Day 52
Hang In There
As I watched the Porpoise I pondered the questions, “where did they come from and where are they going?” When I watch people, the same questions come to mind. I’ll bet some folks have observed me on occasion and wondered the same things.
It all seems so effortless with the Porpoise. It’s not. They have to eat, exercise, raise families, sleep, navigate through dangers to their well-being, and seek out opportunities just like the rest of us.
Some people have reduced the life of faith to simply living a linear life: birth, conversion, baptism, discipleship, marriage, church attendance, prayer, service, evangelism, death, a funeral and heaven. Proponents suggest that you begin at one point, pass through the other stages and end up in a mansion in the sky. It’s unreal!
They’re right. It is unreal. The only authentic characteristics possessed by folks who espouse this nonsense are those who have lived a life of denial rather than any sort of existence that resembles actual day-to-day living. There are quacks in every crowd. Christianity has their fair share.
Tammy (not her real name) came to live with our family after she failed at four in-patient treatment centers, several suicide attempts and had been abandoned by her family. Alcoholism, parental abuse and psychological problems were not her idea. Tammy really wanted to get her life back on track. She would talk for hours to us about her desire to stay clean and sober, go to college, get a good job, her own place to live, a husband and children.
Yet, the memories of all the false starts she had attempted had sapped her strength. She needed a safe place to regain her will. We provided that. She believed in God but was convinced that she had somehow let God down in ways that were unforgivable. She feared that she had somehow become an exception to the grace, mercy and love of God.
One bright, crisp winter morning I accompanied Tammy to her appointment with her psychiatrist. Unnerved at my presence, the psychiatrist agreed to allow me to sit in on their session after Tammy had signed a lengthy consent form (that she could neither read nor comprehend). After she signed the form, I plopped a large brown paper grocery bag on the psychiatrist’s desk. I asked him to empty the contents out so we could all see them. He upended the bag and 56 separate bottles of pills tumbled out. Each one was prescribed for Tammy. This particular psychiatrist prescribed all of them. There were enough anti-depressant, anti-psychotic, and anti-anxiety medicines here to kill a large herd of elk.
I asked him, “Where did this come from? Where are you going with all this?” He was speechless, as he stared ashamedly out the office window. Tammy looked at me and said, “Bill, it wasn’t my idea.”
Organizations and movements are no more immune to becoming addicted to the most recent new thing than Tammy was. The drugs dispensed by her doctor were well intentioned. When one prescription lost it potency or did not perform up to expectations, he replaced it with another pharmaceutical discovery that had just hit the market. He was trying to help her hang in there. In the last few decades, Christianity has become addicted to the new thing that has come onto the market as well. A look inside our bag of discarded pills reveals prescriptions for the seeker-sensitive, church-within-a-church, traditional v. contemporary services, changes in music, visuals, the lighting, Gen-X church and purpose-driven people. George Barna writes; “Nothing is more numbing to the Church than the fact that it is mired in a rut of unfathomable depths. The various creative approaches attempted over the course of this decade have drawn much attention but produced little, if any, transformational impact.” [i] When you cope by hanging in there, sometimes you end up just hanging there. Maybe it’s time to cut the rope.
Sometimes, you meet people in life and wonder, “where did you get all this stuff attached to you?” Sometimes you just have to do what you can and accept their answer; “I don’t know. It wasn’t my idea.” I’ve learned that these people come into my life to reveal more about me than them. They force me to realize that I too have stuff attached to me that I seem to have accumulated over the years that I can’t seem to see, but others can. These moments require me to take a scrub brush to my life to remove the stuff that seems to have attached itself to me that I’m unaware of. Honestly, people like Tammy have taught me that some of the things you hang onto in life can actually drown you. Whether we picked them up on purpose or they became attached to us unwittingly, we need to pause every once in a while and engage in the intentional act of cleaning up and letting go.
Ships, boats ferries, freighters and yachts all accumulate barnacles on their hulls that impair their ability to navigate efficiently. They are all equipped with charts, maps, radar and sonar that are intended to insure they navigate safely. Yet, they run aground, become swamped in storms, and smash into one another at sea. Humans are no different. No matter how well-equipped we think we are, we need to pull into dry dock on a regular basis and have the integrity of our hulls examined. Interestingly enough, the captain of the ship is not the one who performs the assessment. This process always requires the assistance of another. Porpoises do this for one another.
I’ve met too many people who are navigating the seas of life with a rusting hull of a soul that is long overdue for dry dock. If you are fortunate enough to hang out with them long enough to earn their trust, they will admit to you that the biggest fear preventing them trusting their hull to the examination of another is trust. They have spent years in superficial relationships with people who advise them to “just hang in there!” Today, I find that most people who say, “just hang in there” really mean “I don’t have the time or desire to walk through this process with you. You’re on your own.”
No matter where you’ve come from, what you’ve been through, what’s become attached to you or what you’re holding onto, there is a God who is waiting to hear your cry. He awaits your invitation. He formed us to be in relationship with one another, to have people in our lives we can trust to assist us to see things about ourselves that we cannot see. Tired of the “just hang in there” superficial relationships that abound in the seas of life? Schedule a reservation with the God of the dry dock. Make time for this essential part of your journey in life. I assure you that He has a specific crew ready and waiting for your arrival.
NOTES
[i] Barna, George and The Barna Group The State of the Church: 2005, Copyright © 2005 by George Barna and The Barna Group, 1957 Eastman Avenue, Ventura, CA 93003 p. 51.
