Ring of Power

I've been struggling the past while with control issues... mostly attempts of others to control me - but also the feeling of powerlessness, frustration, and anger that results within me when others try to manipulate or control me or someone I care about.  

Most frustrating is the knowledge that as much as I want it to happen, the growth and the freedom that has happened within me (as limited as it might be) is not something I can impart or impose on anyone else.  Each person has to come to his or her own personal "bottom" and really WANT to be free, before that kind of change can occur.  

Source (via Google Images):
http://shirleytwofeathers.blogspot.com/2011/12/its-not-my-fault.html

I find great symbolism in the story of Frodo and the One Ring.  It was forged by Sauron - whose name, in one of the fictitious Middle Earth languages, means "terrible."  He  created it so as to control all other domains of influence. Some refer to it as "the Ring of Power." 

It's the Self.


It's all about control.

The quest to control others, to control outcomes, to use any means necessary to bend people and circumstances to our will ... this is its seductive grip.  Some people live their whole lives enslaved by it.  Frodo, in LOTR (Lord of the Rings) falls into possession of the Ring and is given the quest to take it to a specific spot and destroy it, to break Sauron's evil power.  He is warned that the Ring is seductive, that it will try to gain control over him and get him to wear it, so that he will be compelled to take it back to its evil and ruthless creator.  During the entire trilogy, Frodo battles with his own insides as this powerful call becomes stronger and stronger, the closer he gets to the fires of Orodruin - its forging-place and therefore the only place it can be destroyed. The Ring has already driven poor Smeagol (a.k.a. Gollum) insane: his only desire is to touch his "precious", to own its power once again.  

The call is that strong. Some - like Gollum - never escape it.  Even Frodo - with his fellowship helping him through the entire journey - comes to the brink of yielding to its pull on his soul at the end of his quest.  

Tolkien's classic tale is what one of my favorite authors, John Eldredge, would call "mythic" - in that it tells the age-old story of humankind and teaches three lessons:  
(1) We are born into a war, an epic struggle between good and evil which rages, unseen, all around us, 
(2) Things are not what they appear, and 
(3) Each of us has a key role to play - whether for good or for evil.  

The path of freedom may take us through many dangers, some of our own making, and some ... not.  

Which brings me to my struggle of late.  The relentless whisper of Self calls to me and tries to seduce me into seizing control by any means necessary.  If not overt in nature, it will use the attempts of others who have believed its lies and who have become enslaved to it, in order to distract me from my quest to be free of its bondage in my life. These others see nothing wrong with their pursuit of power, of control.  Even lies (which include lies of omission) are justified.  The deception is fierce and the stakes are high.  The Self will try to delude me into thinking I am helping these other people by playing along with them, by associating with them and coming alongside of them in their own poison prison. What that does is that it infects me with their malaise.  It does not help them; it hinders me.  The Self (that Ring of Power) will try to convince me - failing the compromise route - that it is my job to confront and expose the error of their choices.  All this does is embroil me in the same slavish soup in which they themselves are cooking. They must travel their own road.  I cannot travel it for them.

The only way for me is to heed the Quest.  To pay attention to my own journey, not to theirs.  To accept that their path is their path, and mine is mine.  I cannot add the call of their Self to the call of my Self.  It would be too much for me and I would fail.  

I can only put one foot in front of the other, and remember why I am here.

Shoulds and Oughtas - Let the Walls Come Down

Remember the festive spirit that was present when the Berlin Wall came down?

The crowd cheering and roaring, the symbol of their captivity and oppression toppling before their eyes? it's a scene one doesn't easily forget. Some were yelling their heads off, some were throwing rocks at the wall, some were weeping, their faces in their hands. All great reactions to the tearing down of a thing that had been there all their lives, something that held them back, something that separated some of them from their loved ones, something that represented imprisonment, inhumanity, persecution, limitation.

On both sides of the wall before it came down, people went on with their lives and while they were doing so, some if not most of them probably justified their lifestyles. On the west side, people knew some of what was going on, on the other side. They'd heard the gunshots, they'd harbored those who had escaped, and they knew there were probably thousands of people on the other side of that wall who desperately wanted to get out but were afraid to try. Yet the ones in freedom were powerless to do anything to get them out. The decision had to be made by the people on the east side.

On the east side, there were those completely satisfied with the status quo, espousing the rhetoric of the government of the day. Others couldn't stand the oppression and risked their lives to leave. Few made it; the others were held up as an example of what happens to those who try. But there were still others (and dare I say these were the majority) who didn't want to risk life and limb to escape - yet they wistfully looked at that wall and wondered what life would be like if they were ever to be able to see on the other side.

I am going out on a limb here and saying that in many ways, the modern church is like living on the east side of the wall before it came down. Regimented, oppressive, judgmental, protectionist. Those who dare try to get out of that mold, the mold expected by the religious powers that be (I say religious deliberately), find themselves ostracized, stripped bare and crucified by the same people who say they espouse the teachings of Christ. But mostly, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who see the limitations, who despise the rules and regulations, and don't dare try to escape because they see how the ones who try to break free are treated. They want to be free. They hate what the church has become. Yet they have nowhere else to go. They know that only Jesus has the words of eternal life, and they are afraid that by "quitting Christianity" as one lady put it recently, they'll lose the only reference point they'll have, and will endanger their eternal soul. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The good news is that long ago, before we ever got in this horrible predicament, Jesus DID tear the wall down. The Bible tells us that the dividing wall that kept us from God was torn down when Jesus died on the cross. The veil of the Temple, six inches thick and several hundred pounds, that stood between the holy place and the most holy place - representing separation from God - was ripped from the top to the bottom as soon as Jesus cried out, "It is finished!" (From the Greek tetelestai, which means "accomplished" - in the sense of an unbreakable contract being fulfilled.) Did you get that? From the top to the bottom.

God Himself tore down the wall.

Relationship with Him trumps rules and regulations, the shoulds and the oughtas. It is about this life of intimacy, this life lived every moment in the Spirit of God, that Jesus said, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink! He who believes in Me, as the Scriptures said, 'out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water!' "

He comes to live inside of us when we claim Him as our personal Rescuer - the only way for us to approach a holy God. He forgives us. He makes us pure before Him. He loves us unconditionally. Passionately. Deeply.

The more we realize this, the more our gratitude overflows back to Him. It changes us on the inside...and overflows into a two-way love-relationship with Him: a oneness that can ONLY happen through the Spirit of God. Such a life can only be lived from the inside out, flowing from our trysting, our intimacy with Him. We love Him, the Bible says, because He first loved us. So, in response to His great love, our "return" love bursts out toward Him, overflows all over us and all over the lives of those with whom we come in contact.

In the context of that kind of intimacy, we don't need to "try" to live the Christian life. It's not something we have to put on like someone would put on a sweater. It is the inner glory, the love and the joy and the peace that clothe us from the inside, where He lives, where He loves us beyond our ability to comprehend, where we can't help but love Him back.

The question that gets us from behind the wall to where He waits for us is this:
Do we trust Him?

Are we willing to let go of everything we've leaned upon, all the s'postas and the gottas, all the stress we unnecessarily place on ourselves (as if it were up to US to save, heal, fix, and rescue everyone) - and give ourselves unreservedly with complete abandon ... to Him and Him alone? to turn our will and our lives - all of it - over to His loving care? Warts, failures, hurts, anger, pride, resentment, bitterness, fear, insecurity and all? just as we are?

It truly is a leap of faith. I'm not talking about "leaving the church." I'm talking about "embracing Christ" - walking in intimate relationship with Him.

I won't lie to you. It's a scary step. But His question still remains, perhaps as yet unanswered. "Will you trust Me?"

With that question hanging in the air, turn up the volume and listen to this story about a "Cosmic Cowboy" told in the 1970s by a man named Barry McGuire. Hear the call of Jesus in it: "Will you trust Me?"

Isn't it time? He's the only way out.
Go ahead ... jump.

Always enough, always more

One of the wonderful things about the Christian life is that just when you think you have it by the tail, God reveals even More of Himself - and it blows you away all over again.

I was thinking of Moses this evening. He first met God in a way that cut through all his objections, all his baggage, and brought him to the place where he was willing to be the Deliverer that was promised. Although not a word-for-word rendering, the way Disney's Prince of Egypt renders that meeting (click on this bolded text to see it) is pretty potent. The first time I saw it, in the theatre at full volume, it left me breathless, my face soaked with tears.

The Bible says that Moses spoke with God as a man speaks with his friend. He had several meetings with God. The first was in itself a powerful experience. Life-changing!

But he went even deeper while seeing God's wonders being done in Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, and getting the ten commandments.

He might have believed that he knew God as intimately as one could possibly know Him. Yet - God had other things to teach him and the most important one was that one can never fully know all there is of God. There is always more.

Moses desired so desperately to know God deeper and deeper. He asked Him, begged Him, to show him His glory. God told him that seeing His face was impossible to survive for human flesh - but He would let Moses see His back parts. When Moses came down from that encounter, his face shone so brightly that people had to ask him to wear a veil over his face when he was with them. He only took the veil off when he went to meet with God again.

That brilliance rested on him for weeks afterward.

After God gave Moses the instructions to build the tabernacle (a tent that would house the Ark of the Covenant when they were not traveling), and it was built, the Levites took the Ark into the tabernacle for the first time and left it in the Most Holy Place. God's presence came down to rest in that enclosed space. Moses thought he could go into the tabernacle and meet with God as he had on the mountain.

But he could physically get no further than the door; the shekinah (glory) presence of God stopped him in his tracks. The manifest presence of God was so great, so powerful, that not even Moses - who had spoken with God as a friend - could get near.

He learned that God is so incredibly great that it is never possible to fathom the depths, the widths, and the heights of His awesomeness. There is always more.

That is a most humbling experience. It is a warning to those among us who would convince themselves that they have a monopoly on God - that He only speaks in this or that way, that He only acts in this or that prescribed manner. He is so much bigger than that. Moses learned this through the things he went through in the wilderness, through years of getting to know God in ever-increasing intimacy.

And he wrote about his experiences so that we would know that there is never an end to the possibilities of going deeper and deeper into God by the power of His Spirit. There is never an end to His love, to His grace, to His patience, to His kindness, to His power, to His integrity, to His justice, to His faithfulness...and so much ...more.