“If [we] become accomplices in treating every child as a problem to be figured out, every spouse as a problem to be dealt with, every clash of wills in choir or committee as a problem to be adjudicated, we abdicate our most important work, which is…discovering the presence of the cross in the paradoxes and chaos…” ~ Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor
Everyone gets possessed with temporary insanity. At least I hope they do. That’s what I tell myself when I think about impulses I’ve had – like the impulse to throw a computer from a twenty-story window and see it smash on the pavement. Or there are the more benign, nonetheless insane, impulses I’ve had to throw a parenting book on the floor and jump on it, up and down, screaming, “Shut up! You don’t know!” I also imagine hurling it across the room and watching it crash into a lamp. But then I think about my broken lamp and the book lying there smugly; and I smartly tell it: “Ha. I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”
So, why do I do it? Why do I pick the dumb thing up in the first place? Because, I hope it is not dumb. I hope this little paperback will speak to me, whispering the as-yet undiscovered secrets of curing sibling rivalry, training a baby to sleep ten hours, and to hand-sign rationally assessed needs: “Have poop. Need change.” I want to discover the manual that works without frustration or glitches. I want to find practical, manageable answers for all my question marks so I look to “resources,” craving them, and counting on them (and blaming them) to make sense of my unrest.
In saner moments, I recognize the limits and appropriate value of “how-to-solve-it” manuals. It’s true that things get a whole lot saner when my babies sleep, or when I sleep, for that matter. And “how-to” accomplish these feats isn’t something I knew instinctively. I needed a resource to guide me along.
But somehow lately, I’ve been thinking that, in my intent to serve well by doing things right, my procedures can get over-magnified… and at the cost of bigger things than a peaceful day. I start believing that the way I do things matters more than the well-being of my kids (and to me) than the faith I live in. I mis-believe that the “answers” I find can outrun the mysteries, and that my confidence can and will be garnered from “doing it right” rather than from possessing hope in God.
The same is true in ministry. There are lots of resources out there. In fact, not just “out there.” Within this magazine alone you’ll find helpful resources like resolving conflicts, taking ministry to the next level, fostering intimacy in your home, refreshing yourself and others through mini or weekend retreats…lots and lots of helpful resources, but what I’ve been wondering about lately is, “what about the help of Jesus?” Not Jesus as a resource or Jesus as a method or Jesus as a formula, but Jesus as a person.
Of course we nod to His essentialness. It’s the mystery and miracle of Jesus that makes a difference in any given situation, and I simply employ the tools He’s provided. But, if I’m honest, in my everyday concerns, my assumptions get befuddled. A subtle shift takes place. I look to the means rather than the Man. Of course I know Jesus works in all sorts of ways. His means vary from the practical to the miraculous, but either way He goes, I tend to lose sight of Him, and I acknowledge His saving power in the way things get done rather than in Him as a person.
In ancient times (and still today), I’d have wanted to bottle the miracle. And today, in my research-based, psychologically-astute, relationally-sensitive efforts, I want to bottle the method.
In my defense, what’s wrong with this approach anyway? I mean, results are results, right?
Well, (sigh) that’s just it. I have to confess that the results I get from relying on the manuals aren’t actually what I’m looking for, at least not deep down, because what I want is transformation, not behavior modification. What I want is genuine relationship, not controlled compatibility. What I want is for this situation to actually be imbued with the Holy Spirit, not for it to be “well in hand.” I want the miracle of Jesus, but I find Him elusive or slow or unpredictable or impractical. So, I put my nose and my hopes back in a book. Later, of course, there’s the inevitable jumping up and down, screaming episode mentioned earlier.
Here’s what I’m learning to see: In the severity of His mercy, Jesus denies me the delusion that there is salvation found in any other name. He kindly frustrates my attempts to let methods upstage Him. He reveals what doesn’t work because, after all, He is the answer. By this I mean that it is His personhood that is central, His fingerprints that are required. In my worthy goals to do things right—in my home, school, church, ministry, relationships—in any place or situation, there is no saving grace apart from Jesus.
There’s no substitute. No generic. No means or methods that are guaranteed. It is Jesus alone that makes a difference—His competence, His comprehensiveness, His assessment of what is needed, His interactions in hearts and in days, His presence and performance, that are key to any “solutions.”
And we know this in our gut. From our deepest and most profound personal experiences, we know that encountering the person of Jesus is what makes any lasting difference. Our own stories incriminate us.
In my story, child number two out of our four was the evidence. From infancy, Maddie has seemed stone-faced and impassable. With enough pressure or cajoling, we might prompt Maddie to modify behaviors, but we never could find the right “currency” to soften her heart. She even said once, “I don’t know if I want to follow God… because actually I really like my own way.” Commendable insight for a six year old. We consulted resources from “love languages” to “shepherding” to “growing kids” to “discipline”…. But there was little tenderizing effect, little movement in the furrowed scowl, or plain indifference that settled on Maddie’s expression.
Naturally, I came to a breaking point. Not a breaking point for any lamps, but the breaking point for my tenacious hope in techniques. I just cried and cried, first to my husband Todd, and then together to God, pouring out our fears and confessing our bottomed-out helplessness.
A good cry plunges out the clogs in my soul. I breathed out the stress of my fears and then laid down again in the comfort of God as my only hope. Two days later, Maddie had her own breakthrough. She was playing with a Barbie her grandparents had sent her for Christmas. She’d play its song over and over: “I feel connected, protected, like you’re sitting right with me all the time. You’re near me. You hear me. Everything else is going to be all right. Cause nothing can break this tie—Connected.” Maddie called me into her room, played the song, and dropped the bomb: “Mom, I think this song is about me and God. I think He wants me to be connected to Him.”
It was stunning. A singing Barbie, for crying out loud! But Jesus knows. Jesus knows my little girl. He loves her better than I do, speaks to her better than I do, and works in her better than I do. Jesus knows. Jesus makes the difference. And Maddie hasn’t been the same since.
As for me, I also have my own song to play over and over again in my captive consciousness: “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.” I’m not singing anymore about my act of carrying anything to Jesus, or about my acts at all. I’m singing about Him. He’s the game-changer, the difference-maker.
As Eugene Peterson says,
We misunderstand and distort reality when we take ourselves as the starting point…. The biblical conviction is that…God has already taken the initiative. Like one who walks in late to a meeting, I am entering a complex situation in which God has already said decisive words and acted in decisive ways. My work is…to discover what he is doing and live appropriately with it.
I’ve wanted to live appropriately, and I’ve sinned by idolizing “methods” for doing so. I’ve got to go to Jesus. I can receive with joy any techniques He offers or manuals He provides, but if I go to them rather than to Him, if I pick up a formula before I fall to my knees, I’m training myself in delusion and disappointment.
~ By Joylynn Blake