If He didn’t understand the human condition, He didn’t have shed tears like blood as He prayed to God the Father to take the cup away if He will.