:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

Yesterday I began a new series addressing common problems that Christians face. I’m beginning my survival guide series with a series of posts address the problem of not being able to stop sinning. My last post framed the discussion, and today we’ll take our first step toward overcoming the problem of pervasive sin.

Let’s have a look…

Sin and the Information Problem

Sin can be credited in part, but not as a whole, to an information problem. If sinless perfection rested on knowing the right stuff, then we could all get seminary degrees and be set. Having passed through seminary myself and knowing many others who have, I can assure you that seminary is not the silver bullet required for sin. However, it is good to orient and resource ourselves with the facts of our situation.

God is not a kill-joy handing down a list of restricted activities like some kind of micro-managing boss who wants nothing more than to control the minutiae of our lives. He’s not sitting up in heaven laughing at those silly Christians who are missing out on all of the fun to be had with unrestrained sexual exploits, excessive drinking, and raging anger. We may be a bit naïve and silly at times, perhaps we’re even suckers, but we’re not suckers because we miss out on catching venereal disease, vomiting on someone’s front lawn after a binge, or punching through sheetrock.

God declared creation good and then part of his creation became greedy and obsessed with its own glory. Our ancestors allowed their evil desires to rule them and these desires took shape as sin.

We have followed in their footsteps ever since. We are tempted by evil desires, we give in to them, and we sin.

The information we need concerns the nature of sin, temptation, and our evil desires. These are not the norm for God’s good creation. And more than that, God has done something about them. When dreaming up a sin solution, we tend to think in terms of the nuclear option that blasts sin out of our world once and for all, burning every bit of sin from each person. God doesn’t work like a nuclear weapon, and like petulant teenagers who can’t go to the dance, we resent him for it.

If you’re an American like me who operates on a grand, industrial scale, you’re probably disturbed by God’s “uncaring” way of dealing with sin in an “inefficient” way.

The metaphors have changed over time, an invasion, a virus, a rebellion, but the core information we need remains the same. We need to know that God has not made his world to be ruled by evil desires, openly indulging in the destructive, self-serving powers of sin.

We need to see things for what they are: we are beings shaped in the divine image of God who were made to live in loving relationship with our creator and our fellow beings. When we resist this calling, we fall away from the good world that God intended for us. Sin turns us into hideous creatures who are alienated from God and others.

Far from being free to do as we like, sin becomes a cruel master that will rule our lives, alienate us from God, and prevent us from the true joy of our calling. We find moments of pleasure by indulging in sin, but part of our problem is a lack of information.

Letting sin have its way cripples us in ways that have long-term consequences we cannot even imagine. We have been made in the image of God to perform good works, to enjoy a saving relationship with him through the work of Jesus and the Spirit, and to testify to that love by word and deed.

The scriptures tell us that sin is not the norm, and that God has in fact given us everything we need to live godly lives. Christ has born sin on his body while on the cross, defeated it by rising from the dead, and imparted his life-giving power through the Holy Spirit.

Sin is a defeated foe. We don’t have to submit to it. In fact, we can live with God in such a way that sin becomes the furthest thing from our minds since we’re consumed with the love of God. Who would knowingly seek out a cruel, evil witch/warlock when the most beautiful and kind woman/man in the world desires to be with you?

Our problems with require more than an information fix, and that’s what we’ll address next…

A New Series…

You know how most Christians tend to have the same problems and many of them sort of persist?

They’re the elephants in the room when we get together. Even if we don’t struggle with particular sins or Christian disciplines, we may counsel plenty of friends who have these struggles.

A few months back I decided to write up a kind of survival guide for overcoming these common threats to our Christian walks. These sins, doubts, fears, and short-comings can nibble away out our faith and keep us from intimacy with God, following Jesus daily, and completing the mission he has given us here on earth to proclaim his Kingdom.

The solutions are there. God’s power is available for us. So it’s time to challenge our doubts, short-comings, and fears. It’s time to lay hold of his power for us and to embrace the fullness of life Jesus promised us.

Let’s begin…

Part of One of “You Can’t Stop Sinning”

You know that guy at work who rarely does his job. He mocks you and the other peons who slave away while he plays games on his computer and shuffles papers, somehow convincing your boss that he’s a valuable asset. And so you get together with your colleagues while the coffee is brewing and talk about that sniveling, lazy jerk and his long, crooked nose.

Talk is too sedate a word for it. You slam him. You roast him alive like a fat pig. You make him the butt of your jokes and the target of your slander. He’s the worst kind of person and you always feel better about yourself whenever you’re done tearing into him.

And yet, you know deep down that a Christian shouldn’t mock this man’s character, lacking though it may be. And perhaps you shouldn’t make fun of the way he eats his hard-boiled eggs, the way he slurps his coffee, or the way he shoves his wispy black hair away from his forehead with a brush of his hand. No, the Christian way is to love this man rather than insulting him behind his back.

The tongue being a restless evil aside, you still think he kind of deserves it. It’s just words after all. Really, you haven’t done anything all that terrible. And as you hide behind justifications, you arrive at the real truth of the matter. You don’t want to stop slandering him. In fact, you can’t stop. It’s natural, easy, and feels good, as if you can undo his grievances against you by the power of your words.

But perhaps you haven’t struggled with words. Perhaps your struggle is with lusting after a neighbor along your block. He or she often walks past your house in the evening, and you find yourself thinking about this person in very inappropriate ways. It may be the scent of his cologne that lingers or that titillating blouse she wears that sparks your imagination and leaves you burning.

While you’re alone at home he sneaks into your thoughts with a seductive look or when you’re driving home from work your heart beats a little faster at the thought of seeing her today. This infatuation is both terrifying and wonderful, fulfilling some deep-seated desires that crave to be fulfilled even if they seem endless in their demands. You can’t help but give in to them because you’re not really hurting anyone, and worse than that, you don’t feel like you can resist them. The urges are too strong, your will too weak, and those exciting moments of surrender to lust are too exciting.

In either scenario, sin has taken hold and become a master of sorts. It isn’t that slander and lust are harmless sources of fun and fulfillment that God doesn’t want you to have. It’s that you’re actually enslaved to them, letting them control you, shape you into a different sort of person, and keeping you from the good things God has planned for you. When sin becomes an irresistible force that we cannot fight, we have a tremendous problem that must be addressed without delay.

The next post in this series will deal with sin and our information problem…

The Destination is Not Up to Us…

When I moved from college to seminary, I had a picture in my head of what I would be like as a mature Christian. Since most of my money was paying for a seminary education, you’d better believe I thought a vast biblical knowledge would be a key part of that.

My experience is that God often has something else in mind from what we imagine. In fact, it’s hard for us to predict what God’s destination will be for us.

I think seminary was a really important part of my growth, but it wasn’t the decisive factor I thought it would be. So far as I can tell, the most significant moments of my Christian growth have always been tied directly to learning how to pray or meet with God.

My biblical knowledge was important, but these moments of meeting with God drove that truth home.

Life is a careful balancing act of doing what we believe God has called us to do, while remaining flexible to his leading and his new destinations. Perhaps faithfulness is the art of being flexible with the results and clinging to God alone.

Ten years since I entered seminary, I am at a completely different place in life than I would have expected. I have no complaints, but it has been humbling to watch some of my plans and goals crumble. However, in holding to my plans loosely, I’ve learned there is joy to be found in the new places God calls us to.

We should pursue whatever it is that God places on our hearts, but it’s equally important to let go of our chosen destinations if God chooses to send us elsewhere. Life is this constant process of letting go of one thing in order to embrace another only to find that you will soon need to let go of the new thing in order to embrace another.

On and on it goes.

We’ll get beat up and frustrated if we make our lives about the things we’re aiming for rather than God. This is a lesson in the Kingdom. Christ is all and in all, and we have nothing without him.

I used to drive eleven hours from my dad’s house in New Jersey to my college, Taylor University, in Indiana. Eleven hours that I usually drove by myself.

I was kind of nuts. It was all about minimizing stops for gas and the bathroom, while keeping my speed as high as legally possible. I was a blathering mess by the time I arrived, but if I could shave off a few minutes, it was all totally worth it. Really, my friends didn’t know what to do with me after I arrived at Taylor.

While driving I’d also get a Caesar salad and a frosty from Wendy’s. If I was really living it up, I’d snag some chicken nuggets. Don’t ask how I ate my salad.

I’m luck to be alive.

I remember driving across Pennsylvania and despairing. It’s such a long, monotonous state—though not monotonous like Kansas, the bane of cross-country road trips. But on the PA turnpike I was like, “Oh golly, another long hill of a mountain. I’ll bet they’re mining THAT one for coal too.” I would always despair over how long I still had to go in that state which really shouldn’t be allowed to be so wide.

When I’m facing my own issues with disobedience and sin, I’m reminded of my Pennsylvania road trips.

Some days I’m so dang discouraged about how far I still need to go in my Christian faith. In the letter First Corinthians, Paul calls the Corinthians immature, needing to hear about Christ crucified all over again because they suck at obeying God and loving one another.

I don’t know about you, but that all sort of sounds familiar. Am I really just an immature Christian who can’t get the cross and basic obedience down? It’s humbling.

Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that Christians pass through seasons. Sometimes we have struggles and other times we have our mountain peaks. However, the path to maturity surely must run through deepening our intimacy with the Father.

The good news is that God isn’t waiting at our destination, checking his watch, wishing we’d step on it and knock off the chicken nugget pit stop. He’s there in the car with us, wondering why we’re barreling forward at such high speeds instead of pulling over to have a chat with him. That’s where he wants us to start.

I dig a little deeper into the Bible and worry a little more about my prayer life, pressing my foot to the floor as I accelerate myself into a holy fervor. And yet, while God wants me to be obedient, he wants me to obey because my love for him is what drives me.

It’s true that we have very far to go in our quest for holy living and Christian maturity as part of God’s family, but we won’t zoom ahead by trying harder. That is the hardest lesson to learn.

While on vacation with our family last week I gave frequent updates on the past year, and I realized something.

The past year wasn’t the worst. That kind of surprised me. In fact, a lot of great things happened. And then again, I certainly hit my fair share of set backs that cast a shadow over things—hence my surprise.

During this time last year, where did I expect to be in a year’s time? The answer: Well, not quite where I am right now. And now, where do I expect to be next year at this time?

I can live with my lack of progress because life is more than a long to-do list. I need to look at something bigger than my goals.

This isn’t a matter of painting a bulls-eye wherever my arrows land. Rather, I’m talking about the delicate balance of having goals and remembering the larger relational picture of life. Over the past year my daily quality of life has improved and my wife and I have found time to be together in midst of some pretty crazy schedules.

All in all, we’re doing fine, and that is something to be thankful for.

On the Christian end of things, I think I can get caught up in meeting all kinds of goals as well, craving certain spiritual milestones. You know, stuff like being free from a nagging sin, hearing God more clearly, or reading a certain amount of scripture. Christians usually think they don’t pray enough, and we’re usually moving somewhere between the extremes of despairing over our sin or excusing it.

I like the idea of aiming for Christian maturity, and I’ll speak about that more this week, but as far as goals go, I think it’s important to begin any discussion of them from the standpoint of what’s most important.

When I consider my goals as a Christian, I find myself balancing the desire to be more holy or spiritual, but not listing the goal over the relationship with God that will ultimately lead me to that level of holiness or spirituality. In other words, working toward the goals can overshadow the means by which we attain them—namely through intimacy with Christ.

It can be frustrating to struggle with sin or to find that you’re not quite as far along in your Christian walk as you’d like, but we don’t move forward by setting a goal and then working on it without the relationship with Christ in place. I’m learning that the best way forward is not always what seems to be the most direct…

I’m sure someone has written about this, but as I’ve scrambled to get my church’s gardening ministry started over the past few weeks, I’ve often thought of my own idealism and plans in comparison with what I’ve been able to do. In fact, it’s easy to sit back and nit pick myself.

Am I doing enough? Am I doing this right? Is this good enough? Am I making any serious mistakes?

It’s really easy to doubt myself and my plans.

There came a point when I simply needed to jump in to the ministry that I sensed God had placed before me. While I want to do things well and even with excellence, sometimes our ideals can stand in the way of taking action, making some good mistakes, and learning as I move forward.

I have learned that God can provide as we step forward in obedience, even if we don’t have all of the details lined up. However, taking that leap of faith requires letting go of my own idealism that can sometimes become a poor excuse for inaction and it eventually becomes laziness.

The perfect can prevent the possible. While it’s good to aim high, I have learned that sometimes the quest for perfection can become a hindrance.

Sometimes we settle for less than we should. However, when it comes to taking a first step, inaction can bring about its own imperfection that may be worse than taking a less than perfect step forward.

I know this web site is usually dedicated to God and Christianity and stuff, but hey, I’m on vacation and I wanted to share a small bit of it with you. And besides, you like good food right? Well, OK there then. Keep reading…

Sometime in the early 1900’s some of my ancestors arrived in the Philadelphia area from Poland. My grandfather, who happens to be another “Ed Cyzewski,” married my grandmother who had emigrated recently from Puerto Rico.

She brought with her beans and rice recipes that my wife absolutely loves, but she also learned some of the recipes from my grandfather’s family. While I have long adored the pierogies she makes for Christmas lunch, I have yet to find an equal for the potato salad recipe she learned from my Polish ancestors.

We call it “Polish Potato Salad,” but I don’t know if there’s anything uniquely Polish about it. It’s just a way of honoring my Polish roots.

This evening I’ll be grilling chicken, boiling corn, and making a salad while on vacation with Julie’s folks. However, the star of the meal, for me at least, will be the potato salad. I made it this morning, and the crunch of celery, sweetness of onions, and creamy mayo still lingers in my mouth.

Potato salad is an essential part of summer meals for me, though my family has it throughout the year for various events. I’d like to share this recipe with you. I hope you enjoy it. If it’s not your thing, don’t tell me. I don’t think my world could handle that…

Here it is, straight from a conversation with my grandmother several years ago:

Cyzewski Family Potato Salad

3 lbs small red potatoes (cut up if big)
put in a large pot of water to boil for 15 minutes (on medium with a lid)
Shut off the heat and let them sit for 10 minutes
drain and cool for a few hours
dice potatoes
cut up 4 stalks celery
cut up 1.5 lg onion
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3/4 tsp parsley
2/3 to 3/4 c mayo
1.5 Tablespoon vinegar
1.5 Tablespoon sugar
mix together

This week I have invested quite a lot of time into launching my church’s new garden ministry which will grow food for local food banks/soup kitchens. We had an unbelievable number of plant donations, but we still lacked one critical component for our garden as of Wednesday: Compost.

Since we are gardening in a community plot, there’s no telling how depleted the soil may be after continuous use. In order for our plants to produce at a decent rate, the soil needed some nutrients.

Though we’d been given some monetary donations, I had hoped to save our funding for future expenses. Therefore, I sought out a business in our area to donate 20 bags of compost.

After missing the guy in charge of donations a few times and experiencing a few delays, I finally met with him on Wednesday, the very day I’d hoped to work the compost into the soil with a fellow volunteer.

It was a very delicate conversation—we need your help, like, really, really soon.

He said they could most likely help us, but he needed to check with his supervisor first thing in the morning.

And so I improvised and worked on a few plants that didn’t require compost as much. It wasn’t how I’d hoped things would go, but we were plenty busy and accomplished much.

It just didn’t fit my schedule.

The following morning I woke up early, picked up the compost that was set aside for me, and raced to the garden in time to meet a few volunteers. We planted most of the garden in our newly fertile soil, but it sure became hot while we were out there.

Looking back on the past week, we turned compost into most of the garden, put all of the donated plants into the ground, and even laid straw as a mulch in some places. Everything we put into the ground was donated and nothing went to waste.

However, the more I look back at my plans for this past week, the more I realize how dramatically they were changed. We had plenty of provision, but it didn’t always come at the times and places that I’d expected. Even the tiller and weed whacker we used on Monday were improvised to a certain degree.

In looking at this garden as a ministry, I can see how God has been providing for us all along. I see it as Kingdom work to feed the poor, even if we’re just starting with our humble little 700 sq. foot plot. And he is caring for our needs.

However, in waiting for God’s provision, I’m learning to remain flexible and to trust that while my timing may be imperfect and subject to change, his timing is always perfect. Getting myself onto his schedule is the hard part.

So, the bookish seminary student takes his leap into ministry, and he learns an important lesson. The kind of lesson he couldn’t have truly learned by just reading the Bible.

You need to go. Ministry requires going. Even going when you don’t have all of the pieces in place.

This does not mean reckless going, but rather, taking steps forward to do what you know needs to happen and trusting in God’s leading and provision.

It’s kind of wild, freeing, and terrifying all at once.

It’s wild because I never would have thought that God could work like this… calling me to take a step in faith so that he could provide what I needed at the last second.

It’s freeing because I don’t have to figure everything out. He has the control. It’s his work.

It’s terrifying because he’ll keep doing things this way, and who knows what he’ll ask me to do next!

Good ideas are such clean and safe things. Though they have their place and are a great starting place, true Christian ministry requires moving beyond good ideas into this realm of action.

Christianity itself stands or falls on whether we put our faith into action.

I often quote a wise administrator from my seminary who once observed, “When seminary students read a book they think they’ve put it into practice.”

Ah, that is spot on for me more often than I care to admit. I’ve done some ministry in my day, but ever since working my way through the safe confines of Christian academia, I have to confess that I would much rather read the book than do the ministry.

I mean, isn’t the book usually better?

Today I took my first headlong plunge into a new ministry that I’m really excited about. I have started a gardening group at my church. We’ll be tending a community garden plot and donating the food to local soup kitchens.

In my mind, this is but a first step among many. The end game is to also empower the poor to grow their own food. However, there will always be a need for soup kitchens in one form or another, especially if our economy continues to plod along. And for the time being, we hope to be handing out food sometime by the end of July.

I spent my morning working with several volunteers weed whacking and tilling our plot in scorching heat.  The owner of the plot had not used it, so the town gave it to us for our work, hence the late, weedy start.

We have some pretty huge work ahead of us, and I would appreciate your prayers for provision as we have two major needs (organic compost and tomato stakes/poles). However, today we got into the dirt and plowed up the soil.

Something has dramatically shifted. I can feel it. This ministry is moving forward, even if it’s a sputtering, jumping tiller at this point. I don’t even feel like I have complete control of it all, as if it has a mind of its own.

And that is exactly where I think God wants us to be right now.