Three Is Enough

My Three is Enough Group is a “two is enough” group right now. Our colleague no longer works in our building, so we are reaching out to others to join us.

This week our group started reading Dallas Willard’s Hearing God. I’ve often said that I think this is one of Dallas’ best books. Here’s why: Dallas shapes an imagination for what it means to be. Going beyond merely being able to hear God tell us what to do, Dallas shows us how to be in a conversational relationship with God as his cooperative friends.

This is important because I believe human beings live from our imaginations. Not imaginations like delusions of grandeur, but from within that deep part of ourselves wherein we consider who we are, where we are going and how we might get there. Those questions, while they involve facts—financial, life-stage, etc—produce an imagination that transcends the facts and provide impetuous for actually moving forward. I had an imagination for playing professional baseball long before I knew a lot of facts about it. And—it was my imagination that made me work harder at it than anyone I knew. I was never the strongest or fastest person on our team—but no one worked harder than I did. Why? My imagination was consumed with playing major league baseball.

In 1976 I took two big turns in the road. I became a follower of Jesus and was told I would not be taken in the baseball draft. Since that time, and growing more so over the years, my imagination has been reshaped; it has been captured by the notion of being the cooperative friend of Jesus, seeking to live a constant life of creative goodness, for the sake of others, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We only got through the preface of Hearing God today at lunchtime. Here are my big take-aways strung together in one amazing panorama:

Hearing God is but one dimension of a richly interactive relationship, and obtaining guidance is but one facet of hearing God. What we want to do and what we want God to do are part of a kind of live in which one hears God in an ongoing conversational relationship. This relationship leaves a lot of room for our initiative…and our initiative is vital to God’s shaping of us. To be in God’s will we must of course do what God expressly wants us to do—but it is possible to keep all the rules and not be in God’s will—for his will is a kind of person, not just right behavior. The goal is not mere obedience, but love from which obedience naturally flows—free-hearted collaboration with Jesus in the Kingdom.

Rereading that brief summary I just typed makes me think: “I could read nothing else for the rest of the year and have a mental feast to satisfy me.” Dallas points the way to a Creator-created friendship in which what we want and what we think is a part our conversation with God. Only when we come into play—the real us—do we have the best possible soil for spiritual formation that others experience as for their good. This is right at the heart of Three is Enough Groups—us having an interactive relationship with God through conversational prayer (being alert, etc.), growing as his friends and serving others.

Peace,

Todd