Why my single friend you are so powerful!

I have been thinking of you my dear single friend.

I am not saying this to console.
I am not saying this because I envy your freedom to decide nearly everything in life on your own.
I am not saying this because I am unhappy (I am grateful and gratified though I struggle).

But I deeply believe you are so powerful.

Your power lies in your being one. Singularity is a powerful thing. 'One' as we all know is a mighty numero Uno: first, unfettered, focused. Single mindedness, being able to zero in on an arena.

Eberhard Arnold:

If the heart is not clear and undivided – “single,” as Jesus put it – then it is weak, flabby, and indolent, incapable of accepting God’s will, of making important decisions, or of taking strong action. That is the reason why Jesus attached the greatest significance to singleness of heart, simplicity, unity, solidarity, and decisiveness.

Purity of heart is nothing else than absolute integrity, which can overcome desires that enervate and divide. Determined single-heartedness is what the heart needs in order to be receptive, truthful and upright, confident and brave, firm and strong.

(Getting two hearts, minds and wills to be singular is a gargantuan task few attain to honestly. I am forever figuring out how this marital 'one-ness' works!)


Consider what this means for all your choices and decisions. It is really up to you.

This is power.

Yes, you can get scared. You wish you had someone to discuss it with (make that someone who will understand and agree), someone to fall back on...but a ring on the finger, a walk down the aisle doesn't guarantee this power. It is actually still the same. You have to invest, build, repair critical relationships.

As a single, you can choose multiple such relationships and tinker with your time and energy to make each relationship work well. You can have friendships that are solidly invested in, community that you are actively building, peer and older mentors (in the flesh or some other forms eg books)....

All you gotta do is  d-e-c-i-d-e.

Decision-making is after all, the most incredible gift God has endowed us. Free Will. Choice.

You see, if I cared about issues of justice but my spouse doesn't to the same extent or degree; the scope for the range of choices I have is already defined. Even if he would agree to let me go off and do something about it... how long, before the relationship strains? I have not included children into the equation.

This is why:

"I want you to live as free of complications as possible. When you’re unmarried, you’re free to concentrate on simply pleasing the Master. Marriage involves you in all the nuts and bolts of domestic life and in wanting to please your spouse, leading to so many more demands on your attention. The time and energy that married people spend on caring for and nurturing each other, the unmarried can spend in becoming whole and holy instruments of God. I’m trying to be helpful and make it as easy as possible for you, not make things harder. All I want is for you to be able to develop a way of life in which you can spend plenty of time together with the Master without a lot of distractions" ~ ~ 2 Corinthians 7v32-25 (The Message version)

But -- loneliness.

Two weeks ago, I went on a personal retreat and did a bit of an unusual thing. I chose not to go to a regular retreat centre; but checked into a hostel downtown. I felt a strange draw to do it. I actually found a lovely hostel that had quite cosy spaces for me to sit, journal and pray in the aircon, while looking out onto the bustling street!

But what caught me a little unprepared was meal time. I walked out and seeing that the street had eatery after eatery; finally settled into one. A lady sat at the next table; by herself.

This is when it struck me.

I have taken the reality of eating with someone else for granted. She sat alone. I sat alone. Glancing at the menu wasn't much help. Unlike some places that offer a one-dish meal; this menu had nothing of that sort. I ordered a soup and it turned out to be large enough for at least two... not wanting to waste, I offered the waitress some of the soup!

I prayed for you right then my single friend - that the pangs of loneliness will not get the better of you.

Loneliness: having someone near, around, or with you, doesn't always banish it though. I found that experiencing loneliness when you expect not to be lonely is very painful too.

Loneliness is best combated when I take my eyes off myself and avoid throwing a pity-party. It is driven away when one offers company - maybe being physically with someone, or perhaps doing something for someone. Holding someone else in our hearts and minds crowd out loneliness pretty effectively.

Surely there's an older person in the neighborhood who is lonely? A child who would enjoy being read to, a letter to write and so on....

Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this:

Pain is a holy angel who shows us treasures that would otherwise remain forever hidden; through him men and women have become greater than through all the joys of the world. It must be so and I tell myself this in my present situation over and over again. The pain of suffering and of longing, which can often be felt even physically, must be there, and we cannot and need not talk it away. But it needs to be overcome every time, and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain; that is, the one of joy in God.

These deep words:

"The gift of unity, whether with other people or with God, does not depend in any way on marriage. In fact, the New Testament teaches that a deeper dedication to Christ may be found by giving up marriage for the sake of the kingdom of God.

Those who renounce everything for Jesus, including the gift of marriage, are given a great promise by him: he will be especially near to them at his return (Rev. 14:1–5).

Whether such people find themselves without a life partner because of abandonment, death, or lack of opportunity, they can find a much greater calling than marriage if they are able to accept their singleness in the depths of their hearts. They can dedicate their lives in a special way to undivided service for God’s kingdom." (read the rest of this here: the service of singleness)

My dear friend, this is your discovery, your adventure with God, your journey. But I want to help you slay the lies that you are un-like, poorer, less. Plain lies. I want to encourage you my single friend - to see the potential that lies within your heart.


And, let's have dinner sometime!

You think you are emotional... wait till you meet this lady!

Most of us (guys included) have so many days when our my emotions go helter-skelter: up, down, even sideways. 

In a way, our emotions signal to us that we are alive for they are the first bits of us to respond. Sights, smells, touch, sounds all trigger emotional responses in us:

Wow

Eew

Yuck

Awww

Augh

Sometimes they get too much and we just feel overwhelmed --

-- - especially when it's the negative ones like regret, doubt, grief. So perhaps we mutter 'whatever' and act as if we didn't care -- when we do.


Today, even as have made great strides towards understanding men and women and elevating the worth of women; emotions are still often seen as a liability; a particularly feminine one. It's something we don't want to take too seriously. 

This is how we like our emotions:

Then comes Jesus.

He has a way of bringing out the deepest truest parts of us if we are willing to risk it. 

from: knowingthetime.com

And he's not afraid of all our wildest emotions.


Jesus and his disciples were walking in a non-Jewish territory. This lady comes out of nowhere and begins crying out to Jesus for help. 

"Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed" ~ Luke 15

It then says that Jesus did not answer her a word. I always wonder about God's silence. It feels immediately like God is angry or has stopped caring. But could it be that God's silence is His way of giving us space and time to be. He is saying, "I am listening". 

This tiny thought explodes in my soul. The God of the Universe is listening to me and has chosen not to interrupt me as it were. 

Sometimes, what we need to say takes a long time for us to come to say it. Some struggles and questions are so deep, convoluted, messy; we need days and months and even years to be able to find the words to say it. All the time, God is listening.... until we are ready to hear.

The woman in this story responded to God's silence with pursuit. She obviously would not let up but railed on as she trailed them; for the disciples "implored Jesus to send her away because "she keeps shouting at us".

This is an intense scene.

Emotions are spilling out everywhere: the disciples are feeling embarrassed, awkward, annoyed. The woman has gathered all of her emotions: loss, confusion, powerlessness, grief, shame...and poured it all out before Jesus.

Jesus seems to stand apart from all this emotional outpouring; and we quickly conjure up our picture of the religious person: detached, cool, objective. But that's not accurate. Jesus is listening for the heart of her words. It is coming; and he wants to say something very critical to her.

Here is a picture of full-on emotional engagement that is meaningful.



There are times, we have to really let our emotions lead the way. Suppressing, ignoring, fearing what people may think won't work. 

For all we know, this woman's sorrow, frustration and anger at her situation may have often spilled out at the wrong people and at the wrong times. When your daughter has a demon; it is hard to be in control. The demon could act up and cause so much trouble for her. As a woman, she is physically unable to restrain it. Others would consider her suspect if not an outright witch or problem. Friends will be hard to come by.

But today; she sees an opportunity. We have no idea how she knows about Jesus and where she gets her notions from. But she got it right:

Jesus can handle all of her emotionsJesus can heal her daughter

So she lets it all out. She expresses her desperation - without reserve. 

To our eyes, it is probably a sad, pathetic scene. She is so losing it, we may think.

But that's not what Jesus sees in her desperation. When he finally speaks, he assuages her pain with a reference to his acceptance when he points out that house pets don't get to sit at the meal table. 

Did Jesus just compare her to a puppy?
Did God just describe me as a sinner?

Some of us hear God's word as condemnation.Some of us hear it as requirement.Some of us hear it as irrelevant.

This woman sees that Jesus has engaged her and she is not going to let go now. She hears it as an invitation to insist on her belief: Jesus, you can help me.



Jesus did not send her away.
He did not shut her up.
But he stretched the emotions for their worth. Jesus shared with a woman his missional priority (yes, a non-Jewish woman who would not be educated). For many again, this may seem uncaring and distancing. 

But not for this woman. 

Her answer is astounding. She humbly identifies herself with hungry dogs that will snap up the crumbs that fall from a table. 

Do we ever get this desperate?

I think we get grudging. "Ok God, since you can bless so-and-so with... then at least.." is more like us.
I know we get angry. "Why God?"
For sure, we get going with the complains department. " God, I have already been asking.."

As I read this, I recall that we were "once enemies, alienated from God.." (Romans 5) - but by the mercy of God and the salvation grace found in Christ, I can now draw near.

She does not have the same assurance I do ---- yet.

Seeing Jesus, she cannot accept that Jesus will not help her; and her insistence moved Jesus to declare her faith to be genuine and great! 

We honour God when we trust Him - above everything else.

Jesus was moved by her trust.
He helped her cut through her emotions to this sacred place of implicit and expressed dependence.

Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once. ~ v28

Let your emotions signal to you that it is time to take it all to Jesus.
Spill it all out, inchoate, bits, messes.

Take a good look at what He is able to do.

Cry out desperately for what you truly need.

Listen for what he may say.

Let your emotions serve you by leading you to the depths of what counts.


related posts:
bereft
a little more Will-ing
how to Will over your emotions

How to keep on: be your self {but beware} & when it's wrong to live for others /

Please, be -- your.self -- but do read carefully what I mean by it.

My book Shed Those Leaves asserted boldly, "emerge to be your true self..". When the publisher showed me the finished product and it was classified as 'self-help'; I wanted to weep.

This is a world about helping yourself to all the Turkish delights*, the possibilities, the dreams, the passions. So powerful is this notion that even God is said to help those who help themselves. And of course we see how destructive it can be; that our default self-mode is perniciously self-ish.

Yet here I am again, asking you to be  your.self.

It is a dangerous thing to call people to. I asked myself: isn't this the privilege of the rich, first-world, high up Maslow's hierarchy, the reserve of those who have arrived; the creme de la creme of society? It is a luxury; or is it?

Here's a hint of the answer: our accouterments and achievements often conceal more than reveal who we are. I have found the poor to be more at ease with themselves and often their raw, rough edges are far more lively than the culturally smoothed ones of the respectable.

Also, we preach a gospel of a personal love, of each made uniquely in the Image. How can we then refuse to witness to the diversity and variety? How can you relate to God except by being who you are? Wouldn't we be impoverished if you and I refuse the courage to be who God made us?

But what does it mean? How do we become our selves?

Recently I wrote an old professor friend who was my pastor for the few critical years when I was training for ministry to update him about a missionary who had left her family and chosen to come out and to pursue a new relationship. She leaves in her wake broken families; biological and spiritual. People are angry, bewildered, troubled, burdened. I was astounded that in reply, he told me of others he knows personally and through contacts; many older, who have done just the same. These people have all gone off to be their "true selves".

We read such stories and easily mock them for being foolish, selfish, willful and even  treacherous. Some speculate if they really knew God. Sure, there are instances that may be so (but it isn't up to us to conclude). I am not going to say I have the answers. But I do not take these stories lightly. Such drastic departures, a disruption, a whole different trajectory isn't a walk in the park. To come to a day when you feel like your life is fraudulent is a terrifying thing. It is to have everything from under your feet snatched away. There is a crumbling of the soul and an intense void and vulnerability that happens. Like a distracted sheep, a person asking such deep questions about their lives, desperate for answers -- can become easy prey.

It reminds me of teens - those bewildering, frustrating creatures who are undergoing a process of identity formation in earnest. The teen years are tumultuous years. In a way; individuals who suddenly question their lives at the most fundamental levels are not in mid-life crisis as they are returning to a teen phase. Perhaps, there is a deep need in us to journey well, with integrity though every phase of our lives; and for some of us, a failure to do so catches up on us. 

I notice something else. The stories I am getting have come mostly from people who have "lived for others" - pastors, missionaries, church planters etc. I wonder about the connection.

Each of us, have been raised to feel the eyes of others on us 24/7 - to varying degrees. But the spiritual person, a spiritual leader, often feels a responsibility to live well, to shine for Jesus, to be a good witness more so than the average Joe. And I have seen so many unwilling, unhappy ones.

As a teenager, I used to think it must be so boring that all Christians turned out to be like Jesus! I remember going to God to tell him I wasn't so keen on the idea that I had to be his ambassador - not just because I lacked confidence, but because it felt like I would be curbed somehow. 

I had a serious choice to make. [notice the teen negotiation going on]. I would say this, it is an ongoing choice. Following Christ is a daily affair as much as there are significant moments of decisive action.

But what happens when we are pressurized to make a choice? What happens when we don't really dare to look into our hearts to see if we really want the choice; and it is the inexorable pace of life that sends us moving along? What then? Such a person is a trapped soul. He wakes up one day and wonders how he got to where he is.

Despite all appearances, the trapped soul is also one who never really takes sides. He is forever sitting on the fence of trying to please others and fearing for one's bite of the pie, reputation, comfort, status quo (that works).

The trapped soul is not free to really enter into community with others, and also never really enjoys solitude where facing one's true state can be deeply unsettling.

At some point, the teenager realises that he must hack a path and learn to manage this thing called a paradox: having one's way doesn't mean backing away from others.

Jesus taught powerfully on the paradox:

Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a seed... - John 12v24

All potential in the seed will never be realized if the seed refuses to die. What seems contradictory is what works sometimes! 

Jesus modelled this amazing truth for us ultimately: the victory of the Resurrection came through the torment of a most cruel and unjust death, where all seems lost.

This need to be our selves while being deeply engaged in community - where there is a great deal of pressure to conform - is a hard act. Both ends are tough; yet it is this paradoxical way of life - modelled by Jesus - that brings out who we truly are and gives us a measure of freedom on this side of heaven.

Now think how hard it is for those who live in missionary situations and those in leadership.

Do they have a cell group to hang out with come Friday night?
Do people relate to them as persons and not for the roles they play and the stuff they do?
Do they get some latitude to lose their cool, to drink one more beer, to seemingly idle?

It can be unnatural, unreal, and untrue.

I think we need to stop expecting of others what we are unwilling to do.

Many years ago, my church sent a couple of us to visit a single lady missionary in Africa. I was at the end of my first year in seminary and excited about such a trip. The importance of the trip slowly dawned on me months after I returned. Besides the impact of seeing what drastic cultural adjustments she had to go through; a poignant moment was when I spoke to her in a Chinese dialect, whereupon she burst into tears. "So long, so long, I haven't heard Cantonese" she muttered apologetically.

We all need safe places to be ourselves - works in progress. In my last post, I urged us to be a bother to our brothers and sisters. Articulating our need for others to pray, to care for our soul, to offer practical support is being human. It is being real. It is what builds community - that sense that we belong together and need each other.

But we also need to be given the space to pull away from community because the discovery of who you are as God made you and sees you to be is very much a journey taken with God alone. Only God knows who we are. We are His children who carry His name and His 'DNA' and even Saint Paul considered that he could only see dimly.

We need divine revelation, guidance, and encouragement to find out who we truly are.

Too many of us allow the following to tell us who we are:

Pains
Regrets
Memories
Expectations
Ambition
Successes

All of these are but indicators. Only One can decode them rightly for us.

Jesus once responded to the religious elite about the Sabbath. He told the story of David, famously described by no less that Holy Writ as a man after God's heart, eating the bread in the temple coz he and his men were hungry. That's right; Jesus was saying, "David, he broke the law. But he did it not in contempt of the law; but because he got what the law was about. " Then Jesus said, "Don't condemn the guiltless". {Matthew 12}.

The religious elite wanted to keep the law, conform to what they thought were rules that would ensure their salvation. They never got to the heart of things. They mistook the indicators for the message that lay behind them.

What is God trying to say to you through your

Discontent -
Anger -
Sadness -
Loss -

All of us labour under the weight of mutual expectations, which are in turn ladened with the added pressure of past experiences. It therefore takes both courage and discipline to see the state of our soul, bare it before God and perhaps a mature spiritual director/pastor, and learn to do this:

I waited patiently for the LORD
And he inclined to me and heard my cry {what a lovely picture right here}
HE brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay
And he set my feet upon a rock
Making my footsteps firm.
He put a NEW song in my mouth,
A song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fearAnd will trust in the LORD - Psalm 40v1-3

Do you see the process?

Did you get that lovely picture of God's tenderness - bending down to hear you?

Do you want God to give you the stability?

Do you desire firm footsteps, a song to sing, and many hearts to bless?

I worried when writing Shed that I would be read as advocating self-cent redness. It was a distinct possibility when readers with evangelical sensibilities read words like 'self'. It was hard work trying to make the message clear, and honestly I feel now that the book could do with more polish. But I also needed to trust and rest in the truth to assert itself to those who would read with an open mind and heart.

We need as God's people to grow up by being the community we need each other to be.

We need as God's child to grow up to be who God made us.

This means that we need to figure out for our lives how to develop a healthy rhythm of being by ourselves with God and being with others.

It means that church needs to teach and guide people towards this rhythm.

It means we must be less busy.

It means we need safe places and people to talk with.

It means we must value and treasure ourselves rightly, and more.

It means we must dig deeper into Scripture, prayer and history to find out what selfhood and personhood means or get hijacked and confused by popular notions.



What else does it mean….for you?

We need to learn how to live with paradox.

The paradox that we need both solitude and community, action and rest, one and many. The paradox that the self is a bold declaration of God's Creative wonders but also a shy and slow emergence. The paradox that we can be so much more and yet on this side of heaven, never quite get the full picture. The paradox that we will find ourselves so different (being like Jesus) and yet still so much the same.

The servant-King.

The Lion-lamb.

The dead-Resurrected Saviour.

 It's a bit of a tight rope - and I hear that tight rope walkers make it across safely because of two things: they keep their eyes on the end, and they carry a little burden - an umbrella, a pole - that weighs them down a bit.

More food for thought.

*the candied yumminess that made young Edward lose his bearings and play into the White witch's game (Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis)