Teaching to the Test

During the last 5 months there have been a number of times when the lessons I am learning, whether in podcast, download, or reading, have all come together to form a theme.  Faith, personal discipline, service, in each case the lesson has been followed by a test.  I am happy to be able to say that I am at least receiving a passing grade.  God has met me at each point of crisis and said, “Remember your lessons.”

This last week I have had a confluence of teaching relating to the soveregnity of God.  This weekend I faced a test over this.  I understood and tried to apply what I had learned.  The knowledge that God’s ultimate purpose will be served, is very freeing.  Much of the worry that has plagued me during the last few months has been lifted.  Sure, I still feel pain, but without the extra helping of worry layered on top.  I can even say that I am a little excited to see how God works it all out, especially knowing that it is for my good.

I think I will be careful to avoid teachings on celibacy.

Seeing the Big Picture

During the last few months I have struggled with God’s will.  I have done some thinking about His general will vs his specific will and our free will.  I do not get very far in this struggle before I am forced to go back to Job 42.  Last Saturday John Piper posted an article titled Can Jesus Weep Over What He Wills that adds another twist to the unfathomable depths of the Lord.   I wish I could see more of the big picture.

Epic battle

Started reading 2nd Samuel chapter 2 this week for our men’s bible study.   I am struck by how much of a men’s book this is.  Epic battles, betrayal, night marches, last stands on lonely hilltops.  It is all very heroic.  How is my life heroic?  Do I give honor and respect to my enemies.  Do I give honor and respect to those above me?  Do I recognize the seriousness of the conflict that I am in?

Relationship asking

I have been getting a lot of reading about prayer lately.  Reading Yancey’s book on prayer, and the last few days Oswald Chambers has been about prayer as well.  I was thinking about all the things we pray, for which we already know the answer.  Our children do the same thing.  They come and ask for a treat too close to dinner time, or a glass of water too close to bed time or to go play somewhere or with someone that they know is not the best.  Since we are human and somewhat inconsistent, our children have some hope that we might say yes this time.  We do the same thing to God.  We ask for things that we know are marginal hoping that God will say yes this time, but God is consistent, and does not get tired of saying “No” to us.

Then I started thinking about the requests that delight me as a father(or at least they should).  “Daddy can we play a game?”  “Will you read to me?”  “Can I go to the store with you?” “Will you help me with this problem?”  These are the questions that I think God delights in.  After all, He has given us his Spirit and the Word to tell us how to live, but the relationship with him can only be built with time.

I want to share this lesson with my children.  I already recognize that I will have to apologize for my own shortcomings in this area.  At the same time, I am able to say that in the last five months I have been working on saying yes to the relationship requests of each of my children.  It is great to have something confirmed in this way.

The Impostor

My writing is below

The Impostor 08/14/2008 From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off them. Stuart found he was good at math and science. He shut down his heart and spent all his energies perfecting his “Spock” persona. There, in the academy, he was safe; he was also recognized and rewarded. “When I was eight,” confesses Brennan Manning, “the impostor, or false self, was born as a defense against pain. The impostor within whispered, ‘Brennan, don’t ever be your real self anymore because nobody likes you as you are. Invent a new self that everybody will admire and nobody will know.’” Notice the key phrase: “as a defense against pain,” as a way of saving himself. The impostor is our plan for salvation. So God must take it all away. He thwarts our plan for salvation; he shatters the false self. Our plan for redemption is hard to let go of; it clings to our hearts like an octopus. Why would God do something so terrible as to wound us in the place of our deepest wound? Jesus warned us that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it” (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he’s not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for “life” is the word psyche—the word for our soul, our inner self, our heart. He says that the things we do to save our psyche, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life—those are the things that will actually destroy us. “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death,” says Proverbs 16:25. The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It’s a deadly trap God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways. (Wild at Heart , 107–8) To subscribe to this email, create a profile at www.ransomedheart.com/myprofile See also the Ransomed Heart Podcast at www.ransomedheart.com/podcast

I get this daily reading from John Eldrege’s writings. I thought today was especially good. I have been an impostor for many years. Only in the last couple years has God begun speaking to me about this in a way that would get my attention. He first began softening me up as I attended the Discipleship group on Saturday morning. Then He hit me with a big bomb. Instead of turning to him, I resented the intrusion. Oh, I tried to rebuild, but it was clear that what had been ok before, would not work anymore. I was expected to build something completely new. It really angered me that my world had crumbled. I did not like the amount of work it would take to build a new thing. I did not understand that it would be Christ in me that would build anything lasting. Instead I chose to live in the rubble, focused on the destruction that had happened.

Being faithful, God is at it again. This time even the rubble is gone, there is no shelter for me. I can no longer sustain even a shadow of my former life. Sometimes I see bits my former comfort off in the distance, and I try to run towards it, but it vanishes before I can get there. The only thing that is constant is the Light. I walk forward into the glare, hoping to find the source.

Wait

The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

Be still, and know that I am God

We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.

Clearly there is something to be said for waiting on the Lord. Especially when it is the hardest thing to do. It is usually easier to grasp at action than to wait on what God has in mind. This is the foolishness of faith. Will action be called for at some point? I think so. Will I recognize it when it comes? I do not know. What if I never see a clear path to reconciliation. At some point confrontation may be needed, am I the one to do that? I can only wait.

Balancing Beer and Ice cream

I recently read a post at Without Wax concerning balance in our lives. The author, Pete Wilson, is pastor at a church in Nashville. He had originally written about receiving a lottery ticket for his birthday, which caused a bit of a ruckus. His follow-up post had more to do with balance than it did with gambling. I had to chuckle when he also mentioned “fast food, movie rentals, ice cream and other things that we blow money on to entertain ourselves.” I commented that I had to give up ice cream when I discovered beer. This is actually true, but still funny.

As relates to the lottery, I do buy a ticket when it gets up over $250 million. It is fun to dream about what I would do or buy. One of the comments on the other post mentioned God’s riches, which really made me think. Being an adopted son of the Almighty, how much time do I spend dreaming about his riches and my inheritance? OUCH

Changing Gears

Recognizing that I need to stop my puny human efforts to change my wife, I have reined in my tongue. I have tried to keep my communication with her to the minimum needed to run the house and plan the immediate future. This is not too hard, since she does not generally address anything directly to me. What is hard and surprising, is what has happened spiritually in the last couple days.

Recognition that much of my behavior, good or bad, has been controlling has not made my days any easier. I find myself falling back into personal patterns of grasping and despondency. I am also being tempted like I have not been tempted in a while.

I know this is a sign that I was depending on my own efforts to sustain me. This should throw me even more completely on the Lord. I struggle. In my head I know that what is happening is for my good, that God does not put his children through the wringer for no purpose. My prayer life has been a little stunted, but this morning one of the first things I had to do was thank the Lord for loving me enough to strip these things from me.

I think my wife continues to write. I hope that she will write out her position and think it through. Writing was her idea, not mine, so it is not a hoop that I have asked her to jump through. At the same time, I wonder if the effort will cause her to throw up her hands and say, “I do not have to justify myself to anyone.” I have been careful not to say anything about her writing to avoid provoking just this kind of reaction.

These are all hard things. I have been encouraging my daughter to “Do Hard Things!” and I find myself faced by the hardest things I have ever faced. I know that you all pray, and I ask for that to continue. I really appreciate the email and phone calls. God has returned me to the point of desperation, I want to respond appropriately.

What is your position?

I find myself in an odd position this morning. H has confirmed that she will be at the counselors, but she might be late. I know that she will make some effort, and this does not bother me.

I am oddly detached as I face this day. I feel like I have done all I can do, and now I must stand, not that I am not still praying. I have a band of Godly brothers who are praying who are serious about lifting up H and I. I know that God is answering prayer. I know that angels are in motion and there is a great battle taking place for God’s glory and that the winner is inevitable.

I have come to understand that I will never get back the idol that was H. I pray that God will restore her to me as a true bride that I can rejoice in and can walk forward with in faith. At the same time I understand that she herself may yet face trials unimagined by me. I pray that this is not the case, or that it will be something I can walk with her in.

I know that my own trials are for my good. I am constantly turning to Him for the reasurance I need, and remind myself that God’s work is never finished, regardless of our circumstances.

I continue to pray for mercy for my children, that God would stay H’s hand, and would pull her anger from her. Taking it from her grasp so that she has trouble renewing her hold on it.

Fast For The Birds

T, I appreciated you word from the pulpit Sunday morning. I understood, and had already considered that H might come back with a negative decision. I was prepared for that, and prepared to throw myself on the Lord if that was the case.
Instead, H came back with no decision at all, just a continued commitment to her current course. This was probably harder for me than either of the other options. I asked what her expectations were for our relationship. She does not expect it to get better. She expects that sooner or later, she will talk to a lawyer. I asked her again to look to the Lord. To trust him. I talked about the things I am learning, and the things I am trying to show the children. I talked about what the breaking of our covenant would mean to our children. How badly it will hinder us when they go through these same problems, and we cannot speak to them of God’s faithfulness. I cannot begin to tell what it would mean for our oldest daughter.
I continue to try to focus on the Lord. More and more I am aware of how little I have looked to Him for my daily bread. I listened to that song this morning “This is my daily bread, this is my daily bread….” It really struck me that I have been consuming my wife for many years instead of the Lord. This led me to pray for replenishment for her spirit. I continue to be convicted about how poorly I have husbanded my wife.
Understanding the depth of my sin has made it much easier to accept these current trials. I know that whatever I have going forward will come from the Lord.
I tried fasting Sunday. I bet it has been more than twenty years since I last did that. I decided that I would break my fast with H when she got back. This was my first mistake, she was about two hours later than I thought she would be. Other than that, I was miserable. I had a headache a lot of the day, some of it from caffeine I’m sure. I had big plans to use my hungry times to pray. Instead I found myself convicted about my appetites and motives. It was not until near the end of the day when I thought that H would be arriving soon, that I came to the point of bowing before God and acknowledging what a wretched man I am. I know God’s purpose was accomplished in this, but as one who has never disciplined his body, all I can say is ouch!