Rebuilding the Ruins

“It’ll be fun,” we said.  “It’ll be exciting,” we said.  But we didn’t know what a blind crawl was—yet.

“Lights off.”

Sounds innocent enough.  Right about now, though, the high school seniors I’m with are getting nervous.  Me?  Nah.  I’m the adult.  (Are you snickering?  Yeah, I was too.)

After the guide told us to turn off the lights on our helmets, we sat there in the cold damp and listened as he explained what a “blind crawl” is.  A caver goes on a blind crawl when, for whatever reason, he or she has to get from point A to point B with no light whatsoever –hence, blind (duh).  How far did we have to go?  No idea.  Is it this way, or that way?  No idea.  Oh, one more thing—blind-crawlers aren’t just wandering in the dark, they’re crawling in the dark.

“Now, if you’re crawling,” the guide instructed, “and you get to a place where you can’t fit through, just wiggle a bit to your right or your left and try again.”  I was fine until I got to a place where my glasses scraped the floor as my helmet simultaneously scraped the ceiling.

I managed.  A little anxiously.  A lot sweatily.  It really was great fun and very exciting—when I talked about it later.  Funny, though, how all the fun and excitement vanished entirely in the tight spaces. In the moment, we panic. Before and after, we call it adventure.

You see, dark is one thing.  Black-dark is another altogether.  When you’re afraid of the dark, you still have two things: one is you, the other is the dark.  But when it’s black-dark “you” kind of goes away.  The only thing that exists—really—seems to be the dark.

And that feeling of being hemmed in, of being able to move, but not being able to get through or out?

The bottom line (if you didn’t see it coming) is that caves aren’t the only cramped, black-dark places we can get ourselves into. Very often, we can find ourselves in spots like that both through our own doing and through the doings of others.

I’ve experienced the cramped black-dark twice.  Once, when I was in my forties, single and never-married, I thought I might have to remain single for my whole life. I felt both trapped, unable to “get out” of singleness, and direction-less at the same time.  I felt like I could move, but I couldn’t simply “choose” my way out (this is a matter that requires another’s consent, after all!).  At the very same time, I knew I had at least some choices, but I had no idea where “forward” was.

The second time was when I had cancer twelve years ago. I felt utterly powerless; confined in a place from which I could not escape. I had done nothing to get into that mess; I could do nothing to get out. I could not cure myself or rid myself of the cancer. I had within me something that, if left to itself, would kill me (and might, regardless).

And in this I’m reminded of Psalm 18, in which David writes: “In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears” (v. 6). “Distress” here literally means cramped, narrow. Then several verses speak of thunder and lightning and canopies of thick clouds as God rouses himself and comes to David’s rescue.  Then this: “He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters…. He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me” (16, 19). Notice God’s deliverance: he takes David from a place of cramped confinement to a broad, open place because he delights in him!

Maybe today you find yourself in the midst of a “blind crawl” of sorts. Sometimes it feels very much like we’re stuck in the black-dark.  We cry out, like the psalmist in several places, “How long, O Lord?” because, as in the blind-crawl, we don’t know how far we are from safety.  And we set out in what seems to be the right direction, the same way we thought we saw the others go, but now there’s no direction (“ahead” is just wherever you go next).

Just this morning I read, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).  In the cave, it was sort of a game.  The “rules” said we couldn’t turn on our lights, but what if we panicked and did?  What are they going to do, give us a detention?  But in life, I sometimes thought I knew the way ahead but, since I’d blown it so often before, I had no confidence things would turn out any differently.  Worse than that, I think, are the times when I thought I could see clearly and wound up even farther astray.

Some of the seniors I was with said, “Can I turn on my light—just for one second?  Then I’ll turn it off again.”  We can be like this too.  It’s another version of the foxhole prayer—“Get me out of this, God, and I’ll [fill in the blank].”  We really don’t want anything to do with Point B, we just want to get out of the dark, get our bearings for a minute, and then go right back into our old, dark ways.

Faith, though, doesn’t so much mean we get to walk in blazing sunlight all the days of our lives.  It means believing that however tight, cramped, and confined we may be, there is at least light enough for the path before us, and that in his time, God’s desire is to take those who delight in him into the broad, open place of light, hope, joy and peace.

I want to be the Johnny Appleseed of magnanimity.  My one ambition in life is to plant that one seed again and again wherever I go.  Yes, I know magnanimity’s a big word, but don’t be intimidated!  Literally, it means “great soul.”  I am convinced, though, that recovering this one virtue is crucial if we’re to survive our age of self-esteem and “following your heart” (there’s both a healthy way and an unhealthy way of approaching that—guess which one we normally go for?).  These are mere counterfeits, poor substitutes for the high road of magnanimity.

According to Josef Pieper in On Hope, “Magnanimity is the aspiration of the spirit to great things….  A person is magnanimous if he has the courage to seek what is great and becomes worthy of it.  This virtue has its roots in a firm confidence in the highest possibilities of that human nature that God did ‘marvelously ennoble and has still more marvelously renewed’.”

But notice where your eyes go in:  “the courage to seek what is great” and “a firm confidence in the highest possibilities.”  We love a little glory, don’t we?  Courage, greatness, confidence, possibility.  That’s me, we say.  I’m all about that.

Well, remember our little discussion the other day about humility?

At first glance, magnanimity may seem to be the opposite of humility, but think again.  Humility is the foundation magnanimity is built upon.  It’s “the knowledge and acceptance of the inexpressible distance between Creator and creature” (Pieper).  Remember the parable of the wise and foolish builders in Matthew 7?  The very same materials we might use to build a mansion on a foundation of rock can be used to build one on a sand dune.  The difference isn’t in the plan or the materials or even the workmanship but in the foundation.  In the parable, both the wise and foolish builders heard the word of God, but only the wise builder acted upon it, “put it into practice.”  If we don’t begin here, our journey to becoming a great soul will always end in futility.

In other words, any activity that isn’t rooted in genuine humility is mere Babel-work.  Even if what we’re aiming for is good, right, true and just, if it’s built on a foundation of pride and self-importance instead of genuine humility, we’re sunk.

Isaiah 61 isn’t so much my life verse as my life chapter!  I love it as a picture of becoming magnanimous.  You may know it from Jesus’ quoting of it in Luke 4, when He speaks of the mission the Father sent to fulfill:

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor….

The passage goes on, but I think Jesus stopped here because this is where people live—oppressed, brokenhearted, prisoners and captives of all sorts.  God has to meet you here.  If you don’t meet Him here, He has nothing else for you.  He can’t treat you as the person He intends you to be until you are that person.

But once He meets you, what’s His plan?  Verses 3 and 4 tell us:  to provide for us, to offer us gladness and to stir up praise within us.  He remakes us into “oaks of righteousness.”  But He doesn’t do all this just so we can be awesome, He does it to “display His glory.”  Furthermore, He makes us into those who will “build up the ancient ruins.”

Like the One who met us in our despair and brokenness, we become little Christs building those up around us whose lives have become ruins and working within a culture which is crumbling all around us.  We become beacons of hope and a future, and in doing so display His glory.

This is just a taste of what it means to become a great soul—not to be great but to live greatly, not to revel in our own splendor, but to see others restored to their dignity as image-bearers of the One who made them, who called them into being.

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The notion that God intends our lives to be great is enthralling to me, especially in light of the fact that wherever I turn in the Scriptures, He seems to be telling us to be humble.  Well, wait just a minute….  How exactly are we supposed to be great and humble?  The key, I believe, is in our misunderstanding of both greatness and humility.

I began to speak of humility the other day, and I want to continue in that vein today (next time we’ll talk about greatness).  Most of us think humility is a sort of self-flagellation, as if we were to walk through life muttering, “Unworthy, unworthy,” for all to hear.  As if we were to spend our days and nights recounting the many and various ways in which we have proven ourselves to be the dregs of humanity.  Well, however depraved and debauched we may be, to indulge such thoughts 24/7 is not only unhealthy to our spiritual well-being, it’s downright sinful.

I can hear some of you already: “But aren’t we supposed to confess our sins?  Didn’t the apostle Paul himself say he was the chiefest of sinners?  Have I even begun to approach maturity until I, too, can say the same?”  By all means confess your sins, and confess them as specifically and directly as you can.  But knowing your sins, and even naming your sins, is not repentance.  Are you willing to let them go?  Are you willing to turn from them into a new course, a new path?  If so, then turn, friend, and receive the forgiveness that God in Christ holds out to you—forgiveness that opens the way for you to a new life, brimming over with love, joy and contentment that were completely and entirely unknown to you while you were wallowing in the mud of your own filth.

In Psalm 40:2-3, David says he’s been there too, but that God will do for those who trust Him what He also did for David when he cried out from the slimy places of his own life:

He drew me up from the desolate pit,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.

Yes, you’re a sinful person, but that’s not the man or woman God intends you to be.

The bottom line is this:  recognizing your sinfulness is not humility, however appropriate it is for us to recognize and turn from it.

Humility is simply recognizing the truth of who we are—and who we are not.  We are not condemned to live in despair and defeat.  You are not condemned to such a life.  Yes, we are created beings, shaped from the dust of the earth.  Apart from the breath of God in us, that’s all we would ever be.  We live and move and have our being solely because of His life, His breath, in us at this very moment.

His breath gives life to every soul who walks, or ever has walked, on the face of the earth. His breath gives you life whether you know Him or not.  But when you do come to know Him, when you invite Him in to help you, to save you, to lift you “out of the miry bog,” He then begins a new work in you; indeed, He makes you entirely new!  And you can live your life from then on with not only His breath in you, but the very Spirit of His son, Jesus, alive in you, so that “you are no longer your own, but have been bought with a price” (I Cor. 6:19-20), so that “you are a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Our sinfulness ought to make us humble, not because sinfulness is humility, but because our sinfulness reminds us of our humility. It reminds us that we are dust; that we are created by Another, not ourselves; that we are His; that we are broken and wounded; that we are not the men and women He intends us to be.  Living out of that place moment by moment, day by day, year by year, that’s true humility!  Depending on Him for all we need to transcend that old life, not looking to our own efforts or our own lofty, misguided assessments of our own potential (after all, that’s what got us into trouble in the first place!), that’s humility.  Humility is having our origins in the earth, but our destiny in the heavens.  And that destiny will be our theme for next time!

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I took a week off after school got out to decompress.  It’s like my mind and heart are tightly wound, not as a ball of string, but as a ball of elastic.  If you snip an outer piece of string, no big deal.  If you snip an outer piece of elastic, get out of the way!  A lot begins to happen all at once, but still it only gets you so far.

Decompression—you might call it unraveling—takes time and patience and stillness, none of which come very naturally after having been “on” for months on end.  Before I taught full time, I would often take my vacation time in two week blocks because it seemed to take an entire week just to cut the elastic and release all that pent up tension; only then could I really relax, reflect, enjoy, bask in the quiet (during the first week, quiet is unnerving, uncomfortable and irritating—if you don’t know this, you will resort to “fixing” a problem which isn’t really a problem at all, but a healthy part of the solution).

We don’t do quiet well.  We don’t do stillness well.  So I want to look at some problems we often try to fix that aren’t really problems, but healthy parts of a solution that most people look right past.  It’s not that they’re invisible, really, they’re just ignored.

Humility would be a great place to start.  If you don’t see humility as a good thing, then the unraveling of your elastic ball, the “downward movement” of going there, is going to seem counter-productive.  The root of humility is humus, the rich, dark soil produced by decomposed animal and plant matter.  To be humble means to be of the earth, which is good because that’s how Genesis 2:7 says we were made:  “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”

We tend to get ourselves into trouble when we neglect our “earthiness,” when we forget that we were formed from the soil of the earth.  What leads us to awe, however, is the last half of the verse which says that God took this formed earth and breathed His life into it—we are matter and we are spirit.

Any understanding of life, meaning and purpose that doesn’t take both into account is fatally flawed.  If we forget that we are “dust of the earth,” we find ourselves building towers in Babel and seeing ourselves as worthy of all praise, honor, power and authority (even when we don’t see ourselves this way individually, seeing all of humankind this way leads to just as much trouble, if not more).  On the other hand, if we forget the breath of God that resides within us, we become mere animals; we lose any capacity for nobility, conscience, morality, compassion, or even love itself.

I want to talk more about humility next time, but I also want to leave room for a little of the quiet and stillness I alluded to earlier.  Why not take a quiet moment right now?  It need not be a whole evening, or even an hour—why not just five minutes?  Don’t time it—let it turn into more if you want.  But find a quiet place and just reflect on the humility and dignity of being a man or woman made from the dust of the earth and inspired by the breath of God.

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What an excellent and inspiring way to close our reflections on the Lord’s Prayer!  None of what we have prayed for can come to fruition apart from God, the Creator and Redeemer of all things.  All reaches a glorious crescendo in this final reflection, as it lifts us again up and out of our own small (yet significant) lives and into the presence of our holy, transcendent Lord.  And of course, in the end, the glory that results from our praises and petitions accrues solely to the Trinity:  the Father whose Kingdom is eternal, the Son whose intercessions and affirmation are ever-present, and the Holy Spirit whose indwelling power and presence make genuine transformation possible,

But while it may close these reflections, I hope this is really just the beginning of yours.  As I said when we began, I like to pray and reflect on the Lord’s Prayer during long runs, so whenever I go out, I just jump right in and follow the Holy Spirit’s prompting.  But you can most certainly do the same while you walk or drive, or even as you get up or go to sleep at night—any time, any place will do!

Remember, too, this is a form for prayer, not a formula.  So every time I pray it, my prayers come out differently, depending on what’s going on in my life or in the world at the time.  I hope you’ve begun a beautiful journey here!  May God’s favor be upon you!  Amen—let it be so!

FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND THE GLORY, FOREVER AND EVER.  AMEN.

We humbly ask these blessings of You, King of the Universe, because the eternal kingdom for which we pray is and always shall be Yours.  Yours too is the power to establish that kingdom, to bring it into being, to sustain and nourish it, to fortify and defend it this day and all days.  And having been established, Your kingdom will win for You eternal glory as You reign in majesty and dominion, power and authority for all time, amen—let it be so both now and forever.

If we really get the fact that as Christ-followers we are led people rather than driven people it will change our outlook on life forever.  It will change the way we connect to God, the way we relate to our families, the way we interact with our co-workers and clients—it will change our approach to every single day from the moment our feet first hit the floor in the morning.

Today’s post highlights this distinction: Lead us not into vs. Deliver us from.  First, notice the contrast in verbs: Lead vs. Deliver.  We are in far greater need of deliverance than we realize.  Deliverance isn’t just for people who get lost in Appalachian woods or for those whose heads spin as if on a swivel.  This world we live in is enemy territory, and while we are indeed to be battlers (see Ephesians 6), we are also in need of great deliverance.  Left to our own wits, abilities and resources we’re going to get creamed.

Second, notice the prepositions (I know, I know, this isn’t a grammar lesson—I promise to keep it simple!). Into vs. From.  As we just noted, we’re right in the thick of enemy territory.  Our prayer ought to consist not of being led deeper in, but of being set free from—or if you will, led out.

So our prayer today is essentially, following on the heels of my last post, “Don’t let us go charging headlong into a mess we’re completely unequipped for because we think we’re so tough, but rather deliver us from both the hubris of thinking too highly of ourselves, and from the blatant and disguised evils that surrounds us at every turn.”

BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL

As we walk in this humility, protect us from the Evil One, from him who seeks our destruction not so much because we are a threat to him but because we are instruments in the hand of the Creator and Redeemer of all things. Because we are agents of the King against whom he is a rebel and a traitor, we proclaim his soon-to-be utter and complete, eternal destruction.

We remember, O Great Deliverer, to offer our whole selves into Your ever just and capable hands. To You alone, not to any other person or entity, do we entrust ourselves.  May we always lean into You and not into our own strength and effort.  And here before Your shining face we leave our lives and selves, our dreams and callings, our hopes and fears, our desires and longings, our past, present and future, for You alone are trustworthy and true, faithful and just, merciful and forgiving.  No force can prevail against us, so long as we remain tethered to You.

I remember when I was 16 and learning to drive.  When I got my license I felt that, since I had logged quite a few hours behind the wheel and since I drove more or less the same roads most of the time, I pretty much had this driving thing nailed.  Then I pulled out in front of another driver on a residential street because I’d stopped being so diligent about looking at everything—everything—around me.  For several minutes I had to wait for my heart to stop racing.  I could hear the driver’s horn echoing in my head long after he had gone.  I thought I was a better driver than I was, got a little cocky, and it nearly got me into a wreck.

The same cockiness can creep up on us spiritually too.  Let’s face it: relishing the presence of God, basking in His goodness and light, offering ourselves to His provision, confessing and being forgiven—it can go to our heads.

That arrogance can lead us to take chances we shouldn’t because we think we’re stronger than we are, or more mature than we are, or immune to temptations that once would have thrown us.  All sorts of problems can come our way when we think we’re better, stronger, more mature than we really are.  We forget to stay dependent; we forget to abide in Christ (John 15).  We rush on out ahead of Him and think more highly of ourselves than we ought.  Next  thing you know, our lives are a wreck.

Maybe your situation is different than mine; maybe this part of our prayer—lead us not into temptation—means something different to you.  So be it!  If you feel led to take a different tack with this part of our reflection, go for it!  This shouldn’t be a hard and fast formula—let it fit your own life and circumstances.

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

And now, having confessed our sins, received of Your abundant mercy, and entered into the freedom of grace, shield us against the pride of thinking ourselves better than we are.  Give us grace to remember how great was our sin and how prone (and how eager) we are to fall into it again.  May we remember Your great love that separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, as far as the heavens are above the earth.  “How great the Father’s love for us!”  Let us walk by faith that fine line between not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought and marveling at the stupendous heights to which we have been called—to think we are now the very children of God!

Do not throw us—or let us blindly plunge—into waters too deep for us, but let us always cast ourselves upon Your everlasting arms.

[Where are you most prone to get “cocky” about your own abilities and forget God?]

Once we’ve been offended or violated in some way, the walls begin to go up pretty quickly, don’t they?  And walls don’t normally appear out of nowhere; they arise one small brick at a time.  Most of us, when thinking of forgiving those who sin against us, think of the big sins, the criminal offenses that no one could blame us for harboring grievances over.

I suspect, though, it’s really the small, petty, boring sins that are the greater threat to our souls.  More often than not, the temptation to squirrel away a little resentment here and a little bitterness there is hard to resist—it even feels natural.  Before you know it, though, we’ve built for ourselves a wall.

Ironically, the very barriers we erect to protect ourselves from future harm also isolate us from intimacy with others in the present.  That’s the nature of walls:  they don’t merely keep enemies out; they keep everything and everyone out.

However, when we work forgiveness into the daily rhythm of our lives by recognizing and naming the smaller sins committed against us, we can re-purpose those bricks.  We find that we can use them to pave a smoother road of reconciliation and community than to erect a wall of isolation.

AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US

It would again be foolish and short-sighted of us to cry out for our own forgiveness while neglecting to forgive those who have sinned against us.  Make us mindful, Lord, of those against whom we hold grudges and resentments; make us courageous enough to face the wrongs done to us, whether intentional or not.  Let us fools bear with the foolishness of others.  Let us acknowledge the seething hurt, disappointment, anger and resentment that reside within us because of others’ sins against us.  These have birthed in us judgmental spirits and hardness of heart.  We offer You our wounds, O Crucified One—we refuse to cherish or nurse them.  We surrender our desire for vengeance and retaliation; enable us, Faithful God, to see our very own face in the face of those who have sinned against us, so that we can remember how prone we ourselves are to wound others.

[Call to mind specific sins committed against you or wounds you have suffered at the hands of others, large or small, intentional or unintentional.]

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader C.S. Lewis relates the story of Eustace Scrubb, a young boy who becomes “hard” due to his greed and meanness toward others, and so he turns into a dragon.  (You’ve met some of these yourself, it’s just that they don’t look very dragon-ish on the outside!  You may even be one–yikes!)  But Eustace cannot strip off his hide one layer at a time, it’s not so easy as that.  In order to be set free of his dragon-hide, Eustace needs Aslan to strip it off–and he has to go clear down, through the whole thickness of the hide.  But first, Eustace will have to consent.  (It’s a great story–read the rest of it sometime!)

In just the same way, forgiveness isn’t a road we can walk entirely on our own–it requires grace.  Just as when we pray for the Kingdom to come just “as it is” in Heaven, we’re looking for the Kingdom that already IS in Heaven to be established here on Earth where it IS NOT, at least not fully (or we wouldn’t have to pray for it!).  Here too, when we pray to be forgiven, we do so knowing not only that we need to be forgiven, but that our forgiveness rests on our forgiveness of those who have sinned against us (more on that, of course, tomorrow).

The road to wholeness is the road of repentance.  John the Baptist’s message was to “prepare the way of the Lord.”  We can understand this in two ways: first, John is himself preparing the way by preaching his message of repentance, but secondly, it’s the people of Israel he’s speaking to!  They are to prepare the way of the Lord into their own hearts and lives by repenting, rejecting the trajectory they were on and aiming instead for the Kingdom.  Repentance is the road to be traveled, and no one finds their way to the Kingdom apart from that road.

So as we reflect on this petition today, let’s be courageous enough to let God show us our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24).

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

Let’s allow God to show us our hearts, so we can have our own dragon-hides removed, and so we can clearly see where and whom we need to forgive.

AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES

Many times we have shown ourselves foolish and have fallen prey to weakness, temptation and pride.  We have thought of ourselves over others and even sought out ways to satisfy ourselves at others’ expense.  We have judged others, indulged our biases and prejudices, acted in proud and selfish ways both for our own “benefit” and in our neglect of others.  And we have failed to act, we have failed to step in on behalf of the poor, the downtrodden, the victims, the weak and the powerless.  We have come up short in our families; we have not been the husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, children and siblings we could have been and should have been.  We have missed opportunities daily for serving and loving those precious others you have made in Your own image because we have been pre-occupied with our own lives and circumstances.  And even in our prayers to You our minds and hearts have focused on ourselves over others.  In daily and countless ways we have sinned against You, Creator of heaven and earth and Father of all.  Have mercy on us, O God.

[Name specific personal failures and relationships that need healing because of your own sin, neglect and/or hard-heartedness.]