students of jesus

When news of Dallas Willard’s death lit up my Twitter feed yesterday, I rolled my chair across the room and looked to the “W’s” on my bookshelf. I discovered three of his books, and discovered four others were missing because I had loaned them out. That’s how it should be.

Dallas Willard’s engaging, calm, and surprisingly funny voice burst into public notice with publication of The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life with God in 1998—when he was nearly 63 years old. Of course, Willard had been writing and speaking about the with-God kind of life for decades before. Most of North American Christianity was simply decades late to the party. It pleased the Father to elevate Dallas Willard to national prominence with that book, and since 1998 he humbly accepted the role of mentor and encourager to the church at large.

He was a man fully awake to God’s constant presence: he once said he hoped to be so close to God that he would hardly know he had died until hours after the event.

I count Dallas Willard among my mentors. Like so many other of his students, I never met the man. In the chambers of my thought-life Willard sits with C.S. Lewis, quietly welcoming honest questions from anyone willing to look the real questions of life directly in the eye. Like Lewis, Willard chose an academic setting to serve Jesus. And like Lewis, Dallas Willard did not present himself as the trendy flavor of the month--just try to imagine him in scarves, or plaid flannel shirts, or skinny jeans, his hair filled with product. And yet Willard’s old-school manner resonated with Millennials and Baby-Boomers alike. His was the authority of authenticity.

When I encounter a heart hungry to know God, I immediately recommend Willard’s book, Hearing God: Developing a Conversation Relationship with God, where Willard explains the issue isn’t really about hearing God, it’s about becoming God’s friend. After all: we listen to our friends. There’s no shortage of hunger for God in our age, but there is a shortage of people who have been shown how to seek him. As a sometime adjunct at a small Christian University, I’ve taught Willard’s book, Renovation of the Heart to college kids—Christians—who never imagined the mind-bending possibilities of life with God. At the end of the course one semester a college junior commented, “this is the first time I’ve ever read a whole book.” That sums up Christianity in North America: a mile wide, an inch deep. Dallas Willard was part of God’s deepening project.

It’s one of the ways I determine whether a “Christian Bookstore” is serious about it’s mission: I go to the “W’s” and look for books by Dallas Willard. If Dr. Willard is absent, then it isn’t really a Christian bookstore. I’m headed to one today to replace my missing copies of his other works, because whoever borrowed those books should just pass them along to someone else, and introduce another person to one of the teachers of our age, Dallas Willard.

In my opinion there are three people you absolutely must meet--and only one of them is dead. Every Student of Jesus needs to drink from the well of older brothers and sisters. Here are three sources of fresh water:

C.S. Lewis: I had been a high-school evangelical for three years when someone handed me this collection of essays, God in the Dock. They changed my life, and Lewis became my first teacher. He's more than the Narnia movie guy: if you have never read C.S. Lewis, you have missed one of God’s great gifts to the church in the last hundred years. God in the Dock was the most formative work of Lewis for me because it captured my heart and my attention. Thirty-plus years later, Lewis is my constant companion. There’s an excellent introductory website as well.

Dallas Willard:  An ordained Southern Baptist minister, with a PhD in Philosophy, who teaches at USC: that ought to catch your attention! His book, The Divine Conspiracy, put into words things which I knew, but didn’t know that I knew! Willard cracks open our narrow ideas of “the gospel” and re-introduces evangelicals to “the gospel of the Kingdom of God.” It was the message of John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostle Paul. That ought to be good enough for any disciple. There’s a killer-good iPhone app (you know Jesus used an iPhone, right?) entitled “Hearing God Devotional.” It’ll be the best $2.99 you’ve ever spent.

Bill Johnson: Oddly enough, I recommend his audio above his books. Bethel Church (Redding, CA) has a Sermon of the week (it’s also available as a podcast). Bill Johnson is the kind of guy who drives theological types crazy. “Everything you read in the scripture is an invitation to experience,” and "It’s unethical to take the promises of God and consign them to the millennium.” He is a practitioner. Take it from me--I’ve been to his church and seen the fruit--he’s the real deal. He and his staff will challenge you, but that's OK, right?

There you go: in my opinion these guys ought to be your new best friends.

Dallas Willard is the leading voice for discipleship in America today. I could tell you about him but it’s better to let him speak for himself. Here’s Tuesday’s devotional from his killer iPhone app (and 2004 book), “Hearing God:”

Between the Years
Our Lord and our God. We joy in Thee. Without Thy Help we could not face unafraid the year before us.

I stand between the years. The Light of My Presence is flung across the year to come - the radiance of the Sun of Righteousness. Backward, over the past year, is My Shadow thrown, hiding trouble and sorry and disappointment.

Dwell not on the past - only on the present. Only use the past as the trees use My Sunlight to absorb it, to make from it in after days the warming fire-rays. So store only the blessings from Me, the Light of the World. Encourage yourselves by the thought of these.

Bury every fear of the future, of poverty for those dear to you, of suffering, of loss. Bury all thought of unkindness and bitterness, all your dislikes, your resentments, your sense of failure, your disappointment in others and in yourselves, your gloom, your despondency, and let us leave them all, buried, and go forward to a new and risen life.

Remember that you must not see as the world sees.  I hold the year in My Hands - in trust for you. But I shall guide you one day at a time.

Leave the rest with Me. You must not anticipate the gift by fears or thoughts of the days ahead.
And for each day I shall supply the wisdom and the strength.

I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk
 in darkness, but shall have the light of life.  John 8:12

In my opinion you should get this App or read his stuff. 
Taken from Hearing God Through the Year by Dallas Willard. Copyright(c) 2004 by Dallas Willard and Jan Johnson. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press PO Box 1400 Downers Grove, IL 60515. www.ivpress.com.