At this point in
my life there are many things I thought I would have been true of me by now.
Some are thankfully/positively not true. For example, I still have a thick head
of hair, which I expected to have been reduced to a polished cue given that
both my grandfathers were bald before 30.
Others are lamentably/painfully
not true. I would have thought that by now I would have been happily married. Only
the Lord knows how long and how deeply I have desired to know and love the
woman God has prepared me for and prepared for me. To know and love her not as
a category, but as a uniquely beautiful whole person. To know and love her with all the lifelong, immersive
vulnerability, physicality, and grace that God intends for those called to the true
mutuality of marriage. To share a love that, as it participates in God’s own
love and life-giving grace, overflows into the joy of creating new life as an
expression of that love. But a love like this I have yet to find, a prayer I
have yet to see answered.
As I enter my
third decade, I would have thought that I would have a child or even children
of my own. As the Lord knows, I have wanted to be a father since long before I
even had the slightest idea of how children are made. I look forward to the day
when I can kiss my children’s foreheads goodnight as I tuck them in and say “I
love you” even if they seem to be sleeping as my father did for me every night
after he got home from work (as an aside I am keenly aware of how greatly I
have been blessed to have the father and mother I have, without whom I might
have had much a more difficult time understanding and experiencing the rich love of
God—Thanks Mama and Dad for all you’ve sacrificed to make my brief 30 years so
richly blessed).
My fatherly
disposition I have always had. In fact, I miss having children more visibly
present at the service I attend at my church. I miss being able to express the
simple love of listening to their excited stories and their truly insightful
questions. I hope I have always had the same disposition towards them as Christ
has: warm and keenly aware of their sacred worth—refusing to let them be viewed
as an inconvenient distraction to “grown up things.” My Catholic friends might
suggest this is rather reflective of my pastoral vocation, the mark of a man
destined to love the lambs of God. But while I would never completely reject the
fatherly dimension of pastoral and even theological work, Jesus’ words still ring
in my heart “Call no one your father on earth, for there is [only] One, your
Heavenly Father. And don’t be called teachers either, because your teacher is
One, the Christ.” And now living the land of the Oxford don, the danger of the
latter is just as glaring as the former.
I also thought
that by age 30 I would be entering the last year of my doctoral studies, rather
than the second-to-last, Lord willing. I mean, I suppose I’m actually not too
far behind on that account, but even still I had hoped to be closer to
finishing. However, I’m actually loving my DPhil experience, it almost feels
like vacation sometimes, or a vacation with deadlines I guess. I am even
thinking the unthinkable regularly now: the postdoctoral research fellowship.
I would have hoped
that by now I would have been more instrumental in bringing the faith to the
nations, in seeing many turn to find faith, hope, and love in Christ. As one
who wants all the billions to know the joy, love, and vitality of knowing
Christ as Lord and Saviour, it does grieve me know that most of those billions
still have not tasted, seen, or perhaps even heard that the Lord Jesus is truly
Good. Some might cynically suggest this is about some vapid ambition towards a
glamourous ministry, preaching to the masses—some weird twisted longing to be
the centre of attention, but the centre of my attention is the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is not that I long to be recognized but that I long for Christ to be
recognized as the God and Saviour He is in and through me. After all, as John
the Baptist said, “He must become greater, and I lesser.” The supreme joy of
instrumentality is not that I am known, but that He is known. Thus, for as long
as my instrumentality can be said to have been ineffective in this regard, the
greater my longing for a participatory instrumentality by the Spirit in making
Christ known in my life, actions, and love in such a way that He is desired to
be known relationally and not solely as some intellectual, cultural curiosity
from some dusty era evacuated of all contemporary significance. Anyways, the point
is I would have hoped to have seen many more fellow lost sheep be found by the
Shepherd of our souls and had some minimal participating role in that
historical process.
I would have
thought that at least in concrete earthly terms I would be able to say my
pastoral work was more clearly fruitful. That when I left churches they were in
better conditions than when I entered them. Alas, that is not the case. While
certainly there were and still are amazing faithful people in all the churches
I served, and while I did see some fruit from my labours, I have to admit that
every church I served suffered upheavals or struggled against structural issues
that limited their growth. Most people would measure success by how many people
joined their church, but while I saw people join, I am still left measuring my
“success” by how well I prepared them to face the challenges that were to come,
not by which challenges I have seen them overcome. I am looking at how many God
used me to send out, not how many God used me to keep. The truth is it would be
easy to categorize my ministry from the outside as a failure.
So there it is:
failure—simple, clear, and diverse in its claim. I’ve failed at finding love,
having a family, progressing quickly in academia, sharing the good news, and
pastoring churches, not to mention all the other things I don’t have space to
mention that I would have thought would be true of me at age 30.
Yet…
While one might
say the only thing I have succeed at is failure, there is one thing I
can say has been far more successful in my life than I could have ever dreamed:
My Triune God’s grace, mercy, and love.
Despite all my
failures, sins, and even outright rebellions, one thing has thankfully remained
true: I know the true and living God and He knows me, because He never fails to
make Himself ever more present, ever more real, ever more gracious, ever more
faithful to me. At age 30, few people are given the grace to say in honesty: to
die might be gain, but to live is Christ! I know Christ—crucified for my sins,
and resurrected for my life!
I live acutely
aware that not even the next breath is guaranteed, but at the same time I live gratefully
into the guaranteed eternal breadth of life I have in Christ.
I am not perfect.
Far, far, far, far, far, far from it. But I am perfectly loved. When I was a
child I don’t remembering looking up to any of the Biblical figures as role
models, just Jesus. He alone was King and Saviour, and I was too young see
myself as anything but one of the precious children Jesus Christ would not let
be kept from his loving embrace and the grace of His truth—and little has
changed in many regards. Even still, as I grew and failed and became the man I
am today, I came to identify more and more with two particular biblical
figures.
As to my keenly
theological, pastoral, and intercultural mind, I can’t help but to see some
minor reflection of myself in Paul. Truly much of my days are consumed with
theological reflections and pastoral affection for the global body of Christ. I
think deeply and sarcasm is my native tongue—and if you don’t see how these are
connected, please go read something of Paul’s. I am never satisfied with
anything other than the growth of the global body of Christ.
But while I may
think about the things Paul wrote, my personality and life pattern more
accurately remind me of Peter. In fact, at this point, I am not sure there is
any more characteristic interaction between me and Jesus than there was between
Jesus and Peter at the Last Supper:
Jesus: I’m going to wash your feet now Anthony.
Me: NO WAY JESUS! I should be washing your
feet.
Jesus: If you don’t let Me wash your feet, you’ll
have no part of Me.
Me: Well, in that case, Jesus,
give me a bath! Wash me from head to toe! Scrub me till my skin bleeds!
Jesus: Take it down a notch, Anthony, you’ve already
had a bath. Just the feet is enough.
*Some time
later…Jesus is warning me to take heed lest I fall*
Me: Jesus, I’d never DO THAT!
Jesus: …
Me: No, really, I would never do that. It’s an
abomination to me!
Jesus: Yeah, to Me too, but when you have I’ll wash
your feet and you’ll be fully clean.
*insert some act
of repulsive human foolishness*
Me: Jesus, I can’t believe I
did that. I don’t deserve any of your
blessings. I’ve wrecked all you wanted to do with me. I’ve invalidated all your
callings, promises, and grace to me.
Jesus: Have you now? You’ve done
all that?
Me: Lord, you know, Paul and
Peter have nothing on the putrid godlessness I just pulled! I am keenly aware
of the consequences of evil. I’ve sinned and You discipline those You love.
Jesus: Yeah, sure, but Anthony, do
you love Me?
Me: Of course, Lord, You know
I love You. How could I not?
Jesus: Then feed My lambs.
…
Anthony, do you love Me?
Me: Lord, of course I love
You. You know that.
Jesus: Then shepherd my sheep.
…
Anthony, do you love
Me?
Me: Lord, You know that I love
you with all my heart!
Jesus: Then feed my lambs.
Me: O Lord, that I might love
You as You have loved me!
Jesus: Don’t worry, Anthony. You
will. You will.
A Pauline mind
with a Petrine heart pretty much sums up the whole of my life with the Triune
God, really it sums up the last 30 years of my life quite well. I screw up more
and worse than most, but I am given more and better grace than most.
I write these
things knowing full well there is a certain heaviness about them, and that
those who do not know me well will think I am languishing is some dismal hole
of depression or disappointment. But if so, you have missed the hope of grace
which is the true theme of this whole reflection. I feel deeply—oh yes—but
faith, hope, and love are more fundamental to the laws of the universe than
gravity. 30 years has given me access to such a perspective.
Consequently, I
write these things, because it is appropriate at certain points in life to take
count and consider what has been one’s life. I write these in the hope that
they encourage others and that they provide a model for my brothers and sisters
who themselves will come to a time of self-assessment, to a moment of
recognition, to a season of waiting on grace. The timing and trajectory of
God’s grace always operates according to a superior logic of perfect love than
the frail logic of human rationality. Essentially, many things may turn out in
ways we would not have predicted or chosen for ourselves, but all things turn
out better than those predictions or expectations for those who love God and
are called according to His gracious plan.
In 30 years-time,
I may reflect again and think about all I failed to see become true of me in
life, knowing mine is largely over. However, this one thing will remain true
then as it has till now: the grace of God.
Therefore, this
one thing I do, as I run the race of faith by the Spirit so as to win the prize
for which I have been called heavenward in Christ Jesus: I press ever more
fully—running with feet regularly washed by Christ—into the grace of my One and
Only Heavenly Father. May I love Him as I have been loved by Him. May that
love—mine and God’s—overflow to my family, to the body of Christ, and to the
nations for whom Christ died.
Post Scriptum:
I want to
especially also express my sincere thanks and love to my brother Christopher,
who has had to forgive more than his fair share as a younger brother, and who I
am very proud of and miss gaming everyday with more than he’ll ever know. And
to my sister, Olivia, who will always be adorable and 7 years old in my mind,
to her great chagrin, and who I hope will take my constant nudgings to move to
Spain as an expression of my desire to have her closer to me. You both have
made 28 and 23 years of the 30 much more fun and the next 30 years all the more
desirable! I love you.
Mama and Dad, I am
very grateful to you for all that you do and have done. Thank you especially
for always pushing me academically and for supporting my call to ministry,
despite how financially destitute it may leave me. Thank you for putting up
with all my pickiness as child, and for all the freedom and responsibility you
gave me in equal portions. Thank you for feeding, clothing, and housing me.
Thank for all the love and affection as well. I love you.
And to all my friends,
who in the scope of 30 years are far too many to name—though I am
tempted to try—but without whom I would not be the man that I am today. Not
only have you made life fun, but you have challenged, encouraged, rebuked,
shamed, supported, prayed for, and humbled me. Thank you. I love you. And I
look forward to being connected with you 30 years from now.
However, I simply
must succumb to the temptation to name my friends who have been actively
involved in my life for 20+ years: Paul and David Vinci with the rest of your
family, and Jon Dennis with the rest of your family—we may not be technically
related, but you and your families are my family too I love you all and look
forward to looking back 30 years from now and reflecting on friends that
endured half a century.
And lastly,
though first in my heart, all thanks, praise, glory, honour, power, worship,
allegiance, and love to my God and Father, and to my Saviour and King Jesus
Christ, and to my Leader and Empowerer the Holy Spirit! Without You, my Triune
God, I would be hopeless, lifeless, useless, and loveless! Knowing you IS
eternal life, full stop. Thank you for 30 years! May I be granted at least 30 more
for your glory and for tasting more of your goodness! Amen.
