What are gospels?

I have noticed in my own life and the lives of others that a fundamental misunderstanding of what the gospels are has caused major problems.  Because much of the Christian faith is based on the historical man Jesus, and because so much of that faith is based on the four gospels, which claim to offer firsthand information regarding him, it is really important that we understand what they are.  I have often been guilty of asking too much or too little of these books, or reading them as one document instead of four.  Here, according to Mark Allan Powell, is how we ought to understand the gospel genre as seen in the New Testament:

-Gospels are “literary artworks” presenting a portrait of Jesus that is distinctive from the other gospels—we should not try to combine the portraits of the gospels to paint a unified picture of Jesus, because this causes us to miss the particular image each gospel writer wanted to present…  First we must recognize the four separate portraits.

-Gospel genre: loosely fits into the genre of “ancient biography”—these were common in the Roman world, with Plutarch writing more than 50.  Mostly were about emperors, generals, heroes, philosophers, and religious leaders.

-Five more things need to be said about the gospel genre:

1. They are compilations—include other genres within their pages, like genealogies, hymns, parables, miracle stories, speeches, pronouncement stories, etc.
2. They are influenced by Jewish literature—written in Greek but by people well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures, which include semibiographical narratives of people like Abraham and Moses. 
3. They are ancient biographies, not modern ones—make no pretense of offering objective or balanced perspectives on Jesus’ life, nor do they report their sources or offer any way for readers to check the reliability of what they wrote.  Further, their treatment is not comprehensive: reveal little about Jesus’ personality or motivation, provide almost no information about his early life, do not describe his physical appearance, etc.  Audiences at this time did not expect such questions to be addressed in biographies—point was to relate accounts that portrayed the essential character of the person so as to invite emulation of him.  Chronology was also typically not of concern, so that events were not reported in the order they occurred but in a sequence likely to have a particular rhetorical effect on its readers.
4. They employ a fictive (“fictionlike”) style of narrative—literary style is closer to that of modern fiction than to modern historical reporting.  This doesn’t speak to the accuracy of what was reported, but the STYLE of writing is similar to today’s historical fiction.  They knew the art of storytelling, employing literary devices such as irony, symbolism, and foreshadowing—so we can talk about the “plot” of a particular gospel, or about how its rhetorical features bring the story to a climax.  Authors in this time treated history as a story and told it with a flair that modern readers associate with fiction.
5. They are overtly evangelistic—most biographies in the ancient world were in one way or another, not simply passing on information but reporting on extraordinary people with the hope that readers would be inspired and motivated to change their values or behaviors accordingly.  The gospel writers clearly tell the story in a way that may inspire people to accept his teaching or practice his way of life.  More than this, the writers make it clear that they believe Jesus’ story has ultimate significance and will affect the lives of all people, whether they believe in him or not.

These items were extremely helpful to me in understanding what the gospels are and what they were intended to be.  These help me not to read too much into these accounts, or expect them to report in certain ways they never intended to.  For example, it is easy to read the gospels with an expectation that they will conform to modern historical writing.  This is very different from the gospels, and while this does not mean that anything reported in the gospels is historically inaccurate, it does mean that this was not their purpose.  So if something is reported differently or in a different sequence in Mark and Luke, it does not mean one is right and one is wrong--it means that the two authors have chosen to present the facts of what happened in different manners and with different purposes.

Hope this is helpful to you as well, and inspires you to pick up those gospels as individual books and learn about who Jesus was and is according to each gospel writer...

Real Baby Fake Baby...

The article below appeared today on CNN.  Needless to say, I was disgusted.  And the question that came to mind was: What causes this?  What on earth is going on inside people that they act in such a way?  Consider those questions as you read...

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- Police have arrested a South Korean couple whose toddler starved to death while they were raising a virtual child online, authorities said.

The couple fed their 3-month-old daughter once a day between marathon stretches in a local Internet cafe, where they were raising a virtual child in the fantasy role-playing game Prius Online, police told local reporters Friday.

Prius Online is a 3-D game in which players nurture an online companion, Anima, a young girl with mysterious powers who grows and increases her skills as the game progresses.

Police have not identified the 41-year-old father and 25-year-old mother, who lived in Suwon, a suburb south of Seoul. But the father apologized, speaking to reporters.

"I wish that she hadn't got sick and that she will live well in heaven forever. And as the father, I am sorry," he said.

The baby reportedly died five months ago.

South Korea has one of the world's fastest broadband networks. Seoul has won international awards for e-governance. Online gaming teams are sponsored by major conglomerates and 24-hour, high-speed Internet cafes, known as PC Bangs, dot every urban neighborhood.

Police said the couple had lost their jobs and used the game as an escape from reality, especially after the birth of their premature baby.

"They instead played an online game in which they raised a virtual character so as to escape from reality, which led to the death of their real baby," Chung Jin-won, a police officer in Suwon, told Yonhap News Agency.

"South Korea remains a very conservative society so people who fall outside the norm can come under severe stress and pressure," said Michael Breen, the Seoul-based author of "The Koreans."

"The Internet has provided such people with a paradise to escape to and simply get lost in."

Now what do you think?  I welcome your thoughts.  What is behind such escapism?  Such blatant disregard for life, even the life of your own flesh and blood.  I do not understand it, but I think we can find a clue by looking at the current state of our culture.  By "culture" I don't mean American culture, or Korean culture in this case, but our world's culture.  How have we gotten to where we are?  How have we come to value the things we value?  Personally, I think much of the root of the problem, the source of such terrible, self-centered actions is our relativism.  There is no truth, nothing grounded.  There may be norms of acceptable behavior, which differ from society to society or country to country.  But these norms are not accepted as truth, but only expectations.  There is no absolute truth, so there is no "right" way to treat your spouse, or your kids, or a stranger.  There is no "right" way to live.  I think this has led to the general acceptance of selfish behavior.  If there is no "right" way to live, then I can live however I want.  Don't tell me how to live, or that my way isn't right--it's right for ME, we say.  So our relativism has led to selfishness, which has made all sorts of behavior normal.

I think one of the most acceptable forms of behavior in our world culture is escapism.  The escapism that leads us to consume vast amounts of TV so we don't have to deal with our issues.  The escapism that leads us to eat vast amounts of food so we don't have to deal with our emotions.  The escapism that leads to adults playing hours of video games each day.  Or spending hours browsing the internet.  Or, in my own personal sphere, spending hours playing "fantasy sports"...  What, exactly, are we trying to escape from???  Our own mortality?  Our issues?  Our LIVES?

Why on earth this couple would take part in a fantasy internet game (about raising a human) and forsake actually raising their own daughter is beyond comprehension. It is utterly disgusting.  Despicable.  But the further our culture fades into relativism, and then into selfishness, the more such behavior will happen.  

May we all escape from our escapist tendencies.

May we drink in the life that is front of us, life that is calling to be lived to the full.

And more than anything, may we realize there is a right way to live, a way that loves and values life and sacrifices for others.  A way that lays down its own right to be selfish...

Lent: focus on Christ or ourselves?

So I didn't grow up with Lent.  My very Protestant churches probably did not even consider celebrating this season.  Despite that, I have come to appreciate it, albeit from a distance.  I have still never been very active at celebrating, though I think it clearly has value for focusing our thoughts on Christ and remembering his journey to the cross (and what it means for our lives).

That said, I have never understood the whole "giving something up" for Lent.  If the whole point of the season is to focus our thoughts on Christ, and ultimately to bow our hearts before the somber sacrifice Christ made on the cross, why do we spend the 40 days leading up Good Friday thinking about OURSELVES and what WE are going to give up??  It seems backwards.  Now I am sure there is value in such ascetic practices, and I am sure I need more of those practices in my life (times of silence, fasting, etc.).  But I feel like we have mixed up what this season is about: it's not about us and our issues, it's about Christ!

Certainly that has implications for our lives, but it seems like from the start we make the Lenten season a time of self-focus instead of Christ-focus.  What if instead of giving something up we spent time each day thinking about a different aspect of Christ's life and death in a structured and serious way?  I don't know--I'm really just throwing thoughts out there.  The basic point is that I think giving something up for lent has the potential to distract us from its point: our faith is not about us, but about Christ and who he is and what he did for us and for all humanity.

I like what Eugene Cho said on this (here), as he said, " I don’t want to think of it as a giving up but rather a season of more deeply ‘giving in’ or ‘giving to’…"  How can we give ourselves to Christ more deeply during this time--through obedience or conversation or study of his Word?  This gets closer to what I am saying, although it is still about us and what WE are giving to God.  Let's focus instead on what God is giving to us, what he has already given to us.  Let's make Christ the focus of Lent...

Thoughts on the Documentary Food Inc.

I posted some thoughts (here) a while back on what we eat and how it is related to the Kingdom, to being Shalomers (see what I mean by "Shalomer" here).  I just watched a very interesting documentary called Food Inc., and it had a lot to say about this very issue.  The basic premise of the movie is that we as Americans have become very separated from our food.  Agriculture used to be part of our lives, whether we worked the land ourselves or knew those who did.  We used to know where our food came from, but today is a different story.  Most of the food on the shelves of our grocery stores is processed beyond recognition, making it terribly unhealthy.  So this movie will make you think about what you eat, and making some changes in the foods you buy.


What it did not convince me of was the need to buy only "organic" foods, which seemed to be one of the goals of the movie.  For a long time I have questioned: what exactly IS "organic," and who defines it, and how do I know someone hasn't just slapped organic on the label to make me think it's healthier so they can charge me more?  These are all still valid questions in my mind after watching the movie, but I would say while I do not feel obliged to buy organic now, I do have serious questions about the quality of the food I'm buying.  Is the chicken or beef I am buying terribly unhealthy because of the terrible practices of the few huge, multinational food companies who control the meat markets?  Some of the images regarding how these companies raise chickens or cows in order to pump out the meat were absolutely disgusting, but so important to see.  Those images, and understanding such practices, will certainly make you think about the foods you buy.


This was the most helpful and challenging part of the movie to me: I am much more aware of my ignorance about where my food comes from, my utter separation from the production of my food.  And I don't think our current model is the way it is supposed to work.


Beyond this, there was a quote in the movie that I really appreciated, and I started nodding my head and saying, "Now you're talking like a Christian!"  They were interviewing a remarkable farmer, a guy named Joel Salatin.  He has refused to sell out to the multi-national corporations, and is passionate about farming and raising chickens and pigs (even slaughtering them) in humane ways.  He said, "A culture that just views a pig as a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure to be manipulated by whatever creative design the human can foist upon that critter will probably view individuals within its community and other cultures in the community of nations with the same type of disdain and disrespect and controlling type mentality."  You have to watch the movie to understand what it is that these corporations have been doing to animals (and us, by extension) in order to increase profits, but it was disturbing to watch.  


And I think Joel is onto something here.  Now anyone who knows me knows that I am the farthest thing from a PETA advocate.  Don't have pets, don't want pets, etc.  But when it is acceptable in a culture to treat animals the way they have been treating them, it is not too big of a leap to assume that such a selfish way of thinking will bleed over into the ways we view and treat other humans.  In fact, the movie did show that it was not a leap at all for these corporations, who have made a business of recruiting Mexican nationals to come and work in their meat-packing plants.  Then when the government began cracking down on illegal immigrants, they helped the government round up and arrest their own employees, taking no responsibility for what they had done.  Further, they made a deal with the government that they would hand over 15 illegal immigrants a day, so that things at the plant could keep running smoothly and profits would not be affected.  Wow!  It sounds to me as if they had indeed made the leap, viewing HUMAN BEINGS working for them as nothing but "a pile of protoplasmic inanimate structure," in Joel's words.  (I don't think he has a medical degree in his future, by the way).  :)  


Here's the point: each action we take says something about the condition of our hearts, about how we view and value life.  What we eat and what we are okay with in the production of our food also makes a statement.  I encourage you to watch this movie, if only to educate yourself.  But more, I encourage you to not let the ends, whatever they are in your life, justify unwholesome, unhealthy means.  
 

Powell's Introducing the New Testament

So I just read the opening chapter of this work for my New Testament class.  It is a text book, but it is such a wonderful text book.  Great layout, great charts, and most importantly great information.  I have had several New Testament classes before, in undergrad, so much of the information was not new to me.  But lots of it was, or I had forgotten.  And the way he lays out the information is so helpful.

Then the thought hit me that the information in this book could be so transformative for all Christians--it could shape the ways they read and understand the New Testament, thus transforming their faith and understanding of God.  So I wanted to recommend this book, though I've only read the first 30 pages.  If you want to learn about the background of the story of Jesus--what was going on, what it meant to its original audience, and so have a better understanding of what it means for us today--I recommend reading this book.  

I think every Christian, at their baptism, should get a book like this and a book like Epic of Eden by Sandra Richter to read before they start reading the actual Bible.  So get these two books--you won't regret it!

The Olympics, God's Call, and Shalom

As I was watching some of the Olympics last night, some thoughts occurred to me about the goals we give ourselves to, the calling or vocation we dedicate our lives to.  I have been thinking a lot about calling lately, about how each of us has one life and a limited supply of days and months and years with which to "pursue our calling."  To back up and talk about what calling is briefly (you can see the previous posting on primary/secondary calling for more), I believe calling to be all about the Caller.  My calling is what God has specifically designed me to be and to do for him, and I discover that calling in the midst of my relationship with him.  Though we all have the same primary calling, to love and follow Christ, to be Shalomers in essence, our secondary callings are our specific calling from God.  And I believe he knows each of us, and has a plan for each of us, and is calling each of us to something special.

In other words, I don't think we go to seminars and read books on our personality types, fill out surveys on what jobs might work for us, and then choose from an arbitrary list of possible job fits.  These methods may actually help us in discerning what God is calling us to, but we can never discover our true calling outside of our relationship with him, because "calling" assumes a Caller.

Anyway, what does all of this have to do with the Olympics?  Well I was watching the female mogul skiers last night, and each time one of them would get a little too much air in one of her jumps and would fall down, the thought hit me: Oh my goodness--this girl has been training for the past four years, and probably for much longer than that, in order to be at these Olympics and compete.  And she just fell down.  Her dream is over.  All her work has come to naught, at least insofar as she was training with the purpose of winning a medal for herself and her country.  It's over.  Better luck in four years.

How sad is that!  And then the thought hit me that perhaps she has been in training this whole time for something she was never called to do.  Now this is not for me or anyone else to judge: whether someone else is properly pursuing his or her calling.  We each have enough trouble trying to figure out what OUR OWN calling is to worry about others.  But if we want to be about partnering with God in this world to bring his Kingdom, his Shalom, and if we want to be about helping to right the wrongs of this world for God's glory, I think we can say that some things are probably not worth pursuing.

We only get one life, after all.  I was trying to explain to my oldest daughter about age, and about how her sister is not actually 0, but is 5 months old.  She, I explained, is 41 months old, and her daddy is something like 300 months old.  (She was staring at me blankly throughout this conversation, and I realized this was all a little abstract for her 3 year-old mind).  But the point is that we only get a certain number of months, don't we?  And then they are all used up.  Further, we may get many fewer months than we envisioned or planned on.

What does all of this mean?  Well I believe God is calling you and I to something special, something big.  I believe he has important plans for each of our lives, and if we will open our minds and hearts and seek that out, he will lead us to a place we never imagined, but to a place that is so much greater than where we could or would have taken ourselves.  If we will earnestly ask God to make his vision for our lives our vision, I believe he'll reveal a call for our lives that is more dangerous than we are comfortable with, but more exciting and meaningful than we could have imagined!

Let us not seek out a "good job", or a comfortable lifestyle, or a nice salary, or whatever.  Let us seek out Christ, and let us be passionate about using our only life to partner with God to bring his Shalom to this world.  Let us follow after Jesus in giving away our lives for the sake of something bigger than ourselves, so that we will not have bought into the great American lie and lived our lives for ourselves, for something less than eternal, for nothing...

A Call to Exegesis

Right now I'm reading Eugene Peterson's Eat This Book.  It started slowly but makes some excellent points.  I just finished chapter four, which was a great discussion of the form of Scripture, story.  All of Scripture, the different genres and styles, are all part of a meta-narrative, one grand story.  And Scripture must be read within this framework.  So often we want to take a verse or a chapter and dissect it for the meaning, the important nugget, the principle, and then move on.  And we do great violence to the text in this way.  Peterson says that the form in which language comes to us is as important as its content, and if we misunderstand the form we will probably respond wrongly to the content—we must understand the form of story if we are to rightly respond to the Bible.


A couple quotes on this crucial point:
“We are caught off-guard when divine revelation arrives in such ordinary garb and mistakenly think it’s our job to dress it up in the latest Paris silk gown of theology” (43).  
“We do violence to the biblical revelation when we ‘use’ it for what we can get out of it…When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s” (44).  


Part of understanding Scripture as story is coming to grips with the different viewpoints/ideas/content present in the different authors in Scripture.  This has caused great grief for many, as they try to get their brains around why there are seeming discrepancies in Scripture.  However, in the context of Scripture as story, this becomes  an aid in helping us wrap our brains around the meaning and direction of the story.  Peterson says that the many voices and points of view present in the Bible give it coherence; “instead of attempting to iron out the wrinkles of inconsistency and disharmony, we have to listen for the resonances, echoes, patterns—the swarming complexity of lived truth, not pinned-down and labeled facts” (47).  When Scripture is a story instead of a text book of facts, we can see the overlapping nature of different books in this context of the swarming complexity of lived truth, and allow the story to speak without needing every detail to match up in our modern scientific way...


There is so much in this chapter, but I want to move to the final piece as it's crucial.  Peterson calls for all of us, all serious Christians, to engage in exegesis, which is defined as a careful and serious reading of the text.  Or Peterson defines it by saying: “Exegesis is simply noticing and responding adequately to the demands that words make on us” (51).  Many think that this task is for clergy or for academics, but Peterson makes a clear call for all Christians who want to follow Christ to engage in serious study of the text.  Further, he says, we cannot rely on our “spirituality” or listening to God and skip exegesis; the more mature we become, the more attentive we must be to exegesis.  So buy some commentaries, people!  


Wondering why your "devotional life" (whatever that means) is stale?  Wondering why you can't seem to get anything out of the Bible?  Wondering why your "daily devotional" doesn't seem to lead to real spiritual growth??  It's because you aren't digging into the text, which is not the role of pastors and professors, but of all Christian people!  So, seriously, buy some commentaries!  If you need help with what kind of commentaries, or with where you might get them, I can help you or point you in the right direction.  But I think if you do this, you'll find it begins to deepen your interaction with Scripture immediately.  I'll close with some more of Peterson's quotes on exegesis:

“Exegesis is the furthest thing from pedantry; exegesis is an act of love.  It loves the one who speaks the words enough to want to get the words right.  It respects the words enough to use every means we have to get the words right.  Exegesis is loving God enough to stop and listen carefully to what he says” (55). 

“Exegesis does not mean mastering the text, it means submitting to it as it is given to us.  Exegesis doesn’t take charge of the text and impose superior knowledge on it; it enters the world of the text and lets the text ‘read’ us.  Exegesis is an act of sustained humility: There is so much about this text that I don’t know, that I will never know.  Christians keep returning to it, with all the help we can get from grammarians and archaeologists and historians and theologians, letting ourselves be formed by it” (57). 

Without exegesis spirituality gets sappy and soupy, and all the words are defined out of the context of our own experience.

May we all do the hard work of exegesis, digging into the text and the world behind it to understand its meaning, so that we may be built up into mature and complete followers of Christ...

The Ridiculous Blessing of Parenthood

The title of this post gives away its punch line, but that's okay.  So I've had a frustrating day with my oldest today.  I was home with her during nap time, while my wife took our youngest to the doctor.  Suffice it to say it was more of "battle of the wills afternoon with daddy" than nap time.  Then this evening, on the heels of a day without a nap, the attitude and lack of listening were not good.  After all of this, I was a little frazzled as I prepared to put her to bed.

While I was sitting on the floor facing her, brushing her teeth, I looked into her face and the reality of the situation hit me.  I have an absolutely beautiful 3 year old little girl.  She is incredibly healthy and ridiculously smart.  She is fun and a joy.  And I stopped brushing her teeth right then and just smiled (which I realized in the moment I had not done much of during the hectic day), and gave her a hug and kept telling her how much I loved her, and how precious she was to me.

Needless to say, those hugs and words were the brightest part of our day together.  How often I miss it!  I am blessed beyond words with this wonderful little girl (and now two wonderful little girls), and I am often too busy parenting to see the joys that parenthood (and the Giver of life) has bestowed on me...

If there is one thing I want my children to know from their years with me, it is that they are a part of a bigger story, the story of a Creator who has made everything--even them--and they get to know Him and follow Him and partner with Him to right the wrongs of the world.  And the second thing I want them to know is our deep and unshakeable love for them.  How unfortunate that I get caught up with emphasizing manners and other such things that are important but peripheral...

May our breath be taken away by the wonder of parenthood, and may that wonder lead to a renewed focus on shepherding and loving our children the way God shepherds and loves us...

Bill Kinnon's review of McLaren...

Kinnon wrote a scathing review of McLaren's new work, albeit before he actually read the book.  :)  But here is a sampling of what he said:


"I'm sure it's rather unfortunate for you, but you don't get to decide how the rest of us engage with your book. Let me be blunt, your approach is reminiscent of the divisive politics perfected in the nation you call home. Where people who disagree with your president are labeled as racists - or those who agree are socialists."


And again:


"Let me offer this piece of advice to you, Brian, if you don't want to receive reviews that question your ideas then simply stop writing. It really is that simple. Otherwise you will simply need to deal with the reality that the days of the idea gatekeepers are over. Welcome to the networked conspiracy."


See Kinnon's blog for the whole article (kinnon.tv).  


Ouch.  Apparently Brian has been calling those who critique his work closed to new ideas and fundamentalists.  Not a great idea.  So early reviews for this work are not good, but then again, he hasn't read the book!  I think all of this underscores the fact that you can say the most wonderful things in the world, and you can even say them well, but if you have not love, if you have not humility, if you are not open to constructive criticism, no one wants to hear it.  Period.  May we all strive for the humility we need so that when God lays something on our hearts to share, we can be heard.  And may we all strive to receive feedback and even criticism with grace and patience, knowing we don't have it all figured out...

Thoughts on our primary calling

Today I started a book by Os Guinness called The Call: Finding and Fulfilling The Central Purpose of Your Life.  It's pretty good, and I wanted to share a piece of it that really struck me.  He spends some time describing what the meaning of calling really is, and describes the two types of calling as primary calling (our general calling to follow after and serve and love God) and secondary calling (however specifically God calls us to live out our primary calling, often what we do for a living).

In the midst of this discussion, he brings up the struggle many of us face, the temptation to replace our primary calling with our secondary calling.  We begin to base our relationship with God on what we do for him, and there is nothing else to our "relationship" other than works.  Guinness states:

"We must restore the primary calling to its primary place by restoring the worship that is its setting and the dedication to Jesus that is its heart.  There is no surer guide here than the devotional writer Oswald Chambers.  'Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ,' he wrote.  'The greatest competitor to devotion to Jesus is service for Him...'  Do we enjoy our work, love our work, virtually worship our work so that our devotion to Jesus is off-center?  Do we put our emphasis on service or usefulness, or being productive in working for God--at his expense?" (41).

I love these thoughts, and have found myself answering yes to those questions more often than I want to admit.  So often I have found that I equate my relationship with God with my job when it is a "Christian" job like pastoring, or I equate my relationship with what I do for him on a daily basis (the way I love people, do work for him, etc.).  But the work we do for God is meaningless if it does not flow out of our primary calling, loving and relating with Christ.  Through that relationship he leads us and shows us what to do for him, so this also keeps us from spinning our wheels and doing things for Him he never wanted us to do.

Anyway, this was challenging to me and I wanted to share it.  It reminds me of the last chapter I read in Francis Chan's Crazy Love, a chapter called "When You're In Love."  This chapter talks about how our relationship with Christ should not be a chore, or something we do out of fear or guilt or obligation, but something that we long for and are passionate about.  One of my favorite quotes from the chapter says:
"When you are truly in love, you go to great lengths to be with the one you love.  You'll drive for hours to be together, even if it's only for a short while.  You don't mind staying up late to talk.  Walking in the rain is romantic, not annoying.  You'll willingly spend a small fortune on the one you're crazy about.  When you are apart from each other, it's painful, even miserable.  He or she is all you think about; you jump at any chance to be together" (100).  He goes on to relate this to our relationship with Christ, calling us to honesty in this relationship.  If he is not our deepest longing, he already knows!  We ought to express this to him and ask him to help us love him more and desire him more.  Chan closes with a beautiful prayer that I will close with too--may this be an encouragement to you to find again your primary calling, the main thing God wants from you:

"Jesus, I need to give myself up.  I am not strong enough to love you and walk with you on my own.  I can't do it, and I need you.  I need you deeply and desperately.  I believe you are worth it, that you are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next.  I want you.  And when I don't, I want to want you.  Be all in me.  Take all of me.  Have your way with me" (111).

Amen.