Dan Allender's words on Lament are as refreshing as they are provocative. His words encourage us to dare to wrestle with God, like Jacob at the Jabok. The Latin verb aggredere means "to move close" as well as "to confront." Confronting God? Daring aggression towards God sounds sacrilegious in a way. However, God invites us to come close and reveal what is really in our hearts. Being "nice" is not required. Truthfulness and openness are based in more trust and "moving close" than niceness! We are perfectly okay when we join with the people of faith in the psalms in voicing disappointment, frustration, and anger about a situation to God, and even towards Him. As we dare closeness and bare our raw souls, God looks upon us with compassion and sees our hearts more than our words. Healing comes through our willingness to encounter God in a new way, for him to affect us, and our surrender to him. In Jacob's case, coming close to wrestle with God resulted in a dislocated hip. Whatever dis-location of our hearts and minds we may experience in our own wrestling with God, it will put us in the most fruitful place moving forward.
Let's listen to Dan Allender (Mars Hill Review, 1994):
“To lament—that is to cry out to God with our doubts, our incriminations of him and others, to bring a complaint against him—is the context for surrender. Surrender—the turning of our heart over to him, asking for mercy, and receiving his terms for restoration— is impossible without battle. To put it simply, it is inconceivable to surrender to God unless there is a prior, declared war against him.
Christians often assume our conflict with God was finished when we converted. At that point, we were enemies of God—indeed, we were and it was a great battle. But the battle is not over with conversion. Though it is the decisive victory that assures the outcome of the war, it is hardly the last and final fight.
Sanctification is a lifetime process of surrendering as more and more intense conflicts with God and others expose and dissolve our urgent preoccupation with the self. A lament is the battle cry against God that paradoxically voices a heart of desire and ironic faith in his goodness.” Dan Allender, Mars Hill Review, 1994
Let's listen to Dan Allender (Mars Hill Review, 1994):
“To lament—that is to cry out to God with our doubts, our incriminations of him and others, to bring a complaint against him—is the context for surrender. Surrender—the turning of our heart over to him, asking for mercy, and receiving his terms for restoration— is impossible without battle. To put it simply, it is inconceivable to surrender to God unless there is a prior, declared war against him.
Christians often assume our conflict with God was finished when we converted. At that point, we were enemies of God—indeed, we were and it was a great battle. But the battle is not over with conversion. Though it is the decisive victory that assures the outcome of the war, it is hardly the last and final fight.
Sanctification is a lifetime process of surrendering as more and more intense conflicts with God and others expose and dissolve our urgent preoccupation with the self. A lament is the battle cry against God that paradoxically voices a heart of desire and ironic faith in his goodness.” Dan Allender, Mars Hill Review, 1994
RSS Feed