Dallas Willard

Rest

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I sometimes think I could use a day between each day so I could catch up on my sleep and rest for the next day. But then that would mean there were two Mondays in one week. I just don’t think I could handle that.

But Jesus promise that if those who are weary and heavy burdened will come to Him, He will give them rest. My friend Michael Boggs came up with the above quote, and I think it’s appropriate. We need rest, but we so often will ask for anything and everything but that.

Rest isn’t always a nap, though I am a big fan of naps. Rest doesn’t always mean sleeping late on a Saturday or turning off the alarm for 15 extra minutes of sleep. I think that rest sometimes looks like the calm assurance of being in the center of God’s will. It looks like when you do what God has called you to do, no more and no less. It means finding your yes, so you can say no to anything that isn’t it (which I borrowed from Mike Glenn).

Rest means putting margin in your day to make room to spend time with God and hear His voice. It means you reprioritize your time so that what is most important doesn’t get pushed aside by what is most urgent.

There’s a story where Dallas Willard and a friend were talking and Dallas asked his friend how he would describe Jesus in one word. The friend thought and thought but couldn’t find one word that adequately described Jesus. He asked Dallas, who responded with the word “relaxed.”

It’s because Jesus was never in a hurry. He was never too busy to be present with those who needed Him and were right in front of Him. He wasn’t apathetic to the world — He was known as a man of sorrows who grieved over the lostness of Jerusalem — but He refused to bow down to the tyranny of the urgency of that world. He lived at His own pace, the pace of His Father in heaven. He lived at rest, so He could offer rest to those who followed Him and needed it most.

May we be a people of rest who can offer rest to those weary travelers around us on this journey of life.

Revisiting The Divine Conspiracy

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“He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life. Let us now hear his teachings on who has the good life, on who is among the truly blessed” (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God).

I read The Divine Conspiracy many years ago and was blown away by the concept of Jesus as the most brilliant man who has ever lived. I was particularly struck by Dallas’ views on the Sermon on the Mount, which the book is based on.

It’s one of those books where once I get to the end, I almost want to start over at the beginning and go through to the end. I’m sure there’s so much that I’ve missed or haven’t really grasped when I was listening to it in the car.

I’ve never heard anyone else with his perspective. His view on the Beatitudes is unique in that he doesn’t look at them as prerequisites for being blessed or good character traits. He said, “The Beatitudes, in particular, are not teachings on how to be blessed. They are not instructions to do anything. They do not indicate conditions that are especially pleasing to God or good for human beings. No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on, or that the conditions listed are recommended ways to well-being before God or man. Nor are the Beatitudes indications of who will be on top ‘after the revolution.’ They are explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. They single out cases that provide proof that, in him, the rule of God from the heavens truly is available in life circumstances that are beyond all human hope.”

He goes through each part of the Sermon on the Mount to show that it’s not about outward piety through keeping rules but a change from within as we allow the Spirit of God to transform us through the discipline of training as disciples and not casual or cultural Christians. Our obedience is the overflow of a life spent with Jesus and growing not by gaining information but by being transformed as we are doers of the Word and not hearers only.

The book was written almost 30 years ago but seems prophetic in describing churches that teach a kind of sin management with the result that there are many who profess to believe in Jesus but whose lives are no different than nonbelievers. Just about every section is an exercise in having my mind blown by teaching that is solid and biblical yet is rarely heard from pulpits in America these days.

I’d recommend it whether you listen to the audio book or find the e-book or pick up an actual physical copy of the book. I’ll include a link to the Amazon page if you’re interested:

That’s What He Said

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“How are we to think about Jesus’s presence today? No doubt volumes could be written on that question, and have been. But the simple fact is that Jesus Christ is present in this world, the only world we have, and in many ways. His teachings, even mangled and broken, have an incredible power to disrupt human systems, including the ones that claim to own him. He is the misfit and thus is available to all who would seek him. His crucifixion and resurrection announce the end of human systems and stand in judgment over them. He is the man on the cross calling us to join him there. He makes himself available to individuals who hear of him and seek him. In many forms both inside and outside the church, with its traditions, symbolisms, and literature, he is simply here among us. He is in his people, but he does not allow himself to be boxed in by them. He calls to us by just being here in our midst. There is nothing like him. The people in the churches also have the option of finding him and following him into his kingdom, though that may rarely be what they are doing.

For many today who think of themselves as educated, historical studies and ‘higher criticism’—perhaps something they call a ‘scientific’ outlook—have made the person and teachings of Jesus problematic. From where they start, he seems a questionable resource for actually living their lives. He may become for them a scholarly football to kick around or to ignore. But he does not go away. In spite of all, he himself is still available in this world, and beyond all historical issues and confusions there stands a strong if somewhat hazy impression of what he stood for. To come to know him and to clarify who he really is, people have only to stand for what he stood for, as best they can, and to do so by inviting him to take their life into his life and walk with them. If they do just this with humility and openness—which everyone knows to be his manner of life—they will know him more and more as they take his life to be their life. In this way they do not have to ‘know’ at the start. It is enough to venture in the kingdom of God and its King. ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts 2:21)” (Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge).

Wow. I do believe that says it all.

 

The Sacrament of the Present Moment

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“[W]e grow in our knowledge of Christ-with-us by, first of all, constant expectation of him in the place where we are, wherever that may be. ‘The sacrament of the present moment,’ as it is sometimes called, is from the human side nothing but the invocation, expectation, and receptivity of God’s presence and activity where we are and in what we are doing at any given time. Then we steadily grow in graceful interactions with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They gradually take up all of our life into their trinitarian life (John 17:21–24).

Among the many misunderstandings Jesus had to counteract in his teaching was the one that held the kingdom to be some gigantic event in some special place. This was human thinking about human kingdoms, which always fit that description. He was constantly faced with people who wanted to know when the kingdom of God was coming. When is the big commotion? He patiently replied that the kingdom of God was not that kind of thing. It was simply God reigning, governing. It is not a special event you could see happening over here or possibly over there. ‘Now look,’ he said, ‘the kingdom of God is right here among you’ (Luke 17:20–21, paraphrase). His main sermon line was: ‘Get a new thought! The kingdom of the heavens is available to you from right where you are!’ (Matt. 4:17, paraphrase).

from Knowing Christ Today: Why We Can Trust Spiritual Knowledge by Dallas Willard

One of the greatest temptations in the spiritual life is to always be expecting God’s activity, but in some undefined future setting. I love the idea of the sacrament of the present moment, that the kingdom of God is here and now because God is actively working here and now.

Where you are right now is where God wants you to be and where God wants to use you in this very moment. And God specializes in using people just like you.

 

 

Finding Rest for Your Souls

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“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message).

That’s the key. That’s how you can navigate through a busy life without becoming harried and hurried.

I heard today how Pastor John Ortberg had become overwhelmed with busyness and asked his mentor, Dallas Willard, what to do. Willard’s response was simple: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”

The key is to define yourself in terms not of your performance but in your identity as one dearly loved by Jesus. Once you work from your true identity and not for a false one, everything changes.

It’s good to create margins in your schedule and take seasons of rest and rejuvenation. Sleep is good. Naps are good. Finding a hobby that inspires and relaxes you is good.

The point is that none of us were ever meant to go nonstop 24/7. That’s not a sustainable way of life. Being in a hurry all the time actually causes you to get less done and to miss out on so much that’s important in your life.

I love the way one writer puts it:

“It’s ironic that in a culture so committed to saving time we feel increasingly deprived of the very thing we value. … Despite our alleged efficiency … we seem to have less time for ourselves and far less time for each other. … We have quickened the pace of life only to become less patient. We have become more organized but less spontaneous, less joyful. We are better prepared to act on the future but less able to enjoy the present and reflect on the past” (Jeremy Rifkin).