Endless Variety

My hubby loves carpentry and woodworking.  He says he's not good at it; however, he loves the smell of sawdust and the feeling of thinking something up in his own mind and seeing it come into being.

Uniformity is important in working with wood.  Symmetry.  Sameness.  The photo to the right is of something called a "jig" - which allows the carpenter to make cut after cut the exact same way with a table saw.  Over and over and over.  To me, whose art is more verbal and musical than that, that's boring.  But... it's necessary to have structure, even in writing and music!! 

I find it intriguing that the God of the universe, who is One of endless variety, would choose to be born into a family where the dad was a carpenter.  He understands from experience that the framework has to be the same.  The foundation has to be solid, the framing square. There is a certain order.  After that, creativity can be expressed and variety takes over.

Even a cursory study of the scriptures shows us that God doesn't like to be pegged.  Never, ever does He EVER do something the same way twice.  I suspect that this is so that we don't think we can figure Him out and predict what He's going to do, so that we don't get cocky.

Nature itself bears witness to His imagination and the joy He takes in creating masterpiece after masterpiece, no two alike.

Sunsets, cloud formations, all kinds of animals.  The same concept applies.  The same raw materials for the sunsets, the same basic skeletal structure for the animals.  But there the similarity ends.  God seems to take delight in doing the unexpected. 

So what makes us think that we can reduce His working down to a prescribed formula?  "A plus B equals C.  Believe this, do that, and God is obliged to deposit this desired outcome into your lap."  Vending-machine thinking!  The ones who have it all worked out to this nice, seven-steps-to-prosperity thinking have tried (and failed, might I add) to put God in a box. They somehow don't seem to realize that it's all a sham, that there is so much more to God than Him being a celestial Santa Claus who hands out rewards for being good. They've tried to put a "jig" on God.

Well, the jig is up.  Although His workings might follow a very vague pattern, there is no predicting what God will do, or what He'll use to accomplish what He wants.  He might even use things we never would have imagined - such as suffering that we brought on ourselves, even - to work out in us what He wants.  All of it is designed to get us to the point where we realize that without Him, we can do nothing in and of ourselves; we can't even believe in Him - even faith is a gift of undeserved favor from Him!  And then we ask - humbly, not demanding - for Him to live through us.  To grant His power to do what we have tried, over and over again, to do ... and failed miserably.  

At that point, when we admit that we are powerless over the fatal flaws in ourselves and in others, and ask Him to take over, that is when He breathes a sigh of relief and starts creating another masterpiece - from the inside out. 

Befriending yourself

Lately I've been thinking about the two greatest commandments - the ones that sum up all others.  And it just dawned on me that obedience to each of these  (love God; love others) is a response to something so many people pay lip service to... but so few people really believe with all of their hearts (including me!)

The great fact is this.  God loves you.  God loves me.  Unconditionally, passionately, deeply, unfathomably.  

My loving Him is a response to His love for me. I don't have to strain, grunt and groan to work up love for Him; the more I realize how much He loves me, the more I will automatically (in my gratitude) love Him. That's how it works.

In the same way, and again as a response to His love for me, (the thought process is that God accepts me the way I am, so I can accept me the way I am too) I can love myself.  Not in a narcissistic kind of way - just in a way that allows me to look after myself, to cut myself a break when I mess up, and to feel comfortable with occupying space in the world.  That ability to be a friend to myself helps me have healthy relationships with others, to love them as they need to be loved (not smothered, not pounded into submission, but loved for who they are).

This acceptance and love of myself (and others) includes having emotions.  I don't know where folks get this idea, but I run up against it over and over again in both Christian and non-Christian circles - the idea that emotions are for babies.

Or just for girly-girls.

I told a friend just today that stoicism (in my experience) is a sign of severe dysfunction.  

Those who pride themselves on not being affected by things such as grief, pain, injustice, etc., really make me concerned.  And those who berate themselves for feeling emotion ... do themselves a great injustice.  Some of those same people who would tell their friends to not be ashamed to "let it out" (as shown in the Garfield comic above) beat themselves up for being touched emotionally by suffering (especially their own.)  

It is the capacity to feel emotion as deeply as we do, that makes us human.  Including men - and in our western culture, I would say especially men, who are told from a very young age that "big boys don't cry."  Nonsense!  This capacity to feel emotion for our own sufferings and allow ourselves to do so, makes us better friends to others in their time of need, as a direct outflow of our own ability to care for ourselves.

It is appropriate to feel strong emotion when in a situation of grief, loss, injustice, and so forth.  At such times we can befriend ourselves, treat ourselves (to turn the Golden Rule around) the way we wish others would treat us, the way we would treat a friend who was hurting: with love, acceptance, and compassion.  

Setting Boundaries

I've been struggling the last few days to write.  I knew something was bothering me but I couldn't put my finger on it. And last night I couldn't sleep past 5 am. So I prayed about it and realized that I was feeling hemmed in, that there were personal boundaries which were being crossed and I felt that I had little say in what was happening.

So I had to practice some recovery skills and look after myself by setting a boundary, even if only in my own mind and spirit. 

I'm a Christian.  There, I've said it.  I'm a conservative, evangelical, traditional Christian and I'm allowed to believe what I believe without being labeled intolerant, delusional, arrogant or any of those other things associated with the stereotype  most folks have of religious people.

I'm not religious; I just happen to believe the Bible is true.  Every word.  

Because I believe every word, it makes me more accepting, not less - for Jesus Himself hung around those people who were considered the "low-lifes" of His day: prostitutes, alcoholics, tax-collectors, and (yes, even in His day) zealots.  Yet (although He had a great deal to say about hypocrites) He didn't turn away those in the religious community who were seeking the truth either.  

Because I believe every word, I have a definite problem with the idea that the church should espouse the world's value system and accomplish its ends using the world's methods such as promotions, benefit concerts, contests where someone wins a prize for bringing the most people to church, or even the idea that we should get organized and write our members of parliament about some "great moral injustice" or other.  

The founders of the church never tried to effect political or social change.  They just lived and told the message that set them free inside.  They knew that their world was just going to get worse and worse; this was a given.  Their job wasn't to change the world.  It was to be a light in the darkness, shining and pointing the way to the Master.

When a person humbly and honestly asks the God of the universe to reveal Himself in a personal way, He will do so in a way that is tailor-made to the individual who asks.  Some people might start with a concept of Him that is far removed from what He's really like.  I don't really think He cares about that.  What He cares about is bringing that person ... and this might take years ... into a relationship with Him.  Once He does, He never gives up on it.  A change begins on the inside which takes over more and more of the person's character, and manifests from the inside out.

The more intimately that person gets to know Him, the more the God who reveals Himself to him or her will resemble the One who walked in Galilee nearly 2000 years ago. I'm convinced of this.  

Power Begins with Helplessness

I had a magnetic resonance image (MRI) taken today.  For a person who tends to be claustrophobic it can be a bit off-putting!

They jammed me into the place they wanted me to be, held in place by straps and cushions, and wired up to listen to soothing music, my left hand holding a panic button and my right held immobile at my side while they took a picture of my right shoulder with a very large, very powerful magnet.

My eyes were about two inches from the inside of the tube.  Talk about invading one's personal space.  I felt completely powerless.  This beast had me and I was in its belly until it was done with me.

I'm familiar with that feeling.  As a child, I felt it every time I was beaten.  And as an adult I vowed I'd never feel at anyone's mercy again.  Well, that didn't happen.  For many years I was at the mercy of the most cruel, exacting, judgmental, and perfectionistic person I know.
Me.

My expectations of myself were nothing less than perfection.  And I expected no less from the people around me either.

No wonder they didn't want to have anything to do with me or with anything I believed.

Try as I might, I was powerless to change them. And I was totally incapable of changing myself. I was stuck.  And truth be told, I deluded myself into thinking that I was a selfless, giving person, who wanted nothing more than the best for everyone in my life (definition of the best was "what I want them to do").  The harder I tried, the more I got the opposite of what I wanted.  I learned the hard way that the very things you fear the most are the very things that you create in your life.  Loneliness? check.  Rejection? double-check.  Abandonment? oh yeah.

My journey to a place of wholeness, a life of power, began when I admitted that I was powerless.  Totally, completely, with no reservations, no conditions.  In the control and power department, I was totally bankrupt.  I had no resources to control other people, make them do what I wanted them to do.  Nor could I make MYSELF do what I wanted to do either.  Admitting I was powerless gave me permission to fail.  It gave me permission to allow others to fail.  It  opened up my mind to the possibility that if I couldn't manage my own life, much less anyone else's, then I needed a Manager.

THAT WAS HUGE FOR ME.

I had thought I was pretty normal, not uptight like a lot of folks.  But this admission made me realize just how tense I was.

It was like the moment that I received an epidural (spinal anesthetic) when I had my first child.  The doctor told me to get as relaxed as I possibly could.  I thought I was.  I was slumped over in a very loose way ... and then the needle went into my spinal column.  Immediately I slumped forward another six inches as the control I was holding over my lower body left me in a moment of time.  Poof.  Gone. Just like that. It surprised me.

Within days of the admission that I was powerless over other people, when a situation would arise that I had previously tried to manipulate or control...the knowledge that I couldn't control it came to my rescue.  I could relax.  Inside my mind and heart, I could give this person the right to have a different opinion than me.  I could stop trying to manipulate that person's feelings and just be honest.  (That was a trip.)  I could let go (see my last post).  I didn't need to get all bent out of shape because things weren't going my way.  It wasn't the end of the world. Previously, it had been.

The admission I was powerless actually gave me far more power than I had before.  Not with other people initially, but personally, inside.  It freed up so many inner resources that up until that time were bound up with fretting over what other people did, what they said, what they thought, how they felt.  Usually about me.

It's so different now.  The freedom that kind of mindset gives me is the source of all kinds of good things in my life: new friendships, a new outlook on life, new interests, new passions.  Old (unhealthy) relationships have been transformed - and those that couldn't be transformed have been ended.  I am more and more free as time goes on.  And I would not trade that kind of liberty for any amount of influence someone could promise me over another's behavior.

Not if it meant going back to the way things used to be.

The Power of Letting Go

Someone reminded me recently of an object lesson I saw showing that holding or cupping sand allowed a person to retain more in his or her grasp than gripping the same amount of sand in tightly clenched fists. It just pours through the openings between the fingers.

The principle is that the tighter you hold onto something, the more control of it you lose; conversely, the more loosely you hold onto it, the greater your capacity to hold it.

It applies in life, possessions, money, ... and other people.

This was a picture of what my life was.  I had a tight-fisted, obsessive white-knuckle grip on everything and everyone in my "sphere of influence."  Especially everyone.

My poor kids.  I was compelled to control every last thing they did, said, thought, believed, watched, listened to, ... all the ways they spent their time, everything.  Everything was fear-based.  I was so afraid they would reject the lifestyle that I wanted for them, the God I believed in.

Rules, frustration, anger, punishment, nothing worked.

As I gripped tighter and tighter, their resentment grew and grew.  And I ended up creating the very thing that I feared the most. They wouldn't talk to me anymore; they knew I would freak out.  They embraced different beliefs from me. They talked to their father, opened up to him.  He acted as a go-between; they rarely spoke to me directly.  I seethed in jealousy, frustration, anger, and self-pity.  I really thought they hated me. I couldn't figure out why.

I did the same thing with my husband. My insistence on being his conscience - on being everyone's conscience because obviously they didn't see life the way I did - led me to be suspicious, accusatory, and quite frankly, never satisfied.  My expectations were of near perfection. I was always ranting about something or other - even his closeness with the kids.  I accused him of the most terrible things; my accusations were completely unfounded. He withdrew, pulled away from me, dove further into addiction, and lied to me about it so that I wouldn't jump all over him. 

I felt alone - WAS alone - in every way that was important to me.  I'd forgotten what happiness was, it had been so long.

When my desperation drove me to seek help in therapy, and I learned the concept of letting go (the books call it "detachment in love") I remember for a time physically having to take a step back from a conversation that was going awry, and assuming the "I surrender" position: hands in the air.  It reminded me to "unhook" - to let people be who they were.

In my mind, I had to literally give them permission to be separate entities, not carbon copies of me.  I had to decide what was more important - being right, or being happy.  Having a relationship, or having control.  That was the beginning.  That was the end of my old lifestyle and the beginning of a new one.

SomeOne opened a door. It took a while before I found it - but it was opened at least.  I'm so glad someone - someone with skin on - was willing to sit with me and help me work through the issues I had that were keeping me in slavery to fear.  I believe God set that up when I cried out to Him with all my heart, because within a month this person was brought into my path.

I'm not going to kid.  It was a long process and I wanted it to be a "quick zap."  No dice. I had to go THROUGH the process, not skip to the end.

I had spent a lifetime accumulating these compulsions, and it was going to take a while to expunge them from my life.

Slowly though, I learned to let go of my unrealistic expectations.  I learned to "look for yes" with my kids, to remind myself that they had a right to their own feelings and to their own thoughts. I gave up the burden of feeling responsible for their choices, as though they were a direct rejection of me and my beliefs. I had been carrying the weight of their responsibility for so very long that I had lost myself in the process.

When I started to detach from the people in my life - which doesn't mean I cared less, just that I let them be who they were and accepted them that way - I started to enjoy them more, to cut them more breaks, to lighten up, and to concentrate on looking after myself.

Eventually I was able to apologize to them (and mean it) and back it up by treating them differently.  They were blown away by the change.  They still are, I'm told. 

Including my husband. As he entered recovery from his addiction, that amazement grew and we found that we could share lessons learned on our respective journeys.  The stress from feeling like I had to be his conscience, his guardian, his protector, his watchdog - subsided as I learned to release my grip on controlling every last minute.

I started to enjoy life, to feel a bit more comfortable in my own skin.

Best of all, I got my husband back.  I am so very grateful. I missed him so terribly.  He's more content; I'm more content.  And my kids started to open up to me again as I gave them the space they needed to be themselves, even if that differed from what I thought or believed.

Today, we lead such different lives.  It's not perfect by any means.  But we get along so much better, we talk, we laugh - we're a family and each knows that the other loves him or her. The lessons of acceptance I've learned have translated to other areas in my life and my stress level has vastly reduced.  We're happier.  I'M happier.

I can't explain how letting go works; I just know it works.

Out of Hiding

Kids do it all the time. A common cry when any conflict arises is that the other person started it.

Nothing more powerful than perception.  Nobody wants to take responsibility and possibly punishment.  Laying blame is a convenient way to hide one's own.  The truth that both parties are likely to blame equally for an interpersonal conflict gets obscured.

It's been around since the dawn of time.
Recall the question, "Did you eat the fruit that I told you not to eat?" 

Since that day we've been hiding from our own faults, afraid to admit we are wrong, afraid we'll get judged, punished, or whatever.

Once we get into a relationship with God, we keep doing it.  Only this time, we get into the "Everybody else but me" song and dance.  Consider the lyrics to this song from the late 70's / early 80's:  "I went to church one day last month, the preacher preached real good / He talked about true commitment and New Testament brotherhood.  He talked about watchin' the things we say, gossip that can wound and slay / I sure wish Joe had been there that day, 'cause he really needed to hear it."  (Don Francisco)

The truth will make us free.  Admitting we have a problem, whether it's spiritual, emotional, interpersonal, physical or financial, is speaking in truth.  Denying it is not (contrary to popular belief) "speaking in faith."  It is in admitting our weaknesses that we can come to the point of asking for His strength.  Humans can hide in denial for many years.


Much of my Christian life was spent like my friend here.  I was a hypocrite.  After years of saying publicly that I hated hypocrisy.  Typical.

The word hypocrite has two parts: hypo and critical.  Hypo means less or lower.  Critical speaks for itself.  A hypocrite is someone who is less critical of himself than of anyone or everyone else around him. He is blind to his own faults or failings, and sees them magnified in others.  My own particular brand of hypocrisy not only saw those faults in others, it tried to fix them in others.  This never worked; I tried for decades and it just backfired, time and time again.  People resented me, people avoided me, people just plain didn't like me.  I could hardly blame them.  I didn't like me either.

God used some pretty nasty experiences in my life to get me desperate enough to admit that I might need some help - that I might actually have the problem, not "them."  Once I did - and I did so only out of desperation - He stepped in and started to change me from the inside out, relieve me of my obsession with fixing people, and rebuild relationships that I thought were toast. 

He took me out of hiding and let me see the light of day.  I like this.

Taking the Plunge

"Are you gonna go?"
"No, are you?"
"Well, someone's gotta! We've been standing here for a long time!"
"What if we fail?"
"Well, what if we don't?"
"Okay, if nobody else is gonna go, I will!  Geronimo-o-o!!"  SPLASH!

"Hey - that looks like fun  -  I think I will too." Splash!! "Yahoo! this is great - come on in, guys!!"

Any new venture is pretty scary.  I know because I've been tossing this one around for a long time.  But as I was trying to decide today whether I should go ahead and take the plunge, so to speak, I decided to go to a site I often go to as a check against my own status of recovery and this is what I read:

Relax. Our best is good enough. It may be better than we think. Even our failures may turn out to be important learning experiences that lead directly to - and are necessary for - an upcoming success.

Feel the fear, and then let it go. Jump in and do it - whatever it is. If our instincts and path have led us there, it's where we need to be. ( from the Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie © 1990 Hazelden Foundation )


It was just what I needed to give me the impetus, that last little nudge to launch out into the deep, so to speak.

So, I sent a message to a local pastor who had told me months ago that he and the leadership team of the church would be open to letting a 12-step group meet in the church. 

The need, I told him in my message, was not for "just another 12-step group" but for something that as yet does not exist on PEI.  I pitched him the proposal and am waiting to see what he'll say.

I've also been reading a book on walking in God's will ... and it seems to dovetail with this new venture.  The author, one Steve McVey, says that the basis for discovering God's will is anchored in His sovereignty.  

He is in control of the universe and the universe (try as I might to deny this) includes me.  If I step out and do something and it's NOT His will, He'll find a way to show me.  He's never surprised, never has to resort to "plan B" because He exists outside time and sees the beginning from the end.  

That's such a relief for someone who has to know what's going to happen well in advance.  It's a relief because I can let go of my need to know - and just trust Him.

So in the days and weeks to come, there could be a marvelous opportunity coming for me to reach out to people who, just like me, are getting unwrapped.  Or who want to.  And as it unfolds, should that be God's plan - you are welcome to share in it with me, or support us in prayer - because we're going to need a lot of it.  (Gulp!) 

Under the Armor

I like to read stories from the Old Testament.  It's full of colorful yet very profound examples of how God worked in the lives of the people who dared push past their preconceived notions and seek Him.

This morning I was reading in the book of Second Kings, and I came across a well-known story, one I learned in Sunday School.  It was of Naaman the leper, the one who had a little servant girl who told his wife (her mistress) about a prophet in Israel who could cure him of his leprosy. Yes, the photo to the right (above) is a fellow who has leprosy, a debilitating disease, and in those days, there was no cure. 

I relaxed and let the story pull me in.  I wondered what God was going to teach me that I didn't already know.  He's funny like that.

Naaman was a high-ranking military official, like a general in our culture.  He was second only to the king, and when he heard of a possible cure for this disease, he asked permission from his boss (the king) to go to Israel.  And he told him why.  The king (being a bureaucrat) heard what he wanted to hear and sent a letter not to the prophet, but to the king of Israel to have him either take the credit for the healing (or the blame in case Naaman wasn't cured.)  He sent plenty of money, obviously bribe money to try to entice the king of Israel to do as he was asked.  ("What's in it for me?" is a very old question.)  

When Naaman got there, the king of Israel read the Aramean king's letter and was very upset.  He thought it was a trick to get him to displease the sender, and worried that there would be an attack.  After all, before him stood the general of the foreign king's army AND his significant entourage, enough to attend to all the animals that carried the bribes he brought with him.

The prophet Elisha heard what had happened and he sent a message to the king of Israel.  "Send him to me.  Then you will know there is a prophet in Israel."  When Naaman got to the prophet's house, his servant came out with a message for him.  "Wash seven times in the Jordan River and your leprosy will be cured."  Naaman was furious!  The Jordan was a muddy river, prone to flooding, and there were rivers far more clean even in nearby Samaria.  He was about to leave in a rage, when his servants talked some sense into him.  "If this prophet had asked you to perform some great and difficult feat, you would have done that, wouldn't you?  How much simpler it is to just 'wash and be clean'!" 

How much simpler indeed.  It was the simplicity of it that offended the great man.  He had come looking to buy his way, to impress his way into the good graces of whatever god this nation served.  He expected to at least speak to the prophet in person, perhaps to have the prophet wave his hand over him and - puff of smoke and abracadabra - his leprosy would be gone.  But he hadn't counted on this.  This was too simple.  Yet his servants were so earnest - and what they said did have some merit ...

Naaman relented.  And this is the picture that struck me this morning.

General Naaman had to take off his armor to go into the Jordan. This armor was head-to-foot and up until now, he had been able to hide the extent of his deforming disease from all but his family and close friends. 

But this, this was different; this was humiliating.  He had to strip down to his underwear, and expose the repulsiveness of his disease to anyone who might just happen along, as well as to his entire entourage. He had to submit his will to the will of another.   He had to let go of his preconceived notions of a god who expected some give-and-take. He had to become vulnerable in his area of deepest weakness.

When he got up for the seventh time out of the muddy waters of the Jordan (excuse the artist's rendition) his skin was like that of a child.  All his leprous spots were gone, just as his wife's servant-girl had predicted! 

Better than that outward healing, a transformation had taken place on Naaman's insides.  He had come to know a new God.  A "God of his understanding" - one who met him at his point of need and touched him where nobody could touch him before, who was no respecter of persons and who cared about him personally.

Naaman made a decision in his grateful heart, right there and then.  He had to say thank you - not just to the prophet but to God - and for the rest of his life.  

He went back to the prophet and tried to pay him.  No dice, came the response.  This is free.  Overwhelmed, Naaman then made a request (which was granted!) and the request itself and his reason behind it is how we know his heart had changed.  

He wanted DIRT. (Dirt??)  Enough dirt to load up two mules with it - so he could carry it back to Aram with him.  Why in the world - ??  

He wanted it because he wanted to use it as a reminder, possibly as a base to create an altar back in Aram to worship this God, and NO OTHER god, for the rest of his life.  As I was reading the story, I noticed that he even asked forgiveness from God (through the prophet) in advance for his duty to fulfill a ceremonial function in the line of his work:  having to accompany his boss to the temple of his former gods - having to bow his head when the king of Aram worshiped.  He wanted there to be no mistake - his heart belonged to his new God and to Him alone. 

This new God had gotten under his armor.... under his physical armor and under his intellectual armor.  This God had touched his heart, had proven His power, had ripped away his prejudices and his objections in a simple, miraculous act of generosity.  

He would never be the same.  

Some bridges must never be burned

During a time when drunks were jailed, kept in hospitals or mental institutions, or forgotten on the streets, a drunken stockbroker named Bill Wilson decided that he was powerless over his addiction and asked God for help while in hospital for the 4th time.  He called out to God to show Himself, and experienced what he called a "white light experience" as God showed him that He was real.  

Since Bill was a stockbroker, he traveled a lot.  After this spiritual experience and early in his fight against temptations to fall back into drinking, he found himself in a hotel in a different city , and in that hotel there was a bar.  After battling several urges to go into the bar, finally he called members of the local religious organization of which he was a member in his own town. After several calls, he met Dr. Bob Smith, to whom he explained his new-found knowledge that alcoholics need to help each other recover from their obsession to drink.  Thus began the seeds of Alcoholics Anonymous, back in 1934.

AA has kept its mandate and helped millions of hopeless self-confessed drunks recover from their addiction.  The primary purpose of AA is "to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers." 

I wonder what might have happened if Bill Wilson had fully embraced the church and turned his back on his alcoholic brothers, thinking "that life is behind me now."  Many of us, it is probably safe to say, might never have been born, and countless thousands, even millions, would still live in hopelessness and despair.

The idea that one who has been delivered is in the best position to deliver others from the same thing, can be seen in the story of two starving lepers who decided one day to throw themselves on the mercy of their oppressors.  They set out after their city had been besieged by an invading army for weeks to the point where mothers were resorting to cannibalizing their babies to survive. When they arrived at the enemy camp, to their amazement, they found it deserted, with food and supplies aplenty.  Something (or Someone) had frightened the invading army so much that they had all left everything behind to beat a hasty retreat.  

The lepers ate their fill, unable to believe their good fortune.  And then they started feeling guilty.  "Our people are starving and here we are filling our stomachs!  Yes, we're outcasts - but we know where they can find food and lots of it!  Let's go back to the city and get them to come back with us!"  They did, and after the king sent emissaries with them to make sure they weren't sent by the enemy to trick them, they brought an end to the desperate situation of their town.  

What would have happened, though, if the lepers had decided to clean themselves up and get dressed in the clothing that was left behind by their enemies?  Upon their arrival back in the town they would have been killed, that's what!  But because they didn't remove themselves from their identities as lepers, it gave their story enough credibility that they were able to save their people from certain starvation.

A similar thing happened a few centuries later.  A notorious man, known throughout the countryside around his small village for his insane and violent behavior, met with an individual who exorcised his demons and left him in his right mind.  "I'll follow you wherever you may go," he exclaimed in gratitude.  But his deliverer said, "No.  Stay here.  Show the people who know you best what great things God has done for you."  And he did.  And many people were convinced that God still touched people and transformed their lives.

A dear friend of mine wrote a song a long time ago.  It is a parable about a spider who built a grand web in a very good spot for catching flies.  He started the web by anchoring a single strand from the ceiling.  The web was huge and caught many flies; the spider grew fat and never wanted for anything. One day he was surveying his kingdom, and saw a strand of web that looked out of place to him. To quote my friend's song -  " 'What need have I of this strand?'  A pull - and then a cry!  Down came the web, the home that fed, now dead the spider lie..." (© D. L. Shannon, circa 1972)

The bridge across which we ourselves crossed from the dark, oppressive world of our own failure, addiction, and loss is the bridge we must never burn.  We may wish to distance ourselves from it.  We may fear that should it remain it will tempt us back across to the abyss. 


But it is the only way others who are in that very same world will be able to get out of their own prison.  If we lose touch with that, if we forget the passageway we traveled from there to here and think we don't need it anymore, we run the risk of becoming disconnected from the very people we are suited to help.  We may think we are better than they, as if by our own efforts alone we were miraculously transported into the light.  We forget Who built the bridge.  And we risk falling into a deeper pit - a self-righteous, delusional one - than the honestly painful one from which we were delivered. 

Worst of all, who will be able to carry the message to the ones who still suffer?

Firing God

I read a story of a person who was searching for God.  This person had an image of God that was of this oppressive, cosmic sadist who got his jollies out of torturing human beings, who was going to crush him into the ground if he stepped out of line, and who never wanted him to ever have fun or enjoy himself because feeling good was sinful.

Another man spoke to him privately.  "Is this the person you think of when you think of God?"  The seeker  nodded.  "Then you need to fire your god," said the old-timer.  "The God I know loves me, cares about my well-being, likes it when I laugh, and loves nothing better than spending time with me!"  To which the seeker said, "Well if I fire my god, what will I do?  he's the only one I know."

"That's okay," the old-timer said.  "You can use mine until you find one of your own."

Sounds sacrilegious doesn't it....  I thought so when I first read it.

And that got me to thinking - perhaps it's not.  Anything that takes our eyes off the God of the universe is, according to the canon of scripture, an idol. 

Have we made an idol of the rules-based, hell-fire-and-brimstone God? 

Ever since God created us in His image, we seem to be creating Him in ours.  If our experience of the first authority figures in our lives is one of abuse of authority, rigidity, coldness, and/or punishment, then naturally our internal picture of God might very well be that.  It's the picture that for centuries has been touted by the church - in order to keep its members in line.

But anyone in an intimate relationship with God will tell you that He's not like that.  He's more like the God that the old-timer described.  And turning our backs on the rigid sadistic old codger who scares the daylights out of us, isn't losing our faith ... it's coming to faith.

Little wonder that with so may examples of the stereotypical fellow who shoves his fingers into our faces and tells us we're going to Hay-ull if we're not perfect (why is it that it's not just hell, it's Hay-ull) ... people stay away from God in droves.  We know we're not perfect. 

God does too. 

One of the most compelling statements ever stated in the last hundred years in the church is this one forgotten sentence, "God has no grandchildren."  It's usually used to tell people that just because you grew up in the church, it doesn't make you a Christian any more than hanging out in a garage makes you a jeep. 

But there's more to it than that.  It also means that every person has to discover who God is and enter into a relationship with Him, for him/herself.  God invites such curiosity.  Honest questions are welcome.  It's okay to have doubts; doubts are just honest questions about things you don't know anything about because you've never experienced it. 

God is all about people experiencing Him.

If Jesus were as negative and nasty as some people are, people we've seen on TV who say they represent Him, I really don't think that the disciples would have felt like they had to shoo the children away from Him.  (Looks like the disciples didn't "get" Him either, by the way.)

So maybe we need to take a good look at that approachable type of deity, and ask God to show us what He's really like.  He will do that if we ask Him honestly with as few prejudices as possible. His goal is to be found by us... to enter into relationship, friendship with us.  And He'll work around our preconceived notions and hangups, putting them to rest as He walks through that journey of discovery right beside us.

What have we got to lose.... by casting down our old notions of who God is and asking Him to reveal Himself to us?