ABCs of Spiritual Formation: V is for Victorious
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."
- Romans 8:37
V is for Victorious
I hesitated to choose this word because of my fear that you would assume something I do not intend.
Many Christians in the first half of life as well as those in the Prosperity movement speak of the victorious Christian life in a way Jesus and the biblical writers never intended. I understand the temptation, but as we go through spiritual formation into Christlikeness and experience the suffering, sin, and brokenness of the world, we are forced to recalibrate our understanding of God. For many of us, this process is what Hagberg and Guelich refer to as "The Wall" in the Critical Journey.
Let's consider some verses that help explain the confusion:
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." - Romans 8:37
"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in Christ’s triumphal procession and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place." - 2 Corinthians 2:14
“We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at[e] the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit." - 2 Corinthians 3:18
"For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory." - Deuteronomy 20:4
"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" - 1 Corinthians 15:57
"I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me." - Philippians 4:13
Reading these makes it easy to see why some people, especially in the first half of life, preach a message of continuous victory and goodness. Of course, a closer look at these verses in context shows how devious this message is. I'll mention one quick example and then move on. In Philippians 4 Paul is describing how he has learned to be content in poverty as well as luxury. The victory is not that life is always comfortable, but that we can experience Christ's comfort and joy wherever we find ourselves. Let's dive deeper into this in the context of growing in Christlikeness and try to bring in the nuance and mystery and paradox God gives us in the Bible.
THE JOURNEY
Many people's journey through life towards maturity goes through familiar stages. We are awakened to God's work in our lives through Christ and are reborn. Our excitement is contagious, and we dive deep and grow quickly. We get involved in a community that helps us grow, answers our many questions, and allows us to grow in using our gifts. We move into leadership (formal or informal) and eagerly pass on to others what we have learned. God is good and there is nothing we can't overcome by his grace.
Then at some point, in his mercy, God allows us to experience some bumps and things don't go like they are supposed to. Our answers don't fit anymore; God doesn't come through like he promised. Whether it is the death of a loved one or sickness or failure or relational loss or a leader we trusted lets us down or fill-in-the-blank, we experience deep disappointment and start asking questions for which all the old answers don't work. This is often called "The Wall". We want to go around or under or over it, but we can't. We have three options: We can go through it, we can turn around and retreat to old answers and double down, just assuming the problem is with us, or we can abandon our faith. For those who persevere and go through the wall, walking with God becomes deeper, richer, more free, more curious and compassionate, and love becomes our norm. This isn't about perfection. Those who have gone through the wall still struggle and fall and fail and miss the mark, but life isn't the same. Explaining it is difficult because until one has experienced it, clarity is impossible. How do you describe a color to someone who has never seen it. You can say it is like this color but softer or more vivid or a mixture of these colors. The listener may get some idea, but until she sees the color, she won't really be able to know it. Perhaps it is the difference between reading 1 Corinthians 13 and embodying it? I can read about loving my enemies all day, but until I have become the kind of person who loves my enemies, it is a mystery, and reading about it doesn't make it happen. Thus, we go on this journey with Jesus and come to a deeper place of love post-wall that allows us to view "Victory" with more nuance and depth.
VICTORY & REALITY
Maybe a few questions will help to clarify what I mean:
What is victory for those in horrible suffering?
What about when God seems absent?
What about the times/seasons of darkness and depression?
What about when a Christian marriage ends in divorce?
What about when a Christian leader is exposed for deep sin and abuse and denies it and moves on to another ministry with no repercussions?
What about Christians committing suicide?
What is victory when I'm in deep marital conflict, and it feels hopeless?
What about this deep sense of abandonment I feel that won't go away no matter how much I've prayed and waited and sat in counseling?
I don't want to move on too quickly from these real questions acting like simple answers will suffice. This is what we do in our early stages. We feel a deep need to rationalize these situations and explain them away so our picture of God can be maintained. The goal is to regulate our anxiety which locks us in a prison. Instead, let's sit with that anxiety and have a conversation. Let's let God speak for himself rather than answering for him. Fortunately, he speaks to us through his Spirit and through his Word. The Bible is over 1000 pages with varying stories for a reason. Read the Psalms and Ecclesiastes and Job and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Lamentations and the account of Jesus in the garden and Paul's account of his ministry in 2 Corinthians 2-6 and the book of Judges for a taste of how messed up the world is. We too often focus on how things should be rather than on how they are. The deeper reality is that God is big enough to handle it, and his promise to us is not to solve it during our lifetime but to be with us in it. This is the beginning of the "victorious Christian life".
THE SHACK
Have you read The Shack? It is a controversial book and in my opinion the author gets lost in some unnecessary agenda items that detract from the main point, but his goal is a good one. Let's take the worst-case scenario - the abduction, rape, and murder of a child, - face it head on, and find God in it. Sometimes God intervenes miraculously and saves us, and everything turns out great. The Bible is full of these stories. Sometimes God allows evil to win the day and darkness seems to reign. The Bible is full of these stories too. Read Hebrews 11 for a reference list of both.
How about this scenario that each of us have experienced. We want something; we pray fervently full of faith, and it doesn't happen. We feel deep disappointment. What happens then? What do you do? How much pressure do you feel to let God off the hook? Please DON'T misread me here. The issue is not whether there is a good explanation or whether it is better for us or whether it will all work for good or... The issue is what we are experiencing and how we deal with it; what we allow ourselves to be. Do we allow ourselves to be where we are, to meet God there, and to walk with him wherever he wants to take us, or do we pretend to be where we "should" be. How do we do if it is someone else going through this? Do we allow them to be there, or do we feel the anxiety and work to move them where they "should" be? Perhaps I'm the only one who struggles in this way.
NEITHER EXTREME
The temptation is to go to either extreme but victory comes in fighting the fight to remain with God in the tension. God is always in the tension, in the paradox. In these moments of deep pain and disappointment, we face two "wide road" paths, both of which are dead ends. The first is towards resignation. I deaden my feelings, accept this is what it is, and move towards numbness. I just won't get my hopes up anymore; if I don't have expectations, then I won't be disappointed. Don't try and don't hope, and I'll survive. The other path is towards blind optimism. God works out all for good, and he knows what's best so just put on a smile and trust him and avoid bad news and find fault with people or self when things don't go as planned.
Instead, we are called to recognize the tension, sit in it, feel what we feel, cry out to God, and wait on him, and refuse to move until he blesses us. Think of Jacob wrestling all night with God and getting the blessing as well as a limp (Genesis 32:22-32). Spend time in the book of Lamentations which bemoans the fall of Jerusalem. Consider Jesus in the garden praying and sweating profusely (Luke 22:44). Stumble through the Psalms of disorientation (Psalm 22, 42, 69 among many options). This is the kind of victory God calls us into, a full-orbed victorious life that makes room for God to come through and act supernaturally and allows for darkness and depression and loss and sits with God regardless without requiring a still-birth.
RESILIENCE
Proverbs 24:16 sums up this kind of victorious life succinctly:
"Though a righteous person falls seven times,
he will get up,
but the wicked will stumble into ruin."
By God's grace we develop the resources to keep going. We don't give up or give in. We are knocked down over and over again, but we don't stay down because God never abandons us. His strength is in us for perseverance.
Loving our enemies is a kind of victory. Turning to the other cheek as nonviolent resistance is victory. Dying on the cross is victory. Not getting the last word is victory. Winning is victory; losing can be victory. We keep going until the final whistle blows and when it blows, and we stand with Jesus in Paradise (Luke 23:43), we experience the final victory, the victory of victories that Jesus accomplished when he defeated death by rising from the grave.
At root, we recognize that God is the victory and so being with him is victory. Continuing faith in the midst of whatever good and bad we experience is victory. Again, it isn't denying and suppressing our feelings faith, but stepping into them and meeting Jesus, and moving towards being like him so that the transformation happens. This happens in community; it isn't an individual, independent journey. Some steps are taken alone, but we need loving relationships with brothers and sisters in God's forever family. Find them, cultivate them, and do the work. Community is vital.
CONCLUSION: MOMENTS?
Therefore, Victory isn't about a single moment as if one heroic act serves for all time, and yet it is lots of moments. In the moment when I am in conflict with my wife and it seems hopeless and we can't pay the bills or you're in an abusive relationship, and it seems like it will never stop or choose your darkness- when we are in those places and keep going, keep clinging, that is a victory and each of those victories adds up. A glory of the upside-down kingdom of God is that what seems like defeat is victory. Jesus modeled this on the cross and calls us to humbly walk with him in kingdom victory.
Paul sums up all that I've tried to say in 2 Corinthians 4:7-18:
"Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be displayed in our body. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’s sake, so that Jesus’s life may also be displayed in our mortal flesh. So then, death is at work in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith in keeping with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak. For we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you. Indeed, everything is for your benefit so that, as grace extends through more and more people, it may cause thanksgiving to increase to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting.
– Napoleon Hill