The Road Goes Ever On and On

Man, the Glorious Ruin

Last post I shared my personal experience as a hybrid, a mix of good and evil.  I'd like to borrow from Francis Schaeffer and broaden that idea.  It was Schaeffer, by the way, who coined the title of this post.

Glorious ruin.  A very keen insight into human nature.  We are created in the image of God, lovingly designed and bestowed with gifts and powers similar to our creator, if not in extent.  But the gospel also points to our fallenness, our need of a savior.  We are ruined by sin, disconnected from our original intent and purpose, which is to know God, enjoy him forever, and reveal his glory. 

Instead of living for the glory of God, however, we live for number one, numero uno, me, myself and I.  Our selfishness separates us from God, each other and ultimately ourselves, for if we are living for our own pleasure and not God's pleasure, we rebel against our fundamental reason for being.   Fulfillment never comes from a steadfast focus on ourselves, even if it is a passionate desire for self-improvement.

Most of us focus on one half of our nature and ignore the other.  Some folks have low self-esteem, seeing only the ruin.  Others succumb to pride and see only their own glorious potential or current greatness.  Oh, we might piously speak about our faults, but if we truly face the extent of our sinfulness, it would be devastating, so we pretend it's all "under the blood."  But we are a mix of both good and evil, and denying one or the other is unwise.

God sees us just as we are and loves us dearly.  He knows our potential and greatness.  He also knows our ruin, the ugly side we desperately try to hide.  When we view ourselves as we really are, we can grieve our fallenness, and graciously accept God's grace.  We can accept our humanity and limitations and live honestly.  We embrace the fact that we can't live up to our full potential every day.  There are just too many variables, known and unknown, in our heart, emotions and world to live on top all the time.  But the love which envelopes us doesn't draw away in the presence of imperfection.  To the contrary, it is the needy cry of our hearts which draws God close to us, not our accomplishments.

But we can also humbly accept the compliments given when we do come through.  When I'm there for my kids, when I say or do just the right thing for my wife, I can feel good about being the husband and father God intended me to be.  But my worth doesn't depend on my performance.  So the flip side is that when I don't come through, when I'm tired, grouchy, or just plain selfish, it doesn't devastate a fragile ego because I'm not trying to maintain a fictional character, the perfect, awesome "Me."

So failure doesn't destroy us and accomplishments don't validate us.  We are glorious ruins, people with faults but also  great strength; in a word, hybrids.  The pressure is off.  We are free to be real people, that beautiful, volatile mix of all things human.  We can receive both correction and compliments, avoiding depression or pride.  We can succeed, we can fail, we can be known by God and others and mostly we can live and take risks because the father will never stop loving us. 

Meekness Isn't Weakness, And Other Half Truths

What with a computer crash and end of school year demands, my blog has suffered.  If anyone decides to continue following, thanks for your patience.  I had started a series based on the beattitudes.  I'll pick up where we left off:

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."  Jesus continues with his habit of turning traditional wisdom on its head. 

To recap, Jesus is taking us on a journey of what salvation looks like.  Step one, we are all of us spiritually destitutute, beggars, poor in spirit.  We cannot save ourselves, and are blessed when we accept this truth.  Step two, when the reality of our true condition confronts us, like a drunk finally embracing his problem, we mourn the wasted years of living in denial.  We grieve as we let go of our fantasy, the idolized self that says we are the master of our destiny or the captain of our souls.  We are blessed when we face the truth, allowing it to begin the process of change.

Step three is a total sell-out to God the Father through Jesus Christ, inviting him to come and bring his riches, his righteousness and strength to fix the mess we have made of our lives.  It is an acknowledgement of our limitations, and an active humility to follow his lead.

It is the most unappreciated of the beattitudes, based on the self-help or church growth books that are popular in Christian circles today.  They seem to borrow extensively from the business world or pop-psychology.  The thought seems to be that you can have what you want, you can be a success if you just work hard.  Jesus doesn't seem to be saying that.  If our world is fallen and we are broken, how is any amount of effort on our part going to change that?  We need a saviour.  Then the power of the kingdom invades our world through our obedience and reliance upon Jesus.  We are blessed not when we get our own way, but when we yeild to Jesus' wisdom and power instead of trying to be our own god.

The best illustration I've ever seen of meekness I heard from a Lakota Sioux.  All young males will take a spiritual journey, entering the wilderness to fast and pray four days.  The one question they pray is "Oh Great Mystery, how best can my life be offered to all living things?"  That is meekness.   We do not see all ends.  What we think of as the waste or loss of our lives could actually make the biggest difference in the world.  Look at the cross. 

Poor in Spirit

I can't stop thinking about the beatitudes.  Something about them keeps drawing me back, revealing more about my relationship to Jesus and the Father.

The unusual thing to begin with is that Jesus begins each one with "blessed."  Literally, it means to be exceedingly, dance-a-jig happy.  But when you read about those who are blessed, it turns traditional wisdom on its head.

For instance, the first one.  ""Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:3).  What kind of a reason is poverty of spirit to be hilariously happy? 

Comparisons are never a good idea.  Compare yourself to someone better at something than yourself, you feel like crap.  Compare yourself to someone you perceive to be less skilled at something than yourself, and you get proud.  But one comparison is a good idea, and that is comparing our character to God's character; no contest.  Not even close.  I will never, ever have the love, compassion, generosity or patience of God, not in a million years.  I am poor in spirit.

And that is the whole idea.  Jesus is trying to get us to drop the pose and admit who we really are.  We spend our whole lives exhausting ourselves trying to look good to God and others, as if He couldn't see through it (and most of our friends see through it too).  The dancing part is to realize that heaven's gates are wide open to us: screwed up, messed up, totally lacking-in-depth us.  But only when we embrace our poverty.

Remember, Jesus is contrasting kingdom righteousness with the Pharisees' righteousness.  The difference?  Kingdom righteousness comes when first we admit we have none, and second, trusting in Jesus to be our righteousness.  Pharisaical righteousness is based on performance.  And the sooner we drop our feeble, doomed efforts to measure up to God's righteousness, the sooner we can dance in the presence of the Father.

"God loves us just as we are, not as we should be, because we will never be what we should be."-Brennan Manning

 

Hard Lessons Learned by a Stay-At-Home Dad

For over two years now, I've not had a job where I earn wages.  I'm a stay-at-home dad, a house husband.  I also home-school the kids.  Don't ask me about being the only male at home-school functions; It's weird.

I won't lie and act like a saint.  It's tough.  It really doesn't have anything to do with the kids either.  In fact, I have a great respect for my kids.  They are hard-working, diligent, obedient (for the most part) and self-starting.  As regards school, I'm really just here in case they need tutoring.

The hard part is dealing with my own expectations.  I second guess the choices I've made to go into ministry, my degree choice (Biblical Studies), and my fitness for ministry.  I fret that I'm getting older and that if I had any potential as a minister, I'd have showed it already.  I feel useless because I'm not making money, and even if I were, most ministers don't make much (unless you are a tele-evangelist with a marketable, sure-fire, seven-step method to live the good life).

I took an inventory, asking myself, 'What have I learned these past two years?"  As tough as this period has been, it has been fruitful.  I've learned that:

1.    The ONLY way to learn humility is through humiliations. There is no possible way to initiate learning it.  All you can to is give up control and submit to the humiliations. 

2.    Prayer is a lot like marital intimacy; I give God complete access to enjoy me, and I am given complete access to enjoy him.  I don't spend a lot of time working through a prayer list.  My mental health stands or falls on just letting my Father love on me.

3.    I used to approach scripture as a duty and a way to gain knowledge.  Now it is more a matter of survival.  It really is like a starving man finding bread.  The messages from the world around me (and sometimes from within) are mostly negative.  But the words God offers are life-giving. 

4.     God cares infinitely more about me as a son that any amount of work I could offer his kingdom.  This break to be with my kids is not a punishment, it is a gift.  God loves me not because I'm successful or productive, but simply because I'm his.

5.       My spiritual growth is much more outside my control that I ever realized. It is so Phariseeical and prideful to think I can grow on my own initiative.  But so freeing when I realized God must do this work in me.  I can also forgive myself when I don't measure up, knowing God isn't finished with me.       

6.     Finally, I'm learning that my check-book balance doesn't indicate my standing with  God.  Some folks handle money better than I do, some don't.  Some have more, some have less.  So what.  My circumstances are not an accurate indicator of God's approval and I won't judge others based on their situation either.