Soulfood

Kelly Kapic

It will be impossible for me to learn how to rest until I learn to be comfortable with being a creature. We cannot get everything done that we want to do.

We are crushed by the weight of unmet expectations, both internal and external. From an early age we understand that our productivity is what gives us worth. When we consider all the things that we are expected to do and the time that we have, it is impossible. When we realize this it can be liberating – we don’t have to be ashamed of our inability to meet impossible expectations.

Better time management is not the solution. Better time management does not make us inhuman. And when we are in the business of love, schedules will be disrupted.

We do not have a time management problem. We have a theological and pastoral problem. We don’t understand our limits and neither to the people to whom we are ministering.

We are finite. Finitude is not sin. Being finite is not sinful, it is a feature of our creatureliness. So why do we fight against the reality that we are limited in our capacity and our capabilities?

We tend to focus on the doctrine of the fall and underemphasize the doctrine of creation.

God is totally comfortable with being God. And God is very comfortable with me not being God. It is okay with God that I am a creature. God likes me being a finite, limited, creaturely being. We are created to be finite and that creation is GOOD.

Humility – we often think we should be humble because we are sinners. And it isn’t that our sinfulness shouldn’t make us humble. But the foundation of humility is that we are not God. If we make our sinfulness the foundation of humility, the structure will fall apart. The foundation of our humility needs to be our sense that we are not God. What is most true about us isn’t that we are sinners. What is most true about us is that God created us in His image. We are made to be dependent – on God, on neighbor, and on the rest of creation. All of this is pre-Fall.

To be a human, a good and godly creature, is to be dependent. Sin is not what makes us dependent on God, it is what twists and distorts dependencies and view of it. Humility means growing in our knowledge and understanding of our creaturely dependence on God, each other, and the rest of creation.

The doctrine of union means that we are not called as individuals to do all the things – it takes all of us together to be the body of Christ and to fulfill the requirements of passages like Matthew 25.

We have a good God. The reason God is so committed to dealing with our sins is not that He hates us, but because He loves what He has made – us. The goal of the Christian life is not to become superhuman, but to be truly and fully human as exemplified in the life and work of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ was fully human, finite flesh and blood.

We cannot rest until we become comfortable with being creatures.