Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 7/9
"Failure to love others as Jesus loves us ... chokes off the flow of the eternal kind of like that our whole human system cries our for ... The mere absence of love is deadly". (Willard 2002:151)
Transforming the Social Dimension...Willard suggests that we need to find out what our relationships to others must be like if we are to be spiritually formed. Dionysus noted that Christians during severe epidemics in the Roman Empire became known as a group of 'people who outloved others'. Our relationships with others must be transformed if we too are to be transformed.
Our starting point according to Willard is our woundedness and he suggests that how we have been affected by different forms of rejection - whether real or imagined - is key. Whether that rejection represents a rejection of ourselves or the rejection from others, the impact is largely the same - an unconnectiveness at a level where such lack of nourishment means spiritual starvation or a loss of wholeness (Willard 2002:149).
Rather than wholesome relationships are fuelled by feelings that are destructive. Conflicts of desire, envy, resentment, contempt, harden attitudes, the will to make another suffer loss, prejudice contribute to a state that Willard calls 'lovelessness'.
Lovelessness can take two forms:
Assault/Attack - which of course includes any sort of manipulation, belittling, humiliation, using people to our own ends, and
Withdrawal/ distancing - where we regard the well-being and goodness of someone else as matters of indifference, even to the point of despising them. The form of the 'super sulk' takes this sense of withdrawal and turns it into attack.
"If spiritual formation in Christ is to succeed, the power of these two forms of evil in our own life - within our self - absolutely must be broken. So far as possible they must be eliminated as indwelling realities, as postures we take toward others". (Willard 2002:149)Willard identifies four marks of Good Community on a journey towards genuine love. There is a need to:
1) See Yourself as God sees you - know 'who and whose you are'
2) Abandon all Defensiveness
3) Lose all Pretense
4) Open of our social relationships to redemption
"Not having the burden of defending and securing ourselves, and acting now from the resources of our new life in God, we can devote our lives to the service of others. This is not just a matter of attacking or withdrawing. Redemption will naturally and rightly be chiefly focused in blessing those closest to us .... and moving out from there" (Willard 2002 :166).From this point will be a transparency of relationship built upon a firm structure of forgiveness and genuineness that squeezes out any bitterness and self promotion.
"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
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Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 1/9
Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 2/9
Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 3/9
Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 4/9
Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 5/9
Dallas Willard on Spiritual Formation... 6/9
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