We have been born into and grown up in a culture that is deeply alienated from God. So as we cross the border into God’s kingdom, with its radically new attitudes and priorities, we will need all the help we can get from a spiritual friend who has made the same perilous journey before.
The way in which friends behave towards us can also help us to have faith in God. If friends really pay attention to me, listening to me and not just to my words, then I am encouraged to believe that God pays attention and listens to me in an even greater way.
James Houston
(1922-2026)
I first met Dr. Jim Houston over 30 years ago as a few friends and I sat together with him in a TCBY yogurt near Biola University. Dallas Willard had given us a glowing “scouting report” of Jim Houston. That night, we encountered a wise and faithful 72-year-old man who resonated with a sense of God’s creative and warm presence in the world. Around the table that evening, Dr. Houston asked each of us, “Where are you at?” When it came my turn to answer, a question emerged within me as if it had been floating to the surface for some time, and then, in that particular moment, it broke through the surface.
Over the prior three years of seminary, I had become aware of deep disappointment and despair. I was tired of trying to believe. All the theology that I “knew” seemed distant from my heart. Was it all true? Did God really care? Why did he seem so absent? Why did my life not make sense?
All these questions had swirled in my consciousness, but this evening, sitting in a bright green store of fluorescent light and linoleum tables and air conditioning, listening with my friends to a most unusual man, this question seemed apt. I needed to ask it. It felt like Dr. Houston really would know the answer. So I asked him, “What is God like?”
(Little did I know at the time that this was like asking Lucy, “What is Aslan like?”)
Dr. Houston looked across the table; his face lit up. He leaned forward and confided, “Rob, he is beyond your wildest imagination.”
That evening, those few words blindsided me, consoled me, and inexplicably transformed my vision of the world. He is beyond your wildest imagination. More than words were communicated to me that evening. God’s Spirit “called me aside,” comforted me, and confided in me. Deep places breathed with life, possibility, and wonder, where there was mostly doubt, despair, sadness, and isolation. I never anticipated a moment so generous, full of life, good, and gracious. It was a pure gift.
Simone Weil writes something like “Two things wake us up in the world: pain and beauty.” And for me, Dr. Houston was a beautiful man.
Among the many things swirling in my heart and mind this Holy Week, I am remembering Jim Houston, who passed away on March 15th at the age of 103. I am profoundly grateful for the wonderful ways he introduced us, again and again and again, over the years to this stunning person, Jesus, and to his relational way in the world.
For more on the life and impact of Dr. James Houston:
Regent College: Remembering Jim Houston
___________________________
If you are looking for some intentional time and space to pay attention to these things, join Dr. Keith Anderson and me after Easter for a three-session online experience entitled, “A Leader’s Journey in a Fractured World.” Details and Registration
_______________________
Robert Loane serves as President of VantagePoint3 Ministries, seeking to both learn and encourage a more relational way of life and ministry. He is co-author of Deep Mentoring: Guiding Others on Their Leadership Journey (IVP, 2012) and A Mentoring Guide: Christ. Conversation. Companionship (VP3, 2019). He has been the lead writer of The Journey process and other VP3 processes for the last 20 years. At the core of his life and work, Rob loves helping people find ways to have better conversations about the things that matter most in their lives.