Anxiety seems to be an inescapable fact of our times. The vast amount of information available, carefully curated by algorithms to keep us engaged and coming back for more, seems destined to drive up our anxiety. Nearly everything is hyperbolic. Death, destruction, danger, and peril are presented as always just around the corner.
Surely we do live in fraught times. We have deep and seemingly unbridgeable chasms in our society. Politics, race, gender, and religion all seem to be pulling us apart. It is no wonder we are anxious. As real as our perils are, we amplify them in our social networks, adding to our anxiety. We are anything but peaceful, yet Jesus promised his followers peace:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27 ESV
Years ago, inspired by a talk from Alan Fadling, I was inspired to write a “version” of the 23rd Psalm, for the hurried life. Recently, I attended another workshop with Alan, this time on living an un-anxious life. Unexpectedly, I found myself drawn again to the 23rd Psalm, this time to adapt it for the anxious life.
The 23rd Psalm for the Anxious Life
Anxiety is my shepherd, I shall have no peace. It makes me distrust green meadows. It worries me beside still waters. It erodes my soul. It leads me in paths of destruction for no purpose.
Even though I walk in the presence of God, I will fear every evil, forgetting he is with me; his rod and his staff fill me with dread.
Anxiety feeds me a forecast of disasters that delights my enemies. It churns my mind with fear; worry overflows my life.
Surely panic and brittleness will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the chaos of my mind forever.
Anxiety is a part of our nature; it can serve us well. But when we find anxiety mastering us instead of serving us, we shouldn’t passively accept that. It is not God’s design for us to be mastered by anxiety. As one who lives with anxiety, I can attest that there is no silver bullet. Medication and therapy are both valuable tools.
Practicing the presence of God is another valuable tool. It can be as simple as reminding our souls of the truth of the real 23rd Psalm, “The LORD is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack” (Psalms 23:1 HSCB). Our shepherd is the wisest, most competent, and caring shepherd. Reminding ourselves of that truth regularly can be a powerful tool in our anti-anxiety toolbox.
I did not know it beforehand, but I was reaching the beginning of the end of my time in my Pops’ Workshop. A new phase, which would be the last, was beginning. Looking back, I can see three broad movements in my time in my Pops’ Workshop: identity and invitation, healing and wholeness, and calling and sending.
The first movement was about identity and invitation. I learned who I am to God and who God is to me. I began the long and still-ongoing process of learning to trust him and yielding myself to his will. Understanding who I am to God meant understanding that I have purposes I never would have guessed.1 I was invited to be a small part of the healing and restoration Jesus brings through the ministry of the Holy Spirit and I was invited to bring words of peace and wholeness.
The second movement, my time with the Holy Spirit and my time below the Workshop, focused on my healing and wholeness. I had been promised both peace for my soul and attacks by the enemy, with the assurance that any hurts would be put right. I had taken an inward journey, discovering how the hurts and pain I stuffed down and tried to ignore had damaged my soul and were crippling my ability to share the life-giving waters of Christ-life. Jesus had come alongside me and invited me to bring my hurts, doubts, and sinful attitudes to him. I began the long, continuing journey toward soul wholeness.
A third movement was now starting; It was a movement of calling and sending. In some ways this was an echo and amplification of earlier the earlier invitations to help Jesus sand and polish to reveal inner beauty, to somehow facilitate the Holy Spirit’s internal work, and make God’s promise of peace widely known.
As this third movement unfolded, the way I experienced the workshop was also changing. Up to this point, my time in the workshop formed a fairly linear, coherent narrative, which made for easier writing. My experiences in the Workshop were becoming more like self-contained lessons, though the same lesson was often revisited. My “visits” were becoming shorter and more a distinct point. As I look over my journal entries for the remainder of my time visiting my Pops’ Workshop, it is much harder to tease out any kind of narrative. Accordingly, from this point onward, I will share my time Pops’ Workshop thematically and not necessarily share encounters in the order they happened.
Being
Even as the end was beginning, there were still some important lessons I needed to learn. In a direction session my director reminded me that much of what happened in the Workshop was Jesus healing, shaping, and forming me. That seems obvious to me now, but then it was something that was not front of mind. I simply didn’t notice what had happened and what was happening, especially where my interior state was concerned. We talked at length about just “being” with emotions and thoughts. He encouraged me to set aside analysis in favor of experiencing what was happening in the moment.
I had (and often still have) an unhealthy predilection to question and analyze my thoughts and emotions, novel ones in particular. Given the unpredictable environment of my youth that is not very surprising. I had developed a finely tuned analytical engine that had helped to protect me. Retreating inward in analysis helped me see where danger could be brewing and it also took me mentally and emotionally out of traumatic situations. I built a sturdy wall. Instead of the healthy processing of emotion, I learned avoidance. I stuffed it, either down the hole or hidden away, not to be recovered. In either case, I had learned not to be present to unpleasant and stressful situations.
As is often the case, the defensive mechanisms we craft in our youth are not helpful to us later in life. My inward withdrawal and shutting down was not limited to unpleasant emotions or frightening situations. I had taught myself to use analysis to pull back from unpleasant and stressful situations, emotions, and thoughts. But my defense mechanism was not selective. It applied to all situations, emotions, and events, whether they were good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, sacred or profane. Every emotion, good or bad, that stirred me and every thought that came to my mind had to be understood. What did it mean? What did I need to do about it? What action was necessary?
Focusing on critical analysis and working out the next step, usually a defensive step, kept me from being present to what was happening. I was mainly unaware of the breadth and depth of what God was doing to me, in me, and for me. Instead of receiving and being present to God’s grace, I was racing ahead to see what “it” meant and what I should do next.
The action of analysis, the effort to try to understand and make sense of something, necessarily removes us from the experience we are seeking to understand We stop being participants and start being observers. For me, the most tragic instance of this is failing to be present to moments of transcendant joy. Rather than simply be in that moment, I would detach, taking myself out of the moment, to think about how that feeling of joy came about, how I could maintain it, and how I could get it again in the future. It was like seeing a beautiful sunset beginning to unfold and running into the house to check all the astronomical and meterogical conditions that caused to occur so that I could better understand it and vainly believe I could anticipate and “be ready” for the next one, all the while missing the beauty in front of me.
For many things, especiallythe things of God, the greatest and perhaps only value, is being present in the moment. The only time we can experience God is in the present moment. We can remember how he was present in the past, but we cannot experience him in the past. We can dream and imagine how he might be present to us in the future, but we cannot experience him in the future. The only time we can be present to God is in this moment. When we take ourselves out of the present moment because we are afraid, uncomfortable, or as a learned defense, we take away the possibility of being aware of God and seeing his activity in and around us.
My director’s advice was wise. I needed to learn to set aside analysis in favor of experiencing what was happening in the moment.
When you read “Law and Gospel,” what comes to your mind? In my initial formation, I learned that Law and the Gospel were connected in a quasi-symbiotic relationship. The Law was there to convict us. It laid out the impossibly high standard for righteousness, a standard we could never meet. Its ultimate purpose was to show us our wretchedness and our need for a savior. The Gospel was the other side of the same coin. We were in line for eternal punishment due to our transgressions, but the good news of the Gospel was that Jesus paid the price for us, wiping the slate clean.
I didn’t think about this much; I just accepted it as dogma. The few times I thought about the Law/Gospel dynamic, some things didn’t line up for me. Jesus saves us from the burden of the Law, but he seemed to be laying down a whole bunch of new laws: “You have heard it said…but I say to you….” If his atoning death and resurrection saved me from the law, what is the point of more law? Then we get to Paul and another raft of rules for us to follow.
I also wondered what Jesus meant when he said that he didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. And why should I care about him fulfilling the law if he was about to render the whole question moot, and I would be let off the hook if I believed the right things and had “enough” faith?
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”
Psalms 1:1-2 (ESV)
What do we make of the sentiment in Psalm 1, that we are blessed when we delight in the law and meditate on it day and night? When we in the West think about law, our minds almost always go to crime and punishment. Laws tell me what I must not do or not fail to do if I want to avoid punishment. Law, while often needed to maintain order, is coercive. We follow it not necessarily because we think it is good but because we fear punishment.
The Hebrew word torah is rendered “law” in the ESV, but it can also be rendered “instruction.” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary reminds us that torah (the law) primarily signifies instruction from God. It is an expression of revelation, not regulation and religion.[1] If we can shake off our fixation on law being what we must do to avoid punishment and instead see it as instruction, it indeed becomes a lamp for our feet and a light for our path.[2]
The difference between a legal mindset and an instruction mindset turns out to be an important one that can ultimately influence the kind of people we become. As we read scripture, we “hear” it through a lens that reflects our mindset. Is God “laying down the law,” or is he showing us how to stay on the path that leads to him?
As a simple experiment, consider Jesus’ telling his disciples, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.”[3] What is your natural inclination when you read that? Is Jesus giving a “law,” saying if you judge others, I will judge you? Or, is he giving wise instruction for kingdom life, telling us not to judge because it is bad for those we judge and bad for us. judging is condemning and condemning hurts those we judge. They are likely to hurt us back, so it is just a bad idea all the way around.[4]
Once you shift from the legal mindset to the instruction mindset, you will start reading much of both the Old and New Testaments with new eyes. And that reading will drive how you think about God. Is he a God who mainly wants us to know how wretched and hopeless we are? Is he petty and vindictive? Is that a God whose nature is love? On the other hand, a God who gives us guidance and instruction is a God who loves and cares for us. He is a God who wants the best for us, even when we don’t know what is good for us.
Our conception of God will, of course, influence our relationship with him. The judicial God pushes us toward self-reliance. We are driven to measure up, make the mark, and, hopefully, avoid punishment. We fall into an adversarial relationship – us vs. God. He imposes the law on us, and we had better follow it. At the end of that road, we find a transactional system where we try to make God accept and love us by obeying his Law, or at least trying really hard. The God who gives instruction out of a loving heart invites us to become reliant on him, knowing that he cares for us and wants the best for us. We do not try to earn our way into his heart; we are already there.
Finally, how we think about God and our relationship with him predicts what we will become; we become like the God we worship. If we worship a judgmental, condemning God whose focus is enforcing his standards on us, we become like that God: angry, judgmental, and eager to impose our standards on others. We become incapable of following one of Jesus’ few direct commandments, that we love each other.[5] When we worship a God who instructs us out of his love and care for us, we become like him: caring, compassionate, and letting love be the master in our relationships with others.
When you read about “the Law” in scripture are you being summoned to a courtroom or invited to a classroom? If we are focused on law we try to moderate our behavior in a vain attempt to measure up, or, worse, to try control God in some weird quid quo pro where we can put him in our debt. We keep God at arm’s length, managing our own lives as best we can.
When we realize we are in God’s classroom, we embrace our union with God; we look to the Lord of life, who saves and heals us. We follow him and his instructions for living in his kingdom and gaining the life he intends for us.
Jesus came to save, not to condemn. He really isn’t looking for better-behaved sinners. He came so that we can have life and have it to the full.[6]
Walking into pain. Accepting humiliation. Entering the darkest of dark nights.
Betrayed. Forsaken. Abandoned.
Righteousness submitting to injustice. Brutal torture borne that we might know Love.
Love that washes feet. Love that heals. Love that weeps. Love that is merciful. Love that forgives. Love that redeems.
Love that dies.
Dying that we may serve. Dying that we may heal. Dying that we may know joy. Dying that we may show mercy. Dying that we may forgive. Dying that we may love.
Dying that we may be one with you. Never forsaken. Never abandoned.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18 (KJV)
My experience in My Pops’ Workshop began in late February. It was now the end of May; I was three months into this mystic journey. Praying on what was the morning of Pentecost Sunday, I returned to the workshop. Jesus and Pops were both quite busy, seemingly hard at work. I thought this odd since it was the Sabbath, I would have expected them to be at rest. Looking back on it, it shouldn’t have seemed odd since Jesus often healed on the Sabbath, and I was coming to the understanding that my time in my Pops’ Workshop was a time of healing.
Pops’ workshop was beginning to feel comfortable. I should have felt comfortable because I was in the hands of Love; that was not the case. I was becoming comfortable because I believed that I understood the workshop. Even worse, I was starting to think that I could manage what happened there. I imagined I could come and go as I pleased and encounter God when I wanted to and on my terms. Thinking that we can somehow manage God and his actions is patently absurd and is the height of vanity.
Nonetheless, that is where I found myself that Sunday, in the Workshop with my own agenda: I was hoping to just hang out with God. I aimlessly lounged around a bit and started getting uncomfortable. As my Pops continued his work, I felt awkward and out of place, like someone who blundered into the wrong meeting. After a short while, Pops broke the awkward silence, “Don’t you have some work to do with Jesus?”
Doing “work” with Jesus was not on my agenda; I was there to chill with the creator, redeemer, and sustainer of all that is. But my Pops’ tone of voice was firm, and his meaning was clear. I was not in charge of this situation, and I had not been given the grace to once again return to the Workshop so that I could lol around and expect to have God on my terms. He was not asking; he was telling me that I had more work to do.
Called to my senses, I dutifully headed back to where Jesus was busy sanding. He, too, seemed too busy for idle conversation. As I watched Jesus’ careful and attentive work, I started to get a slightly giddy feeling; I was starting to sense this would not be the casual workshop encounter I had hoped for. I was there for a purpose.
In my prayer, I asked Jesus to teach me to sand; I gave the Holy Spirit permission to have my mind, thoughts, tongue, and ears, and I thanked him for the work he was doing in me. Reviewing this encounter now, years later, I am struck by my own lack of activity. My Pops had just told me I had work to do, and yet, in my prayer, I sought to be a passive recipient of who knows what. That attitude belies a truth about spiritual formation and transformation. It isn’t something that happens to us while we sit passively doing nothing. God’s transforming grace is, in fact, all grace; we can do nothing to cause it to happen outside of God’s action, but we must be active participants. We show up, and we cooperate. We engage in practices that open us to his grace and power. Paradoxically, it is all God’s grace, and we have work to do. Our effort, puny though it be, is necessary.
Back Down the Hole
After my prayer for passive assistance, as I sat in the workshop, I knew why I was there. I was supposed to go back through the hole in the floor, down into the well. I resisted and, for a while, pretended I didn’t know what I was there for. Eventually, I surrendered, and down I went.
I was surprised to see the subterranean stream. When I last saw it, it had been barely a trickle—more like a seep. Now it was flowing—it really was a stream. Not only was the water starting to flow in earnest, but much of the muck and slime that had coated everything on the floor of the “well” had been washed away. I was astonished by this improvement, but I shouldn’t have been. The water, God’s love, the water of new life, was washing away the pollutants that tainted my inner life. This was yet another depiction of the changes God was making in my inner being.
I had resisted returning to the well, dreading the unpleasant work of confronting my brokenness. But now that I was there, I could see one of the reasons I was called back down: to receive encouragement. I had already made noticeable progress in unclogging the flow, and I may not have as much muck to clean up as I had feared. That encouragement was welcome. As I looked around a bit, I literally saw the other reason I had been summoned back down the hole and what my Pops had meant when he said, “Don’t you have some work to do with Jesus?”
Pride Rock
In the middle of the stream stood an enormous rock. I had not noticed it when I had been down the hole before, but much was clearer to me now. The “cave” under the workshop seemed brighter. I was certainly less ominous and oppressive. But this large rock was both ominous and oppressive. There was nothing encouraging about it. Other rocks I had encountered in the hole were about the size of a basketball or a little bigger. Big and heavy, but something I could manage to pick up and bring to Jesus. This rock was three or four feet tall. It had a broad base and came to a wicked spike at the end. I asked the Holy Spirit what this rock was, and after a short while, I heard a single word, “pride.”
This rock, Pride, was so striking and seemed so important to me that I sketched it in my journal. Here is a reproduction of that sketch.1
“Pride rock” was a new challenge. Unlike the other rocks I had encountered, it resisted all efforts to shift it out of the stream. I tried several times to lift it, and when that failed, I tried to push it over and out of the stream. It wouldn’t budge. This Pride, which stood blocking the flow of water, was intractable.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that the biggest, most ominous, hardest-to-move rock would be Pride. I had previously started clearing the rocks of fear, doubt, inadequacy, and shame by bringing those parts of me to Jesus. But pride was foundational to my being. Feelings of fear, doubt, and inadequacy were potent because they threatened my Pride; Pride empowered and activated those unhealthy feelings. If you had known me, you might have guessed that I had a fragile ego. So fragile, in fact, that fear, doubt, and feelings of inadequacy could not be tolerated. A large, immovable Pride was needed to protect myself. When any of the intolerable feelings arose and were metaphorically chucked down into the well, my Pride grew and swelled, vainly hoping to protect me from the next onslaught of insecurity.
It is hard to open the Bible without finding an admonition or warning against pride or encouragement to pride’s opposite, humility:
You rescue the humble, but you humiliate the proud.2
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.3
Pride ends in humiliation, while humility brings honor.4
Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled. Only the LORD will be exalted on that day of judgment.5
His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.6
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.7
For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.8
This should not surprise us. Pride is at the root of most of our other sins. We lie, cheat, become angry, covet, steal, dishonor others, and even kill to protect our egos and our pride. We think we deserve whatever we want simply because we are “us” and want it.
In his masterwork of apologetics, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis devoted an entire chapter to “The Great Sin,” pride. He begins his treatise on pride by calling out its primacy.
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Lewis, C. S.. Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis Signature Classics) (pp. 121-122). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
He calls Pride a spiritual cancer that “eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”9 Pride is essentially competitive. We want to believe we are, in some dimension, better than our neighbor. We aren’t satisfied with just a good car that provides safe and reliable transportation. We want a car better than our neighbor’s. We want a car that will show others how rich, up-to-date, or clever we are. If cars aren’t your thing, we can just as easily substitute house, vacation, income, spouse, children, etc. We feel good about ourselves when we believe we are better than others, and they know it. We feel dissatisfied knowing that others are better than us.10
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.
Lewis, Mere Christianity (p. 122).
We see this sense of competition coming into play in the earliest instances of pride, which, not coincidentally, is also when sin entered the human condition. In the account of the fall of humankind told in Genesis,11 the enemy of our souls appeals to our pride to inspire the mother of all other sins. Adam and Eve are told that they are missing out; God is holding out on them. They are not getting what they should have. God has something you don’t have. What is it besides pride that leads us to say, “Yes, even though that is forbidden to me, I want it, and therefore, I shall have it?” Pride is at the root of our separation from God and at the root of all our sin.
Happily, there is an antidote or counterpart to Pride: Humility. We often think of humility as “not thinking too highly of one’s self; of having a proper perspective of our place.” That is not a bad way to think of it, but Lewis offers a helpful amplification, telling us that a truly humble person “will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.”12
If pride is the root of all sin, is its counterpart, humility, the root of all virtue? Our first thought may be: “Is it not true that Love is the most important virtue?” The answer is yes. Jesus affirms the Old Testament’s teaching that “to love God is the greatest and first commandment.”13 In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul intimates that the greatest virtue is Love.14 God is Love15, and Jesus gives his followers a new commandment, to love one another.16 How, then, could Humility be greater than Love?
There is a Latin phrase, incurvatus in se, which means to be curved inward on oneself. That is not a bad way to think about pride. The proud man thinks only about himself, and the humble man thinks only of others. It is not just our attention and thoughts that can become distorted to curve back on ourselves. Love, too, can be bent in the wrong direction. We find ourselves loving ourselves where we should love God and our neighbors. We are made in love to love others, but in our sinful pride, our love is curved inward and we become the object of our own love.17 Pride deflects our love; humility sets it back on its proper path.
In the workshop on that Pentecost morning, I was still faced with the enormous problem that I now knew to be my pride. I had tried to move it but failed utterly. I asked Jesus to move it for me and, unsurprisingly, saw that he was down in the well with me. I was embarrassed to have him in my muck (my pride was showing), but he didn’t mind it all. It seemed as if he had been waiting for me to ask for his help. He did not offer to take this rock away, as had done for the other, smaller and now seemingly inconsequential rocks; He offered to smash the rock of pride into tiny pieces.
Immediately, I remembered a friend’s Holy Spirit experience. He had been completely overwhelmed by the spirit in a very public way such that he could do nothing but lay on the floor and yell “FIRE.” Is that what Jesus was offering me: what seemed like a public humiliation? It could have been the enemy trying to dissuade me, but I think this memory was a loving reminder to make sure I knew what the offer to smash my pride could entail. Jesus hadn’t offered to gently break the rock into manageable pieces. His offer was to smash my pride.
I was not sure I was willing to have a “FIRE” experience.18 However, I was sure that I wanted Pride Rock gone and that I couldn’t shift it myself. As I closed my prayer time on that Pentecost Sunday, I gave the Holy Spirit permission to do whatever was necessary to shift the rock of my pride out of the flow of Jesus’ love. That left me feeling uneasy and more than a bit nervous. “Whatever” is a very big word.
Another Side of Pride
I was soon to encounter my “Pride rock” again. It was exactly two weeks later, again on a Sunday morning. I had been noticing a pattern of God speaking to me through corporate confession in church. That is what happened that day. As we paused for silent reflection during our corporate confession, the word “Selfish” was being impressed upon me. This was not a gentle suggestion. It was an insistent, almost shrill voice, ringing over and over in my mind: “Selfish.”
This certainly got my attention. As I considered that word, I became aware of several areas of my life where I was being very selfish indeed. I had been in a funk because things were not turning out the way I wanted. I wanted what I wanted without thinking about what others might want or need, and I was sulking and feeling sorry for myself when I didn’t get my way.
I hadn’t really thought much about my experience with Pride Rock, but now, my thoughts jumped back to it. I was again down in that subterranean space, seeing that frightful rock. As I watched, it was lifted up, and I could see the underside of it, where the word “selfish” was written. I hadn’t considered selfishness as another aspect of pride, but now I had to confront it.
One aspect of pride is that of the preening peacock, caring too much about what others think of you and desiring to look good in the eyes of others. That is inherently a selfish desire. It has no value except to make you feel good about yourself. Another aspect of pride was being brought to my attention. In my pride, I cared only for myself. My incurvatus in se, was on full display. I was turned completely inward, neglecting my obligation to love my neighbors as myself. That was a needful reminder I need to hear most days.
During a session with my spiritual director, I remembered how I almost exhausted myself trying to move “pride rock” before I asked Jesus to help me with it, and then I was anxious about what that help might look like. As my director and I waited in silence, Jesus made me an offer that shocked me. He suggested that I go hang out in the meadow, just enjoying the long grass, warm sun, and cool breeze, while he goes down in the hole and takes care of “pride rock.” There was no angst, no sense of me having to endure anything or be embarrassed. He would simply take care of it.
I do not know what might have happened had I given unambiguous permission for Jesus to “smash” my pride. At that stage in my journey, I did not yet trust the Lord’s goodness. Jesus is, and has been, slowly “taking care” of my pride. But my pride is still with me. If I saw Pride Rock today, I imagine it would be smaller, certainly less sharp, and perhaps pushed a bit to the side, blocking less of the flow of life-giving water. My struggle with pride is ongoing and will continue to the end of my days. However, knowing that I am prideful is the best antidote and is the beginning of humility.
A Postscript
This “chapter” was extraordinarily hard to write. It stopped my progress on this book for years. I often worked on it then put it back down, not really knowing what to do with it.
It was hard for at least three reasons. The first reason is simply pragmatic. My time under the workshop was, in some ways, a pivot point. Much of what happened before was to prime me for my interior work and much of what was to come flowed out of it. That realization nearly always gave me pause.
Second, it is a very personal account and in many ways I find it embarrassing. I do not say it is right that I should feel embarrassment about my struggle with pride; ironically, it is pride rearing back up that makes writing about my pride difficult!
The third reason this chapter kept stopping my progress is that it is a reminder that the work begun below the workshop, nearly 10 years ago now, is still far from over. That, too, is embarrassing, to how much work I still have to do. I still stuff emotions and disappointment, finding it easier to ignore my feelings than to understand them and, when needed, sit with Jesus with them. Pride remains with me; less commanding and less prominent but still a part of who I am.
As hard as this chapter was to write, I hope it was not so hard to read.
I really like the AI-generated version used as the featured image of this post, but nonetheless, this simple drawing is closer to what was in my journal that day. ↩︎
It is worth noting here that there is nothing inherently wrong with having a nice car, home, income, etc. It is a problem if we value those things because they feed our pride by making us feel that we are somehow better or more deserving than others who have less (of material things). ↩︎
Michael Reeves gives an excellent exposition of this thought in chapter 3 of his book, Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith. ↩︎
The person who had the “FIRE” experience did not, to my knowledge, ask for it or grant permission. ↩︎
One: It is so very dark. I know that you’ve been out in the light. Can you tell me about the light? What is it like when the sun rises?
Two: We’ve talked before about the light and the breaking of dawn; I don’t think there is much I can tell you that you haven’t heard before. You really need to experience it. If you’d like to come and walk in the desert and experience the sunrise, I am happy to accompany you.
One: I’m not really comfortable going out in the dark; it doesn’t seem like I would be safe. Can’t you go out and wait for the dawn, and when it is fully light, come and get me?
Two: I wish I could, but one cannot jump from the dark to the light here. You have to go through the transition from darkness to light. I know the dark is frightening. Almost everyone is more or less scared of the dark. But we will go slowly, and I will be with you. I’ve walked with many as they move from darkness to light. You may be uncomfortable, but you will be okay!
Two: I am glad that you have decided to brave the dark so that you can walk in the light. Now that we are here tell me: how are you doing?
One: I am afraid to move. What if we step off the path?
Two: We don’t need to hurry; we will go as slowly as you would like. Be still for a moment. What do you notice?
One: I think I hear things out in the darkness. I am a little scared. What is it I am hearing?
Two: Could it be the sound of the world waking up? It might be rabbits and squirrels venturing out for the day, or you might hear birds stirring in their nests while they wait for the light.
One: Yes! Yes! That is what I am hearing!
Two: That means that we are on the right track; dawn is coming. Can you hear those sounds as heralds of something coming and not something to fear? As you do that, pay attention to what your other senses tell you.
One: Hmmm. I think that maybe it is starting to get a little bit lighter?
Two: Is it? Can you see any further ahead than you could? How does the sky seem to you?
One: Oh. Yes, I can definitely see more than I could before. The shadows are not as deep and dark as they were; I can make out the shapes of trees and bushes quite clearly now. And yes, the sky is a bit lighter. Instead of black, I see a deep blue, and at the horizon, I think I see a bit of gray.
Two: It sounds like you are starting to see light. When you are ready, let me know, and we will move on.
Two: We’ve been walking a bit now. Let’s rest here. What are you noticing now?
One: Wow, the clouds! Before, the clouds were grey, but now they are tinged with colors.
Two: Can you tell me more about the colors? How do they make you feel?
One: They are soft pastels: pink, orange, and purple. I think I see blues and yellows as well. It is hard to say I they make me feel. Happy, maybe, but more than that. I think I am feeling a sense of peace.
Two: Why don’t we just sit and watch for a few minutes? I wonder what happens next.
One: That seems silly; I just told you what I am seeing!
Oh…Wait! I do see something happening; the colors in the clouds are changing. Even as I am watching, they are becoming more intense and brighter. There is hardly any gray in the clouds anymore. This is amazing!
Two: It is wonderful, isn’t it, how the light brings so much color and beauty. I am glad that you are noticing it. Take a minute and look around. What does the sky behind us look like? What do you see in the landscape now?
One: I can’t believe this: the colors are in the sky behind us. Even where there are no clouds, the sky is purple and pink. And I am starting to see the colors of the plants around us as well. I can see yellow and red flowers and shades of green in the foliage. And the shadows are almost gone. Now I can see birds and rabbits scurrying in the underbrush. That must be what I was hearing before.
Two: As we move from the dark to the light, it is important to look around ourselves frequently. You’ll see lots of unexpected things! The sun is almost up now. It may be tempting to stay here, but let’s go on up to the top of the hill, shall we?
Two: Well, here we are at the top. I wonder if we are close to the sunrise.
One: I’ve already seen a lot that I never expected. If I am honest, I am feeling a bit disappointed now. The beautiful colors are fading. The sky looks more blue, but the lovely colors are almost gone from the clouds.
Two: I see what you mean. It can be hard to let go of something, like the parti-colored clouds; especially if we don’t know what is coming next. We can’t really hold on to what was. Let’s rest and see what is next.
One: I really like the beautifully painted clouds. Why do they have to fade?
Two: It is in their nature to fade. They herald the sunrise, but they are not the sunrise. The sun cannot rise without whitewashing the clouds. But if you are willing to press into what is next, I think you will be glad you did.
One: I think I see something new. It looks like there is a line of bright gold on the horizon. It looks like the sky is on fire! It is getting hard to look at. Is that the sun?
Two: Not yet, but soon. Look around you again. What do you see? What do you notice?
One: I see so much more detail now. The colors I thought were bright before are really bright now; they are vibrant. Even the shadows are brighter. They are still there, but they don’t hide anything anymore. They are no longer shadows; now, they are shades.
Two: Look to the east again.
One: I see it! I see the sun rising! I can’t really look at it; it is too bright. It is incredible, each moment more of it is revealed. I am feeling its warmth, too. It feels like everything that was dark or asleep has come to life.
Two: I am glad you were able to experience the sunrise. Now it is time for us to go back down the hill, back home.
One: I know we are not going back into the darkness, but it will get dark again, won’t it?
Two: Yes. It will get dark again. And the sun will rise again. It will be a while before it is dark again. For now, enjoy the warmth of the sun and the brightness and newness of the world around you.
Now that you have seen the sunrise, do you think you will experience the darkness differently?
One: I think so. I hope so. I want to. I will remember the sunrise.
Will it be just like this the next time it rises?
Two: No. Each sunrise is different. Sometimes, there is almost no color in the sky; other times, the sky is completely filled with impossibly vivid reds and oranges. But remember: the “show” is just the preamble, the herald of the coming sun. You may rightly delight in seeing it, but the sun is what warms us and feeds our souls.
One: I like that. Knowing the sun will rise again will help me bear the darkness.
Thinking about repentance seems natural during Lent. In liturgical traditions, the Lenten season is forty days preceding Easter. It commemorates Jesus’ forty-day fast in the wilderness before he began his public. It is a time of reflection and introspection. A discipline of self-denial during Lent can drive our introspection as we learn just how weak our wills really are.
As we come to grip with the weakness of our wills, our thoughts often turn to repentance. Jesus begins his ministry by declaring: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” How do you hear that declaration? We may hear it as a veiled threat: “You better shape up and fly right because God is coming. You don’t want him to be mad at you.” I heard it that way for many years. But perhaps, rather than imagining Jesus scolding us, we could hear him offering us an invitation: “God is doing something great; his kingdom is here! Pay attention so you don’t miss out!”
Our common understanding is that repentance means being sorry for our sins and determining to “do better.” That fits the mindset of hearing “repent!” as a warning. Here our experience of repentance can be embarrassingly bad. We find ourselves repenting over and over and over again, often repenting of the same sin. Or, if we manage to get a particular sin “under control,” we find that five more have popped up to take its place.
A perpetual struggle to make ourselves better cannot be all God has in mind for us. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is confronted by the religious leaders about his disciple’s lack of adherence to ritual practices. In Jesus’ response, he tells us that it is what comes from inside us that defiles us (Mark 17:18-23). Our outward behavior, while it may be quite awful, flows out of an inner, corrupted heart. To stop the sinful behavior, we need to address our inner life.
When we look at the language used in the New Testament for “repent” or “repentance,” we see that it means something much deeper. It means turning around and heading in a new direction. It means taking a higher mind or a new decision. This understanding of repentance points us back to addressing our inner life. In his book “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction,” Eugene Peterson put it like this:
“Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sin. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god;”
Peterson, Eugene. A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. 2nd ed., Intervarsity, 2000. p. 23.
This understanding aligns with Jesus’ teaching in Mark’s gospel. It also aligns with the message of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. The root of our problem is our surrender to our sinful natures (Gal. 5:19); God wants us to be cured and remade from the inside out:
He will write his law on our hearts. (Jer 31-33-34)
He delights in truth in our inward being (Ps 51:6)
He tells us to take up our crosses daily, denying our sinful natures so that we are not enslaved to sin. (Lk 9:23, Rom 6:6)
Jesus does not want you to have a life that looks okay, even though it is not; he wants you to have a great life, a better life than you can imagine. He wants to give us new life, kingdom life; not our old life with the ugly parts better managed. He wants you to take up your cross and let go of your life as you have been trying to manage it.
On Ash Wednesday, we are reminded: “From dust you came, and to dust you shall return.” We are created and sustained by God; We depend on him utterly. We really do need to get over ourselves. We are not God; our desire to be God is THE sin that leads us into all sin.
The root of our problem is that we are rebels, and God is not looking for better-behaved rebels; We are called to surrender to the loving God who stands waiting for us, wanting to give us the best life possible.
Now we can see the call, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,” not as a warning of impending doom but as a grace-filled invitation to lay down our rebel arms in favor of the loving arms of the Father.
The Lake is immense, deep, and still. I cannot guess its size or its depth. I am drawn to it; I desire to somehow be “with” the Lake and be as close to it as possible. Initially, I get only as far as the shore; I am content with being near the Lake. I see its shimmering surface. I hear the gentle sound of waves lapping up against the shore. I smell its watery scents. My desire is not satisfied, but I am not ready to get any closer.
I want more. I take a boat and experience the Lake, albeit indirectly. I experience buoyancy and the unsteadiness of the boat on the water. The air is different out on the Lake; it is more still yet alive with things unseen. I strain my ears, trying to hear whispers of invitation that seem to be around me. Leaning over the gunnels, I peer into the depths of the Lake. They are at once clearer and more mysterious. I am closer to the water but still apart from it. I will not lean over far, lest I fall in and am lost in it. Neither will I row out too far from shore, fearful of losing the way back. I row back to shore.
The more time I spend near the water and on the water, the more I want to be in the water. I wade into the water, experiencing contact with it and feeling its wetness. I feel the gentle tug of eddies and currents around my legs. Not content with wading, I try my hand at swimming: I go fully into the water. The water surrounds and upholds me. I dive down, wanting to be as fully in the Lake as possible. It is exhilarating, but soon, I must come up for air. I cannot swim for very long; my limbs tire, and I must return to the shore. My time swimming leaves me wanting an even closer communion with the Lake.
I return to the water time and time again. Then, all at once, I notice a remarkable transformation has taken place. Somehow, I have become liquid. I do not know when or how it happened, but where I was once flesh and bone, I am now liquid. I have not lost my shape; I still have arms and legs and hands and feet. My body and my face are still “mine,” but now they are liquid.
Entering the water, I join with it; I become of the same substance. The Lake is not a place I visit; it is my home. I become one with the water, yet I am not dispersed or diffused – I do not lose my identity. In my liquid state, I am never chilled or tired; I never need a rest. I am still “me,” and I am also part of the Lake.
I can dive below the surface and never need to come up for air. I move naturally and easily with the flows and currents in the depths of the Lake. I can exercise my “self-ness” and go against the currents, but the more I am “liquid,” the less I find that appealing. If I chose to, I could return to the land as a solid creature, to only look upon the Lake, apart from it, no matter how close I got to it, but why would I?
I journey each day on a horse-drawn wagon. It is a fine wagon, and I do all I can to ensure that I will go smoothly to my destination. I pack the wheel bearings with grease. The horses are well-shod and seem to be well-suited to their task. Their harnesses and traces are all in good order. I review my map and carefully plan my route.
Yet, each day ends the same. I start off sure of my driving and my direction. No matter how diligently I apply myself to driving the team and following my route, I always end my day in a ditch or discovering that I am badly off my course, or both. It makes no sense. I am doing everything I can and I am getting no closer to my destination.
One evening, as I sat in my frustration, a man appeared and offered to trade his horses for mine. I was suspicious of his offer; his horses did not appear to be at all tame or suited for harness.
He was frank. His horses are not tame, and they will have their own heads. Yet he insists that his horses will stay on the road I must be on and take me to where I should be going.
Unsure of this offer, I tried a mixed team: some of his horses and some of mine. Two calm, tame, if ineffectual, horses paired with two determined, not-quite-tame horses resulted in disaster. I could not drive at all and nearly lost my wagon in the chaos. I spent the next day repairing my wagon and the night considering my options.
With the dawn came clarity of thought. The way I had been going was getting me precisely nowhere. What did I have to lose? I took the offer, giving up my horses and harnessing his to my wagon. I am still doing the driving. I am still in the same wagon. But I find that the horses seem to know the way. They do not grow more “tame.” Some days, their wildness causes me to let the reins go slack, close my eyes, and hold on to the bench for dear life. They take my driving, no matter how inattentive or timid, and translate it into the direction that draws me ever nearer to where I was meant to be going.
Where I was meant to be going; that is the really odd thing. The further I journey with the new team, the more I realize that I am not going where I thought I should be going — I am going where I am meant to be. I do not know where that is, but with each day the countryside improves and the way becomes easier. I pass through lush green meadows and cross gentle streams easily. I do not know where, exactly, I am going, but I know it will be good.
From Pops' Workshop 