Forgive Us Our Debts - by Tom St. John
In the search for God – nothing is sacred. Now that’s kind of a strange statement. True, nonetheless. Perhaps a little clarification is needed. In the true seeking for relationship with God, we think we are the active participants and that it is all our doing. We seek God, not the other way around.
Not to minimize the largeness of the moment. When we do say “yes” to God and seeking Him wherever He is, this is the moment of our action. Only we can say yes to Him. And only we can decide along the way to surrender control – albeit a bit at a time. But from that point, I wonder if we can understand how much God is the active pursuer. Of course, I still think that I am the one “responsible” for the success of my “mission” of finding God, yet it becomes more and more apparent that I am allowing myself to be found by God. And when I become the recipient – the child – instead of the active and responsible adult, the ways that I am found shows how God reveals the true me a bit at a time to myself. Over the years, I am discovered by myself, through a lifecycle that the loving God unfolds for me.
So, the nothing is sacred remark means that in the being found by God, nothing is sacred to Him. No holy cows, no territory off limits. Saying yes and allowing God to move in has meant a true and unflinching discovery of “self” which is sometimes a tough road, but it is always done in love. That love shows the way that I am pictured in my “world’s eye” and at the same time, shows the potential of the way God asks me to be. An aspect of the perceived me is revealed and illuminated. And in the showing, it is revealed to be based on only the shifting sands of what the world has said and accepted. Why is it shown to me at all? Especially in the light of my unique ability to focus on just the negative things I uncover? Because it is now somehow different. The multiple and subtle layers of the past few years have replaced that self-loathing with a more intuitive knowledge that these “discoveries” of today are shown to me for my best interests. God surfaces an area that He needs us to examine. And the examined life always asks what the behavior is based on and in. Is it a “me” behavior, response, etc? Or is it based on the original and intended life that God made especially for each of us. Now, little by little, I continue to be shown and encouraged to embrace and not avoid.
Henri Nouwen’s “Can You Drink the Cup” is formulated on the question that Jesus raises in response to the request that John and James have “first place.” The question He poses to their mother becomes the expansive topic that Nouwen illuminates for us. The Cup we are asked to drink of is the Cup of our lives. The good and the bad – to drink it and be fed by it, whether the drink is sweet or bitter. It leads us to a place where we do not deny and we do not avoid the circumstances both painful and undesirable. The call is to acknowledge all those parts of us: to identify with all that has happened in our lives. And, upon acknowledging those parts of ourselves, to completely enter into those moments of pain, hardship, guilt, shame and anger, to name a few, and to allow them to show us the lessons within. The acceptance of these times reveals to us the Grace that God has worked throughout our lives. And, in that understanding, we can no longer pretend and hold onto the falseness that avoidance fosters. We are all fallen. We are all the ones in need of forgiveness from God and each other. No false bravado of making excuses or explaining the circumstances or even placing blame. In the drinking, there is only God and me. He already knows, and He has lovingly led me to face these parts in my life as part of that ongoing process to reshape me. Reshape me by realization that by own self-reliance is part of that self-delusional story that keeps me from realizing and acknowledging that I am so reliant on God that there is no where else to turn. That is always at the heart of the matter. My choice is to continue to depend on my own resources and keep God and His grace away, or to acknowledge my self-insufficiency, and allow the hand of God to continue to reveal myself to me and shape me in the process.
Funny, how God’s timing works in all of this as well. Knowing that I was not ready for such a process before, as it would have only spiraled into the “self-rejection” thing…. And the revelations would be additional things that I could acknowledge on the surface, but immediately avoid with rationalizations. They would be the unnamed pink elephants in the room – known to be there, but not examined or allowed to speak for themselves. And in a timeframe that is certainly unexpected by me, these random spotlights shone on new (yet old) areas for me to drink down. Big difference seems to be a subtle awareness that I am being led to these by God for my own benefit. My weapon of the passing nod to them and then complete ignorance of their message has seemed to become less effective. God patiently but doggedly continues to circle around those wagons of mine and lets me know that He is there and that this is OK. I guess that I have come to a moment of accepted grace – and God is taking advantage of that. And in those moments, He is showing me that the things perceived as bad have the same presence of God within them. The worldly lines of bad and good blur out of focus, showing that God is in all of them.
So one of the things served up on a platter to me is the pervasiveness of being judgmental in so many ways. Quickly sizing up and making definitive decisions on the nature of things, events and the people that weave into and out of my life. Now, there seems to be a P.S. that gets attached to the judgment making process. Kind of a response to a prayer – that God makes me aware of the times when I am straying outside where I should. God throws the penalty markers and raises the red flags once again. And, yes – definite answer to prayer. Of course, now I am seeing how much I have a tendency to do so. It becomes another prayer: thankful for the red flags and a request to help with the behavior as it seems to be WAY out of my control to alter it by myself.
In my everyday, autonomic action of instant analysis, classification and filing my “assessment” – something became very apparent. My naming and classifying people, events and situations in a dismissive way has alarming consequences that never reached my consciousness before. This continuous assessment-processing of the information stream inevitably leads to judgment of sorts. Maybe not a Pharisee-like condemnation-before-the-elders type judgment, but a kind of native-to-me process that tends to put and KEEP things in a certain box. That box my be marked good or bad, or important or dismissed. To back up a little, certain types of judgment are a natural part of life. So much flows in and out of our lives, that we need to make hundreds of under-the-radar type decision like this each day. What came to light is how that process can be working in my life to deafen and blind me to the hand or messages of God.
If I put something in the “dismissed” box, generally, I continue to think of the fruit of that tree as bearing the same type of dismissive fruit. It is in my life, but I tend to pay it little or no mind at all. Very dangerous when into that dismissed box, I place people. Did they only have one chance to impress me and that first impression is for once and all time? And therefore in my rapid-paced classification system, I pay them no heed because they are always in the dismissed state? What if God acted like that with me? My entire life should therefore be in a dismissed state as far as the eyes of the Father and His Son and the Spirit are concerned. Yet, this is never the case. We all know that God qualifies the called, He does not call only the qualified. I, who fall down on the most regular basis, am allowed to play a part in the will of God every time I hear and say yes. So, I guess I am the greater judge to think that those who are “dismissed” by yours truly no longer have any part to play in the life God has provided? WOW. What a pompous ass. I feel like I have been pardoned my millions of dollars of debt and now I am trying to squeeze the price of a cup of coffee from those I’ve place in the dismissed box. OUCH. It’s all about me, isn’t it?
But even more dire, aside from the revelation that once again I have tripped, is the fact that I am missing the additional things that God is seeking to bless me with. God uses all things. The world and all that is in it belongs to the Lord. Do I ignore the voice of God in the words and actions of the people I have assigned as dismissed? I try to imagine the things that He has been attempting to say to me through these unheard voices. He shows me in those moments where He breaks into my regularly scheduled programming. Sometimes, I may be listening in that “dismissive” way when He quietly breaks into my realizations and has me TRULY listen. And I am blessed by hearing the message delivered from this unlikely source AND then I am stunned at the knowledge that I engage in this process of half-hearted listening at all – and possibly regularly. Or the lessons of grace and gratitude that He is seeking to bless me with in those situations and events I have deemed “HARD AND DIFFICULT” and therefore have sought to avoid rather than embrace.
And to another level (there are always several of them) if it follows that the dismissed have nothing to offer – than the accepted have everything to offer? Intellectually flawed thinking, but emotionally we are all wired into that same game. One of Nouwen’s recurring themes is that we have to forgive ourselves and others for not being God. Our seeking for God is so important to us that unconsciously we seek that fulfillment in our relationships as well. Marriages, friendships, filial relationships can all be marred by this high expectation. The unconscious and unrealistic expectation that we want those to love us to be Everything seems to be at the root of several relationship issues. Because when all is said and done, there still remains, “a God-shaped hole in our hearts that only God can fill.” Realization of that, and the fact that we can never fill that hole for others, or have others fill that hole for us, allows the constant awareness and forgiveness that mark the healthy realignment of expectations. After all, no one is the body of Christ – but we are all a part of that Body.
So God allows each of us - in very many ways - to be God for each other. Not all the time, but when the circumstances occur and when we say yes. God may use me for one moment only in a person’s life – to be Christ to that person. And maybe only that one time for that one person once - for only that one moment. He doesn’t expect (or want) me to take the place of Christ in another’s life on a full time basis. (Something I shouldn’t want either.) But His usage of each of us when we say yes is something almost incomprehensible. And often missed. I may miss that blessing of someone being Jesus to me if I have already assigned them to the dismissed box.
Yet, through the force of His determination to help us become more like Jesus, now my “disapproval” can become a spiritual red flag to alert me to the fact of how frequently I am blessed by God in the most unusual places possible, by people and situations I never thought it possible from.
A great lesson that shows how much mercy has been shown to me at each turn. And the knowledge that I now realize that I have not been merciful in this way, and the impact this has had on me.
And yet, this is the message that God is sending to me in Love. He has shown me this undiscovered country with an unflinching hand for the reason that He wants me to be aware of what I had not examined before. And, because I have little power to stop this, He lets me examine it in His light, ultimately coming to the same conclusion: I cannot change this through my own efforts, so please Lord help me so it may be done your way. What a powerful blessing.