Power

On Christmas two years ago, my dog was dreadfully sick.  My dog was dreadfully sick, and I experienced a miracle.  (You can read about it here.)

That miracle changed my life.  It's taken me nearly two years to figure out what it was about that night that left a crater in my soul.  My mind and heart and soul have gone back to it over and over, like a tongue explores a hole left by an extracted tooth, trying to understand what it was about that evening that simply will not let me go.  And I think I have finally figured out why it staggered me so.It's not that the vet was available on Christmas Day, although that was cool.  It's not so much that my dog was healed, although that was incredible.  It's not that, two year later and multiple health problems later, she's still alive, although that's pretty cool, too.  (I'm rather fond of her.)  It's not even that God heard and answered prayer, although that is probably the most wonderful of all.  But it wasn't any of those things. 

That night has fundamentally altered the way I understand power.

You see, I always knew that God could and did heal miraculously.  I've never doubted that.  I have friends and family who have been miraculously healed.  So although it was absolutely amazing and glorious to experience it first-hand and personally, that wasn't what shifted my universe.
I also knew that he hears and answers prayer. I've experienced that, too, in some awesome ways.  So while I was (and always am) astonished that the King of all the universe stoops to hear his little child, it also wasn't outside of my world of experience.
I even knew that there are people out there who are so decent and gracious they'd stop what they're doing on Christmas Day to help out a sick dog (and maybe the people who love her).  So as wonderful as that was, it wasn't enough to pull the rug out from under me.

But what I didn't know, what I had never experienced before, was the kind of power I experienced that night in the vet's office.  Nothing had prepared me for that.

In my world, power was something to be feared.  It was big and strong, loud and dominating, fearsome and threatening.  It was used to control and hurt those who have less power.  But power got things done.  Power was strength.  Power made people winners.

In my world, gentleness evidenced lack of power.  Gentleness meant you were weak, ineffective, soft. And gentleness was, well . . . nice.  Nice, but useless.  Gentleness could comfort but not protect.  Gentleness could make you feel better but it wouldn't change anything.  Gentleness meant you would get hurt.  Gentle people were loving and sweet and kind and nice, but pathetic, like defenseless lambs in a lion's den, just waiting to be ripped limb from fleece.  Gentleness made people victims.

If you had power and I didn't, you would use that power to hurt me.  So I had to either pretend I had power, too, so you didn't hurt me, or if the power differential was too great for me to overcome with bluster, I had to hide from you so that you would never see how powerless I truly was.  You might pretend you weren't going to hurt me, or you might be nice for a while, but eventually, always, your power and my lack of power meant I would be crushed.  So I blustered and postured and acted tough to convince you I had power when I didn't, or I hid behind defenses to keep you at bay so you'd never see how weak I really was.  I covered my inner lamb in a lion's skin.  I hated the power game, but I thought I understood it, and I had learned to survive in it.

Eventually, I began to learn that sometimes power could be used for good instead of for harm.  I got to a place where I loved Psalm 18 -- that picture of a powerful warrior God coming down in the midst of thunder and lightning to stand in defence of his people.  I liked the idea that all that big and strong, loud and dominating, fearsome and threatening could be used against my enemies instead of against me.  I tried to trust a small handful of people whose power was greater than my own, tried to believe that even though they had great power, they would not use that power against me.  I entertained the thought that if gentle people were like lambs in a lion's den, maybe there could be a few lions out there who didn't like the taste of lamb.  I wondered if maybe there could be lions who could use their power to protect the lambs rather than attack them. 

But never once did it cross my mind that power could be gentle.  Power might be protective, but not gentle. I thought that it was the very bigness, strength, loudness, domination, fearsomeness or threat that created the power.  Strip away the noise and you strip away the power. It never dawned on me that power might not be big or strong, loud or dominating, fearsome or threatening, but would still be powerful.

But that night in the vet's office, I experienced a gentle power and it blasted a hole through the defenses I still had erected around my heart.  I knew, I knew my dog was healed before the vet ever operated.  I knew, and I said nothing.  Because healing requires power, and power is evidenced by thunder and lighting, by tears and shouting and fear and wild gesticulations, and there had been none of that.  I would have welcomed that kind of power if it had healed my dog.  It would have scared me to death, but I would have welcomed it at that moment.  But there was none of that.  There was only quietness and love, and the peace of an after-hours vet clinic bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy with Christmas.  There was only a gentleness that whispered to my heart and held it while it was breaking, and reached out and healed my dog.  So, because He was gentle, I doubted His power.  I doubted that he had acted, and I held onto my silence until there could no longer be any doubt, and even then, I struggled.

That night shattered everything I thought I  knew about power.  I hate the yelling and screaming.  I hate the arm-waving and stamping of feet that so often seems to come with what is called a display of God's power.  I hate the raised voices and Bible thumping of the bully pulpit.  I am so tired of being yelled at.  I had gotten to the place where I understood that God wasn't yelling at me all the time.  I was ok with him yelling at people who deserved to be yelled at (whoever that might be).  I knew that sometimes he speaks in a still, small voice.  I had grown to love that still, small voice.  But deep in my heart, without knowing that I believed it, I believed that the still, small voice lacked power.  The thunder, the fire, and the whirlwind had power.  They got things done.  The still, small voice was comforting.  But I thought it had no power.  And because I didn't want the yelling and posturing, I had, absolutely unwittingly, resigned myself to a life with a powerless but kind God, a life without wonder.

On Christmas Day, we remember the birth of a baby.  The gentle baby, born in an after-hours stable bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy, was utterly helpless and vulnerable.  A newborn lamb.  And somehow, with all my knowledge of Scripture, with all my theology, I made the mistake of thinking that meant he was powerless.  A victim.  But what does it mean that this Baby is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one by whom and for whom all things were created, the one in whom it pleased God to have all his fullness dwell?  How can I hold that belief and still think this gentle baby is powerless?  It's a paradoxical wonder.

On Christmas Day, two years ago, in an after-hours vet clinic bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy, I felt utterly  helpless and vulnerable.  And the still, small voice of my Saviour breathed into my heart and blew it apart with a power that has continued to stagger me for the past two years.  And I was not afraid.  It has taken two years for me to figure it out.  There is a power that transcends posturing.  There is a power that makes the power of size and strength seem silly.  The still, small voice has more power than the thunder and fire and whirlwind combined, and -- ah, here is the wonder of it -- it is a power that I do not  fear.  Not because it is not aimed in my direction, but because it is a power, a world-altering power, that is quiet and good, kind . . . and gentle.

I want to live my life in that power.

Finding the Courage To Go On

I used to think I wanted to be famous.  I wanted to do great things for Jesus.  I wanted to change the world.

Not so much anymore.

Perhaps it comes from the wisdom of growing up a little.  Perhaps it comes from the slothfulness of settling into a comfortable routine.  Perhaps it comes from fear.  But I don't want to be famous anymore.  I have rethought what it means to do great things for Jesus.  And I'm becoming cynical or resigned or wise enough to realise that the world is not going to change until Jesus returns to it.

So I've gone from flirting with the idea of fame to fearing it.  I have been horrified by how vicious humanity is.  We get on our high horse and tell our children that bullying is wrong, and we want to pass laws to prevent cyber-bullying, and we grieve the deaths of those young people who felt they could no longer go on under the pressure of being bullied online and made the terrible choice to take their own lives, but read the comment section of any newspaper, any well-known blog or magazine article.  Watch the Facebook feeds as mayors fall, as world leaders die, as religious leaders speak or write.  We are vicious, vindictive, mocking, self-righeous, arrogant, and ugly.  What we condemn our children for, we feel quite free to do as adults, and as Christians.  Cyber-bullying is alive and well.  And anyone who stands out from the crowd becomes a target.  The world of the internet is an ugly and barren wasteland.  More and more, I find myself longing to find a way to never have to leave the house.

Ah, but there's the rub.  The internet invades the house.  I innocently open up my Facebook, and I find you screaming at me.  In the privacy of my own home, in what is supposed to be my safe place, you barge in and you yell at me.  There is no warning.  There is no escape.  Every instinct in me is to bar, to block, to hide, to flee.

And yet . . . and yet. . . .

God has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  A healed mind.  A mind that was broken and crushed under the weight of fear, but has been renewed and strengthened by His power.  Mine was a mind that was shattered into pieces, each piece trying to fit into someone else's puzzle, each piece trying to be what someone else wanted me to be.  But that mind has been knit together, patched with gold like a piece of broken pottery, into a whole created by God.  To flee is to go back to the broken, to reject the whole that God has made and try to fit my pieces into someone else's pattern instead of God's.  To quit is to reject love and power and a sound mind and return to timidity.  To quit is to let the bullies win.

I can't do that.  I won't do that.

So I will keep blogging.  There will be things I say that you don't like.  I don't see the world in black and white anymore.  I see it in colour, full of shades and nuances which dance and contrast and clash and complement each other and create a thing of beauty.  I hear it as a riot of sound --  melody, counter-melody, harmony,  notes blending and clashing, dissonating and resolving,  and resonating with the voice of the Creator.  So I'm sorry if my colours clash with yours.  I'm sorry if you think I'm singing off-key.  I'm sorry, but you're not the artist, and you're not the director of the choir.

I know that putting my voice "out there" opens me up to attack.  I hope it doesn't happen.  I hope people are gracious.  But it's not idealistic hope.  I know it's only a matter of time before I say something that you hate, and I will be crushed and hurt by the response I get.  I don't want that.  I don't look forward to it.  My heart flinches from the thought.  No one likes the thought of being attacked by people who are supposed to be friends, brothers and sisters in Jesus.  But then I look at the picture of that pot, and I think about what Paul says about carrying the Glory in jars of clay, and I think, What is the worst that you can do?  You can break my heart.  And God can patch it together again with gold, and my heart will just be more beautiful in the end than it is now.  It will only reflect more of Jesus, more of his glory.

C. S. Lewis wrote, "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable" (The Four Loves).

Do I want my heart broken?  Of course not.  Broken hearts hurt horribly.   But I'm not going to back off and quit and run and hide in an effort to protect it.  I gave my heart to Jesus years ago.  He's held it in his hands ever so tenderly, even through the breaking.  He's called me to love.  He's called me to write.  He has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  So I will press on.

And hope I never become famous.

On the Defense

I have a love/hate relationship with this blog.

On one hand, I love the opportunity it affords me to clear my head, to think things through and bring them to some order instead of the snarl of tangled thoughts that tend to live between my ears.

On the other hand, this blog terrifies me, and I hate it.  I hate it with a passion.

I take my most precious thoughts, the things that I've mulled over for days, wrestled with, prayed over, the ideas I actually care about, and I put them "out there".  I don't do it because I think that what I have to say is so special or wonderful; I'm always blown away that anyone would read what I write.  No, I do it because the words won't let me go until I have written them down.

I could write in private and call it a journal, and there are many days I'm tempted to do so.  I'm tempted to lock this blog down, make it for my eyes only, or force any potential readers to ask for my permission to see what I've written.  Every time I sit down to write, there is a dread in the pit of my stomach, the horrible nagging thought, "What if this thing goes viral on me?"  Occasionally, someone has shared something I've written, and I've seen the reader-number spike, and my heart nearly stops.

Once in a while, I think, So what if it goes viral?  You'd be famous!  You'd be like all those other cool bloggers out there that everyone talks about.

Like Ann Voskamp -- the panentheistic pagan new ager who is all about feeling and can't think a rational thought.

Like John Piper -- the legalistic, mysogenistic Calvinist who weirdly talks about Christian hedonism.

Like Mark Driscoll -- the insensitive caveman who thinks being a real man involves farting and burping.

Like Billy Graham -- the Arminian preacher who sings Just as I Am and says everyone can be saved even though Christ died only for the elect.

Like Rachel Held Evans -- the feministic homophile who doesn't believe in the Bible.

Like Rob Bell -- who's going to hell because he doesn't think it exists.

Like John McArthur -- the divisive heresy-hunter who is trapped under the law and without the Spirit of God.

Like Beth Moore -- the floozy blonde who misinterprets Scripture and who thinks God actually talks to her.  Pfft!

And that's when my heart freezes.

Because Christians are cruel.

My ideas are important to me.  I take my ideas, my most precious thoughts, and I put them out there for others to read, and I know that one day, I am going to say something you disagree with, and Christians are cruel.

Because I'm not a "good" Christian:  the most theologically balanced, right-living, perfectly sensitive-without-being-overly-sensitive, rational, thoughtful, deeply caring, grace-filled individual walking the planet.  I don't think and act in all ways just like you.  I'm going to come to different conclusions, or live out my faith in different ways.  I'm going to offend you, unintentionally, simply by being me.  And Christians are cruel.

I'm not saying that theology isn't important, and that we should just turn a blind eye to differences.  I care deeply about sound theology, and I work hard to live out my faith faithfully.  I'm willing to think hard and consider seriously.  But it seems inevitable that when Christians start talking about those differences, at some point in the conversation, we start throwing out words like "heretic" and "hypocrite".  We start accusing each other of not taking the Word of God seriously because we've studied the same passage and come to different conclusions.  We accuse each other of hypocrisy because I have chosen to live out my faith in Jesus in different ways than you have.  We dismiss each other not because of our ideas, but because of who we are.  Well, you know, she grew up Reformed.  Well, you know, she's gone baptist.  We get angry.  We get to thinking that our way is the only right way, and if you don't agree, you must be either patently stupid or deliberately obtuse, or a heretic or a hypocrite, or part of the false church.  We attack each other, and the ideas never get discussed.  We become ugly, vicious, and cruel.  We disown each other.  We condemn our brothers and sisters to hell and we do it in the name of Christ.

So I don't want to go viral.  I don't want to be cool.  I don't want to put my ideas out there.  I don't want to write this blog.  But I do, because every once in a while, someone says to me, "That helped me.  That ministered to me."  I think, If I can help one person catch a fresh glimpse of God through something I wrote, is that not a good thing?  Chances are high it won't go viral.  I have no illusions.  It's probably the only reason I've dared to continue.  "What if it goes viral . . . NAH!  Like who cares what I write!!  Hah!"  In that imagined safety, I hit "publish".  But I know it's a risk, even a small risk.  Someday, someone will disagree with me.  Someone will hate me.  Someone will condemn me.  And that person will probably be a brother or sister in Christ.

Is it worth the risk?  I don't know.  I need to think about that.  I need to pray about it. I have to weigh it carefully.  After some of the things I've seen and read on the Internet this past week, I'm just not sure anymore.  So I'm going to take a break and regroup.  I'll admit it:  I'm a little scared.  So it's time to stop and pray.

Perhaps, in the meantime, I'll take to writing about the meatballs I had for dinner last night and what I wore to work today.

"For it is not an enemy who taunts me—

then I could bear it;

it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—

then I could hide from him.

 But it is you, a man, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend.

 We used to take sweet counsel together;

within God's house we walked in the throng" (Psalm 55:12-14).