For a time, I was happily traveling along a fairly smooth enjoyable road, feeling good about myself and my life, when I unexpectantly happened upon a bumpy road full of pain and disappointment. I tried to turn down different roads but they all led to more shock, surprise and instability which led to anger, resentment and continual attempts to gain control and steer myself back to where I used to be. Tired and feeling defeated I gave up, retreating from the pain rather than struggling to fight against it.
This pain of the past has brought an unsettling restlessness that persistantly pesters me, confronts me and demands my attention. I want to ignore it, replace it with other interests and responsibilites but it relentlessly invades my attempts to avoid it like a necessary but unwanted confrontation. As a matter of full disclosure, the restlessness had to do with some of my experience with the church. Not a good place to be when you are the Pastor's wife, but no denying it... it was there... front and center and certainly not going away any time soon. I had loved everything about the church and my role in it for years and now I faced a new reality. I became a pretender... which I wasn't very good at... showing up every Sunday with my smile and "HI HOW ARE YOU'S?" All the while wondering who I could trust, who would leave next, who would be our next accuser, who else had been involved in the gossip and who else was just pretending? Each time completely dumb-founded and blind-sided at the accusations and things I'd hear about. Feeling the sting of the pain all over again every time I'd see someone else give me "the look" of suspicion. My heart would sink deeper as I thought... "No, not them too!" I also became more desensitized as I concluded nothing could surprise me anymore and that I should just prepare for the worst in an attempt to control the pain from becoming unbearable. It all made me stop dead in my tracks, pull back, protect my heart, and put my guard up high. I was left with lots of questions... questions like...
How does God really see me? Does he love me? If trying to live right only leads to pain like this what does it matter? Aren't good things suppose to happen to good people? What have I done wrong? I still loved God but my passion for God and the things of God all but seemed to dry up like a pile of leaves in the Fall, brittle, and no longer good for anything but the fire. All I could do was be honest with God and keep asking him to re-kindle what I felt was slipping away.
Fast forward to today....
We recently retreated to the Mountains (my second favorite place in the world) for an extended time of rest... allowing the cares of life to fade, embracing instead other interests and activities, being refreshed in our togetherness! Times of healing for me usually always involve reading a great author who somehow has an extra measure of insight into the heart of God. Timothy Keller is my latest new favorite author who fits this description. He has a great book called "Prodical God" that brought me to tears. As I read I could see myself at various places along my journey playing out the very roles he presents. It also brought hope for the first time in a long time that it really might be possible for me to get out of my present "stuckness" (is that a word?). The theme of the book went something like this...
The book is based on the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible (Luke 15). It challenged me to not focus solely on the younger brother "the prodigal", as I so often do when I read this story, but also to learn from the other 2 very important characters in the story... the Father and the Older Brother. You probably know the story too... if not take some time to read it now.
Very early he points out that most people tend to live out life either as an "older-brother type"-- staunchy, moralistic and usually judgmental or as a "younger brother type"-- free-spirited, careless and self-focused and how both these camps rob us of the true freedom God meant for us to live in. What draws us to a life of real freedom on the other hand is when we choose to focus on the character of the Father in this story and understand the reality that God's love has the same radical, unconditional, outrageous qualities.
We live like the older brother when our service and moral conformity are born out of obligatory motives.... at one point the older brother says to the Father... "I've been slaving away for you all my life!" What he's saying is everything he had done for the Father was really all about him and his need to control... An older brother's inbedded belief is this... if I obey God and "slave away" for him it will obligate Him to give me a good life and a good standing among others. He says things like... "you owe me God!" (wow... I've said something similar to that before... yuck!)
An older brother also becomes bitter and judgmental of others because anyone who does not conform to his way of doing life is wrong and so it sets the older brother up in his own mind as "better than". What he may not realize is pride reeks in his life and he is sabatoging his own faith, his own freedom and the beautiful abundance God seeks to give him. For the older brother he believes he is just fine... he's the good ol' boy, he's doing everything right and darn it someone better notice! He doesn't see that he's really living in bondage in hopes of having total control... living for appearances and saving-face.
The younger free-spirited brother is the alternative and many delusional, embittered older brothers fall into this role when they realize they cannot control their lives and that... no, God does not owe them. Confusion sets in as they try to make sense out of what they thought God was like. They go for wild living or secretly have a whole separate side of their lives no one else knows about in an attempt to numb the pain. They deceive themselves but their real lives scream out.... "To hell with it all! I don't care about God and certainly don't love him since he let so and so happen. I'll do what I want." This too in reality is bondage even if it feels good and free for a time. Eventually it will rob and destroy the development of anything real, true, living or lasting.
So, if it's not about being a good, upright and moral person or the opposite... a free, reckless and wild person what is real life? Have you ever found yourself stuck here? I have...
Both of the above lifestyles are based on selfishness and are full of pride and arrogance... truth says God will oppose the proud. It's toxic living, hurting not only the one who lives in pride but also the ones who collide with it. Humility on the other hand sets us free! Truth says God gives grace to the humble. Who is the humble one in the story? The Father!!! In the story he is incredibly humble with both brothers. In pride the younger brother had rebelled against the father wishing he were dead, but then later in humility came back because he had lost it all and knew of nowhere else to go. The Father didn't judge him at this point and didn't even let him say a word about how wrong he had been. Instead he was running to him while he was still a long way off with tears and joy, seeing not a rebellious son but only the the son he loved and cherished and terribly missed!
The Father was also humble with the older brother who was furious that the Father had forgiven the younger son and was even planning a party to celebrate his safe return. The older son enraged at the Father humiliates and disrespects the Father in public. We don't see the Father pridefully getting defensive with the older brother but instead he humbly pleads with the older brother to change his mind and join in the celebration of unconditionally loving and forgiving his younger brother. The story does not reveal what the older brother decides to do. We can only hope he was able to get beyond his blinding, hard, deep-rooted pride and let go of his bitterness and enter the freedom celebration.
When a certain newspaper entitled an article "What's Wrong with this World?" an older brother type would have all kinds of answers that certainly would address the big bad world out there while he sits priding himself that he's not a contributer to such things. The younger brother would deny anything being wrong at all... it's a big party where everything is acceptable. If everyone would just loosen up life would be grand! Then there are others reflective of G.K. Chesterton, an old Catholic Priest, who actually wrote in response to the article...
"Dear Sirs... what is wrong with this world?-- I am!"
~Sincerely, G.K. Chesterton
What a humble man... Pointing not the finger at anyone but himself, having peace because his focus is on the God who loves him anyway~ even if he's the cause of all that's wrong in the world. That is the perspective that can set us free... G.K. Chesterton does not judge older brothers or younger brothers because he knows he's been like both along his own journey. Judgment only worsens circumstances for everyone.
Younger brother types are especially hindered from recovery if all they experience when they try to return is judgment from older brother types. It's vital at the come back for a younger brother to experience the extravagant grace of the Father through us. The guilt of what he has done is heavy enough to carry. If when he returns he is enfolded with humble acceptance rather than crippling judgment it will completely blow his mind and radically change his view of the Father and in turn the entire direction of his life forever. He already knows he's a loser and it's only grace that could save him. Right when he is expecting to be confronted with judgment he instead sees only open arms of love and forgiveness-- the intensity of it blows him away... the mercy is so great as he stands in his brokenness and nakedness. Understanding anew the unconditional love of the Father.
The older brother who is "untouched by life", on the other hand, is in more grave danger than the younger brother for he unknowingly thinks he's his own savior and somehow better than the younger brothers of the world. These were the type of people Jesus had the most frustration with because they not only held themselves back from the grace of God but also hindered others who were trying to embrace the grace... Jesus himself said to them... "The prostitutes and tax-collectors are entering the Kingdom of God before you are", when in fact they already thought they were "IN".
Don't believe the lie that you are good or are exempt from certain kinds of sin. I like the lyrics of a song by Casting Crowns that says... "Be careful if you think you're standing... you just might be sinking!"
At the same time a younger brother type or recovering younger brother must guard against judging older brother types too. Even if they appear to shun others or come across arrogant, offering grace is possible if we have a heart like the Father that pleaded with the older brother... he saw the pride and it broke his heart.
Remembering we are all on a journey, are at various places along the way, and that God is patient no matter where we find ourselves on our journey helps me to extend that same patience to fellow travelers along the journey... I have been like both brothers on my journey and hope now to become more like J.K. Chesterton... humbly recognizing that even though I am the problem in the world the Father is always running to me to pour on grace when I mess up and that I need not even judge myself because he took care of the condemnation of my messing up and I need only to embrace the grace of forgiveness... and if I become prideful and arrogant thinking myself to be good enough or, heaven forbid, better than others, he pleads with me to take the nearest exit and return to the humble road that leads to the ultimate freedom celebration!
I'm never sure how to end my thoughts when I write... this time all I would say is please read this book... ("The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith"... by Timothy Keller). It has changed my whole view on Christianity and hopefully is the beginning of some much needed healing for me in my faith journey!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Share your thoughts... :O)