A year or two after becoming a Christian, I was struggling and failing to live out the Sermon on the Mount. (Big surprise!)
I was around eighteen. I still knew next to nothing about Christianity other than that Jesus died for me and saved me. Now, I wanted to live for Him. I devoured my New Testament, especially the Gospels, reading over Jesus’ words. I loved the Sermon on the Mount especially. But I couldn’t reconcile what the Lord required with my middle-class Canadian way of life. Something had to give. But what? What could I do? I had many questions but few answers. So, Mom (still a baby Christian herself) invited one of the elders from her Open Brethren church to come for dinner. We cooked fish (wrong choice!). I was nervous.
After a few bites of burnt salmon, Elder David said, “Shawn, I understand you have a question for me.”
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I think I should become a monk!”
He was surprised! But the elder also listened patiently for the next few minutes as I spilled my guts and shared about my struggles to live out Jesus’ commands and the huge gap I saw between Jesus’ vision and the kind of life we typically lead today.
Why would I want to become a monk? While I knew practically nothing about them, except for what I had gathered from TV shows and popular culture, it seemed like they were living out the simplicity and poverty commanded by Jesus. To my naïve understanding, they seemed like the closest thing to being a fully committed disciple of Jesus. So, I wondered, do I need to become a monk to really obey Jesus' commands?
After I finished, the elder looked at me kindly and spoke to me gently. “Shawn, I so appreciate your heart. But I can’t help you. We’re Plymouth Brethren. We don’t have monks.”
We laughed.
“But I would recommend you read a book,” he continued. “It’s called The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I think it will answer some of your questions.”
Mom wrote down the name and title, called around to different bookstores, and the next day we drove to downtown Montreal to the Librairie Chrétienne CLC to buy a copy. The Cost of Discipleship became the first Christian book I ever read. As Free Grace readers probably know, that book has many Lordship elements in it, and I would not recommend it, except to discerning readers. (By the way, if a young man came to me with that question today, I would recommend he read this book.)
Even now, many years later, I still grapple with the disparity between Jesus’ teachings and the way we, as modern Americans, lead our lives. I yearn to delve deeper into a Christian way of life, but I find myself at a loss. I am now married and have a family. What does it mean to have a Christian family?
The New Testament doesn’t give us much information about it. It skips over Jesus’ youth. It doesn’t tell us how Joseph and Mary raised Him. It tells us next to nothing about the domestic life of the apostles and the first Christians. I wish there were at least one book in the NT that modeled how an early Christian family lived out their new faith in Christ, but we don’t have that. We have bits and pieces, glimpses and snapshots, but not the whole picture. That was evidently what the Lord wanted. So, how can I learn what it means to raise a Christian family?
Theologians talk about engaging in “theological reflection.” This involves thinking theologically about all of life. One way to do that is to look at how Christians have lived out their faith in the past and compare it to how things are done in the present. I find that very helpful! It can help you break out of your cultural bubble and give you a new perspective on how a Christian can live.
To that end, I recently read Ronald Rolheiser’s Domestic Monastery: Creating a Spiritual Life at Home. Written by a Roman Catholic, it is a simple book comparing the family to life in a monastery.
My big takeaway from that book is how Rolheiser argues the family is a school of love. Parents learn how to love their children, and through that, we learn more about how God loves us:
“parental love is perhaps the one that most pulls your heart out of its self-love. Parenting reshares the core of your being to help you to love more like God loves” (p. 63).
I think that’s true.
Looking back on my life before having a family, I realize I was a very selfish person. I had no one to live for but myself. And sometimes I chose to voluntarily serve the neighbors around me. But life was mostly about me.
Then I got married.
Suddenly, there was another person in my life. My life ceased to be my own. I became one flesh with another person and had to consider her on a daily basis. But even then, I was still selfish, able to carve out vast amounts of time solely for myself.
Then we had our first child. And then a second. And a third. My personal time got smaller and smaller. I repeatedly had to learn to forget myself, put aside my plans, and prioritize caring for my children. When they were hungry, thirsty, dirty, or tired, their needs came before my own. The learning curve of selflessness was steep!
As they got older and their needs changed, I learned to serve them in new ways, such as helping with homework, reading to them, and taking them to practices, recitals, and games. My selfish, self-centered space got smaller and smaller. That has been hard, but good. These last eleven years have been a constant lesson in learning to get out of my head and serve my closest neighbors (i.e., my wife and children).
Rolheiser summarizes that the family school of love teaches us at least three lessons.
Given that vast challenge, Rolheiser says family life is in no way spiritually inferior to monastery life. It means being part of an elite school of love:
“To be a parent is to find oneself enrolled in an elite school of love, a true monastery that is every bit as ascetical and grace-producing as any monastery ever praised by the great spiritual writers” (p. 66).
I agree with that sentiment.
Family life is an elite school of love.
In what way?
Just when I think I know how to love a baby, they turn into a toddler, then a child, and they keep getting older, going from grade to grade until becoming a preteen. And I keep having to learning and re-learning how to love them as they are.
Soon, I’ll have to learn to love them as teenagers, young adults, and adults. They’ll leave home, get married, and start their own families, and I’ll have to learn how to love grandchildren and perhaps even great-grandchildren!
Meanwhile, Abby and I are getting older, going through our own changes, and learning to choose to love one another afresh every day.
The family school has so many lessons for me to learn that I’ll attend for my whole life and never graduate.
And the most crucial lesson through all of this is that I cannot do any of this on my own. I need Jesus. I need all that He is to be all that I was meant to be. He is the source, goal, and the means of loving. “We love because he first loved us,” John said (1 John 4:19).
I wish I could go back and tell my younger self that the Christian family is not a retreat from discipleship but an elite school of love where we learn, grow, and serve through every season of life. Each day offers new lessons in being welcoming, flexible, and forgiving.
And most of all, in this lifelong journey, we realize that to love truly, we must rely on the One who loved us first.
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Send your questions or comments to shawn@freegrace.in.
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