Attempts at Practice

In my studies recently, I read in Renate Wind's book, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel, her description of Bonhoeffer as a student. It impressed me as setting forth a pattern worthy of following.

"[H]e . . . linked the theology which he was developing to the discovery of his own identity and his personal questions about existence.  It would later be called 'theology in the doing.' What the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought was a way of coming to terms with a life-style. Connected with this is the fact that he probably never said anything that he did not also attempt to put into practice" (37, emphasis added).

That is the pattern.  When our eyes are opened to truth about the life we are called and commanded to live in Christ, we are to act in faith and obedience.  Our acting, though, cannot be in our own human energy or effort but in full and complete dependence upon the life of Christ within us.  In this way, we "attempt" to put into practice the truth that we are being taught.  What we study thus shapes our practice.