Here, I quote a little-known,
unpublished but prolific writer (perhaps completely unknown).
“[I’ve learned that] I … need to see
with new eyes, but that seeing won’t come through mega-lessons. It comes through simple lessons, new vision
through the two G’s, gentleness and grace.
I have to be gentle, and to be gentle, I need to give grace.”[i]
Of course the writer is me. I am quoting myself from earlier this month,
August, 2017. This past week, I saw a
picture of the enormity of the task I’ve set before myself – turning to become
truly gentle and grace-giving.
For a second straight year, my
family, my immediate family plus niece and nephews, parents, sister and brother-in-law
came together at First Landing State Park, Virginia Beach, VA. For a second straight year, we occupied cabins
18, 19, & 20. There are only 20 in
total. The road to the cabins takes a
sharp right curve after cabin 17 so that our three cabins, 18-20 are tucked
back into their own space. And the road
doesn’t go through. It ends after cabin 20.
No one has any reason to be back there unless they’re going to 18, 19,
or 20.
However, people don’t know that. All
the time, people come back there and discover – oops! – I need to turn around.
That’s usually fine, but not last
Wednesday. We were gathered in the afternoon
in one of the cabins playing Nerts.[ii] A huge camper with Harley Davidson in large
letters came through – except you can’t come through. That incredibly
long thing had to turn around and there just wasn’t space.
I exited out cabin to greet the
harried, stressed, tattooed 50ish woman driving the monstrosity and tried to
coach her through the 25-point about face.
It was an ordeal. She screamed,
she ignore me, she waited until too late to follow my directions, she demolished
the sign that says, “Cabin 20,” and she is still there. We finally left the beach the next day, her still
there, still cursing, trying to turn about that Harley Davidson camper.
Kidding.
After a harrowing several minutes,
my 9-year-old nephew Isaiah and I got her turned around. The trailer with her bicycles got scratched
and dented. Her psyche was bruised and
traumatized. And worst of all, the Nerts
game I was winning never got finished!
Seriously though, turning around is
often a mess, especially in life; especially when the turn we are trying to
make is in ourselves. Since I have
declared that my Sabbatical lesson is to be gentler and give more grace, I have
been gruff, short-tempered, grudge-holding, and petulant.[iii]
At other times, I have had moments where grace has crossed my mind and in
crossing has actually come out in my behavior.
I actually was a little gentler. Did
anyone notice?
Here are the spiritual disciplines I
committed to:
1. Prayerful
attentiveness
2. Dependence on God
(specifically seeking help when I am fatigued)
3. Seeking opportunities
to be gentle.
A
week into this and these commitments are now re-commitments. That’s why Eugene Peterson’s A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
is the best book title ever. The key
emphasis is on the word ‘long.’ That I
have been on Sabbatical for four months doesn’t mean I’ll automatically be
gentle and grace-filled. It means I am
aware that what I need is to be gentler and quicker to give grace.
Perhaps
Romans 7:19 should be every Christian’s daily confession. “For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” It certainly was Paul’s. And it will be mine.
However, lest this blog descend into a nihilist’s
fatalistic bleakness[iv],
I refer back to Isaiah (my nephew not the prophet though he may turn out to be
a prophet), me, tattooed Harley Davidson woman, and her oversized camper. After much tears, dents, bruises, and some
minor destruction (of a sign and a bush), the thing turned around. Likewise, while there will be pain and maybe
some blood and tears, our lives can turn around. Romans does not end at chapter 7, verse
19. After that comes chapter 8, verses
38-39. “For I am
convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.” Neither can hard
turnarounds come between us the love God has for us.
I was asked
recently what I want to accomplish as a pastor and I was grateful for the
question because it forced me to a place of mental focus I’ll need as I
transition from Sabbatical back to the weekly, daily work of serving God in
that formal role. As a pastor, I want to
take people by the hand and walk them to the place where they understand that
their lives are stories. You are a
story! And God is a story.
Imagine your
story as a road. And God’s story as another
road. I want to help you get to the
intersection, a three-way, where your story and God’s merge and become one
story. The journey to get there will
require some painful about-face turns.
There will be tears, screaming, and do-overs. But I believe that after “the evil I do not
want to do is what I do” comes “[Nothing, nothing, nothing] can separate us
from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So, I always believe that even the hardest of turnarounds are
possible.
Including me
learning to be gentle and give grace.
Now …
1. Prayerfully, pay
attention.
2. Depend on God
(specifically when I am really tired).
3. Seek opportunities to
be gentle.
[i] http://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-two-gs-gentleness-and-grace.html
[ii] https://www.pagat.com/patience/nerts.html
[iii]
https://www.google.com/search?q=petulant&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS749US749&oq=petulant&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2723j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
[iv] https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS749US749&q=nihilism&oq=nihilism&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0i131k1j0l2j0i10k1.1340322.1345590.0.1345893.18.13.1.0.0.0.175.1171.6j5.11.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..7.11.1096.6..0i67k1j35i39k1j0i20k1.b6pyxTNsaD4
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