I am trapped by my desire, incessant need, to be in the right. It’s true. I am a spiritual perfectionist, and it’s hard for me because so much scripture calls us to perfection. I know that in my sin Jesus forgives me, yet I still feel an incredible weight to do the right thing, particularly in dating and in ministry. These two things put so much weight on me, it’s hard to love God because I begin to view him as a taskmaster, watching for the mistake.
But my friends won’t leave me there. They rebuked the crap out of me on Tuesday. Which is harsh, I know. They told me very firmly that if I could not receive God’s affirmation through community and through scripture, I was going to be out of luck. Very reminiscent of Jesus and the Pharisees, when they ask him for a sign and He says “even if a man was raised from the dead you wouldn’t believe.” I am so like those Pharisees, and, as another friend pointed out, so like Israel in the desert.
And so this week and this year I intend to receive God’s word through scripture and through community as, well, God’s word. To take it as truth, to take it seriously. To pay attention and write it down. To meditate on it. To believe, as Elihu did, that God speaks one way, and then another. But He speaks.
Yesterday I woke up anxious again. I spent some time in scripture, but put most of my morning into writing and praying through all that God has done in me and through me, and affirmed in me, in the past week. I wrote about how much my heart truly desires evil still, and how much I still kick against a God who loves and controls and deserves all the honor and glory and power. I want my own. and yet there is none to have. All good comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Trees, grass, water, rain, food, fireflies, rivers, mountains, humans, brains, creativity, joy, peace, hope. Love. It’s all from God. To run to myself is to be a fool. There is not good there. Just pride. And yet I find myself waking up with a longing to be God, to have it all, to be in control and independently valuable. But I am not, and no one is. My heart is still so broken.
I got in the car to drive to a breakfast meeting that I knew would be tough. I was going to have to call this guy on some junk in his life, some passivity that is visibly keeping him from the hope and freedom that is in the kingdom of God. Me, saying that. Oh, the hypocrisy of ministry. Broken people, all around, in the pulpit, in the pew, in the car listening to NPR.
And so I was. And then began a segment discussing the demolition of the Berlin Wall. This week marks the anniversary of its construction, and so German officials are calling for a time of remembrance of the many divisions that caused the Wall to be built. The interviewee told how most foreigners assume that the falling of the Wall was the end of their division; in truth it was only upon its collapse that the two sides discovered how great were their differences, and how difficult reconciliation would be. The west had known democracy, freedom of expression, and a booming market-based economy. The east had known dictatorship, repression, and imploding businesses. The interviewee quoted a friend who had once spoken to him of the difficulties of the east entering the west. She said, “It’s hard to learn to be free when you’ve been a slave all your life.”
Boom. That was it. I freaked out. It’s hard to learn to be free when you’ve been a slave all your life. God is in my radio. God is on NPR*.
After a few minutes of praise and joy, a new segment began, discussing the Dow and it’s unprecedented instability. The woman revealed that never since its inception had there ever been a period of as much wildly varying shifts as had occurred this past week. She said that all the up and down and up and down was driven by emotions wrecked by what they had just experienced. She called it recency bias: our emotions are most influenced by that which has just occurred. In the stock market, we all fear a repeat of the 2008 dip, even if there are no looming market failures like the housing crash that brought much of the country down.
Boom. Recency bias. My emotions are most influenced by that which has just happened, namely, a hard year. That does not mean that I throw out emotions entirely, but it means that I check them against truth, because they are fickle and easily swayed. God is in my radio, I’m telling you.
Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.
You can’t see? Let’s add some dirt, that usually works.
But, it does. The man washes and sees.
Sometimes you have to stop looking for what you want, and take what you can get. Spit or words, He’ll heal regardless. And even though it feels like mud (heck, it might be mud), you’re learning to be free even as you wash it off. No, your emotions cannot determine your position- you are too easily swayed. And neither can your work determine God’s love for you, nor your value. He gives all and he takes all. And it’s all His. Always was, always will be. I want to be something on my own, even if it’s a slave. But I have been freed, and I am learning what freedom means. Perhaps it means not thinking so much. Perhaps it means not stressing over being perfect. Never acting or thinking out of fear, but only out of love and curiosity. That might take more mud.
But Jesus, I’ll take it. A God who spits is a God who loves, and Lord knows, really knows, that I could stand to be taken down another notch or two.
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*one more reason the government should never even consider cutting its funding.
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