A blog of thoughts and musings as I journey with men in my community and wherever that community might extend in the future. Thanks for coming along. You are welcome here.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Brokenness
I came across this exerpt in a comment on the TrueFaced blog. The blog was talking about having grace for ourselves in our faith journey with Christ. When we mess up it doesn't disqualify us from continuing to share the truths of living life in His grace. With this context, here is the exerpt.
From the book “God in the Alley” by Greg Paul
If you had asked me when I was, say, twenty-five, how I could be the presence of Jesus, most of what I would have told you—assuming I understood your question at all—would have centered on ways I could possibly have modeled his strength, purity, or faithfulness..And if you had gone on and said, “Where or how do you think you could see him in other people?”—well, I would have thought you were talking gibberish, to be honest. But if I had been able to get my head around the question, I would likely have said something about seeing that strength, purity, and faithfulness at work in others.
Of course, the biblical writers encourage me to be strong (in the Lord, and in the strength of his might, according to Paul`’), exhort me to be pure, and call me to faithfulness. These are the behavioral goals to which I ought rightly to aspire.
However, these stories of my friends reveal a peculiar paradox: I am more likely to have Jesus revealed to me and through me in weakness than in strength, sinfulness than in purity, or doubt than in perfect faithfulness. If I can sum up all these “failures of the spirit,” all these ways in which nothing ever seems to work the way it should—not the people around me, not the sequences of events that I witness or in which I find myself engaged, and certainly not the operation of my own contrary heart—if I can sum up all these things with the single term brokenness, then I come to this astonishing conclusion: Jesus is found in brokenness.
This is the surprise of brokenness. The all-powerful Lord may seem distant and even frightening; the spotlessly perfect and unique Christ may seem unattainable. But I know what it’s like to cry out in desperate prayer; I, too, seem to need to suffer in order to learn how to be the Father’s obedient child—although, unlike the Son, its generally my own sins that cause my suffering. It’s the broken Jesus whom I can approach and even, in some small way, begin to emulate. It is he who connects me to the Lord and Christ.
The surprise of brokenness is not just that the Almighty allowed himself to be broken, and that he invites me to touch him there in that brokenness. It’s also that my own brokenness—that hidden, ugly, twisted stuff that I had expected would disqualify me forever from his friendship, and that, if it were known, would torpedo all my other relationships too—is precisely the place where he desires to touch me, and it is the place where I am most able to truly connect with other people.
My brokenness, then, turns out to be a place of meeting. My friends from the street keep me at a distance as long as they consider me to be whole and holy; when they discover the truth that I am messed up too, we find common ground.
Shortly after writing it, I gave a draft copy of the story of my almost fight with Derek to a friend to read.. He had come from the street, was valiantly battling addictions, and had been speaking to me about the riot of resentments he was experiencing in dealing with some of his past associates. I had told him several times that I often experience similar feelings myself, but that seemed difficult for him to accept. Many of my street friends seem to think that because I am a pastor, I must be of a different species from them and perhaps not capable of the same kind of emotions, instability, or dysfunction. By nature, I’m not inclined to quick displays of anger, and I’ve had years of experience dealing with truly objectionable people and situations in a (mostly) calm manner. Although he knew me well, the story was a surprise to my friend. And it was a gift. To both of us. He understood immediately that I was choosing to make myself vulnerable to him, and he treated that confidence—and me—with supreme tenderness. It encouraged hint to know that I really do share some of his struggles and helped him to see that they are part of the human condition, not just more evidence that he himself is a screwup.
As long as I pretend to myself and others that I am “just fine, thanks,” I keep people—and even God; especially God!—at a distance. When I admit my brokenness and enter into more intimate relationships with God and his people, I am less inclined to judge others’ brokenness. Instead, I can dignify it, recognizing and mourning the deep pain and alienation that is the inevitable result of being sinful people living in a sinful world but rejoicing also that we are together in this, and that God is with us, meeting us at the very point of our need. Essentially, this is simply the practice of confession, and confession is truly good for the soul. It releases me from the pressure of having to pretend that I am other than I am. And that honesty forbids me from requiring very much of others.
I came across this exerpt in a comment on the TrueFaced blog. The blog was talking about having grace for ourselves in our faith journey with Christ. When we mess up it doesn't disqualify us from continuing to share the truths of living life in His grace. With this context, here is the exerpt.
From the book “God in the Alley” by Greg Paul
If you had asked me when I was, say, twenty-five, how I could be the presence of Jesus, most of what I would have told you—assuming I understood your question at all—would have centered on ways I could possibly have modeled his strength, purity, or faithfulness..And if you had gone on and said, “Where or how do you think you could see him in other people?”—well, I would have thought you were talking gibberish, to be honest. But if I had been able to get my head around the question, I would likely have said something about seeing that strength, purity, and faithfulness at work in others.
Of course, the biblical writers encourage me to be strong (in the Lord, and in the strength of his might, according to Paul`’), exhort me to be pure, and call me to faithfulness. These are the behavioral goals to which I ought rightly to aspire.
However, these stories of my friends reveal a peculiar paradox: I am more likely to have Jesus revealed to me and through me in weakness than in strength, sinfulness than in purity, or doubt than in perfect faithfulness. If I can sum up all these “failures of the spirit,” all these ways in which nothing ever seems to work the way it should—not the people around me, not the sequences of events that I witness or in which I find myself engaged, and certainly not the operation of my own contrary heart—if I can sum up all these things with the single term brokenness, then I come to this astonishing conclusion: Jesus is found in brokenness.
This is the surprise of brokenness. The all-powerful Lord may seem distant and even frightening; the spotlessly perfect and unique Christ may seem unattainable. But I know what it’s like to cry out in desperate prayer; I, too, seem to need to suffer in order to learn how to be the Father’s obedient child—although, unlike the Son, its generally my own sins that cause my suffering. It’s the broken Jesus whom I can approach and even, in some small way, begin to emulate. It is he who connects me to the Lord and Christ.
The surprise of brokenness is not just that the Almighty allowed himself to be broken, and that he invites me to touch him there in that brokenness. It’s also that my own brokenness—that hidden, ugly, twisted stuff that I had expected would disqualify me forever from his friendship, and that, if it were known, would torpedo all my other relationships too—is precisely the place where he desires to touch me, and it is the place where I am most able to truly connect with other people.
My brokenness, then, turns out to be a place of meeting. My friends from the street keep me at a distance as long as they consider me to be whole and holy; when they discover the truth that I am messed up too, we find common ground.
Shortly after writing it, I gave a draft copy of the story of my almost fight with Derek to a friend to read.. He had come from the street, was valiantly battling addictions, and had been speaking to me about the riot of resentments he was experiencing in dealing with some of his past associates. I had told him several times that I often experience similar feelings myself, but that seemed difficult for him to accept. Many of my street friends seem to think that because I am a pastor, I must be of a different species from them and perhaps not capable of the same kind of emotions, instability, or dysfunction. By nature, I’m not inclined to quick displays of anger, and I’ve had years of experience dealing with truly objectionable people and situations in a (mostly) calm manner. Although he knew me well, the story was a surprise to my friend. And it was a gift. To both of us. He understood immediately that I was choosing to make myself vulnerable to him, and he treated that confidence—and me—with supreme tenderness. It encouraged hint to know that I really do share some of his struggles and helped him to see that they are part of the human condition, not just more evidence that he himself is a screwup.
As long as I pretend to myself and others that I am “just fine, thanks,” I keep people—and even God; especially God!—at a distance. When I admit my brokenness and enter into more intimate relationships with God and his people, I am less inclined to judge others’ brokenness. Instead, I can dignify it, recognizing and mourning the deep pain and alienation that is the inevitable result of being sinful people living in a sinful world but rejoicing also that we are together in this, and that God is with us, meeting us at the very point of our need. Essentially, this is simply the practice of confession, and confession is truly good for the soul. It releases me from the pressure of having to pretend that I am other than I am. And that honesty forbids me from requiring very much of others.