Why Jesus?

 

Ravi Zacharias, speaking of his new book, Why Jesus? says, ”It’s the unpaid bill of the church. We never really cared for what people were feeling, what they were struggling with. We were speaking our platitudes into a vacuum.”

Into that spiritual vacuum, the new spirituality has rushed. It’s a spirituality that deifies human intuition, without regard for objective truth, reality that resides outside our own perception. In that vein, Ravi’s first title for Why Jesus? was From Oprah to Chopra.

Why Jesus?: Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed SpiritualityI respect Dr. Zacharias as a thinker, apologist, and cultural commentator. I’ve listened to his radio program regularly and appreciate his respect of other views, without sarcasm. He gently, pointedly, incisively, points out the world-view issues of non-Christian perspectives on truth and reality. Because of that respect, though I’ve only browsed it, I’m recommending this book today.

The quote from the interview referenced above illustrates his clear thinking and perspective. In this book he may not address  meeting people’s emotional needs, but it’s clear he grasps that Christianity is not just intellectual assent to doctrine, but also experiencing God in emotionally real ways.

It’s that desire to experience the transcendent that has led many into deceptive practices that reject sound doctrine. We are not gods or goddesses nor will we ever be God. There is one trinitarian God–creator, redeemer, and sustainer. He seeks to adopt each one of us into his forever family and to grow us into the image of Jesus. May none of us be taken “captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.” Colossians 2:8

Father, may you anoint this book to speak to those who seek transcendence. May your truth be revealed to every searching heart. For your glory, Amen. 

 

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Letter to a Lost Parent

 

When a parent dies who was not the parent we needed, we may feel a very complicated grief. If we’ve mourned the loss over the years of his/her life, the grief will be less. If we have continued to hope for a loving, attentive father or mother, grief will be much more difficult and strenuous. A way to help process grief that I often recommended to clients is to write a letter.  Something like:

Dear Dad (or Mom or Father or you who adopted me but didn’t nurture me),

What can I say? There’s so much I wish we could have talked about before you died. I wish we could have had a heart-to-heart about that time in third grade when I came home crying because someone teased me at school and you said, “Oh, don’t be such a crybaby.” Or the time in sixth grade when a boy touched my newly developing breasts. I was mortified and humiliated but knew you’d dismiss it as nothing, so I never even mentioned it. I’d sure like to tell you how it felt when you got so drunk at my wedding.

And then there’s what happened in my bedroom at night and how that darkened my heart. I can’t think of those things without hating you. There, I’ve said it. I hated you. I probably still hate you.

How can you just leave me like this? Didn’t you care about me at all? Why raise me if you didn’t love me? There’s so much I don’t understand. Maybe I never will. I’ve got to get past all this pain. Your cruelty does not mean I deserved it.

Your daughter, “Annie”

(And, if you are a Christian) Lord, here’s my torn, messy, sinful heart. I know you love me, even if my parents didn’t. Maybe they thought they were doing the best they could. Maybe they were. Only you know. Please show me what you see here. I need wisdom and grace to grieve. Please. Amen.

Father, may all who grieve be comforted. May those who grieve without you find you in the midst of their pain. And may those who grieve with you feel your arms surrounding them. For your glory and your coming kingdom. Amen.

 

 

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Begin with Honesty

 

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8

Apple coreDeception and dishonesty began in the garden. Caught out with the apple, Eve said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.” Genesis 3:13. The serpent encouraged her to believe a lie, but she accepted his version. In his version, she wouldn’t die; she’d become wise. Wouldn’t the honest response be: “Yes, I sinned. I knew the serpent was wrong.”

Jeremiah describes our dishonesty:

“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9

Like Mother Eve, we are endlessly self-deceptive. Confronted with our failures, we say, or at least think, “What, me? You’re saying I’m self-centered?” “I don’t listen?” “You think I’m arrogant?” Self-deception is our default mode.

Only one can break through:

“I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:10

Only the Father can penetrate our self-deception. Only he convicts. When we suddenly recognize our sin, thanking him is the only wise response.

Even wiser is an everyday prayer: “Father, where am I being dishonest with myself?” or “Lord Jesus, purify my heart.” or “Search me and try me. Expose my sin that I might not cause pain.”

We begin with honesty–truthfulness, free from deception. When we’re honest with ourselves, we know there’s always more to be exposed, forgiven, and healed. Confession, then, agrees with God about our sin. From honesty and confession comes cleansing:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”1 John 1:9

I’d ask where you are deceiving yourself, but how would you know? Come, Spirit of Jesus who proceeds from the Father. Expose our sin, cleanse us from our unrighteousness and draw us into your heart, where all goodness dwells.

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Life-Changing Love

 

Some teachings change our lives. At a small Tuesday morning women’s group in 1978, the leader taught on the “three revelations:”  the Lordship of Jesus, the love of the Father, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Lordship, love, and power. If we are believers, then the lordship of Jesus has been revealed to us and we’ve accepted his authority. But we can be believers all our lives without the other two.

Beautiful Living Room! Pictures, Images and Photos A young mother then, I’d walked with the Lord Jesus several years, but guilt and shame fed my restless heart.  Though I had experienced some of the power of the Spirit and in my head, I knew the Father loved me, in my heart, I wandered in and out of the rooms of the Father’s house. I wanted to settle in but I couldn’t relax.

As the leader talked that day, I grasped that a revelation of his “love that would not let me go” would allow me to move in. I longed to lie on the couch, to enjoy the light of his face.

She suggested praying for revelation, so I prayed. I’ve written several pages in my memoir about this process, ending with a particular experience:  …”a warmth I’d never felt before began at the top of my head and flowed through every inch of my body. In one swoop through my being, God’s love filled my heart. He was smiling at me. His arms were open as I walked into his embrace. It was the revelation of the Father’s love I’d been asking for.” pg. 153, Trading Fathers (Winepress, 2009)

If you question his love for you, won’t you ask for a revelation this year? Every day:  ”Father, reveal your love to me, please.”

Let me know what happens.

Father, more love, more power, under your lordship in Jesus. For your glory and our joy, Amen.

 

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Prayer for the Turning of the Year

 

Thank you for building my faith in 2011 for___________(insert your own experience). Faith is your gift. Unless you strengthen my trust, I will sink into the mud of unbelief. Let my faith, hope, and love increase  in 2012.

Thank you for showing me again, that you are  bigger than __________(insert fear). In 2011, you’ve brought me through so much. I will trust you in 2012 for this area where fear keeps knocking at the door of my heart.

Father, thank you, this year, for convicting me of __________(insert sin). You’ve helped me see the destructiveness of those choices and attitudes, in my own life and in the life of those around me. Thank you for your tough and tender love that saves me from my own self-destructiveness. You are a faithful God. I count on that steadiness. Only you will deliver me from evil and bring me safely to the heavenly home.

Add your own prayers of release and thanksgiving at the turning of the year.

As we end 2011 and begin 2012, let’s release all that has held us back and express our thanks for all that has spurred us on.

May the new year be the best because we turn our hearts more and more fully toward our dear Papa-God.

 

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A Christmas Prayer

 

Thank you, Father, for sending your word made flesh to that smelly Bethlehem stable. Your odd, nearly unbelievable advent.  Your lethal weapon against this world’s destructive ruler. A soft-skinned flailing infant. Your weakness stronger than our strength.

infant Pictures, Images and PhotosThank you for embodied hope. For peace and promise. For abundant expectation in the kingdom that has come, is coming, and will come.

At this season, may we receive again the wonder of this offer. May we recognize that stable’s glory. The beginning of the end of destruction. May your rule and reign come. May your creative, healing will be done. In every heart, in every home, in every city, in every nation, in all the world. Yes. So be it.

 

 

 

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Power to Make Peace

We can choose forgiveness long before we feel forgiving. In fact, we will choose to cancel the debt before we feel like it. If we wait until we feel like it, we’ll never forgive.

Releasing the pursuit of revenge involves several factors. Identifying the sin, identifying and feeling our emotions, developing empathy for the sinner, canceling the debt, along with setting boundaries if there’s no reconciliation, or a slow rebuilding of trust if the hurtful person truly repents.

The process can take years if the sin is grievous. But if we want freedom, somewhere in the process, we decide to forgive. We say the words: “I forgive.” We forgive a person or an institution or a culture or ourselves. We even “forgive” God for what we perceive as injustice toward us or our people.

To forgive sin that has altered the course of our lives requires the power of God’s Holy Spirit. We do not have in us the power to make peace with an altered life.

Without sexual abuse from my father, I can imagine a life of trust, and hope, and faith from a young age. I can spin out scenarios in my mind’s eye of joy and productivity and meaning. By the Father’s power, though, forgiveness has reconfigured my journey, in spite of the abuse, to his peace and rest.

To forgive is to entrust ourselves to an eternal judge who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2:23)

To forgive is to believe God will bring his good from our pain. (Romans 8:28) Not enough to say it was worth it, necessarily, but enough to recognize the Father’s good hand.

To forgive is, by the power of the Holy Spirit, putting to death old hopes thereby clearing the ground for new hope.

Forgiveness grows from the belief that the coming kingdom of our Papa-God is worth all it costs us. (Romans 8:18)

By your power, Father, we forgive those who have altered the course of our lives.

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I Am Still Waiting

 

At 18, I loved a poem by Lawerence Ferlinghetti:  ”I Am Waiting.”

I was waiting for a way out

And for someone to hold me

for despair to take a hike

for the tears to stop

for the sun to rise

for somebody to tell me who I am

for an apology and an explanation

for something to fill the void

for a language of feelings

for someone to understand

for someone who wouldn’t let go

for a rainbow without the rain

for a place to scream

for the guts to keep going

for purpose

 

At 20, I began to wait for Jesus.

I am still waiting.

 

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Best News Ever

If we get the emotional nurture we need in childhood, we move out of the house saying, “Hey, Mom and Dad, it’s been great. I’ll be in touch. Love you!”

If we don’t get the attention, affection, and respect we need as children, we leave our childhood home with two choices. We either look for parents everywhere or we grieve our losses and find God to be our real Father. It’s not that black and white, of course, but those are the three extremes.

At twenty years old, most of us don’t realize the losses. But perhaps we pull up the covers every night exhausted from working beyond our limits. Or we drift into drinking too much every weekend. Maybe we hang out with our college teachers because they give us attention. In the midst of those pursuits, we probably don’t realize that we are looking to fill a hole.

The healthier choice means we open our hearts to ourselves. Because we stop and think, we notice the voids. We start journaling. We pay attention to our sadness. We ask ourselves questions: “Why am I feeling so sad?” “Where did that anger come from? It seemed like an overreaction.” “Gee, I’m awfully anxious today. What’s that about?”

Grieving starts with noticing the losses and telling ourselves the truth about inattention, emotional violence, and disrespect. It continues with identifying and feeling our feelings. Then we can decide whether or not we are willing to cancel the debt our parents owe us. We can decide if we’re willing to see our parents as weak, sinful people rather than powerful gods.

We can release our hope that we will someday get what we need from our parents. That’s key. Because the truth is, if they were willing and able to give us the attention, affection, and respect we deserved, they would have done it already. We can try to confront them and ask for what we need. A rare parent can respond and make the changes. Most won’t.

But Papa-God, the most excellent Father, gives us what we need. He suffers with us. He never leaves us alone. He holds our hand, every minute. He attends to us with gentleness and respect for our limitations and abilities. He disciplines, molds, and fills us with his life that lasts forever.  Papa-God’s smile fills the holes in our hearts. In an increasingly fatherless world, that is the best news ever.

Good Papa, thank you.

 

 

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Abusers are Good at Evil

In the wake of the allegations against Penn State’s Jerry Sandusky, I give thanks for the national conversation about sexual violation. Is Mr. Sandusky guilty? I don’t know. He has the hallmarks of an abuser.  I’m also grateful that stories accusing others of abuse are being taken more seriously.

As we consider how to protect our own children and grandchildren,  Anna Salter’s book on offenders is an excellent, if disturbing, resource. Every parent would do well to read the last chapter on deflecting abusers. Not detection. Deflection. It’s a cultural mythology that we can recognize evil when we see it. We think we know someone is lying if they don’t look us in the eye. We think we can pick out a thief or a rapist. We want to believe we can pick out the person with private fantasies involving children. Salter says,however, that we cannot ascertain private behavior from public. Just because someone looks good doesn’t mean he is good.

Male Angel Pictures, Images and PhotosThe slick deception of which an abuser is capable can fool all of us. We don’t actually believe the scriptures that say Satan can disguise himself as an “angel of light” and that his followers can “masquerade as servants of righteousness.” II Corinthians 11:13-15. My abuser, my father, was a praying, church-going, hard-working, long-married husband.

Was he, is any, abuser completely evil? No. Only Satan himself is irredeemably evil. Even abusers are all mixtures of good and evil, just like the rest of us. But abusers aren’t honest. They seek to deceive and deflect and betray. And they are good at it.

Let the conversation continue as these cases proceed.

Father, bring your justice, please. 

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Why?

Why did my father leave? Why did my mother ignore me? Why did my father violate me? Why did my mother ridicule me? Why? Why? Why? We can get stuck on that question.

It’s a common question. But the “why” questions are only the first layer. It’s not the deepest question. The deeper questions expose guilt and shame:

“Was I being punished?” “Did I do something so wrong that I deserved that treatment?” That’s guilt.

“What is wrong with me to be treated so badly?” “Am I defective?” That’s shame.

Those questions are harder to explore.We are so afraid that we deserved the abuse we received, we hesitate to ask the deeper questions.  We may feel like we did something wrong, wrong enough to deserve the pain. And, most of us who’ve been seriously hurt in childhood feel like something’s wrong with us.

Actually, those feelings are functional when we are children. If we understood, as a child, the evil in who we’ve been entrusted to and the emotionally dangerous milieu in which we moved, we’d be paralyzed with fright. If the people we depend on are streaked with evil, how will I survive? If my father can calmly destroy my sense of safety, what’s to say he won’t kill me? My survival is at stake, as a child. It is more functional to believe something is wrong with me than something is evil in my dad.

Mother and child Pictures, Images and Photos

In adulthood, though, the fears need to be explored and addressed. So that we can get to the truth. Because the truth, the answer to the “why?” is:  my mother spewed evil. My father was a conduit for Satan.
The truth: what we deserved is what every child deserves. To be nurtured, attended to, respected, trained, and taught. With kindness.

No one deserves to be left, ignored, rejected, laughed at. If we misbehave, we deserve kind, firm correction. If we struggle with schoolwork or friendships, we deserve kind, competent help.

Nothing is especially wrong with us that we deserved the abuse we got. That’s the truth that will help set us free. Shame is Satan’s lie. Don’t let Satan win.

Jesus, you have won the victory over guilt and shame. Please speak your truth to our feelings and give us grace to receive.

 

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A Courageous Father

 

Last week, I wrote, “I wanted a father’s love.” Even at sixty years old, there is part of me that misses a good father and depictions of good fathering touch me. So I was touched by the stories of the men of the Courageous movie. Four cops and one laborer show how five fathers’ characters are changed or exposed after a tragedy. Sherwood Baptist’s fourth film follows an abandoning father, a distracted father, a crooked father, and two heroic, courageous fathers.

Courageous Poster Most of us had one of those kinds of fathers.  Many children rarely or never see their fathers. Some have criminal fathers. Others grew up with fathers whose attention was elsewhere even when they were home. Few of us have heroic fathers, fathers who reliably protected, provided, confronted and comforted us.

And yet, Father-God is a heroic father who wants to father each one of us. Do we believe that?  Our experiences with our first authorities shape our expectations of Father-God, the ultimate authority.  If you want to attach to God as a father, start with identifying what kind of father you had. Was he there? What kind of eye contact did he give you? Did he give you hugs? Were those hugs safe? How was his integrity? Did he do what he said he would do? Did he keep his promises?

Then, compare those answers to how you believe God deals with you. Is he walking beside you? Is he looking at you with eyes of compassion? Do you sit on the couch with his arm around you? Do you feel safe with him? Has he done what he promised he would do?

We want to believe God is good, good in every way and at all times. We affirm it intellectually, but do we know his goodness in our experience? Spiritual growth is that continual movement toward merging our heads and our hearts.

While it’s easy to become a Christian, to say the words, it’s not easy to go deep with God. Depth takes a relentless pursuit of our own hearts and of God’s heart. Depth, like fatherhood, takes courage.

Father, give us the courage to know ourselves and to know you.

 

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Forgiveness, Yes. Trust, No.

Forgiving my father didn’t mean I trusted him. It didn’t mean I let my daughter sit on his lap. It didn’t mean I cuddled with him. Even in his old age, he made sexually inappropriate remarks. Though he was a generous, hardworking, and dependable man in many ways, I never knew what he might do or say. I felt oppressed and unsafe in his presence. I could not trust him to keep his hands to himself, nor to keep his words pure.

fence Pictures, Images and PhotosHence, I limited my time with him. I set boundaries against his sin. The matter-of-factness of those words belies years of deep conflict. I longed for a real reconciliation. I wanted a father’s love. In my adult life, I’d never tried to get him talk about what happened. For many years, he was just too powerful a figure. With him, I remained a small child.

However, as I grew larger in my own eyes, he grew smaller. Finally, at nearly forty years old, I wrote “the honest letter.” After expressing my thanks for many aspects of my upbringing, I named the abuse and speculated on his own pain that had been acted out on me in the abuse.  I ended with: “I wish you wanted to know me, Dad. I wish you’d ask my forgiveness for the sexual abuse. I wish you would, even now, face your own pain.”

An excerpt from Trading Fathers, my memoir, continues the story:  ”After two weeks, he wrote a two word response:  ’I'm sorry.’ But he wasn’t sorry enough to engage in real discussion. He wasn’t sorry enough to explore his own motivation. He wsn’t sorry enough to hear my pain….I had done my part to try to reconcile. I’d exposed my heart to him. In response, he gave me two words. Admittedly, they were the necessary words. But they were not sufficient. Two words were not enough to build on. I’d often fantasized a warm relationship with him. Now I could deal with the reality. My father would not pay the price.”

Is there someone in your life who you have forgiven but don’t trust? What is that like for you?

Father-God, thank you for paying the price for relationship with us. 

 



 




 


 

                                            

    				
                    		
   
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