Tag Archives: Addiction

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Scarred Hearts

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Scarred Hearts (CaD Jer 17) – Wayfarer

“Judah’s sin is engraved with an iron tool,
    inscribed with a flint point,
on the tablets of their hearts
    and on the horns of their altars.
Even their children remember
    their altars and Asherah poles
beside the spreading trees
    and on the high hills.”
Jeremiah 17:1-2 (NIV)

Wendy and I were sitting in the back row in our usual spot among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. Worship was beginning when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

He stood there looking like a lost puppy. Shoulders slumped, head downcast, and his face covered in a thick veneer of shame.

“I’m drunk,” he whispered in my ear, though my olfactory senses picked up on this long before his quaking voice told me.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I responded, placing my arm around his shoulders and pulling him in tight.

I didn’t know this man’s story, but I immediately read his heart. That is a familiar script. It’s just like Hollywood, or the Hallmark Channel who tell the same story over and over again simply switching out names, settings, and actors. I didn’t need to know this man’s particulars. I sensed the story. It’s was a tragedy of life and relationships that had long ago engraved false words of defeat and shame on his heart. He had been self medicating for who knows how long. I didn’t know if he’d already hit rock bottom or if something had scared him enough to know that he was falling fast. His movie eventually ends one of two ways: a dark tragedy, or a tale of redemption.

The people whom the ancient prophet Jeremiah is addressing are not unlike a corporate version of the same storyline. In today’s chapter, Jeremiah reads the false words of defiance and rebellion on their hearts. They had been repeatedly cut-into their hearts for generations like a lost teenager cutting the words of their shame into their flesh with a razor blade. Over time the words become scar tissue that keep building up with increasing hardness.

Jeremiah had watched as King Josiah tried to impose change through institutional legal demand, but Jeremiah observed what I mentioned a week or two ago: Dictates Don’t Change Hearts. In today’s chapter, Jerry notices that it was not just the adults with sin and rebellion carved on their hearts no matter what the King said was legal or illegal. These types of internal messaging get passed down through the generations. Josiah may have destroyed the idols and burned them into ashes, but it didn’t make a lick of difference, even in the hearts of children whose parents had impressed their thoughts and behavior onto their children from the womb.

Behavior modification will never change a scarred heart.

My arm wrapped around my intoxicated friend, I asked him to look around the room as my free hand gestured across the small crowd gathered there. There are a bunch of people in that room who have found themselves a character in basically the same movie, myself included. The script is just a little different from person-to-person. In that room are addicts, ex-cons, liars, cheats, and adulterers whose hearts were hardened and scarred, but then they experienced a personal encounter with Jesus who spiritually performed a cardiac transplant described by Jeremiah’s colleague, Ezekiel:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV)

As my hand swept over the crowd and described these transplant patients to my new friend, I was aware that there are others who are still trying to do the behavior modification thing. There always will be. The human condition hasn’t changed since the days of Jeremiah. There will always be those who dress up their lives in a religious facade in hopes that no one will notice their scarred heart and the things it leads them to do in the dark when no one is looking. They are in a little bit different movie, but it’s also a well-worn storyline that’s been told a million different ways. The similarity is in the same two endings to which the story leads, tragedy or redemption, dependent on the same choice between heart transplant or not.

“Just keep coming,” I told my friend before praying over him.

He did.

The last time I ran into him he had a smile on his face. He was standing erect. There was life in his eyes and light in his countenance. As we walked together, he shared with me that there had been a change in his life, but I knew it before he said it just as I knew he was drunk that one day before he said it.

The tell-tale signs of a spiritual heart transplant were evident.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Unmanageable

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Unmanageable (CaD 1 Sam 28) – Wayfarer

Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this to you today.“
1 Samuel 28:16-18

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result” is a quote that has been misattributed to Albert Einstein for many years. Etymologists find no evidence of Einstein ever saying the words. It was fascinating for me to learn that the earliest documented uses of the quote are from the Twelve Step group Al-anon, particularly with regard to the second step: “We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

In yesterday’s chapter, I made the case that David’s flight to live among his enemies was prompted by the realization that Saul would never give up trying to kill him. Why? Because multiple times Saul had spoken words of repentance and sworn oaths to do so, and every time he goes right back to doing what he’s sworn he won’t do. It’s just like the insanity of addiction.

If you go to a Twelve Step meeting, you’ll hear stories of lives that have become unmanageable. Individuals speak of addictive insanity that has brought them to the brink of death and lives that have completely self-destructed. That’s where I observe Saul being in today’s chapter, only Saul’s problem is not alcoholism or drug addiction. Saul is addicted to his own pride, greed, and envy.

When the Philistines line up for battle with Saul and his army, Saul becomes afraid. He seeks some word or sign from God of what will happen, but God is silent. Samuel is dead. The high-priest, Abiathar, has joined up with David. Saul has no prophet in his service. In desperation, Saul hires a medium to conjure up the spirit of Samuel even though he knows that such an act is against God’s law. It’s just like when Saul crossed the line and offered sacrifices that only a priest was allowed to make. His fear drives him to cross the line and do what he knows he shouldn’t do, just like he’s always done expecting a different outcome.

Samuel’s spirit does appear and reiterates the very thing he had told Saul before. Saul’s repeated disobedience and his refusal to admit that his own actions have led his life to become unmanageable and to submit to God, who could restore his sanity, his own actions and choices have sealed his fate. He will die in the upcoming battle, and David will succeed him as king just as had been prophesied.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself looking back on my own life journey and the times my life had become unmanageable because of my foolish choices. It’s easy to read Saul’s story and shake my head in judgment, except I can’t. There’s another famous quote that I can make my own: “There, but for the grace of God, goes Tom Vander Well.” Saul is a tragic figure. The best thing about tragedies, even the real ones I hear in a Twelve Step meeting, is that they can help inform my own life and my own choices.

I don’t want to be a Saul. I would rather be a David.

The determining factor is what I choose to do with my own decisions, actions, and words today.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The Well-Worn Playbook

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The Well-Worn Playbook (CaD 2 Pe 2) – Wayfarer

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”
2 Peter 2:19 (NIV)

The Great Story is, at its heart, a story of good and evil. The evil one tempts Adam and Eve into disobeying God’s demand by questioning God’s goodness and promising them that they will be “like God” if they just have a taste of that forbidden fruit.

The punishment is their expulsion from the Garden and fellowship with God to live and die in the world, where the “Prince of this World,” as Jesus referenced the Evil One, has dominion over the kingdoms of this world. Before starting his mission, Jesus and the Prince of this World met, and Jesus faced the same basic temptations used against Adam and Eve (the Evil One’s playbook is really pretty basic). He offered to give Jesus all the “kingdoms of this world” if he would merely bow and worship. Jesus passed on the offer. The night before He was crucified, Jesus told His followers that the “Prince of this World” stood condemned. His sacrificial death and resurrection was righting a wrong on a grand scale.

The final chapters of the Great Story tell of the climactic confrontation of God and evil. It’s an end, and then a new beginning, which is yet another recurring theme in the Great Story.

Along my life journey, I’ve tried to be mindful of this foundational conflict as I interpret all that see and experience along the way. God is Love, and that Love is the source of life and goodness. Evil is an oppositional force. It opposes all that God is, and does, and desires. God is love, and so evil sows hatred. God is for life, thus evil gloats in death. God is about goodness and order, and so evil rejoices in destruction and chaos.

In today’s chapter, Peter is writing to the first century followers of Christ about the oppositional forces that were already at work to disrupt the powerful impact that their faith, expressed through Christ’s love in action was having in the world. Individuals with selfish and evil motives were leading Jesus’ followers astray. Interestingly enough, one of the tactics Peter mentions is their promise of freedom. He states that these false teachers were telling people that they are free to indulge any and all of their appetites (both the Greeks and Romans were famous for indulging all their appetites in creative and unrestrained ways). Peter warned them to be wary of this deceit.

Jesus is often quoted: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Rarely do I hear the previous sentence quoted with it: “You are truly my disciples if you do what I tell you. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

See the oppositional forces at work? Evil tells me “indulge your appetites and you’ll experience freedom,” though what I end up experiencing is self-focused indulgence which leads me into slavery to my own appetites and all the destructive consequences that go with it (personally, relationally, physically, spiritually, and mentally). In contrast, simple obedience to Jesus’ law of love, which gets expressed in part by the spiritual fruit of self-control keeps me free of those destructive consequences so that all the other fruit of love (goodness, kindness, etc.) has room to pour out of me into others.

In the quiet this morning, I couldn’t help but recall a Tweet I saw yesterday from a celebrity and former Disney star:

Again, the playbook is pretty basic. “Indulge your appetites and you will experience freedom.” As the Sage of Ecclesiastes says, “There’s really nothing new under the sun.” And yet, I’ve never found anything really free or good traveling down any alley of indulgence. Pleasure? Certainly. But that’s fleeting and then requires another fix to feel it again, then a bigger fix, and then yet another even bigger fix. I like the way Bob Dylan described it: “A bad motorcyle with the devil in the seat, going ninety-miles an hour down a dead-end street.”

And so, I press on in this earthly journey one more day, choosing the path that Jesus prescribed to freedom. As for me, I have yet to be disappointed on this path, nor has it ever led me down a dead-end street.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

The First Step… One More TIme

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The First Step … One More Time (CaD 2 Pet 2) – Wayfarer

They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”
2 Peter 2:19 (NIV)

The first step in The Twelve Steps is to admit that you have become powerless over an insatiable appetite, and because of it your life has become unmanageable. The Twelve Steps originated with an alcoholic and Alcoholics Anonymous has helped countless lives, but The Twelve Steps has worked with almost every human appetite that erodes lives when they are relentlessly indulged. Along my life journey I’ve attended meetings of Gamblers Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Narcotics Anonymous. You might not know this, but many people working through The Twelve Steps will go to any local Twelve Step meeting, even if it doesn’t match their particular problem appetite. That’s because the pattern of addiction, or out-of-control appetite indulgence, is the same as is the path of The Twelve Steps.

I recently had a conversation with a veteran pastor who is at the point in his own journey where he reflects on what he would do differently if he had to do it all over again. He told me that if he were a young man shepherding his first church he would spend the first two years of his tenure focused on taking his congregation through The Twelve Steps.

In yesterday’s post, I focused on the opening premise of Peter’s letter in which he explains that corruption springs from lust. While lust is often thought of as sexual, the broader definition is that of any human appetite that we indulge to excess.

In today’s chapter, the reason for Peter bringing this up becomes clear. The early Jesus Movement was messy. There were no churches, no strong central authority, there was no New Testament, and very little organization. Jesus’ followers met in homes for communal meals. They pooled resources and made sure everyone was cared for and had their needs met. They welcomed everyone. When you’re charitably giving out food, money, and other resources you’re going to attract those who are in it for the free stuff motivated not by a spiritual desire to follow Jesus, but out of a desire to feed their appetites for free. Jesus encountered the same thing. After feeding thousands of people a couple of times, He calls out the crowds following Him for having the wrong motives. You can read about it in John chapter 6.

Decades later the Jesus Movement is experiencing the same problem. People have come into their midst with selfish motives Because everything was new and the teachings of Jesus were mostly communicated and passed along orally it was easy for some scrupulous individuals to con the followers of Jesus into thinking they were teachers and preachers with divine authority. Then they’d tell the local gathering things like it being perfectly okay to get drunk on Communion wine and frequenting the temple prostitutes at the local Roman or Greek temple was no big deal.

So, Peter writes a letter intended to be copied and passed around to all the local gatherings of Jesus’ followers. In today’s chapter, Peter calls out these charlatans and con-men. He warns the followers of Jesus to be wary of them. Jesus told Peter and the other disciples that “you know a tree by its fruit.” Peter passes this same principle along. He tells his flock that they’ll know who these bad apples when you see them indulging their out-of-control appetites and teaching that it’s okay.

Along my own spiritual journey, I’ve observed that Jesus is often quoted saying, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Never do I hear anyone quote the sentence Jesus said right before He said those words: “You are truly my followers if you do what I tell you to do. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”

What did He tell me to do? Surrender. Die to myself and my own self-centered appetites in order to love and serve others. Following Jesus is a path of emptying in a world that ceaselessly tells me I need to fill my life with more.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that Jesus said to Peter, “Follow me,” right after they first met. Three years later, after Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus and Peter once again find themselves together on the seashore and Jesus once again says to Peter, “Follow me.” I’ve learned along the way that following Jesus is a process that repeatedly leads me back to being called to take that first step.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Spiritual Pivot-Point

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Spiritual Pivot-Point (CaD Ps 32) – Wayfarer

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Psalm 32:5 (NRSVCE)

It’s good to be back!

While I was on hiatus the past few weeks, Wendy and I were able to enjoy some time with friends. Over dinner one night, I was asked to share some of my life story. Parts that my friends didn’t know much about. I shared. They asked questions. I found myself recounting things I hadn’t thought too much about in a long time.

I generally like to let “old things pass away” as Paul wrote to the followers of Jesus in Corinth, and dwell in the “new things” and new places God has led in my journey. There is, however, no escaping the fact that, like all good stories, my life has its chapters of shortcomings, moral failure, bad choices, and the tragic consequences that result. My story includes tragic flaws, secrets, addiction, adultery, and divorce. These things are not secret, and I’ve been publicly honest in owning my own personal failures and their tragic consequences.

But, that’s not the end of my story. And, that’s the point.

Today’s psalm contains the lyrics of another song penned by King David. It’s a before-and-after song. It is a tale with two halves. It’s the song of David’s own personal journey.

Like most of David’s songs, it begins with a one verse introduction letting us know that he is looking back in time and writing the song from a place of redemption further down the road. He then confesses to have at one time kept secrets and sins locked up inside. The consequences were guilt, shame, weakness, struggle, heaviness, and waste.

Then, David came clean. He confessed. He owned up to his mistakes, weaknesses, and shortcomings. David’s own personal story, by the way, includes top-line shortcomings including, but not limited to, adultery, deceit, murder, and gross parental failure. He, however, confessed this, owned it, stopped hiding it, came clean, and sought God’s forgiveness.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
    and you forgave the guilt of my sin.

That’s the pivot point of David’s song, just as it is the pivot point of David’s spiritual journey. What comes after, in the second half of the song? Forgiveness, protection, safety, security, deliverance, instruction, guidance, wisdom, steadfast love, and out of these things comes David’s song of joy that we now call Psalm 32.

In the quiet this morning I am reminded that the Great Story is quite clear about the individual spiritual journey having a pivot point. For Paul, it was on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). For Peter, it was along the shore of Galilee (John 21). For David, it was being confronted by God’s prophet in his throne room (2 Samuel 12). For me, it was a series of events over a five-year period.

Without coming clean and owning my failings I don’t truly experience the pivot-point that opens the floodgates of grace and forgiveness. Without experiencing the powerful current of grace and forgiveness I don’t truly experience flow of spiritual transformation truly moving me forward toward maturity. Without that flow of spiritual transformation moving me forward, the spiritual journey remains mired in stagnant and shallow religion which Jesus described as being like a gorgeous, marble tomb sitting in a pristine, manicured cemetery. It may look wonderful on the outside, but the reality is that once you get past the manufactured exterior appearances, all you find is death, rot, and decay.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

David’s “Seven Steps”

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David's "Seven Steps" (CaD Ps 4) – Wayfarer

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
    ponder it on your beds, and be silent.
Psalm 4:4 (NRSVCE)

Not long ago I happened to be talking to a friend who experienced the tragic death of a child. As we talked, I asked how he was doing in the process of grief. He honestly shared with me some of the havoc that grief had wreaked in everyday life. He then shared about conversations he’d had with others who were walking the same, difficult stretch of life’s road. One, he shared, had been drinking heavily. He then confessed that he had been over-indulging his appetite for sweets every night.

“We all have the same grief. We cope in different ways,” he said. “My friend medicates with one appetite. I medicate with another.”

Along this life journey, I’ve observed and experienced that it is a natural human reaction to want to self-medicate by indulging our appetites whenever we encounter a difficult stretch of the journey. It could be one of the “ugly” social taboos like alcohol, drugs, gambling, smoking, or sex. It could equally be an unhealthy indulgence in what’s considered a normal appetite, like that to which my friend confessed: over-eating, over-sleeping, over-spending, over-exercising, binging on screens, or isolation. I’ve even observed those who have become zealously over-religious in an attempt to feel some kind of control over out-of-control emotions, circumstances, and relationships. Twelve Step groups often teach members to be aware of negative feelings that often trigger appetite indulgences. They use the acronym S.A.L.T. (sad, angry, lonely, tired).

In today’s psalm, King David expresses his frustration with finding himself the object of public ridicule and scorn, especially among the socially elite power brokers in his world. He begins his song imploring God to listen to his prayer, he then lays out his troubles and frustration.

What happens next is a Hebrew word: Selah. Scholars believe that this was a musical notation calling on there to be a “rest” in the song.

David then reminds himself that God has called him to be faithful, and reminds himself that God has repeatedly answered his prayers.

Then comes the verse I pulled out and quoted at the top of the post:

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
    ponder it on your beds, and be silent.

It is followed with another Selah.

I couldn’t help but notice that the pattern of David’s lyric is a really great reminder of how to approach troubles, anxieties, fear, grief, sadness, anger, loneliness, or weariness. Not the Twelve Steps, but the Seven Steps:

  1. Take it to God.
  2. Get it out, express it, be honest about your feelings.
  3. Rest. Take a deep breath.
  4. Remind myself of God’s faithfulness and promises.
  5. Avoid my natural inclination to exit and indulge my favorite appetite as an escape hatch of the negative emotions.
  6. Be silent. Ponder. Feel.
  7. Rest. Breathe.

The final lyrics of the song are a testament to David discovering a “gladness” in his heart that is better than feasting and drinking. Certainly healthier than over-eating and over-drinking.

Just as with yesterday’s psalm, David ends up with a peaceful night’s sleep.

In the quiet this morning I find myself accepting the fact that, despite 54 years on the journey and almost 40 years of following Jesus, I still have very human struggles with responding to negative emotions and circumstances in healthy ways. What I have learned, however, is that I have to allow myself the grace to be human. I also have learned to surround myself with companions who love me unconditionally, are honest with me in my weakness, and never cease to encourage and support me in the process of growing.

It’s a journey, my friend. It’s about progress, not perfection.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

90 M.P.H. Down a Dead End Street

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Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.
Romans 6:19 (NIV)

It is one of those moments in life that is indelibly etched in my memory. Madison was about six years old or so and was sitting next to me as I shuffled through some new photographs that I’d just picked up from being developed (before digital cameras, we had to take rolls of film to get developed and wait for them). There was a photograph of me in the stack and Madison picked it up and held it up with a loud giggle. “Look,” she said. “It’s FAT DADDY!”

Ugh.

Throughout this life journey I have warred with my natural human appetites like every other human being on the face of the planet. I have lost many battles along the way. As a child I was exposed to pornography, and it secretly fed the seemingly insatiable cravings of a young man’s sexual appetite for many years. As a young husband and father trying hard to suppress and control my sexual appetites, I began feeding a different appetite. This time it was my craving for food and for sweets in particular. The result was Fat Daddy.

Through my battles with personal appetites I’ve experienced the reality that the pleasure from indulging my appetites is subject to the law of diminishing returns. I’ve observed this to be true no matter which appetite I indulge: my taste buds, my sex glands, my adrenaline glands, my need for security, my desire to control, my need to be loved, or any other appetite known to humanity.

I start with a craving. I indulge that craving and I feel a burst of pleasure. My craving is satiated for a moment. Slowly and subtly, the law of diminishing returns set in. What was such a blissfully guilty pleasure for a moment now feels, well, normal. My natural craving ups the ante. My brain and spirit collude to agree that if a little guilty pleasure didn’t do that much harm, then just a little more can’t be that bad for me. This cycle slowly repeats itself until I find myself way down the road in a place I never expected, nor wanted, to be experiencing really negative consequences for myself and the ones I most love in the world.

This is the very thing that Paul is addressing in today’s chapter of his letter to the followers of Jesus in Rome. He uses language and an analogy that all of his readers could understand. Slavery was a common, everyday reality in the world at that time. It was an essential part of the economy in the Roman Empire. There were even “white collar” slaves as former soldiers, physicians, and accountants were often slaves. One could even offer oneself to any number of slave positions in order to have work and the security of basic needs met. All you had to do is give up your freedom and subject yourself to being the controlled property of another. Of course this included your master’s legal right to punish you, torture you, sexually exploit you and summarily execute you at will. A person offering themselves into slavery would end up in very different circumstances depending on the master to whom they offered themselves.

Now Paul tells his readers “you’ve offered yourselves as slaves to sin and to ever increasing wickedness.” There’s the feeding of natural appetites and it’s law of diminishing returns that I have experienced multiple times with very different appetites. Every person I’ve ever known who has followed the path of indulgence and addiction will also tell you that they ended up enslaved to their appetite(s). One of my favorite lyrics is from Bob Dylan describing a person following their amorous appetites into a marital affair:

I took you home from a party and we kissed in fun
A few stolen kisses and no harm was done
Instead of stopping when we could we went right on
Till suddenly we found that the brakes were gone.

You belong to someone else, and I do too
It’s just crazy bein’ here with you
As a bad motorcycle with the devil in the seat
Going ninety miles an hour down a dead end street
Ninety miles an hour down a dead end street.

There is “the cycle” speeding me down the road to a place I never expected, nor wanted, where I will experience really painful consequences for myself and the ones I most love in the world.

Paul now urges me to make a different choice. He urges me to offer myself to God to be controlled by righteousness which leads to increasing measures of Life.

This morning in the quiet I can’t help but find myself looking back with regret at the foolish ways I have repeatedly “offered myself’ to my appetites along my life journey, and the dead end streets where I crashed. But, it doesn’t end there. I am also looking back at the crash sites where there stands one of those little wooden crosses to mark the spot. This cross marks the place where I followed Paul’s words from today’s chapter: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

To what, or to whom, am I offering myself?

Featured photo courtesy of Bob Dass via Flickr

Chapter-a-Day

Well…Sh!t

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Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.
Romans 5:12 (NIV)

I had a friend hit rock bottom. I’d suspected it for some time. In fact I had just mentioned my fears to Wendy a few days before. I could hear it in the voice and in the things that were said, and left unsaid, in our conversations. I sensed the spiritual tremors before the big one hit. I got the desperation call while I was standing on the jet bridge getting on a plane. My friend’s life was spiraling out of control.

Millions of people have reclaimed various forms of sanity, sobriety, and life through working what’s known as the Twelve Steps. It’s famous for people who are dealing with addictions in various forms, although I’ve known several people who have walked the Twelve Steps journey simply to experience it for themselves, and have found it profoundly profitable in their lives and relationships.

The first step of the Twelve Steps is simply this: “We admitted we were powerless against [insert your own tragic weakness here] – that our lives had become unmanageable.”

“Sin” is such a hard word to wrestle with in today’s culture of perpetual positive reinforcement. We like to gloss over, excuse, diminish, contextualize, ignore, and deny. Perhaps it’s the sense of judgment and the fact that it’s quite often been weaponized and used by the minions of legalism [see yesterday’s post] to assert power and control. Ironic, isn’t it? “Sin” can be leveraged for purposes that are, well, sinful. (I think there’s a good script waiting to be written on that theme!)

If it’s possible, I’d like to lay aside our preconceived notions of sin, for a moment. In fact, for the rest of this post I’m simply going to substitute the word shit for sin. Along my life journey I’ve found that the path of following Jesus and the journey of the Twelve Steps both ask of followers to begin by owning our shit:

  • I know the right thing to do, but I don’t do it.
  • I know I should quit, but I can’t.
  • As hard as I try to love him/her, I end up hurting him/her instead.
  • I’ve been hanging on to a secret that’s eating away at me from the inside.
  • I keep making the same mistake and ending up in the same shitty place.
  • I repeatedly use [choose from list below] like a drug to give me a moment of feeling good (or feeling nothing); Anything but the shit I don’t want to feel, face, or deal with:
    • Food
    • Alcohol
    • Drugs
    • Sex/Porn
    • Nothing: passivity, sleep, zoning out
    • Ceaseless entertainment
    • Acquisition of money and wealth
    • Acquisition of things
    • Acquisition of attention, popularity, and/or “Likes”
    • Success, career
    • Power and control
    • Anger
    • Relationships
    • Adrenaline and thrill-seeking
    • Vacations or travel
    • Hobbies
    • Sports
    • Religion
    • Appearance
    • Physical fitness, health

I could go on. Most of things on this list can be good, healthy, and Life-giving in proper doses and in a healthy context. I’ve observed along my life journey that most of the shit in our lives comes from taking a natural appetite and indulging it to unhealthy proportions.

So what do we do with the shit in our lives? Because we all have our shit. I can, perhaps, manage perceptions and appearances for a period of time, but the shit starts piling up and, at some point, life gets unmanageable. Which is when we have to honestly own our own shit, and admit that it’s not working.

Now we’re at the first step.

In today’s chapter Paul begins to help us understand how our shit fits into the Great Story and exactly why Jesus came and sacrificed Himself.

In the quiet this morning I’m reminded of Jesus’ first encounter with Simon Peter on the shores of Galilee. Having experienced a miraculous catch, Peter falls to his knees in front of Jesus and says, “Stay away from me. You have no idea the shit in my life.”

And I imagine Jesus smiling as he whispers to Himself, “Oh yeah. I can work with this. He’s one of mine.”

Chapter-a-Day

Contrasting Rulers

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When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Matthew 2:16

In recent weeks the world watched on video tape as two females approached the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un in a Malaysian airport and, wiping a nerve agent on his face, assassinated him. This is the dark side of worldly power, and it has been this way since people began ruling over one another. Once you ascend to power you have to figure out a way to stay there, which means eliminating those who might try to take your place.

What a powerful contrast Matthew provides us in today’s chapter. Herod had qualities not unlike the North Korean dictator. A regional monarch put into power by the Roman Senate, Herod “the Great” murdered his own wife, three sons, his mother-in-law, his brother-in-law, his uncle and many others whom he suspected might try to rob him of his position and power.

Contrast this with the infant Jesus, who…

had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion. Philippians 2:5-8 (MSG)

This morning I’m thinking about my place in this world. It’s easy, even in relatively small ways, to succumb to the desire to gain,  keep, and cling the things this world has to offer. As a follower of Jesus, the example I’m given is to embrace an eternal mystery of kenosis: in order to have anything of eternal value, I must let go of everything and empty myself.

Herod’s slaughter of the boys of Bethlehem, commonly referred to as “the massacre of the innocents,” stands as a horrific testament to the lengths one minor regional ruler will go to maintain his addiction to power, and it stands in stark contrast to the baby who emptied Himself of omnipotence to show us a better way.

I’m continuing to seek after the way of empty.

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Getting to the Root of Things

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Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?
James 4:1 (NRSV)

The further I get in my life journey, the more I have come to understand that I, as a human, am led by my appetites and cravings. The institutional churches I have attended my entire life do not talk much about this. There are the behavioral prohibitions (e.g. “don’t do [fill in the blank]”) but we don’t talk much about understanding and addressing our underlying appetites, and I find it both tragic and fascinating.

Appetites and cravings are actually Theology 101. They were there in the beginning, in the Garden of Eden when the whole thing fell apart:

“So when the Eve saw that the tree was good for food (appetite to fill our basic physical desires), and that it was a delight to the eyes (appetite to covet & acquire what delights our eye), and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise (appetite for power and elevation of status) , she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to Adam, who was with her, and he ate.

Looking back, I can see the parallel to my own journey. When I sit down and give consideration to the rotten behaviors which have continually tripped me up in my pursuit of Jesus, when I trace those behaviors back to the branches of wayward thoughts, to the trunk of ill begotten desires, I will eventually dig down to find them all rooted in rotten appetites:

  • The appetite to indulge natural human appetites to excess.
  • The appetite to crave what others have and acquire what I do not
  • The appetite for god-like power and control over others

This morning I’m thinking about the ways I need to make positive changes in my own life. If I’m going to address the rotten fruit that plagues my life, then I have to dig to the appetites in which they were rooted. If I don’t allow God access to dig out the root appetites in my soul, then I can’t expect to see a change to the fruit that is evident in my day-to-day behaviors.

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