It's no secret to anyone who knows me that the last few months have been some of the hardest of my life. I've been faced with many things I never thought I would have to face. We all have our own inner battles, we all have our imperfections that need to be worked out with God. Some people would look at my past few months and say, "What a wimp. He didn't have to go through anything hard at all." And in some ways they'd be correct. I didn't have any deaths in the family, I didn't have to face a critical disease or sickness, etc... But then again, I've faced those things at other points in my life and dealt with them pretty well. Some people collapse when the outside world is collapsing, others rise. I'm a riser. That's not my weakness.
No, in some ways my weakness is much weaker and almost embarrassing. I've learned the past few months that the greatest weakness in me is that, after years of working toward the desires of my heart and sacrificing for them, I actually started to think I deserved those things. In short, I allowed myself to fall into the ugly mindset of entitlement. I don't know how it happened, I don't know when. But somewhere in the past couple years I made an agreement that moved beyond hope into expectancy, but the wrong kind of expectancy. Somewhere along the line I made an agreement that said, "I've lost my parents, I've struggled financially, I've fought to get through school. So when I graduate I WILL get mine, because I deserve it." Instead of making my expectancy reliant on God's nature, instead of trusting that whatever He had was good for me and part of the plan of growing me toward good things, I fully formed my expectancy from my own plan.
Now whether or not that plan was good or bad is irrelevant. My plan was to finally get into ministry in order that I could help people encounter the love of God. My plan was to finally have steady income to take care of my family, be more generous, and to build toward the inheritance of my kids and grandkids. My plan was, after years of transplanting my family, to finally plant in a community and become a part of it. All in all, not a bad plan. In fact, it's a plan I truly believe God has for me as well.
But somehow, somewhere, I made the plan my hope and my future. I made the plan my security, and I moved God to second place.
As a recent graduate of ministry school who wants to teach, preach, and father others into their identities with God this is a very hard thing to admit. I've never expected myself to be perfect or any other nonsense that other leaders fall into, but in some ways what I've done is worse.
The process of discovering this and recovering from it has been one of the most difficult points of my life. Some of that process is covered in my previous blogs. I look back on some of what I've written and find it foolish. I've even been tempted to pull them down instead of embarrassing myself. But I've decided against it. It's important to see process. It's important to know the struggles of others in order to know the full extent of their victories. It's important to see the full power of God's grace. I think of C.S. Lewis writing A Grief Observed, and the courage it took to publish that book. I think of how that book has helped me many times in my life. I don't know if my blogs will ever do that for anyone else, but if I pull them down they will never have the chance.
My victory is still not complete, but there's light now. I see so much that I couldn't see before. Lewis writes at the end of A Grief Observed that he had been like a person in pitch black, who suddenly heard a sound that alerted them to the fact that he had never been as alone as he had perceived because of the darkness. How his perception had been wrong the entire time. I feel the same.
I do not know what God is doing in my life, but I know He is doing something. It would have been so easy for me in the past few months to fall into the trap of believing God was somehow not good, or that He had abandoned me. There were moments when I was on the brink, especially because my emotions did feel that way. But thankfully the foundation bred in me is deep and strong. I could no sooner start to believe those lies then I could believe that the earth was flat. To change those beliefs would have meant creating a new faith, it would have meant rewriting my history. A history that runs deep with miracles, love encounters, and intellectual depth. For all the hell my emotions were running through they never could quite overcome one of my stronger traits, that of honesty.
And so I've been processing and processing, and I will continue to process more. There is still so little I understand about why I'm where I'm at. There is still so little come to fruition from what I've sown over the years. I still have days where it's extremely difficult for me to face what I feel is great disappointment in my life. It's difficult, but it once seemed impossible. I'm ok with baby steps forward.
For now, I'm learning how to be content in every circumstance. I'm learning how to worry only about the day I'm in and leave the future to the future. Life is sometimes a harsh teacher, but it is still a teacher. For all the things we must deal with whether from God or totally apart from Him, He still uses it. At the basest level He's always teaching us, it's just up to us whether we want to learn the lesson or keep ignoring it. I see now that He had to allow my dreams to be stripped bare. He had to allow my expectancy and my entitlement to be crushed. He had to allow it in order that He can teach me the right way to do it. He had to remind me that He was enough, and if I seek Him first all these other things will follow.
I'm still learning. I'm not there yet, but I can finally see the course I'm on. The inner pain which was so searingly hot before is now the beginnings of fresh scars. Still not fully healed, still a little irritable, but no longer leaking life.
I wrote some weeks ago that I was learning to let go of my expectations. While I wrote cynically I now see that the message was not altogether wrong. The heart was, but not necessarily the message. I did have to move beyond my expectations in order that He can grow in me new ones. In order that He can grow them with the right focus. At the moment, I'm at a lack. My expectations are gone, my hopes and dreams are unfocused and rudderless. But it's ok. As I grow to make Him my hope and dream the rest of the blanks will fill in.
Recently Kris Vallotton, the founder of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry of which I graduated, remarked that He was afraid that the message they were teaching about God's goodness had inadvertently bred alumni who felt entitled. When I first heard him voice this concern I agreed, for I saw it in myself. I no longer do. The truth is, it's not the fault of the school. They are simply teaching a truth and steering their students toward God in a way that most Western Christians have somehow overlooked in all their pursuit of knowledge and logic. It's a truth that needs to be spread. The real problem is human nature. When we find out we have a wonderful God who's not mad at us, a loving Father in heaven who cares about our desires and will always take care of us then the natural course of the fallen nature is to get spoiled. You need look no further than the upbringing of most wealthy children to know that it is true. The coinciding truth which removes that feeling of entitlement is not something which can be taught by theory but only experienced. It's not until we experience how flawed our own strength, planning, and logic is that most of us can move past that entitlement sense. Obviously some grasp these truths without struggle, but most of those that do have been humbled so much in their lives that they are already looking through the correct lens. It's easy to feel entitled when you learn that you cannot fail in God, what removes that entitlement is learning that the deeper truth is that the reason you cannot fail is because your "failures" still teach you. You "fall forward" so to speak.
These last months have been my advanced course in these things. They have been my "hell week", the week in which athletes are pushed so hard they cannot bear it any longer, in order to shock their systems into the shape needed to hold up under the grueling long season. I've encountered, fought with, been beaten down by, and been forced to re-conquer every weakness in my life this past season. Most of the time I've hated myself during it. Thankfully He never hated me. When I drank too much and dared to listen to Him all He'd say was, "I love you, I'm proud of you." When I was distant from my family in depression He'd tell me "You're doing good, hang in there." When I screamed and cried out curse words in my hurt and despair He'd wait for me to calm down, and then I could feel the warmth of His smile on me. He is so good, and He is so loving. He has just been waiting on my process, loving me the whole time. I don't deserve it for a second, but He doesn't care. He refuses to give up on me, and He refuses to treat me any less than a redeemed son. I've gone through my "dark night of the soul" and found that the darkness was simply the dark in me being brought to my attention. He's been letting me hit bottom in order to build me back up better.
For the first time in my life I feel like I truly understand what has long been my favorite verse. I'm learning to rejoice in my weakness in order that He can make me strong.
No comments:
Post a Comment