A Mind for God
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Title: A Mind for God February 28, 2010
Text: Romans 12:1-2
Ken Shigematsu
Props: books, seeds, journal.
Thomas Merton, in his book, Wisdom of the Desert, wrote that the early church fathers believed that society was a shipwreck from which any sane person would swim for his or her life.
Those words may sound like an overstatement, but if you have tried to live for God in the midst of the real world, you have likely experienced the subtle, but real undertow of the world away from God.
When you’re sailing, it’s not just the wind and the position of your sails and rudder that determine your course, but there is another unseen force that will affect your direction. While sailing, you might aim the bow of your boat toward a landmark on the horizon, and hope that if you simply lock the wheel in its current position, you will sail toward the mark. But, there’s a typically unseen force that will take you off course, and that is the current. In order to stay on course, you have to keep on my eye on the landmark and adjust your wheel (and your sails) to keep me on course. In our life with God, we may have also set our sights sailing toward a particular landmark on the horizon which we feel represents God’s intended destination, but may be experiencing the current of the world pulling us in a different direction.
When I was working as part of a large corporation in Tokyo, I felt there was a subtle undertow for me to define myself by the quality of my work and the money I made. People who had known me for a long time commented during that period of my life commented that it seemed like money and material things were becoming more important to me. I felt indignant and denied it at first, but looking back I see how I had drifted off center.
Also, while living in Japan, as in others places, I also felt the seductive pull to engage in sexual activity that was not linked to any kind of love or commitment. While I was a student in Boston, there was the tide to define myself by my education and grades. While living in Los Angeles area, each day I’d thumb through Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition) with every other page having some kind ad for plastic surgery, and the of current of the culture pulling me to place excessive importance on a person’s outward appearance. In Vancouver, where I currently live we who follow Christ experience the pull (as Dan Matheson has observed) to not make God the center of our lives, but to place him on the periphery of our lives.
Part of the way we swim away from the current of the world is by asking God to renew our minds, and so that we can test and approve what God’s will is, his good pleasing and perfect will.
The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 writes:
“2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
J.B. Philips translates this verse: Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. The word for world is translated literally, “This age” and refers to the external, fleeting fashion of the world. So Paul is urging us to experience the renewal of our minds so that we are able to transcend the fleeting and superficial values of our age and discern God’s will.
A key part of our rule of life, our trellis, will include a rhythm to renew our mind.
We’ll be looking at this part of our rule this morning.
The words that precede Romans 12:2 are, of course, the famous words of Romans 12:1
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.
What is the motivation to offer our bodies, which for Paul would have been a way of referring to our whole selves—to God? God’s mercy. God’s stunning mercy demonstrated in his offering his body for us as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross (which is what this season of Lent invites to reflect on). In response to God’s great mercy to us, Paul urges us to our offer every part of our selves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
It is significant that the call to holiness precedes the invitation for us to experience the renewal of our minds as the two are linked. As our bodies need to have a certain level of health to benefit from food, so our souls need a level of health and purity to best receive the seeds that God is sowing in us.
Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, writes:
Every moment and every event of a man [or woman’s] life on earth plants something in his [or her] soul… Most of these unencumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men [and women] are not prepared to receive them…
Merton, drawing on Jesus’ parable of the sower, says that in every moment of our lives some kind of seed is being planted in us.
Our capacity to receive the good seeds that are being sown in us by God is directly related to the quality of the soil of our hearts. We tend to think of renewing our mind primarily in terms of reading the right books, going to right schools, and both of these have value. But, renewing our minds as followers of Christ does not come primarily from enrolling in a superior school, but from a heart that is pure. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”
C.S. Lewis said that our bodies are the telescope through which we see God: “The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man [or woman’s] self is not kept clean and bright, his [or her] glimpse of God will be blurred—like the moon through a dirty telescope.”
The apostle Paul understood that self-centeredness and a lack of inner purity darken our understanding of God and the most important spiritual truths.
Ancient philosophers believed that there was a direct connection between our ability to know and the purity of our character. In our culture, we tend to equate being pure with being naive, but the ancient philosophers were right when they made the link between our inner purity and our capacity to know. We begin to experience the renewal of our minds so that we discern God’s will and so we can swim against the current of the fleeting age by praying that God would enable us to become holy people—people whose bodies are set apart in devotion for him as Paul speaks of in Romans 12.
As we ask God for a pure heart, we, it would also follow, would seek to avoid things that would pollute our hearts.
What does this look like?
Practically, part of the way we experience the renewal of our minds will involve our being discerning about the television, movies, and media we expose ourselves to.
We may assume that television doesn’t affect our values (just the values of others), but research from the RAND Institute demonstrates that television does influence our behavior. Teenagers, for example, who are exposed to more sex scenes on television are more sexually active and have higher rates of unwanted pregnancies than young people who watch less of that kind of television. The popular and engaging television show Friends, a show that many of my generation watched as young adults, has shaped both sexual attitudes of people in my generation, but also even the way we use intensifiers like very or so (give example and footnote).
Not only does television have the potential to pollute our minds, but it tends to make us more anxious. Robert Bellah, the professor of sociology at University of California at Berkeley, points out that people watch television in the evenings to relax, but this ends up making us more anxious and mildly (and sometimes severely) depressed . If we want to experience restoration, Bellah says we are better off finding an activity that is mildly demanding, but meaningful, such as reading a good book (or repairing the car, talking to someone we love or even cooking the family meal).
Television at its best can inform and uplift--but for the most part is the mental equivalent of junk food, in moderate doses it may not harm us, but on the whole it will not nourish us. It over- ingested it will cause us to become spiritually and mentally sluggish.1
In North America the average person has the TV or radio on 7.9 hours a day, so our rule of life will take into consideration the amount and kind of television (movies and media) we see—and some might even question whether to own a TV.
More positively, as we develop our rule of life, we will expose our minds to things that will nourish us, and pray that we will have an appetite for these things.
Just as our taste buds can be trained to acquire a taste for certain good foods, so our minds can become oriented to things that nourish us.
Renewing our mind will involve praying that God would give us a hunger for his Word. Jesus said, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We become what we eat. We know this is true in the physical realm of our lives—we become what we eat. We are constantly shedding off cells and producing new ones—so we literally do become what we eat. Occasionally, mothers of babies express concern that they are turning orange. There is condition called carotenemia, where skin, especially parts becomes tinged with orange. It is most visible in babies. The condition is caused by ingesting a large amount of carotene, a nutrient most often found in breast milk, but also in carrots, squash, sweet potato, pumpkin, and yams. We literally become what we eat.
This is also true of our minds. What we feed our minds will determine who we become so Jesus said feed on his word.
Ziggy (Tim at Kits) has acknowledged in the promotion for his course starting today on the Old Testament that people can find that part of the Bible boring. There are many people who regard the Bible in general as a book they can’t connect with.
Personally knowing the author of the Scriptures makes the Bible so much more alive. I have a few books on my shelf (show books as props) that are so much more alive to me because I know the authors. In a couple of cases, I was in the authors’ homes during part of their writing process. As I read these books I can hear the voices of the author speaking to me in my inner ear. My mind and heart are more engaged because of my connection with the writers. When we know God personally, reading his word will be much more than an academic exercise, but we will sense God speaking to us. When are in relationship with God, the Holy Spirit will also illuminate the meaning of Scriptures to us and apply it specifically to our life situation.
When we really know God, the author of the Bible, and when we know this book is written for us, we experience it differently, we experience not a dusty old wooden chest, but as the kids have reminded us through their wonderful mural—the Word becomes a treasure.
This is also true of our minds.
What we feed our minds will determine who we become, so Jesus said feed on his word..
Rhythms
As we construct our rule or rhythm of life for our mind, we will consider a rhythm for reading Scripture so that we will experience the renewal of our minds.
Over the years I have often used The One Year Bible which guides a person into a portion of the Old and New Testaments and Psalms and Proverbs each day. You can get One Year Bible reading guides online.
There is real value in getting a sense of the sweeping themes of Scripture.
This year I am on a Bible reading plan using a guide by the Navigators which gets me in the word 5 times a week.
Others take a longer section, once a week. Richard Foster says it may be better to take a longer shower once a week in the Word than to simply have a few drops each day.
Memorizing Scripture
I once asked Dallas Willard, a respected writer on the spiritual life, what was your most important spiritual discipline.
“As young Christian, it was solitude; now it’s Scripture memory,” he said.
I was surprised. I had the impression that Scripture memory was mostly for kids in a Sunday School program, not a spiritual discipline for a distinguished scholar. But memorizing Scripture and committing it to our (long-term) memory is one of the most powerful ways to make Scripture a part of who we are.
As a new believer, struggling with guilt over past sins of shop-lifting and a general sense of shame, I memorized Psalm 103 which assures us, “As far as the East is from the West so far God has removed our transgressions from us.”
When I traveled as part of a student mission to smuggle in Bibles and theological books into Romania while it was still behind the iron curtain of communism, I memorized Psalm 139, “Even if I travel to the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me; your right hand will hold me fast.”
When we memorize Scripture it rattles around inside us and becomes part of us, it renews us.
But, it’s not just the Bible. Uplifting books and movies can also renew our minds for God.
Charles W. Eliot, who served as president of Harvard for forty years, dreamed of a five-foot shelf of books that would provide an education for anyone who would spend fifteen minutes a day reading them. His vision became a reality when he became editor of the fifty-volume Harvard Classics (1909).
Susan Wise Bauer says that anyone who can read can adopt a rule for reading. “All you need is shelf full of books… and few ‘chasms of time not otherwise appropriated’.” She counsels us to start with short reading times (as with physical exercise, work yourself up into shape, beginning with no more than thirty minutes a day); and don’t schedule yourself every day of the week (aim for four days, giving yourself some days off for the other priorities and for the interruptions of life); schedule your reading time when you are free from distractions and guard this time (White, A Mind for God, 83.)
Arthur Schopenhauer said, “If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited” (quoted in Serious Times, White, 108).
Solitude and Journaling
Another way we can experience the renewal of our minds so that we can discern and swim against the current of the age is through solitude and journaling.
Each year at New Year’s we go back to Japan to celebrate with Sakiko’s family.
Two really frustrating things have actually helped me experience a most precious gift there. One is jet-lag. I am terrible adjusting to new time zones. So I used to just lie in bed wide awake at 2:00 a.m. Then I stopped resisting and got up at 1:30 a.m. (and went to bed about 7:30 p.m.). It was so quiet and still at that time of the night.
Then another frustrating experience was that my internet connection on my laptop doesn’t work there. I discovered my wireless connection didn’t work there, nor could I get online by plugging in at my in-laws’ place, nor at the neighbor’s house. My blackberry connection didn’t work either. At first this was very frustrating, but then I said, “Let’s just go with it.” (If I really want to use the net, I can use my father-in-law’s computer). But, for me in Japan, I am virtually unplugged. This has turned out to become such a gift. The gift of solitude and being unplugged
In times of quiet solitude, I can get perspective on what matters most.
If you want to get a definition of H2O, it’s best not to ask a fish. They are too close to it to be able to give perspective. We can become so immersed in the water of the world we often oblivious to how its currents can pull us away from God. Spending time alone in silence, alone, can renew our minds and gives us new perspective so we can test and approve God’s will. Solitude can become an anchor for us.
In times of solitude I may also journal. Some of us shy away from the thought of writing a journal because we do not consider ourselves writers. Or perhaps are afraid that what we write is going to sound banal when compared to diaries of Anne Frank or the journals or Henri Nouwen.
But writing can be a way to pray and discern what God is saying to us. A journal also helps us to retain those things that God says to us. When I journaled last month in Japan, I took time to read back through a number of journal entries from the previous year and write some new ones.
One of the Scriptures that really spoke to me last year was John 21:23 where Jesus intimates to Peter that he his lot will include suffering at the end of his life and Peter points to Jesus’ disciple John and asks, “What about him?” Jesus says, “What is that to you?” My life has changed significantly since being married and become a parent. I used to serve on more boards and travel and speak more often. My life in simpler now, that’s a gift, but it can feel at times like a loss. When I am tempted to compare my life with a peer’s in my field who seems more active or to be a more active, younger version of Ken Shigematsu, God seems to be saying, “What is that to you?” Don’t compare. Journaling helps me discern what God is saying and retain it. It helps renew my mind.
People
Have you ever seen salmon swimming upstream? I’ve been amazing how salmon can swim, jump, wiggle over the stones, against water, upriver. I imagine that swimming upstream for a fish is hard, but I also it would far harder to do it alone. So it is for us. Swimming against the current of our age is hard, but it’s much harder to do alone.
But, it is much easier if we do it with others.
Our minds can also experience renewal by interacting with people.
Like you, I’ve sometimes had people, who sincerely want the best for me and who really care for me, try to influence in a way would cause me to drift from God. But I’ve also had friends who have helped me maintain a Christ-like perspective.
One of the values of being part of some kind of small group or engaged in spiritual friendship is that you can learn from the others, experience renewal. I won’t say more, because Mardi will speak more on this next Sunday.
At the end of each message thus far, I’ve been sharing something to keep in mind as you construct a rule or rhythm of life that supports your growth in God. At the bottom of this half page sheet, I write a rule of life that should have a combination of being gentle, but also challenging.
If the rule is overly strict, it will likely not be sustainable over time. But, on the other hand if a rule is too gentle, it won’t push us to grow. Make the rule gentle, but also make it challenging-- something that will stretch you.
Beginning a new habit at first can be daunting. I remember when I moved back to Canada from California. At first, I was in White Rock, a small ocean-side community near the US border. My roommate Steve expressed a desire to lose weight, so I suggested we go running each morning. For years I had the practice of running each morning, but my friend Steve had never run on a regular basis.
“You are going to feel great,” I assured him with confidence as we jogged. “You’re going to have more energy today.” Returning to the condo at the end of the run, Steve just crashed on his bed, moaning, “I feel sick!” When he came home from work that day, he said, “I was exhausted all day long. I couldn’t concentrate.”
We tried running for a few more mornings, but my room-mate kept complaining that he felt so tired he couldn’t focus at work. I later discovered that you have to run for about 30 days before you start reaping the benefits of greater energy and strength. I had always been running, but didn't take that into account for my roommate.
And so it with certain habits and practices. There are times we need to stay with them in order for them to bear fruit in our lives. There are times obviously when a particular habit simply does not work for us, but we need to have enough patience to determine whether or not this is the case for us.
So it is with the renewing our mind—it takes some effort to establish a rhythm of renewing our mind through the Scriptures and Spirit, through reading solitude and journaling, through spiritual companions; but like exercise or eating well—which also take effort especially at first—we’ll experience priceless gifts of God’s presence and perspective, as well, and we’ll be able to swim against the tide.
Title: A Mind for God February 28, 2010
Text: Romans 12:1-2
Ken Shigematsu
Props: books, seeds, journal.
Thomas Merton, in his book, Wisdom of the Desert, wrote that the early church fathers believed that society was a shipwreck from which any sane person would swim for his or her life.
Those words may sound like an overstatement, but if you have tried to live for God in the midst of the real world, you have likely experienced the subtle, but real undertow of the world away from God.
When you’re sailing, it’s not just the wind and the position of your sails and rudder that determine your course, but there is another unseen force that will affect your direction. While sailing, you might aim the bow of your boat toward a landmark on the horizon, and hope that if you simply lock the wheel in its current position, you will sail toward the mark. But, there’s a typically unseen force that will take you off course, and that is the current. In order to stay on course, you have to keep on my eye on the landmark and adjust your wheel (and your sails) to keep me on course. In our life with God, we may have also set our sights sailing toward a particular landmark on the horizon which we feel represents God’s intended destination, but may be experiencing the current of the world pulling us in a different direction.
When I was working as part of a large corporation in Tokyo, I felt there was a subtle undertow for me to define myself by the quality of my work and the money I made. People who had known me for a long time commented during that period of my life commented that it seemed like money and material things were becoming more important to me. I felt indignant and denied it at first, but looking back I see how I had drifted off center.
Also, while living in Japan, as in others places, I also felt the seductive pull to engage in sexual activity that was not linked to any kind of love or commitment. While I was a student in Boston, there was the tide to define myself by my education and grades. While living in Los Angeles area, each day I’d thumb through Los Angeles Times (Orange County Edition) with every other page having some kind ad for plastic surgery, and the of current of the culture pulling me to place excessive importance on a person’s outward appearance. In Vancouver, where I currently live we who follow Christ experience the pull (as Dan Matheson has observed) to not make God the center of our lives, but to place him on the periphery of our lives.
Part of the way we swim away from the current of the world is by asking God to renew our minds, and so that we can test and approve what God’s will is, his good pleasing and perfect will.
The Apostle Paul in Romans 12 writes:
“2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
J.B. Philips translates this verse: Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold. The word for world is translated literally, “This age” and refers to the external, fleeting fashion of the world. So Paul is urging us to experience the renewal of our minds so that we are able to transcend the fleeting and superficial values of our age and discern God’s will.
A key part of our rule of life, our trellis, will include a rhythm to renew our mind.
We’ll be looking at this part of our rule this morning.
The words that precede Romans 12:2 are, of course, the famous words of Romans 12:1
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is true worship.
What is the motivation to offer our bodies, which for Paul would have been a way of referring to our whole selves—to God? God’s mercy. God’s stunning mercy demonstrated in his offering his body for us as a sacrifice for our sins on the cross (which is what this season of Lent invites to reflect on). In response to God’s great mercy to us, Paul urges us to our offer every part of our selves as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.
It is significant that the call to holiness precedes the invitation for us to experience the renewal of our minds as the two are linked. As our bodies need to have a certain level of health to benefit from food, so our souls need a level of health and purity to best receive the seeds that God is sowing in us.
Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation, writes:
Every moment and every event of a man [or woman’s] life on earth plants something in his [or her] soul… Most of these unencumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men [and women] are not prepared to receive them…
Merton, drawing on Jesus’ parable of the sower, says that in every moment of our lives some kind of seed is being planted in us.
Our capacity to receive the good seeds that are being sown in us by God is directly related to the quality of the soil of our hearts. We tend to think of renewing our mind primarily in terms of reading the right books, going to right schools, and both of these have value. But, renewing our minds as followers of Christ does not come primarily from enrolling in a superior school, but from a heart that is pure. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”
C.S. Lewis said that our bodies are the telescope through which we see God: “The instrument through which you see God is your whole self. And if a man [or woman’s] self is not kept clean and bright, his [or her] glimpse of God will be blurred—like the moon through a dirty telescope.”
The apostle Paul understood that self-centeredness and a lack of inner purity darken our understanding of God and the most important spiritual truths.
Ancient philosophers believed that there was a direct connection between our ability to know and the purity of our character. In our culture, we tend to equate being pure with being naive, but the ancient philosophers were right when they made the link between our inner purity and our capacity to know. We begin to experience the renewal of our minds so that we discern God’s will and so we can swim against the current of the fleeting age by praying that God would enable us to become holy people—people whose bodies are set apart in devotion for him as Paul speaks of in Romans 12.
As we ask God for a pure heart, we, it would also follow, would seek to avoid things that would pollute our hearts.
What does this look like?
Practically, part of the way we experience the renewal of our minds will involve our being discerning about the television, movies, and media we expose ourselves to.
We may assume that television doesn’t affect our values (just the values of others), but research from the RAND Institute demonstrates that television does influence our behavior. Teenagers, for example, who are exposed to more sex scenes on television are more sexually active and have higher rates of unwanted pregnancies than young people who watch less of that kind of television. The popular and engaging television show Friends, a show that many of my generation watched as young adults, has shaped both sexual attitudes of people in my generation, but also even the way we use intensifiers like very or so (give example and footnote).
Not only does television have the potential to pollute our minds, but it tends to make us more anxious. Robert Bellah, the professor of sociology at University of California at Berkeley, points out that people watch television in the evenings to relax, but this ends up making us more anxious and mildly (and sometimes severely) depressed . If we want to experience restoration, Bellah says we are better off finding an activity that is mildly demanding, but meaningful, such as reading a good book (or repairing the car, talking to someone we love or even cooking the family meal).
Television at its best can inform and uplift--but for the most part is the mental equivalent of junk food, in moderate doses it may not harm us, but on the whole it will not nourish us. It over- ingested it will cause us to become spiritually and mentally sluggish.1
In North America the average person has the TV or radio on 7.9 hours a day, so our rule of life will take into consideration the amount and kind of television (movies and media) we see—and some might even question whether to own a TV.
More positively, as we develop our rule of life, we will expose our minds to things that will nourish us, and pray that we will have an appetite for these things.
Just as our taste buds can be trained to acquire a taste for certain good foods, so our minds can become oriented to things that nourish us.
Renewing our mind will involve praying that God would give us a hunger for his Word. Jesus said, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We become what we eat. We know this is true in the physical realm of our lives—we become what we eat. We are constantly shedding off cells and producing new ones—so we literally do become what we eat. Occasionally, mothers of babies express concern that they are turning orange. There is condition called carotenemia, where skin, especially parts becomes tinged with orange. It is most visible in babies. The condition is caused by ingesting a large amount of carotene, a nutrient most often found in breast milk, but also in carrots, squash, sweet potato, pumpkin, and yams. We literally become what we eat.
This is also true of our minds. What we feed our minds will determine who we become so Jesus said feed on his word.
Ziggy (Tim at Kits) has acknowledged in the promotion for his course starting today on the Old Testament that people can find that part of the Bible boring. There are many people who regard the Bible in general as a book they can’t connect with.
Personally knowing the author of the Scriptures makes the Bible so much more alive. I have a few books on my shelf (show books as props) that are so much more alive to me because I know the authors. In a couple of cases, I was in the authors’ homes during part of their writing process. As I read these books I can hear the voices of the author speaking to me in my inner ear. My mind and heart are more engaged because of my connection with the writers. When we know God personally, reading his word will be much more than an academic exercise, but we will sense God speaking to us. When are in relationship with God, the Holy Spirit will also illuminate the meaning of Scriptures to us and apply it specifically to our life situation.
When we really know God, the author of the Bible, and when we know this book is written for us, we experience it differently, we experience not a dusty old wooden chest, but as the kids have reminded us through their wonderful mural—the Word becomes a treasure.
This is also true of our minds.
What we feed our minds will determine who we become, so Jesus said feed on his word..
Rhythms
As we construct our rule or rhythm of life for our mind, we will consider a rhythm for reading Scripture so that we will experience the renewal of our minds.
Over the years I have often used The One Year Bible which guides a person into a portion of the Old and New Testaments and Psalms and Proverbs each day. You can get One Year Bible reading guides online.
There is real value in getting a sense of the sweeping themes of Scripture.
This year I am on a Bible reading plan using a guide by the Navigators which gets me in the word 5 times a week.
Others take a longer section, once a week. Richard Foster says it may be better to take a longer shower once a week in the Word than to simply have a few drops each day.
Memorizing Scripture
I once asked Dallas Willard, a respected writer on the spiritual life, what was your most important spiritual discipline.
“As young Christian, it was solitude; now it’s Scripture memory,” he said.
I was surprised. I had the impression that Scripture memory was mostly for kids in a Sunday School program, not a spiritual discipline for a distinguished scholar. But memorizing Scripture and committing it to our (long-term) memory is one of the most powerful ways to make Scripture a part of who we are.
As a new believer, struggling with guilt over past sins of shop-lifting and a general sense of shame, I memorized Psalm 103 which assures us, “As far as the East is from the West so far God has removed our transgressions from us.”
When I traveled as part of a student mission to smuggle in Bibles and theological books into Romania while it was still behind the iron curtain of communism, I memorized Psalm 139, “Even if I travel to the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me; your right hand will hold me fast.”
When we memorize Scripture it rattles around inside us and becomes part of us, it renews us.
But, it’s not just the Bible. Uplifting books and movies can also renew our minds for God.
Charles W. Eliot, who served as president of Harvard for forty years, dreamed of a five-foot shelf of books that would provide an education for anyone who would spend fifteen minutes a day reading them. His vision became a reality when he became editor of the fifty-volume Harvard Classics (1909).
Susan Wise Bauer says that anyone who can read can adopt a rule for reading. “All you need is shelf full of books… and few ‘chasms of time not otherwise appropriated’.” She counsels us to start with short reading times (as with physical exercise, work yourself up into shape, beginning with no more than thirty minutes a day); and don’t schedule yourself every day of the week (aim for four days, giving yourself some days off for the other priorities and for the interruptions of life); schedule your reading time when you are free from distractions and guard this time (White, A Mind for God, 83.)
Arthur Schopenhauer said, “If a man wants to read good books, he must make a point of avoiding bad ones; for life is short, and time and energy limited” (quoted in Serious Times, White, 108).
Solitude and Journaling
Another way we can experience the renewal of our minds so that we can discern and swim against the current of the age is through solitude and journaling.
Each year at New Year’s we go back to Japan to celebrate with Sakiko’s family.
Two really frustrating things have actually helped me experience a most precious gift there. One is jet-lag. I am terrible adjusting to new time zones. So I used to just lie in bed wide awake at 2:00 a.m. Then I stopped resisting and got up at 1:30 a.m. (and went to bed about 7:30 p.m.). It was so quiet and still at that time of the night.
Then another frustrating experience was that my internet connection on my laptop doesn’t work there. I discovered my wireless connection didn’t work there, nor could I get online by plugging in at my in-laws’ place, nor at the neighbor’s house. My blackberry connection didn’t work either. At first this was very frustrating, but then I said, “Let’s just go with it.” (If I really want to use the net, I can use my father-in-law’s computer). But, for me in Japan, I am virtually unplugged. This has turned out to become such a gift. The gift of solitude and being unplugged
In times of quiet solitude, I can get perspective on what matters most.
If you want to get a definition of H2O, it’s best not to ask a fish. They are too close to it to be able to give perspective. We can become so immersed in the water of the world we often oblivious to how its currents can pull us away from God. Spending time alone in silence, alone, can renew our minds and gives us new perspective so we can test and approve God’s will. Solitude can become an anchor for us.
In times of solitude I may also journal. Some of us shy away from the thought of writing a journal because we do not consider ourselves writers. Or perhaps are afraid that what we write is going to sound banal when compared to diaries of Anne Frank or the journals or Henri Nouwen.
But writing can be a way to pray and discern what God is saying to us. A journal also helps us to retain those things that God says to us. When I journaled last month in Japan, I took time to read back through a number of journal entries from the previous year and write some new ones.
One of the Scriptures that really spoke to me last year was John 21:23 where Jesus intimates to Peter that he his lot will include suffering at the end of his life and Peter points to Jesus’ disciple John and asks, “What about him?” Jesus says, “What is that to you?” My life has changed significantly since being married and become a parent. I used to serve on more boards and travel and speak more often. My life in simpler now, that’s a gift, but it can feel at times like a loss. When I am tempted to compare my life with a peer’s in my field who seems more active or to be a more active, younger version of Ken Shigematsu, God seems to be saying, “What is that to you?” Don’t compare. Journaling helps me discern what God is saying and retain it. It helps renew my mind.
People
Have you ever seen salmon swimming upstream? I’ve been amazing how salmon can swim, jump, wiggle over the stones, against water, upriver. I imagine that swimming upstream for a fish is hard, but I also it would far harder to do it alone. So it is for us. Swimming against the current of our age is hard, but it’s much harder to do alone.
But, it is much easier if we do it with others.
Our minds can also experience renewal by interacting with people.
Like you, I’ve sometimes had people, who sincerely want the best for me and who really care for me, try to influence in a way would cause me to drift from God. But I’ve also had friends who have helped me maintain a Christ-like perspective.
One of the values of being part of some kind of small group or engaged in spiritual friendship is that you can learn from the others, experience renewal. I won’t say more, because Mardi will speak more on this next Sunday.
At the end of each message thus far, I’ve been sharing something to keep in mind as you construct a rule or rhythm of life that supports your growth in God. At the bottom of this half page sheet, I write a rule of life that should have a combination of being gentle, but also challenging.
If the rule is overly strict, it will likely not be sustainable over time. But, on the other hand if a rule is too gentle, it won’t push us to grow. Make the rule gentle, but also make it challenging-- something that will stretch you.
Beginning a new habit at first can be daunting. I remember when I moved back to Canada from California. At first, I was in White Rock, a small ocean-side community near the US border. My roommate Steve expressed a desire to lose weight, so I suggested we go running each morning. For years I had the practice of running each morning, but my friend Steve had never run on a regular basis.
“You are going to feel great,” I assured him with confidence as we jogged. “You’re going to have more energy today.” Returning to the condo at the end of the run, Steve just crashed on his bed, moaning, “I feel sick!” When he came home from work that day, he said, “I was exhausted all day long. I couldn’t concentrate.”
We tried running for a few more mornings, but my room-mate kept complaining that he felt so tired he couldn’t focus at work. I later discovered that you have to run for about 30 days before you start reaping the benefits of greater energy and strength. I had always been running, but didn't take that into account for my roommate.
And so it with certain habits and practices. There are times we need to stay with them in order for them to bear fruit in our lives. There are times obviously when a particular habit simply does not work for us, but we need to have enough patience to determine whether or not this is the case for us.
So it is with the renewing our mind—it takes some effort to establish a rhythm of renewing our mind through the Scriptures and Spirit, through reading solitude and journaling, through spiritual companions; but like exercise or eating well—which also take effort especially at first—we’ll experience priceless gifts of God’s presence and perspective, as well, and we’ll be able to swim against the tide.
posted by Shigematsu at 10:29 AM
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