In late February, I had the treat of sitting under the teaching of Dallas Willard and John Ortberg at the Knowing Christ Conference sponsored by the Martin Institute/Dallas Willard Center at Westmont College. I took dozens of pages of notes, which I’m editing and sharing over a number of posts. Below are the part of my notes from his second presentation, “Understanding the Person: Including the Hidden Parts”
My standard disclaimer is that these are insights that I gained from listening to Dallas. They are sometimes his exact words. They are sometimes my own words or reflections. So, don’t assume that every word here is straight from him. And these are lightly edited, so bear with possible typos or grammatical goofs. With that in mind, I pray these notes will help you in your own journey with Christ.
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Conversation (continued):
John: Speak to the discouraged. How do we help them?
Dallas: Listen to them. Help them understand why they say what they say. You don’t have to go too far before people see a light. Listen. We don’t do enough listening. In listening, we begin to perceive the roots of behavior. This opens a door, perhaps, a chance for wise, situational teaching.
Spiritual direction is mainly helping people find ways of responding that will bring them in touch with the saving grace of God where they are. Listen and help others see why they are feeling what they feel.
A long time back, I realized my words weren’t helping many people. I wasn’t helping them with what was actually defeating them.
John: Spiritual disciplines sometime sound like purely human activities. Where is the Spirit in that?
Dallas: Of course disciplines are a human activity. All religion is. The thing is that all these human activities are designed to meet the grace of God. Silence helps us realize that we don’t stop breathing when we begin to stop talking. We are meant to engage the grace of God. That is the purpose of our work life, family life—meeting the grace of God.
John: What about the “soul”. How do you know when the soul comes out?
Dallas: You’ll likely miss it if you approach with anxiety. The disciplines standardly give us indirection. It doesn’t try to find the soul, but practices something to allow the soul to make itself known. Soul is experienced as a sort of inner force, like an inner river, that pulls our world together and makes our experiences one thing. When the soul isn’t functional, our lives are fractured and lacking in integration or integrity. The mind shows up in thinking, feeling, choosing. We need those with experience and intelligence to help us wait on the soul, and on God to come with the soul.
In solitude and silence, we discover we have a soul. Jesus: What shall we give in exchange for our soul? Losing our soul means we don’t have a center that organizes our activities. God must restore the soul…the center. Inner healing prayer is soul work. It nearly always involves waiting for the Lord to make a context to be honest about what is in our soul.
John: How did you become aware that you had a soul?
Dallas: Through realizing I wasn’t a whole person because there wasn’t an organizing principle bringing everything in me together. Then, I began to experience God’s work in my life. This involved some confession. I got some help from skilled people. I discovered a dimension of myself that I hadn’t suspected. I experienced soul restoration. Confession is very important to discovering your soul. It can be revolutionary by going deep into the unity of a person. You there give up splitting the self. Sin always splits the self to some degree. You know you’ve harmed yourself or others, but probably won’t come to terms with it. You’ll carry on a charade of righteousness. Confession is deep in discovering the soul.
When churches experience the Spirit, confession is nearly always part of this kind of revival. Confession breaks through hindrances. We stop trying to save face.
John: Why is confession so common at AA but not in the church?
Dallas: AA got their stuff from the church, but sadly too many churches have lost what AA saved. Perhaps our services are designed to save us from confession rather than help us enter into confession. Appearance management. Everything is O.K.
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Filed under: Church, Dallas Willard, Knowing Christ, Spiritual Formation Tagged: church, Dallas Willard, eternal life, Kingdom of God, Knowing Christ, Spiritual Formation
