"Jesus Did It Anyway" (Kent M. Keith)

TITLE: Jesus Did It Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments for Christians
AUTHOR: Kent M. Keith
PUBLISHER: New York, NY: GP Putman's Sons-Penguin, 2005, (206 pages).

What is the key to personal meaning and deep happiness? What is God calling each of us to be doing? Are we searching for meaning and happiness in the wrong places? These questions are answered through ten paradoxical statements. Often attributed to Mother Teresa in the ANYWAY poem, Keith puts in writing that the 'paradoxical commands' are actually collected and pieced together by some people from his earlier writings. The author asserts:

"The point is not to be against the world. The point is that our faith isn't about secular, commercial success or social prestige. Our faith is about loving God and following Christ. . . . .........  When we are in the world but not of the world, we are free. We are free to be who God wants us to be, not who the world wants us to be. We are free to love God and others, and fulfil God's will for our lives, without worrying about what the secular commercial world thinks of us." (13)

Other gems include:

• "When I choose a job, it should be the job that I believe I am called to do, not the job that offers the most power, wealth, fame, or social position. And I should not be afraid to take risks, or break social norms, when it is necessary to follow Jesus." (17)
• "The paradox here is that when things in the secular, commercial world are going badly, our spiritual lives can still be meaningful and full of deep happiness." (17-18)
• "But the story of Good Friday is not about how the world treated Jesus; the story is also about how Jesus responded to the way he was treated. And his response was astonishing. It was breathtaking. In the face of cruelty and pain and hate, Jesus loved people anyway. He forgave people anyway. And he saved people anyway. What a powerful message!" (25)

THE TEN PARADOXICAL COMMANDMENTS

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shut down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

It is tempting for us to jump straight into the details of the ten paradoxical commandments. I strongly advise against it. It is the CALL that we are not of the world, that sets the stage for the entire book. The author does a good job in giving personal illustrations, biblical examples, and many different ways to describe the meaning of the paradoxical commandments. While the book is easy to understand, the working out of the commandments can be more challenging. I suggest that the study questions at the end of the book be used as a guide for us to apply.Now, some readers may ask me. "What if I do not feel like doing the commandments today?" I suppose I can then speak on behalf of the author: "Do it anyway."

Ratings: 4 stars of 5.

conrade

"The Will of God as a Way of Life" by Jerry Sittser

TITLE: The Will of God as a Way of Life
AUTHOR: Jerry Sittser
PUBLISHER: Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004, (256 pages).

When there is a book about the will of God, I will read. If it is written by an unknown writer, I may just borrow it from the library. If it is written by my favourite authors, I will usually buy it. This book is one of them.

According to Sittser, this book is about a perspective of the will of God, not a series of steps to attain the holy grail of the experiment called life. Sharing about how he manages to move through the twists and turns of life, the book reveals a lot about how Sittser fumbles through life, and eventually arriving at a clearer understanding of what God's will means for him. In Chapter One, he shares about 3 clues. Firstly, 'we will never know how things will turn out' (20). The second clue is about how suffering and loss dispels his idea of a perfect and nice will of God. The third clue is that the Bible says very little about the future path of God's way, but a present avoidance of anxiety and wrongful presumption. The conventional way of thinking is in terms of finding out that ONE specific will of God for each person. Such a thinking reveals 3 problems.

1. What if we make the 'wrong' choice?
2. It makes us feel as if God is playing hide-and-seek with us.
3. It causes us to be pre-occupied with a future view that God's will is something that lies ahead.

Chapter Two goes on to dispel such fears. We have an astonishing amount of freedom to seek the will of God in terms of the Person of God. In other words, the will of God is understood by looking BACK, while we seek FORTH to see God.

"As I struggled with the issue of discovering God's will, I came to a startling conclusion. The will of God concerns the present more than the future; it deals with our motives as well as our actions; it focuses on the little decisions we make every day even more than the big decision we make about the future. The only time we really have both to know and to do God's will is the present moment. We are to love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we are to love our neighbours as we love ourselves." (34)

In Chapter Three, Sittser talks about the obstacles that prevent us from understanding God's will. 

"... God's will for us is to choose quality of life over quantity of options, to slow down and integrate our lives as best as we can, and to build friendships with people who know the whole of us, not just isolated parts of us. His will challenges us to resist and even to reverse some of the trends of contemporary culture itself." (41)

Among the obstacles mentioned are, 'tradition,' the massive potpourri of choices, busyness, lack of community.

Thankfully, Chapter Four proposes the way forward. Obedience as a way of life as exemplified by the artist and the athlete.  He writes:

"Both artists and athletes understand the nature of true freedom. They give up their freedom to do whatever they want, subject themselves to strict discipline, and in the end gain the freedom to perform at the highest levels of artistic and athletic achievement. Loss of freedom actually leads to freedom. It is the freedom of obedience, gained by following a strict regimen of practice." (62)

In Chapter Five, he expounds the Ten Commandments, calling them 'implications of grace' rather than the 'opposite of grace' (67). Chapter Six is a lovely chapter about the simple pleasures of attending to the little things in life, and to appreciate the ordinary and what we have often taken for granted. Chapter Seven is a helpful chapter about making choices. Sittser shares his wisdom:

"We must learn to be good listeners, to discern God's greater purpose, and maintain an eternal perspective. Then, after making a decision, we should never look back, trusting that God has already gone ahead of us." (96)

He also warns us about using the rule of 'success' to measure God's will. God's will is present regardless of our definitions of success or failure. He says wisely:

"We don't always know how our decisions will work out, but we know that God will work them out for our redemption. We will fall in love, change jobs, bury loved ones, say good-bye to children, move to faraway cities, raise cats, lose a fortune on the stock market, and end up living in Singapore. Sometimes we will make good decisions; sometimes not. Still, somehow God will work things out for our good, both because that is his nature and because that is his will for our lives." (105)

Sittser teaches us to discover the wonders of 'living in the present moment.' We need to learn to use disciplines to 'refresh' our daily routines, so that we can return to our original work with 'renewed creativity, perspective, and gratitude.' (152) He talks also about calling as a plural rather than a singular term. Finally, he shares six useful signs to discern our calling.

1. Look within ourselves to ask what motivates us?
2. What are our talents?
3. What about our life experiences?
4. Where are the opportunities?
5. Is there a community that we can share our talents with?
6. Is there joy in service?

This is a great book to read for learning about the wise counsel of Sittser. As someone who has gone through deep levels of suffering and pain, he typically weaves his suffering experience into the books he write. This book is no exception. In fact, Sittser dedicates the last three chapters to talk about that. Written simply. Expressed eloquently.

conrade