I felt compelled to share an extended excerpt from the book that I am reading by Brennan Manning called The Wisdom of Tenderness. I hope that you are blessed by it.
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An effect of understanding God as the heart of tenderness is reconciliation. Seen from a biblical perspective, reconciliation isn't primarily making up with another person; its making peace within ourselves in that dimension of our lives where we've previously been unable to find peace.
Late on night, when I was directing a spiritual retreat, a seventy-eight-year-old nun knocked on my door. I invited her in and asked, "How may I help you?"
She began to cry. A small, frail woman, she shook with the sobbing. When the tears subsided, she said, "I've never told anyone this. It started when I was five-years-old. My father would crawl into my bed with no clothes on. He touched me here and told me to touch him there. [Her pointing fingers left no ambiguity.] He said that our family doctor had suggested touching, so we could know one another better. When I was nine, my father took my virginity, and by the time I was twelve I knew about every kind of sexual perversion that you could find in a dirty book.
"I can't find words to tell you how filthy I feel. I've lived with so much hatred of my father and hatred of myself that I only go to the communion table when my absence there would be conspicuous."
I prayed with her for several minutes for inner healing. Then I asked her, "Sister, would you be willing to go off to a quiet place every morning for the next month, sit down in a chair, close your eyes, upturn your palms, and pray this one phrase over and over: 'Abba, I belong to you'?"
She looked skeptical, so I explained further. "It's a prayer of exactly seven syllables, and seven syllables correspond perfectly to the rhythm of our breathing. Inhale on Abba; exhale on I belong to you.
"At the outset, you'll say it with your lips alone, but as your mind becomes conscious of the meaning, you'll begin to push your head down into your heart in a figurative sense, so that 'Abba, I belong to you' becomes what the French call un cri de coeur, a heartfelt cry from the depth of your being, establishing who you are, why you're here, and where you're going.
It's a prayer you can pray while working in the garden, listening to music, driving a car, crossing the street, watching television, reading a book, baking a cake, lying in bed. When you pray it dozens and dozens of times each day, and it becomes syncopated with the rhythm of your heartbeat, you can, as Jesus says in Luke 18, pray all day long and never lose heart."
I asked the nun, "Will you try it?"
She replied, "Yes."
Two weeks later, I received the most moving and poetic letter that's ever been written to me. This old woman described the inner healing of her heart, the complete forgiveness of her father, and an inner peace she had never known before. She ended her letter this way: "A year ago I would have signed this letter with my real name in this religious life, Sister Mary Genevieve, but from now on, I'm just Daddy's little girl."
The gentle growing into oneness, the reconciliation with that painful dimension of her past where she couldn't find peace, came about because of the gentle caressing of her memory and the massaging of her heart by the Spirit of Abba poured out from the heart of Jesus Christ. As her example shows us, accepted tenderness prevents us from being tyrants to ourselves, wreaking vengeance on ourselves, enslaving ourselves within the barriers of our fears. Those Christians who have interiorized the tenderness of God become less defensive, more simple and direct, more able to commit themselves, more aware but less afraid of the forces within and around them that drive home their littleness and insignificance.
"...I don't have to worry anymore about the means of my spiritual growth. All I've to do is expose my frailty, my poverty, and my nothingness to the furious love of God. Tenderness is the impeccable sense of feeling safe; it comes from knowing that I'm totally liked and thoroughly loved by Abba."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Blessed Disturbance
We were all sitting there watching the pastor as his voice was trembling and tears began to well up in his eyes. He was talking about love. Not just any love, but the love of Jesus. A love that did not judge or condemn but reached out with grace and acceptance. I looked around and it was evident that a lot of people were moved by the message. There was a weight in the room that was glorious. The pastor ended his message and the service was over. As people were headed for the doors I noticed a number of parents having difficulty with their children. One poor father in particular was dragging his defiant son down the hall towards the exit. "What a buzz kill" - I was tempted to think. I was amused - it seemed ironic that everyone was just in this deep spiritual moment only to be brought down to reality - so to speak - by some spiritually unconscious and immature child. I have been there many times - meditating on the glory of the Lord only to interrupted by my "inconsiderate" wife or children. I could tell that this poor father was very disturbed by his child and just wanted the whole ordeal to end.
As I was watching all this unfold, I sensed the Lord begin to speak to my heart. He brought to mind the verse in 1 Corinthians 1:27 which says, "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong." I began to realize that the Lord was telling me that He was in the midst of what was transpiring between this father and son. You wouldn't know by looking at it - but the Lord was speaking through the defiant son. How can this be? Mercy. The Lord in His Mercy was giving this poor father an opportunity to know Him in a more powerful way. What the father thought was a distraction and disturbance was actually an invitation to encounter the Living God.
The word that is translated shame in the verse above means "to be brought down." Now, why would the Lord want to bring us down? How are we supposed to get anywhere - especially spiritually - if we are to allow these disturbances and distractions into our lives? I mean, if this is really the Lord, how are we ever going to accomplish anything? When you are alone in your room in the middle of passionate worship or in deep meditation on His goodness and your wife bursts in asking if you could please take the baby so that she can make dinner - are you to allow that? Is that the Lord really? Sounds more like the enemy trying to distract you from things of "true eternal significance." Right?
I recently heard a wise man say that "Faith is not to imagine something that does not exist, but to simply stop ignoring what already exists though it cannot be seen." Faith is simply being aware of the substance and evidence all around us. Faith does not require effort - it is a gift. It is the gift by which we see all the other little gifts all around us that lead us into the reality of His ever present Presence. "Everything you see is a gift from God..." as Jason Upton sings (listen here).
I often wonder how often I miss opportunities to see Him; to hear Him; to know Him. Just like the poor father and his defiant son or my "eternally significant" quiet time being interrupted by my wife in need. Why does the Lord want to bring us down? Because I am often so confident that I know His way and that I know where to find Him that I miss Him reaching out to me in an unfamiliar form. The minute I think that I know His way I lose it. His way is not an idea or concept that I can know and write down for later. It can only be known by presently seeing and hearing Him. And He often wraps Himself in forms that I am not expecting or am even opposed to in order to see if I am seeking to build up my own kingdom of comfort and self-sufficiency or if I am genuinely seeking to follow Him along the Way. If Jesus has only ever been your advocate and never your adversary than you are following a false Jesus - a Jesus of your own making (and he probably looks a lot like you). The Fathers goal is not to make us fat and happy and comfortable but for us to know Him - the Truth. After all, Jesus said that to know the Father is Eternal Life - is not that what everyone has been after? Or have we thought that Eternal Life is to be in heaven free from anything that opposes us?
There was a time not too long ago when I thought that my wife was the enemy. In retrospect, I can tell the story in such a way that you can see clearly that I was off. But, if I would have talked to you about the situation back then, you probably would have agreed with me - not that my wife was the enemy but that the enemy was trying to get at me through her. I was a very spiritually mature person you see. I had traveled the country and worked in ministry with several important and famous people. I had a lot of experience and had devoted my life to know the Lord. I had lived a relatively good life. And I was committed to spending time with the Lord on a regular basis. My wife, not so much. She did not really have any great spiritual accomplishments under her belt. She did not, when compared to me, have a strong relationship with the Lord. And every time I would go through a period of "spiritual growth" my wife would be against me. She would tell me that I was different - that I was not myself and seemed distant and inaccessible. I remember her saying that she felt like she lost me during these times of "devotion". I felt fine and did not know what she was talking about. As far as I knew, she lost me because she was so unspiritual and could not keep up. Things often got bad enough that I would lose courage and give up pursuing the Lord for that period of time. This continued frequently. It was around the time that we became pregnant with our little Simone that I had pretty much given up the pursuit of God completely. I noticed that when I simply focused on my family and left God alone everything was better. I still longed to know Him more and I recognized that my relationship with Him was lacking but I was not going to pursue Him at the expense of my family. That just did not make sense to me.
I would love to go into to detail with this story but it would make this post way to long. In short, I resolved to just believe that God was good and that His heart was for me and that if He wanted to encounter me, He would find me. I did not know how but knew that I was done trying. By His Grace I began to see Him in the simple things of life all around me. I began to become aware of what was instead of trying to find something that wasn't - true Faith. As my awareness has grown I have become more and more overwhelmed by His presence everywhere I go. It has come to the point where I find Him even in the hardest of times and the darkest of nights. It is what I have always wanted but the Way was so much different than I ever imagined it would be.
I remember at one point the Lord so clearly saying to me, "I am way below you Jacob." I thought "what? That doesn't make sense or even sound scriptural." He said, "You have been searching for me way up high in your thoughts and in your imaginations but I exist so far below all that. I am below even your most simple of thoughts. Don't you see, Jacob? Before you think, 'I am.'" "Oh Lord," I said, "won't you please bring me down to where You are? All of these vain thoughts and ideas and concepts that I have been following for all of these year never led me to You."
Can't you see, dear friend? God in His Mercy embodied my wife and set Himself against me to deliver me from my vanity. And I thought she was being used by the enemy!! My precious wife was actually more present with the Lord than I was. But I denied Jesus who was living in and speaking through her. Do you know what that made me? The anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is any one who denies Jesus or the Father. Men, how many women and children have we crushed in the name of religion when all the while they were actually Jesus trying to confront our piousness. The truth is that anytime we are offended by someone - especially our children or spouse - it is often an exposure of a vain thought or idea that we are depending on - or a false comfort as some would call it.
For so long I missed the precious gift of my beautiful wife's heart. I had prayed time and time again for the reality of God in my life and for Him to speak to me and encounter me. The Lord answered my prayer in the form of my wife. But, just like the Jews did with Jesus, I tried to destroy the Word of God because I did not recognize/appreciate the form it came in. As I have become willing to be disturbed by my wife and children, I hear the Lord through them all the time - maybe even more than any other form. It is still hard at times when I am confronted but I want so badly to know Him that I am willing to be wounded and torn down by the blessed disturbances in my life.
Can you hear Him? Can you see Him? Do you know Him? I believe that God has blessed us all with disturbances that are designed to bring us down to where He is. Will you receive and allow the next blessed disturbance you encounter to bring you down? Or will fight to preserve your own kingdom?
"When I return, will I find Faith on the earth?" - Jesus
As I was watching all this unfold, I sensed the Lord begin to speak to my heart. He brought to mind the verse in 1 Corinthians 1:27 which says, "but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong." I began to realize that the Lord was telling me that He was in the midst of what was transpiring between this father and son. You wouldn't know by looking at it - but the Lord was speaking through the defiant son. How can this be? Mercy. The Lord in His Mercy was giving this poor father an opportunity to know Him in a more powerful way. What the father thought was a distraction and disturbance was actually an invitation to encounter the Living God.
The word that is translated shame in the verse above means "to be brought down." Now, why would the Lord want to bring us down? How are we supposed to get anywhere - especially spiritually - if we are to allow these disturbances and distractions into our lives? I mean, if this is really the Lord, how are we ever going to accomplish anything? When you are alone in your room in the middle of passionate worship or in deep meditation on His goodness and your wife bursts in asking if you could please take the baby so that she can make dinner - are you to allow that? Is that the Lord really? Sounds more like the enemy trying to distract you from things of "true eternal significance." Right?
I recently heard a wise man say that "Faith is not to imagine something that does not exist, but to simply stop ignoring what already exists though it cannot be seen." Faith is simply being aware of the substance and evidence all around us. Faith does not require effort - it is a gift. It is the gift by which we see all the other little gifts all around us that lead us into the reality of His ever present Presence. "Everything you see is a gift from God..." as Jason Upton sings (listen here).
I often wonder how often I miss opportunities to see Him; to hear Him; to know Him. Just like the poor father and his defiant son or my "eternally significant" quiet time being interrupted by my wife in need. Why does the Lord want to bring us down? Because I am often so confident that I know His way and that I know where to find Him that I miss Him reaching out to me in an unfamiliar form. The minute I think that I know His way I lose it. His way is not an idea or concept that I can know and write down for later. It can only be known by presently seeing and hearing Him. And He often wraps Himself in forms that I am not expecting or am even opposed to in order to see if I am seeking to build up my own kingdom of comfort and self-sufficiency or if I am genuinely seeking to follow Him along the Way. If Jesus has only ever been your advocate and never your adversary than you are following a false Jesus - a Jesus of your own making (and he probably looks a lot like you). The Fathers goal is not to make us fat and happy and comfortable but for us to know Him - the Truth. After all, Jesus said that to know the Father is Eternal Life - is not that what everyone has been after? Or have we thought that Eternal Life is to be in heaven free from anything that opposes us?
There was a time not too long ago when I thought that my wife was the enemy. In retrospect, I can tell the story in such a way that you can see clearly that I was off. But, if I would have talked to you about the situation back then, you probably would have agreed with me - not that my wife was the enemy but that the enemy was trying to get at me through her. I was a very spiritually mature person you see. I had traveled the country and worked in ministry with several important and famous people. I had a lot of experience and had devoted my life to know the Lord. I had lived a relatively good life. And I was committed to spending time with the Lord on a regular basis. My wife, not so much. She did not really have any great spiritual accomplishments under her belt. She did not, when compared to me, have a strong relationship with the Lord. And every time I would go through a period of "spiritual growth" my wife would be against me. She would tell me that I was different - that I was not myself and seemed distant and inaccessible. I remember her saying that she felt like she lost me during these times of "devotion". I felt fine and did not know what she was talking about. As far as I knew, she lost me because she was so unspiritual and could not keep up. Things often got bad enough that I would lose courage and give up pursuing the Lord for that period of time. This continued frequently. It was around the time that we became pregnant with our little Simone that I had pretty much given up the pursuit of God completely. I noticed that when I simply focused on my family and left God alone everything was better. I still longed to know Him more and I recognized that my relationship with Him was lacking but I was not going to pursue Him at the expense of my family. That just did not make sense to me.
I would love to go into to detail with this story but it would make this post way to long. In short, I resolved to just believe that God was good and that His heart was for me and that if He wanted to encounter me, He would find me. I did not know how but knew that I was done trying. By His Grace I began to see Him in the simple things of life all around me. I began to become aware of what was instead of trying to find something that wasn't - true Faith. As my awareness has grown I have become more and more overwhelmed by His presence everywhere I go. It has come to the point where I find Him even in the hardest of times and the darkest of nights. It is what I have always wanted but the Way was so much different than I ever imagined it would be.
I remember at one point the Lord so clearly saying to me, "I am way below you Jacob." I thought "what? That doesn't make sense or even sound scriptural." He said, "You have been searching for me way up high in your thoughts and in your imaginations but I exist so far below all that. I am below even your most simple of thoughts. Don't you see, Jacob? Before you think, 'I am.'" "Oh Lord," I said, "won't you please bring me down to where You are? All of these vain thoughts and ideas and concepts that I have been following for all of these year never led me to You."
Can't you see, dear friend? God in His Mercy embodied my wife and set Himself against me to deliver me from my vanity. And I thought she was being used by the enemy!! My precious wife was actually more present with the Lord than I was. But I denied Jesus who was living in and speaking through her. Do you know what that made me? The anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is any one who denies Jesus or the Father. Men, how many women and children have we crushed in the name of religion when all the while they were actually Jesus trying to confront our piousness. The truth is that anytime we are offended by someone - especially our children or spouse - it is often an exposure of a vain thought or idea that we are depending on - or a false comfort as some would call it.
For so long I missed the precious gift of my beautiful wife's heart. I had prayed time and time again for the reality of God in my life and for Him to speak to me and encounter me. The Lord answered my prayer in the form of my wife. But, just like the Jews did with Jesus, I tried to destroy the Word of God because I did not recognize/appreciate the form it came in. As I have become willing to be disturbed by my wife and children, I hear the Lord through them all the time - maybe even more than any other form. It is still hard at times when I am confronted but I want so badly to know Him that I am willing to be wounded and torn down by the blessed disturbances in my life.
Can you hear Him? Can you see Him? Do you know Him? I believe that God has blessed us all with disturbances that are designed to bring us down to where He is. Will you receive and allow the next blessed disturbance you encounter to bring you down? Or will fight to preserve your own kingdom?
"When I return, will I find Faith on the earth?" - Jesus
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