The Clause

“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?” (C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces).

"You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, 'It is hopeless'; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint" (Isaiah 57:10).

Dear God,

Quite some time ago, a legal transaction took place between us. You adopted me as your daughter, and I confess that I’m still a bit perplexed as to why you did it. But you and I are both well-aware of what happened on that day. There’s no need for me to rehearse it. Let me move on to what has transpired since that time.

I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this to you, but I drafted up a little legal document of my own not too long after the adoption. It’s not even a separate document; it’s really a minor clause, just enough to allow me to set up some healthy boundaries (you remember how my psychiatrist encouraged me to establish these). And in light of what has happened this year, it is glaringly obvious that I need to let you know about the clause.

The clause clearly states that if you remove/withhold 2 or more of the following self-evident needs from me—health, beauty, marriage, or children—then I have the right to full control over my physical body and its care. Since the necessary preconditions have all been established (really, I was even willing to give you some latitude here!), I write to notify you that I will be invoking the terms of the clause. Thus far, I have implemented the following:

#1. In order to most efficiently regain control of my physical body, I’ve re-engaged my eating disorder. Now that my more carnal incentives for “getting better”—like feeling attractive and healthy, having energy, etc—have been removed and my body is in constant pain anyway, I figure that I might as well get some payback. This familiar misery and obsession is much more comfortable to me than the self-denial to which you have called me. I don’t really understand all the talk about walking by the spirit and fighting the flesh, so I’ll just feed the flesh and keep walking.

#2. I’m rethinking this whole “Gospel only” mentality. The truth is that, throughout this past year, I have only gotten sicker—physically and emotionally. So it would seem pretty obvious that this approach is inadequate. I’m quite certain that the time for healing is now, so I’m investigating a few “Gospel-and” strategies. I’ll let you know what I come up with in case you need some help with the next case.

#3. Your Word defines shame as that which fails to bring honor to you. But I would submit to you that shame is much broader than that. Since you have called me, repeatedly, to things that make me look weak, foolish, and inadequate, I have learned that shame has more dimensions than I realized. I mean, what does biblical shame have to say to the critical glances of the females around me when I’m dressed wrong or when my body doesn’t look like it used to or even should at my age? What does it say to the strangers who shift their eyes pityingly when I’m limping and in obvious pain? Believing that these changes are ways that you can be glorified has not made any of them go away. So I’m thinking that perhaps if I use this shame as a prod, it might motivate me to push harder and somehow overcome. Again, I just want to try out some options. I’ll let you know how it goes.

#4. In light of all the work I have to do (see items 1-3), it probably goes without saying that I will have to drop out of a few things. I know that you have called me to love and serve at my church and through some specific relationships, but clearly I need to rethink these things during this time. As you know, I can hardly be expected to care for others if I’m not first caring for myself. I'm sure you appreciate my focus here! Really, it's just good stewardship.

Now, I’ll admit that I never got your signature on the clause. But I’m certain that you will acquiesce when you consider the merits of my case. For you are a kind and compassionate God, and you would never give me more than I could bear! Remember? You promised. While I believe that you will ultimately work things out for my good, it seems as though I need to set an interim plan in place until you get things back on track. I'll keep close watch, though, and render the clause void just as soon as you do.

Respectfully,

Michele

Oh God, help me to look at all the provisions that I make for my flesh and to cry out, "It is hopeless." Help me not to just regroup and plot more evil; oh, bring me to the end of myself. Let me live not in my unbelief but in my faith! God, I write this ridiculous letter to "dig out the word"--to expose the pernicious lies. Let me see my face as it is and not as I imagine it to be. Help me, by your powerful spirit, to cast myself on the cross of Christ; to dwell in my adoption as a son; to hold fast to my sure hope; to have faith that you will not forsake the work of your hands. Help me to rehearse the Gospel when I am tempted and not to move beyond it; help me to see your kindness there and to be moved by it to repentance. Preserve me, oh God of my salvation. I trust in you.

"For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).

No Water

It's been hard to write lately. My silence has not fundamentally been a scheduling issue or even a case of writers' block. The problem is that my heart has been reluctant to embrace the mission of this blog: to take every thought captive to obey Christ and to rejoice in the sufferings that are producing endurance, character, and hope in me. It has settled for a self-analysis that doesn't produce transformation and reaped a stagnant self-criticism and latent anger.

The shift from liturgy of faith to litany of complaints was slow, but I can hardly say that it's been subtle. Last week, I caught myself crying out to the Lord in frustration, "Have you brought me here just to abandon me?" I am not the first grumbling Israelite to speak these words:

Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” Numbers 20:1-5

No water. That's how my life feels right now. But the truth is that water for the Israelites was quite near--it just wasn't yet in a recognizable form. A rod and a rock; an act of faith and an act of God.

It is so easy to believe that I will be satisfied when X, Y, and Z are resolved, but when I believe that these things are necessary for my sustenance, then I begin to challenge God. It's no forty-year journey from the "I need" to the shaking fist. Can't you hear the chains rattling? I am enslaved to the things I see, not liberated by what I believe.

No Water. If God did not withhold from me his only Son, how will he not also along with him graciously give me all things? If I see no water, it is only because I do not recognize it. I remember another woman who stood before the Living Water and did not have eyes to see:

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” John 4:13-15

I will not be enslaved by my own circumscribed vision; I choose to believe today that what does not yet look like water is truly water. And, by the grace of God, I will settle for no water but the water from the rock.

Pillar of Cloud, Cloud of Chenille

I had planned to spend some time with the Lord last night, but those good intentions were first deflected by a rubbery bagel and then totally obliterated by a cloud of chenille.

There has been little time this week to tend to my soul, so I thought that my few free minutes would be best spent reading. I set aside an hour with my Puritan Paperback (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs) and a cup of coffee. Burroughs writes, "So far as your heart sinks and you are discouraged under affliction, so much you need to learn this lesson of contentment." This seemed like an unreasonable contention, and I resisted in my heart. "Of course I'm discouraged under affliction," I thought. "Any sensible and honest person would be. That doesn't mean that I can't still please God."

I went to the counter to pick up the bagel that I'd ordered to-go. "Sliced but not toasted," I requested mechanically. I hate toasted bagels. They taste crispy and warm for about 90 seconds and then they turn to rubber. The cashier was a bit absent-minded, and I had a premonition that he might botch the simple request. But I held my tongue and thought sanctimoniously, "Just be content, Michele. It's not a big deal." Take that Jeremiah. I can be content without your little directive.

Then I fumed about it--a bagel!--the whole way home. It was no longer a matter of being sensible or honest. This was about something much closer to the heart. And since I've really been trying to avoid my heart lately, I decided that it was time to get busy. That would give me some time to think about my sin before carrying it to God.

There's been a chenille throw on my loveseat for two years. I applied an ugly mascara stain to the fabric about a year ago in a crying fit. It's bothered me ever since, but it took an avoidance strategy to make me actually do something about it. So, instead of going before the Lord with my confession, I did laundry. My plan was just to do the laundry first, but I should have known that my priorities would establish my plans.

My perceptive readers may already suspect what transpired. I did, in fact, put the chenille throw in the washing machine--along with an assortment of clothing that included my favorite blue jeans.

Thirty minutes later, salmon colored floss had erupted from the machine and was fast overtaking the laudry room. After running through two more cycles and throwing away a couple of expendible items, I was right back where I started. My circuitous journey through a roll of quarters left me with dirty laundry and a discontented heart. The evening seemed to me such a perfect picture of futility, and I chose that futility over the pursuit of God.

Truly, a discontented heart cannot please God. For discontent reveals a lack of faith in the Lord, his justice, his steadfast love, his provision, and any of the food he provides "in due season." Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." My anxious and demanding heart believed that its reward would come by my own industrious hands, the work of which came to naught.

I remember how the Lord guided the Israelites through the wilderness with a pillar of cloud by day; it seemed like I got a cloud of chenille by night. Truly, the Spirit came as the light that reveals. But revelation alone will not transform us; we also need empowerment. Would you pray that the Lord would grant me repentance in and for my hard heart and that he would teach me and enable me to learn contentment in all things?

Anger: A Question of Right and Wrong? (Part II)

Anger can be right or wrong. When anger is levied because my personal rights have been violated, though, it is almost always if not always wrong. It is my way of saying that I don’t trust God to judge correctly or in my favor. Sometimes it reveals a heart that desires the fruit of anger—that desires to remain in bitterness, cynicism, and depression. You might think that no one in his right mind could crave these things. But I’ve even found myself desiring to quarrel lately. Desiring it! James 4 asks:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

Why do I want to pick a fight? I want to pick a fight because I believe that my needs (really, my desires or what I think that I deserve) are not being met, and I want to tear down others who have what I want. I covet and cannot obtain. The last verse in the passage cuts to the core: you don’t have these things because you will spend them on your passions. Oh Lord, you know.

But this recent quarrelsomeness did not spontaneously materialize. It, instead, developed as an extension and expansion of a form of anger that I've been entertaining for some time now—namely, complaining. Ed Welch writes:

Grumbling or complaining fits within the larger category of anger because it is a judgment. The grumbler has declared something to be wrong, be it a person, the weather, or the expensive car repair…but grumbling is more about us than it is about other people or our circumstances.

I had never considered complaining as a form of anger until I read Welch’s argument. His words force me to take stock of what is truly happening when I complain, even if the things I say are true. What do those things say or suggest about God and his provision? Do they evidence a heart of faith or fear?

Ephesians 4 instructs us to put off the old self that has been corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in our minds, and to put on the new self. I think that part of what we put away here are things like complaining, sarcasm, and gossip. Verse 25 says, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” These things may not always be falsehood, but they are certainly types of speech that deny that we are members one of another. A couple of verses later, Paul exhorts the Ephesians to “let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Here we have the fuller guideline, which includes an exhortation to speak in a way that evidences and imparts grace.

You know, if I could practice this command for just a week--to speak only words that edify and give grace--I suspect that this anger would be largely quieted within me. By the power of God, who works in me both to will and to do his good pleasure, I will fight to obey in this area.

Anger: A Question of Right and Wrong? (Part I)

After 28 years of living with this heart in this body, I am still astonished by my own anger. Standard-equipped with southern gentility and sweetness, I act like a girl who can’t get mad. I've always felt affirmed when people say, “I just can’t imagine you getting angry!” Actually, I don’t just feel affirmed; that sounds too innocent. What I really feel is righteous. Self-righteous.

Unfortunately, my anger is of the depressive type—the type that is colder and more subtle and usually manifests itself as jealousy, sarcasm, whining, gossip, self-pity. Anger has always been a stealth sin for me. I saw bitterness and depression and cynicism—but these things didn’t even suggest anger to me. What I did see, over time, was that I was constantly perceiving myself to be sinned against and responding accordingly. I admitted to being “judgmental,” even, but not to being angry. But the demand for compensation was killing me (Job 5:2). Was the problem with other people? With my analysis? Or with my response?

Ed Welch contends that anger is the most common co-conspirator with depression. He offers the following advice:

Anger is frequently revealed by depression. The wisest way to approach this subject is to assume that you are angry. Anger is as basic to our condition as bipedal locomotion and opposable thumbs. If you are a person with a mind and emotions, you will find anger.

He suggests several questions to consider when searching for your anger. The most helpful one for me is “What do I think I deserve that I haven’t received?” Be it a talent, a spouse or child, a job, or reciprocity in a relationship—there is typically some lurking thing that I believe has been withheld from me. And someone always has to pay. We can only respond to being wronged with anger or mercy, and it's usually clear which one we have chosen. It sounds like, at the very least, I have a response problem.

The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Anger is a work of the flesh (Gal 5:20) and a characteristic of fools in proverbs. At its core, it is a judgment about right and wrong—and judgment is a tricky thing. There are times when anger is objectively the right emotion to experience; we should feel angry in the face of real injustice. What we must learn to distrust, though, is our assessments about justice and injustice. It is the nature of anger to believe that the judgments it makes are right. Welch writes:

Look at yourself earlier, longer, and harder than you do other people. This is hard at any time, but anger makes it even more difficult because there really may have been an injustice. With anger, finger-pointing is natural. We are absolutely persuaded that what happened was wrong and we are right. But think about the nature of anger. Anger always thinks it is right, but it is almost always wrong.

It's probably also fair to assume, then, that I have an assessment problem in addition to the response one. So, while anger is typically about a question of right or wrong, its judgments and responses must themselves be challenged by biblical standards.