God of the Gaps: All or Nothing Spirituality

Why am I not seeing more of God at work in my life?

It’s a common lament, often voice by people who claim to believe in God, to believe in Jesus, to have made a profession of faith. Yet frequently they feel “dry” or “empty,” as if they are just going through the motions, yet have nothing to show for their work. Perhaps you feel like such a person.

Matt 13:33

Commentary

v33 This parable occurs in Luke 13:20-21 almost word-for-word the same as Matthew.

yeast. All of the other references to yeast in the NT are generally negative: Jesus warns against the yeast of the Pharisees (Matt. 16:5-12); Paul warns of the insidious yeast of malice and wickedness (1 Cor. 5:6-8); connotations of yeast; later Paul compares the corrupting power of yeast to those who dissuade others from following the truth.

large amount of flour. The Greek specifies a specific amount equivalent to about 3 gallons, or about 60 pounds, of flour. Most translations just leave it as “a large amount”, assuming that Jesus is comparing the small amount of yeast to a huge amount of flour.

woman. For those interested in feminine depictions of God, here is one! We’re familiar with images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd or the Bread of Life, but what would come to mind for you if we called God the Diligent Cook?

Application

All the other NT references to yeast are negative—except this one. While some interpreters have tried to make the yeast here into something insidious, such interpretations just don’t hold water. What is going on with the yeast here that is beneficial? You have three choices for the point of the parable:

The kingdom of heaven is transformational, just as the yeast utterly transforms unleavened bread.

This transformational power of the kingdom of heaven is so enormous that it just takes a small opening in one’s life to get it started, just as it only takes a small speck of yeast to work through gallons of flour.

The parable is really about the diligence of the woman—mixing the ingredients, kneading the dough, staying at the job until no part of the dough has been spared.

We used to have a breadmaker, and we had fun trying a bunch of different recipes. Even the kids got into it. However, on one occasion, Bailey forgot to put in the agitator, the little bar in the bottom of the breadmaker that mixes up all the ingredients once the START button is pressed. Even though she had put in the right ingredients, the yeast had no chance to do its job. Instead of a nice, big loaf of soft, tasty bread, we ended up with a hard, unappetizing rock of bread the size of a softball.

Once invited into our lives, God, the Diligent Cook, desires to transform every aspect of life. With God kneading his transforming power—the Spirit of Christ—into our lives, nothing will remain as it was. He pops us in the oven, turns up the heat—we call it trials—and voila! We are changed and we are appealing (as Paul says, we are the aroma of life).

Nothing can stop this transformational power—well, almost nothing. The only ways to stop the yeast working through the dough are either to stop kneading the dough or to cut the lump of dough in two: this part contains yeast; this part is unscathed.

Unscathed. We use such weird words to talk about arresting God’s transformational power in our lives. The Diligent Cook is not going to stop kneading us, so to “save” a bit of our former selves, we spiritually cut ourselves in two: this part I will give over to God; this part I claim for myself. The part we give over to God is soft and appetizing; the part we reserve for ourselves becomes hard and disagreeable. God is the Diligent Cook, and he will work through all that we surrender to him. Sometimes he will even ask us to surrender our zealously-guarded bits of self to him, but he will not force us.

We rationalize that the part that we claim for self is no big deal; it’s just pretty grudges, sexual peccadilloes, tiny white lies, and occasional gossip. “Small sins,” we say. However, the effect is to halt the transformational power of the Diligent Cook. We are only half-baked until we give him everything.

For some, half-baked doesn’t sound that bad. “Half a loaf is better than none,” we say, “Right?”
Wrong! This is why we are dry, empty, and dissatisfied with our spiritual lives. This compartmentalization has left us spiritually broken. We rationalize—somehow—that we are saving a bit of ourselves for our own gratification, but we do not see how we have broken ourselves and become estranged from God:

Spirituality is a reality that must touch all of one’s life or it touches none of one’s life. Spirituality is pervasive for the same reason that spirituality cannot be analyzed: the spiritual has no parts. And because it has no parts, it cannot touch only part of us ...

We cannot “borrow” it, putting it on for an hour or a day, using it like a cloak to cover the hardness in our heart or the angry or jealous thoughts in our mind. Spirituality is not a pet project that we can take up for a month or two; it is never [a] “hobby.” (The Spirituality of Imperfection, p 145)

I encourage you today not just to offer your whole self to God, but to be obedient to him in all areas of your life. Refuse to continue the compartmentalization of your spirit that leaves you dry and barren, and let the Diligent Cook work his transformational power completely through you. Jesus said,

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross & follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. (Matt. 16:24-25)

So, having left almost everything, why would you risk all that waits for you in the kingdom of heaven for the sake of the few things that you have claimed for yourself? Give it all away!

The Discipline of Decompartmentalization:
Life Beyond Self-Denial

We trivialize the importance of total surrender, saying that what we reserve for ourselves is just “small stuff”, as if small sins are less deadly than big ones. Really we are avoiding the painful truth of the devastating power of even the “small stuff.”

The director of an alcoholism treatment center once claimed that there were only two questions he would ask patients who had fallen off the wagon:

When did you stop going to meetings?

What are you hiding?

Usually when we begin to shut down relationships, there is something underneath that we are hiding—something that we are trying to hold on to, even though doing so it will break us.

Consider applying these questions to marriage:

When did you stop talking with your spouse?

What are you hiding?

Or family:

When did you stop talking with your children/parents?

What are you hiding?

Or church:

When did you stop going to church/Bible study?

What are you hiding?

12-step programs contain the following advice for getting past the hiding and the self-denial:

● Made a searching & fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

● Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

● Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

● Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

Stick with your relationships! The thing you are running from may be revealing “defects of character” you need to change.

Points to Ponder

How do you think this story relates to the spiritual dryness or lack of spiritual fruit that you might be experiencing?

A few years ago at an alcoholism treatment center in the suburbs of Chicago, staff members reported an intriguing discovery. Many of them lived at some distance from the facility, each day braving the hazards of tollway traffic in commuting to and from work. Then one day, the State of Illinois instituted “honor system” toll collection booths into which motorists were expected to throw their coins.

... but counselors at the treatment center collected observations that soon added up to an axiom: “Those who don’t throw their money in, their patients don’t get well.” As one counselor put it in telling the story: “How can you pass on an ‘honest program’ if you are not honest yourself? Honesty is indivisible.”

(The Spirituality of Imperfection, pp 144-145)