I'm going to be really vulnerable, really transparent, and show some brokenness right now. I hope you don't mind. In Euro-American culture - in most cultures, I think, in fact - it's not exactly masculine to lay it out there like this. But sometimes, truths of God, and going along with His "culture," is counter-cultural to everything we know.
And right now, that's ok. It is Lent, after all, and Lent is when we are stripped to our most vulnerable place, to our core, to where all is made evident and nothing can be hidden anymore. How could our sin, our pride, our facades, and our brokenness remain hidden when Jesus is making his way to that bloody cross, and about to be literally stripped, and to hang there for us, in all his humiliating vulnerability?
So, here it is...
I need people.
Yeah, so? You shrug as you start humming and clapping to the tune of "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers. We all need *clap* somebody....to lean...
NO. Listen. You don't get it. I NEED people.
Look, it's nothing I like to admit. A basic need of human living, psychologists may say. We are indeed relational beings. It's why solitary confinement drives prisoners literally crazy. But for some of us, it can go to unhealthy lengths.
My brokenness is that, lately, I am needing people too much. This is not something I go around thinking to myself about at a conscious level each day. This has been a recently re-recognized disruption of my psyche, and I only truly became aware of it to its fullest extent today in a singular, solitary, painful moment of clarity. More on that in a moment...
Sometimes we're going along and, you know...something just feels....off. You have some things in place, some critical things have panned out your way, you have the confidence of the love of those closest to you, and yet you just feel off.
For me, I often find it curious and kind of deranged that anyone can ever feel alone in this day and age. We have social media outlets, shopping malls crowded with people, bustling cities, bars, coffee shops, libraries, bus stops, train depots, subways, churches with fellow church-goers joining you every Sunday morning, workplaces, and, for many of us, people right in our own very domiciles (either a spouse, spouse-and-kids, kids, significant other, or at least a roommate). Getting away from people, for those who value true alone time, is actually a very highly sought after commodity and challenging thing to come by....when you want it.
And yet, as ultra-connected as we are, with as busy lives as we lead, and with fellow human beings swarming all around, we can still wind up feeling ALONE.
Maybe you can relate. It's not a feeling of actually not having anyone around, and physically being alone. It's the feeling that no one draws near to you, relationally, and no one understands you; no one knows what you're specifically going through, right NOW.
If you're me, what do you do about that?
I guess, in retrospect, what I end up doing about it is proverbially scampering around, looking sideways at each person in my life, sizing up their availability to be closer, to "get me" more, and to fill those needs of validation, appreciation, encouragement, respect, loving affection, reassurance, or whatever it may be that my soul feels a lack of inside. It tends to be 'round about that time when my gauges' needles are all quivering up at the top of the meters and I'm red-lining in these pursuits or concerns that I finally hit a wall and sit back and realize I'm doing it, and that I should chill out.
Only lately, what my friend Josh posted about on Facebook is even more confoundingly true than usual. He said:
" 'Did God really say...' An effective deception that worked on Adam and Eve and still works on mankind today."
I shared with him that I thought this was so true, and definitely poignant about how Satan gets us to fall into many of our sins everyday. I didn't even realize at the time how self-indicting that was for me to say.
I fall, and fall hard, for the lie Satan uses on me when he whispers with that conniving forked tongue, "Did God really say, 'Surely, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b)'?" No, instead he slowly but surely, over the course of days and weeks, and maybe even months, eases me into a funk where I'm going about my days under the assumption that God, my Savior, has forgotten me.
So, says my subconscious, since I'm not finding that approval, that validation, that encouragement, that empowerment or respect from God since he is absent and silent, why not search for it in my relationships with a spouse, a family member, a friend, a coworker, or whoever might oblige me? If I have to, why not even demand it or beg for it? Aren't my needs my NEEDS??
And the confusion, the desperation, the loneliness, and even at times, despair, settles in. It winds its way through the ebb and flow of everyday moods. It lurks when I'm tired. It pokes at me quietly yet annoyingly when I'm already on edge from some external provocation, like a child pestering when you're trying to focus on something else for a critical moment.
And it becomes me. I become a man who believes he is marooned on an island. Surrounded by a sea of people who exist so that I may serve them, and yet my selfish and egocentric wiles driving me to hope to extract something from any interaction with them that I can. And all because...
I'VE FORGOTTEN JESUS.
Yes, I still know he exists. But when those crunch time moments carry me onward and I can only look inside, or persistently all around at those who are my fellow human beings at my sides, it's as if I'm forgetting who he is, who he means to me, and why he went to that cross for me.
Until that painful moment of clarity arrives. It may find you anywhere. It may find you on the trip to work, in your pew at church, on the sofa during a quiet evening, in the classroom during study hall; it may find you here, there, or anywhere....or it may find you while you're showering, and the state of relaxation and the ambiance of soothing water running down you to cleanse you somehow finds your fog clearing just enough to see it.
"Pssst....Look up," the Spirit said.
Freezing in my place, and stopping every tiny motion or thought in my mind, I listen again...
"Why do you look in vain all around? Why do you run and run, and search frantically, my son?"
"Why do you forget me? I haven't forgotten you.........Look up."
The whisper beckons within my mind. I let the thought run its course. Really, I can't help it. It seizes me and takes hold of me. The tears run with the shower water that already cascades down.
I forgot all about him. I lost him in my fog. I let myself believe he forgets about me, and I went searching for what only he can provide. He's right there, looking at me, looking for me, waiting, oh so patiently, wondering when I'll wake up and look back up above it all, to see him again.
And he continues:
"I cannot forget you. I don't know how. I wouldn't forget you, or any of the billions of you and your brothers and sisters, as I walked that bitter road to that rugged cross. It was with YOU in mind that I let myself be staked down, let myself bleed, let myself give up that final breath, and all while knowing the Father forsook me so he wouldn't have to forsake you."
"I know your pain. I know how it feels to be neglected. I know how it feels to be marginalized or forgotten about. I know worse pains, like being rejected vehemently, and being made the brunt of ridicule so fierce you can't grasp its very origin."
"I'm your brother.....I'm your truest friend. I never forgot those who are mine."
"So why have you forgotten me?"
Then the truth returns. It dispels that fog. It quiets the heartbeat that races in urgency and desperation without my even realizing it. The truth says...
What you seek you can ONLY find in me. I've been waiting for you, right here.
" 'Did God really say...' An effective deception that worked on Adam and Eve and still works on mankind today."
I shared with him that I thought this was so true, and definitely poignant about how Satan gets us to fall into many of our sins everyday. I didn't even realize at the time how self-indicting that was for me to say.
I fall, and fall hard, for the lie Satan uses on me when he whispers with that conniving forked tongue, "Did God really say, 'Surely, I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20b)'?" No, instead he slowly but surely, over the course of days and weeks, and maybe even months, eases me into a funk where I'm going about my days under the assumption that God, my Savior, has forgotten me.
So, says my subconscious, since I'm not finding that approval, that validation, that encouragement, that empowerment or respect from God since he is absent and silent, why not search for it in my relationships with a spouse, a family member, a friend, a coworker, or whoever might oblige me? If I have to, why not even demand it or beg for it? Aren't my needs my NEEDS??
And the confusion, the desperation, the loneliness, and even at times, despair, settles in. It winds its way through the ebb and flow of everyday moods. It lurks when I'm tired. It pokes at me quietly yet annoyingly when I'm already on edge from some external provocation, like a child pestering when you're trying to focus on something else for a critical moment.
And it becomes me. I become a man who believes he is marooned on an island. Surrounded by a sea of people who exist so that I may serve them, and yet my selfish and egocentric wiles driving me to hope to extract something from any interaction with them that I can. And all because...
I'VE FORGOTTEN JESUS.
Yes, I still know he exists. But when those crunch time moments carry me onward and I can only look inside, or persistently all around at those who are my fellow human beings at my sides, it's as if I'm forgetting who he is, who he means to me, and why he went to that cross for me.
Until that painful moment of clarity arrives. It may find you anywhere. It may find you on the trip to work, in your pew at church, on the sofa during a quiet evening, in the classroom during study hall; it may find you here, there, or anywhere....or it may find you while you're showering, and the state of relaxation and the ambiance of soothing water running down you to cleanse you somehow finds your fog clearing just enough to see it.
"Pssst....Look up," the Spirit said.
Freezing in my place, and stopping every tiny motion or thought in my mind, I listen again...
"Why do you look in vain all around? Why do you run and run, and search frantically, my son?"
"Why do you forget me? I haven't forgotten you.........Look up."
The whisper beckons within my mind. I let the thought run its course. Really, I can't help it. It seizes me and takes hold of me. The tears run with the shower water that already cascades down.
I forgot all about him. I lost him in my fog. I let myself believe he forgets about me, and I went searching for what only he can provide. He's right there, looking at me, looking for me, waiting, oh so patiently, wondering when I'll wake up and look back up above it all, to see him again.
And he continues:
"I cannot forget you. I don't know how. I wouldn't forget you, or any of the billions of you and your brothers and sisters, as I walked that bitter road to that rugged cross. It was with YOU in mind that I let myself be staked down, let myself bleed, let myself give up that final breath, and all while knowing the Father forsook me so he wouldn't have to forsake you."
"I know your pain. I know how it feels to be neglected. I know how it feels to be marginalized or forgotten about. I know worse pains, like being rejected vehemently, and being made the brunt of ridicule so fierce you can't grasp its very origin."
"I'm your brother.....I'm your truest friend. I never forgot those who are mine."
"So why have you forgotten me?"
Then the truth returns. It dispels that fog. It quiets the heartbeat that races in urgency and desperation without my even realizing it. The truth says...
What you seek you can ONLY find in me. I've been waiting for you, right here.
The cross is where I see that Jesus doesn't, and can't, forget about me. Selfish sinner that I am, spiritually blind and prone to straying though I may be, his gaze is always on me, and his words of affirmation and affection are always drifting on the breeze of his holy presence. I can always find him when I simply seek HIM.
The cross is where I am found once again. It's where I get healed again. It's where I remember, with a force like a western wind gusting up to fill the sails of a boat listing adrift, that I am someone, because I belong to Jesus, and because he gave his all for me.
I needed that truth to come find me again, so badly. I needed the reminder of my need for penitence and sorrow over this sin of self-centeredness, this sin of foolishly believing ancient lies that I am somehow alone.
I hope that, if you need that reminder too, especially during this Lenten time, that you'll find it as well. I hope that you'll lay down whatever has been weighing you down, stop looking around, and...
"Pssssst......LOOK UP."
