That sounds like something a talking serpent would say

I recently saw a Facebook post that said something like, “If you are going to quote principles from Genesis in the Old Testament, keep in mind that it also contains a talking snake, a boat filled with every type of animal, a man wanting to sacrifice his son to God, a woman turned into a pillar of salt, and a father impregnating his two daughters. So when you are going to quote the Bible, instead of quoting Genesis, maybe you should be quoting the Gospels instead.” 

My first thought upon reading this was, “That sounds like something a talking serpent would say.” After all isn’t the devil’s main trick to get us to question God’s word, to get us to doubt him, to stop trusting him and to do what we want instead of what he says? Doesn’t the devil want us to pick and choose which parts of the Bible best suit our desires, our will, and our selfish motives? 

The Bible exists to tell us who God is and who we are in relation to him. This means there will be things we don’t like or with which we disagree entirely. It is not a choose-your-own-adventure book, nor is it a self-help book or a text book. The Bible is either the divinely inspired word of God or it’s not, but we don’t get to hang out in the middle of the road and still consider ourselves Christians. 

That said, the Bible should be taken in context. What happens in Genesis or Exodus informs what happens in the Gospels, but there are thousands of years in between. The world changes, God’s people change, and God’s covenants change. This doesn’t give us a license to simply disregard the Old Testament, however. There are some principles and laws in the Old Testament that are situational or specific to that time or those people and there are some that are universal and applicable for all people for eternity. 

After all, in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus himself says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them (Matthew 5:17).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Resentment is an attempt to deny someone else salvation

Resentments are like a wedge in our hearts. They separate us from God and our fellows. In fact, resentments are an attempt to play God by not accepting what has happened as being in accordance with his will. By holding onto a resentment against someone else, we are essentially saying that we have the right to withhold love from them, that we have the power to withhold mercy from them, and that we have the desire to withhold salvation from them. 

In this way, holding onto a resentment against someone is an attempt to cut them off from God. It is to deny them love, mercy, and forgiveness. And this, according to Jesus is tantamount to murder. “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’” he said, “But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to [the same] judgment [as one who has actually committed murder] (Matt 5:21-22).” 

When we are angry, we forget that only God has the power to withhold salvation. Only God has the authority to withhold mercy. And no matter what a person does, God never stops loving them. These are his gifts to give and we can do nothing to deserve or to earn them. They are freely given and we are free to accept or deny them. What we are not free to do, however, is to deny love, mercy, or for someone else, for we are not God. 

On the contrary, Jesus said, “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44, NIV).” He commands that, no matter the harm and no matter how many times we are hurt or offended, we are to forgive “not seven times, but seventy-seven times (Matt 18:21-22).” To hold a resentment, therefore, is not only to play God, but also to reject his teachings and deny his authority. 

Tragically, in our imperfection, in our flaws and brokenness, we are going to fall short of Jesus’s commandments. We will not always “Love the Lord God with all our heart… soul and… mind.” Nor will we always “Love [our] neighbor[s] as [ourselves] (Matt 22:37-39).” But we can pray. 

When we find ourselves being resentful toward someone, we can confess it to God and another person. We can pray and ask God to forgive us and help us show this person forgiveness, love, and mercy. And we can “go and be reconciled with them (Matt 5:23)” so that we can approach God with a open heart and a clean conscience. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

God got my attention today

I’m not a very patient person. Well, that’s not altogether true. I’m not very patient when it comes to waiting for other people. When it comes to me and my responsibilities, however, I’m more than patient. In fact, I’ve been known to take my sweet old time and wait until the absolute last minute to get things done. 

If I’m being honest, I have a plethora of double standards. It seems as though, as soon as I become too full of myself, God shows me the truth, which is that I’m just as flawed and broken as everyone else. By a Godly standard, I have no leg to stand on when it comes to judging or being impatient with other people. 

In spite of this, I’m still not a very patient person. This evening, for example, when my daughter and I got home from jiu-jitsu class, I got out of the car and started walking toward our house. I was hungry and looking forward to taking a hot shower and having dinner. But when I looked back, my daughter was still in the car. 

I immediately grew impatient. I stood there staring at her, wondering what was taking so long. Then, right as I was about to say something, I suddenly turned away and looked up at the evening sky. As I did, a peace came over me and it’s as if time slowed down. 

I stood there staring at the fluffy white clouds floating by atop a light blue backdrop and everything just felt okay. I was no longer agitated and I was no longer in a hurry. The only thing that existed was that moment, the clouds, the sky, and my awareness of them. 

I’m not sure how long I stood there, but it felt like both an eternity and an instant. Then, I heard my daughter scuffling around and I turned back to see what she was doing. As she got out of the car with her jiu-jitsu gear, her backpack, and her viola case, she said, “Daddy, can you help me shut the door?” 

A few things occurred to me in that moment. First, God is good and he is always there to remind me when I need to simply be still in his presence. Second, my daughter probably would have gotten out of the car sooner if I had offered to help her with her stuff. Finally, it’s really not that big of a deal. 

Sure I was hungry and sure I wanted to take a shower, but these selfish concerns were not and are not more important than being present to both God and my daughter. I can’t promise that I’ll do better next time, but the when next time comes, which it will, perhaps I’ll remember those clouds, that sky, and my daughter’s sweet voice asking me to help her. God got my attention today and I’m willing to change for his sake and hers. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Quality prayer is a lot like quality french toast

One of the go-to breakfasts I cook for my daughter is french toast.* It’s easy to make, it can be prepared in advance so that it can be cooked quickly, and, when made with a quality whole-grain bread, it’s a relatively healthy breakfast, combining just enough protein, carbohydrates, and fat to get my daughter through the first part of her day. Also, she likes it so there is never any complaining or procrastinating first thing in the morning when it’s time to eat. 

This morning, as I was prepping the french toast so that I could cook it when she woke up, it occurred to me that, in some ways, french toast is a lot like prayer. I know that sounds silly, and maybe it is, but it made sense to me at 5:30am. So please bear with me. 

French toast, is something that, if you want a good result, cannot be rushed. While the actual cooking of the french toast is a rather quick endeavor, prepping the french toast itself takes time. If you don’t allow the bread enough time to soak, the custard mixture will merely coat the bread superficially, instead of penetrating to the center, and the end result will be dry and unpleasant. 

In the same way, prayer takes time. Our time with God cannot be rushed if we want a good result. If we do not allow ourselves sufficient time in prayer, the Holy Spirit may only enter us superficially, instead of penetrating to our hearts, and our prayer life will feel dry and unpleasant as a result. 

In order to make french toast, you have to plan ahead. You can’t simply throw together french toast at the time you want to cook it and expect it to turn out the way you want. Good french toast requires some, albeit not much, amount of planning. 

Prayer, too, requires planning. This doesn’t mean that our prayers can’t or shouldn’t be spontaneous. Spontaneous prayer is wonderful. Any time we pray it is a good thing. But it is also important that we plan out time to pray, that we set aside time for God, and that we set and keep a schedule for and with him. If we don’t make our time for prayer a priority, the world will always find a way to prioritize itself for us. 

Good french toast requires bread that has the right amount of porousness and integrity. The bread has to be porous enough that, when we put it in the with the wet ingredients, it absorbs as much of the custard as possible. But it also has to be firm enough that it doesn’t simply fall apart once it is saturated. 

Likewise, in order for us to have a fruitful prayer life, we must have the right amount of porousness and integrity. We must be open enough to let God into our hearts, as well as pliable enough for him to do his work in us and to change us into who he wants us to be. But we also need to be strong and upright enough to stand up for the values he instills in us, and to live in the way that he commands. 

Like french toast, prayer takes time, planning, openness, and integrity. Without these ingredients in place, we may end up with something that resembles prayer, but the quality of it may not be what we desire. With these ingredients in place, however, we have a good recipe for making ourselves available for God to do his work in us in a way that is pleasing for both us and him. 

*For anyone wondering, here is a recipe for french toast that I use often and my daughter seems to like it:

INGREDIENTS (serves 2-3 people)
– Four slices of quality semi-stale whole grain bread
-Two large or three medium eggs
-Almond milk (or whatever milk you prefer) in an amount equal to the amount of liquid eggs
-1tsp each cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom
-Olive oil
-Maple syrup (the real stuff)

PREPARATION
-The night before, mix the wet ingredients in a sealable container
-Add the bread
-Flip the bread around in the custard mixture until all slices of bread are coated on all sides (you may have to do this more than once)
-Seal the container and place it in the refrigerator overnight

COOKING
-Place a medium sized non-stick pan on the stove
-Turn on burner to medium-high
-Once the pan is hot, add just enough olive oil to coat the pan
-Add the custard-soaked toast to the pan
-Cook on both sides
-Serve with maple syrup
-Pray
-Enjoy

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

The cave the fear and the treasure

The thing about fear is that no one can walk through it for us. In fact, they can’t even really walk through it with us, at least not our truest, deepest fears, the fears that define us and hold us back from becoming who we are destined to be. We must take the walk alone. 

Well, we aren’t really alone. God is always with us. But we often cannot feel his presence as we do the work of faith. We have to trust that he is there while we make the walk into darkness. 

Joseph Campbell said, “The cave [we] fear to enter holds the treasure [we] seek.” The challenge is that, not only is the fear ours, but the cave is ours also, and so is the treasure. It all exists inside of us. All anyone else can do is to point the way. 

And God knows all of this. He can see our hearts and he knows our needs. He is calling us into our cave of fear, promising that he will will not abandon us, telling us it will be okay. The challenge is that we have no way of knowing without doing the work, without facing our fears and taking the walk. 

God’s love and faithfulness is proven to us as we step out on the other side of the darkness. He is there to greet us and to assure us that we need only to trust him, that the treasure always belonged to us. It was and is ours to take any time we want. 

And yet, even as we know this, even as God proves his loyalty to us time and time again, we forget or we don’t believe it. Every new fear and every new trial feels like we are experiencing it for the first time, like this will be the time God forgets us and abandons us. 

The Lord is always faithful, though. It is we who are fickle and unreliable. We attribute to God our worst characteristics, forgetting that our brokenness is not God’s doing, nor is it a reflection of his nature. God gave us Eden and a life without fear or shame. 

It was our lack of faith, our inability to trust his word, that separated us from him and expelled us from the garden. He is constantly trying to draw us back there with him though. We need only believe we are worthy of the divine treasure that awaits us. It is not far off. In fact, the cave, the fear, and the treasure are actually one in the same. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Willingness is a prayer in itself

Centering prayer has become an integral part of my morning routine. Thomas Keating recommends doing two, twenty minute centering prayer sessions each day, one in the morning and one in the evening, however. For whatever reason, I find it difficult to make the time for an evening session. 

One of the issues I face is that, when I try to sit down to practice centering prayer in the evening, I almost always fall asleep. This isn’t a terrible problem to have, and it most likely just means I’m tired. But after a while, it can be discouraging to have a twenty minute silent prayer session turn into a twenty minute nap. 

In addition to my falling asleep, it can just be more difficult for me to find the quiet space and time necessary to practice centering prayer in the evening than in the morning. In the morning, I wake up before my wife and daughter, which allows me to make the time I need for this practice. In the evening, on the other hand, my schedule is more complicated. My daughter is home from school, I teach jiu-jitsu in the evenings, and when my wife comes home from work, I like to spend time with her. 

None of these are deal breakers though. I know that it’s possible to fit a second centering prayer session into my day. I simply haven’t found the right space or timing for it, which is to say that I have not yet made it a priority. The important thing is that I’m willing. 

Willingness is a prayer in itself. It’s my way of telling God that, with his help, I will make it happen. He need only show me the way. As long as I remain prayerful and willing, I’m sure that he will. He has yet to let me down thus far and I don’t think he’s going to start now. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Let us lean on Mary’s faith and faithfulness

It is not always easy to know where God is leading us. Sometimes he gives us clear signs and guidance, but other times we have to discern our course with little to no clarity at all. We must always rely on faith to bring us through whatever decisions we are making, but in these latter instances, where the path ahead is dark and confusing, we must rely upon it entirely. 

I often think about the story of the angel Gabriel visiting Mary in Luke 1:26-38. Imagine what Mary must have thought and felt during and after this encounter. Gabriel shows up out of nowhere and tells her not to be afraid, and that she, a virgin, has found favor with God, is going to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, will give birth to a son whom she will name Jesus, and that Jesus will be the Son of God whose kingdom will never end. 

If that encounter wasn’t confusing or shocking enough, after Mary says (paraphrasing), “Okay. I’ll do whatever God wants me to do,” Gabriel just vanishes. He gives her no further instructions. He tells her nothing of what to expect or how to handle any of the trials and tribulations she will face, and he doesn’t say a word about what Jesus’s life or his death will be like. He simply disappears and is never seen or heard from by Mary again. 

With only that to work with, Mary has to figure out how to raise the Son of God. Of course, God is there through all of it and he provides her what she needs to do his work, but all she really had to go on was her faith, and it was enough. Our Heavenly Father tells and shows us over and over again that our faith is always enough. Like Gabriel said to Mary, “[We need] not be afraid… [for we] have found favor with God (Luke 1:30, NIV).”

The Lord will always guide us through fear, confusion, and darkness, but, like Mary, we must first put our faith in his word. While at first she is frightened by Gabriel’s greeting and questions how she is going to give birth to a son when she is a virgin, Mary never protests further (Luke 1:29 & 34). She simply trusts the will of God and, after hearing what Gabriel has to say, responds by saying, “I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled (Luke 1:38).”

We should all pray to have faith as strong and steadfast as Mary’s. It isn’t easy. Life is full of all sorts of obstacles, trials, and difficult decisions. But if we are honest with ourselves, is God ever really asking more from us than he asked from Mary? Are our trials greater than hers? Is our cross heavier than the one she carried or the one she watched her son carry and die on? Likely not. 

So we can use Mary as an example of what our faith should look like. In times of trouble, confusion, or darkness, we can lean on Mary’s faith and her faithfulness, and know that God is with us, that even if we cannot hear his voice or see his face, that he has a plan for us and that it is good.

When we stand at the precipice, too afraid or uncertain to go forward, let us use Mary as inspiration and say, “I am your servant, Lord. Not my will, but yours be done,” and then let us step forth into the darkness, for we know that the Lord our God “rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Keeping my mind on God instead of on not-God

If I’m being honest, most of my waking hours are spent on not-God. Meaning, most of my time and attention is spent on concerns that feel separate from my conscious connection with God. I think, actually I know, that this is true for most people. But this is not the goal. This is not the direction in which I am headed. This is not my destiny. 

The goal is to give more of my time and attention to God than I give to not-God. The goal is to “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for [me] (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NIV).” This is the direction in which I am headed. This is my destiny. 

Prayer, however, must be practiced. It must be something toward which effort is put. And if one hopes to reap the benefits of prayer, it must be done consciously, sincerely, and faithfully. 

In the good times and the bad, upon awakening and when we retire at night, and all throughout the day, if we want to have a conscious contact with God, we must return to prayer as often as we can with the goal of, eventually, remaining in prayer regardless of our circumstances. 

Jesus wants us to “Remain in [him], as [he] also remains in [us]. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can [we] bear fruit unless [we] remain in [Jesus] (John 15:4).” For some people, perpetual consciousness of God may happen all at once, in an instant, but for most of us, it requires discipline and dedication. We must constantly remind ourselves to return to prayer and to return to God. 

This is an honorable task, however. In fact, it is the most honorable task. It is the greatest commandment of them all, to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37),” according to Jesus. 

The late, great teacher of centering prayer, Father Thomas Keating, often told a story wherein a nun at one of his workshops lamented, “Father Thomas, I’m such a failure at centering prayer. In twenty minutes I’ve had ten thousand thoughts!”

“How lovely,” responded Keating, in his ever kind and joyful tone. “Ten thousand opportunities to return to God.”

This returning to God is the practice. It’s not easy, but if we are to develop and maintain a conscious contact with God, it is necessary. Prayer is the good work of loving God, and the more we pray, the more our time will be spent with our minds on God rather than with our minds on not-God. 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

Is this the kind of dharma you are trying to create

I had a dream last night that still has me contemplating its meaning. In my dream, I was arguing with a plain-clothes police officer because he had unjustly harassed and detained someone. He then turned on me and began harassing me and trying to detain me. 

As I struggled to resist detainment, I saw that the police officer had a set of Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist. I grabbed the prayer beads and said to the officer, “Is this the kind of dharma you are trying to create? Is this the kind of sangha you are trying to create? Is this the kind of karma you are trying to create?” 

In Buddhism, dharma is thought of as the way or the path, the wisdom teachings that lead a practitioner to enlightenment. Sangha is the community of fellow practitioners with whom a person shares the spiritual journey. Karma is the spiritual law of cause and effect wherein a person’s actions have a direct correlation to the type of life that person will have. 

In my sleep, these questions, “Is this the kind of dharma you are trying to create? Is this the kind of sangha you are trying to create? Is this the kind of karma you are trying to create?” just kept repeating in my mind. It felt like I asked them over and over again for hours before finally waking up. Once I woke up, I was in that strange post-dream state where I knew I was awake and my dream was just a dream, but I could still feel the dream as if it was something that I had actually experienced in my waking hours. 

Experiences like this make me question which is more real, our awakened state or our dream state. I suppose both are equally real, but it’s easy to dismiss dreams as less real or even imaginary because they happen when we sleep. Dreams like this, however, that have a profound and lasting emotional and psychological impact because they feel just as or more real than what is experienced in our waking hours. 

I’m still meditating on the significance of and the meaning behind this dream, but the questions it left me with feel like a spiritual puzzle not easily solved with reason alone and which will, therefore, require prayer. For example, who was the plain-clothes police officer in my dream? Who did he detain? Why was I challenging this unjust detainment? Why did he then try to detain me? Perhaps most importantly, however, what kind of dharma, sangha, and karma am I trying to create? 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox. 

There is no secret ingredient

There are no secret jiu-jitsu techniques. Well, maybe there are, but as soon as someone uses them against another person, they are no longer secret. They become part of the collective conscious of jiu-jitsu. There are, however, techniques you may have not yet encountered or details you have not yet been shown, but there really are no secrets. 

Once you have a solid foundation of fundamental principles and techniques, jiu-jitsu is mostly about strategy, execution, and timing. With rare exception, the best jiu-jitsu competitors are not doing anything different than day-to-day practitioners. They are just doing it with more experience, confidence, and refinement. 

This lesson came up recently at a jiu-jitsu tournament my daughter competed in. There were two other kids in her gi (the woven cloth uniform worn in jiu-jitsu, judo, etc.) division and she beat both of them, one by points and one by bow-and-arrow choke. These same two kids were in her nogi division, but there was also a third boy who was only there to compete without the gi. 

In her nogi matches against the kids she had defeated in the gi, she won in a similar fashion as earlier. She beat one by points and one by rear naked strangle. But the third child, the boy who was only there to compete in the nogi division, defeated her in under a minute with an armlock. In fact, he beat all three of the other kids in his division in under a minute. 

After her losing match against this boy, my daughter was upset. I tried to comfort her, explaining that there is no shame in losing to someone who is clearly better than you, which he was, as long as you try your best, which she did. Her other matches went very well and she showed more confidence and assertiveness than she ever has before. I was very proud of her. 

When the boy who defeated her was competing against the other kids in the bracket, I watched his matches and I made my daughter watch as well. It was important, I told her, to see how and why he was winning. It wasn’t just size, age, or athleticism, even though he seemed to have advantages in these areas as well. Something else was going on. 

As we watched, I pointed out to her that this boy was not doing anything special or unusual. He wasn’t using any secret techniques. In fact, he was using all of her favorite techniques, knee-cut passes, armbars, and triangle chokes, techniques she is quite familiar with. The difference, however, was that he was doing these techniques with more confidence, assertiveness, and refinement than her. I explained to her that he wasn’t better than everyone else in the division because of any special, unattainable trait or characteristic. Everything he did to win, I explained, was in her toolkit and within her reach. Like Po’s father says to Po in Kung Fu Panda, “The secret ingredient is… nothing. There is no secret ingredient.” This boy didn’t beat anyone with secret jiu-jitsu. He beat them with confidence in his plain old ordinary jiu-jitsu. 

I went on to explain to her that she has the skills and the power to win. She need only believe in herself, and train and compete like she can win. It’s not a matter of more tools, but of honing and sharpening the tools she already has, and then using those tools with confidence and assertiveness. Like Po said to Tai Lung, I told her, “There is no secret ingredient. It’s just you.” 

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

To read my poetry and shorter writing, please visit Meditations of a Gentle Warrior and subscribe to receive my daily meditations in your inbox.