Here is a quote from Dallas Willard:

“We are going to go through the mill of life like everyone else. We are different because we also have a higher or “additional” life, a different quality of life, a spiritual life, an eternal life, not because we are spared the ordinary troubles which befall human beings.”
                                                                        Page 208, In Search of Guidance

We need to address this right at the beginning of this series of posts on apprenticeship, or discipleship to Jesus. The difference between those who are disciples and those who are not is not in what they suffer and experience. The difference is in what they have in them as they go through those experiences. Many Christians expect that God is going to bail them out of the troubles of life. In fact, a lot of people in the church advertise Christianity as if it were some panacea that would keep us from harm. They treat the faith almost like magic – if I just say the right prayers, or do the right liturgy, or the right practice, or “hold my nose just right” (I’m kidding), then I will be somehow spared from harm. NOT!!!

As Dr. Willard suggests above, it is not that we are going to get a different set of circumstances because we are apprentices, rather, we will experience the same kinds of circumstance as non-disciples (the rain falls on the just and the unjust) but we will have the additional reality of God’s eternal kind of life (Kingdom life, Spiritual Life, etc) in us as we go through these experiences. And that is quite a difference.

So we need to get this straight – God isn’t providing an ‘escape clause’ to us because we sign on to apprenticeship with Jesus. However, there will be tangible results in our lives. Think about it this way – a lot of the trouble in our lives comes about because of our separation from God. We are sinners – and because of that we make bad choices, do stupid things, and seek after the wrong things. That is the human condition apart from God! The effects of that ‘separated life” (which Ephesians calls “being dead in our trespasses and sins” Eph. 2:2) is that we suffer consequences. In all six areas of who we are we suffer consequences – our thought life, our feeling life, our choices, our bodies, our social contexts, and our souls which integrate all of this. As souls, we experience the effects of our separation from God throughout our whole being  

When we apprentice ourselves to Jesus (remember, he graciously calls us to follow him and be his apprentice), we still suffer the consequences of our former way of life. As an example, I deal with parents who have had years of bad parenting before they show up at CPS. We often can help them mend their ways, and learn new skills, and commit to a better way, but this will not erase the bad training they have given to their children. We often get phone calls from parents who have out of control teenagers. They want CPS, or Behavioral Health, or ‘somebody’ to come and fix their child (which usually means make their child unselfish and compliant with their parent’s wishes). SORRY! There is no magic pill which will erase the consequences of their bad parenting. Apprenticeship to Jesus is not a MAGIC PILL.

But, there is GOOD NEWS! When we open our lives to the gracious intervention of God, and he through the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, he will begin to straighten out our insides – There will be inner healing of the effects of sin on our lives, we will learn new ways to respond to life’s difficulties, the healing of God will begin to flow through us – in other words, GOD’S RULE in our lives will begin to change how we respond in our lives. Slowly, this is a process remember, as we change, the bad effects and consequences begin to disappear. We find healing in our inner lives and social contexts, our thought life gets straightened out, and we will find that life begins to look totally different to us. After all, Paul said God’s Kingdom is “righteousness and joy and peace.”

One other piece of GOOD NEWS! God is able to work on us in the middle of our circumstances. Whether the circumstances are good or bad doesn’t matter; God is able to work in us to shape our hearts, minds, bodies, relationships, down to the core of our soles. That is why St. James tells us to rejoice when we encounter various trials – not because they are trials, but rather because God is at work in the midst of our trials, changing us into the image of his dear Son.

Rejoice! God can and will use even the bad to transform us!