(This is a series that was adapted from my life-story, Child of Mine, which is at sweetlybrokengirl.blogspot.com. On this blog, it starts at the bottom of the June posts with “Like a Child.”)
As I struggle with learning to be honest with the Lord about all that was within me, I noticed something that I had never really noticed before about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus knew that He was to go to the cross and die for us. He knew that He loved us enough to do it. And yet, in His humanity, He still didn’t want to. In fact, He cried out to God with blood and tears saying, “If it be possible, take this cup from me.” And He didn’t just pray once. He was there all night, pouring His heart out to God and wrestling with what He knew He had to do. But in the end, He decided “not my will, but Yours be done.”
Okay, now, we all know this. But what struck me was that even though Jesus knew that He wouldn’t bail on us - that He would go to the cross no matter what - He still felt that it was necessary and important to pour His feelings and His pain out honestly before His Father. He held nothing back, not even the ugly side of what He was feeling. Even if it looked like He was unhappy with what God was asking Him to do. Even though it meant admitting that He felt too weak or scared to do it.
And so, I have been shocked and horrified at times by the bold honesty in the Psalms. To be able to be so forthright with God is baffling to me. What about the lightning bolts? The earth opening up and swallowing you whole? Could He really want us to pour out that kind of “honesty” all over Him? Didn’t it pain Him to hear the doubts and fears and faithlessness? What good can really come of that, other than getting it off of our chests? Isn’t it more righteous to just take what God gives you and march bravely forward? After all, He is God!
You know, I think of the woman who pestered Jesus for her daughter’s healing from demonic possession in Matthew 15: 21-28. Jesus kept brushing her off. He even basically referred to her as a dog when He said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Meaning that He didn’t come to serve the Gentiles, but the Jews. And she was not a Jew.) And yet, she pleaded all the more, even on the grounds that she was a “dog.”
“Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters’ table.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.
And in the end, Jesus said, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed.
Now, I have always struggled with this story. Of course, I have always struggled with Jesus’ initial responses to the woman, how He rebuffed her. But more than that, I have struggled with knowing that I would not have responded the way that she did. She pursued, she pleaded, she begged, and she used her position as a “dog” to strengthen her plea. And she was called a woman of great faith.
I wouldn’t have done that. I would have asked once. And then after being rejected, (especially after being referred to as a “dog” - a damaging blow to my pride) I would have hung my head and said, “Okay, Lord. You know best. I will respect Your decision.” And I would have walked away . . . crushed . . . but determined to do my best to smile and accept Jesus’ answer.
Now, I have to wonder . . . Wouldn’t my response seem to be the one that is more honoring to God, more respectful of His authority? And yet, I doubt Jesus would have said, “Wow! What great faith! I will grant your request because of your humble submission.” I don’t get it. I really don’t. But I have to conclude that my way would have been wrong.
In fact, if I was in the Garden instead of Jesus, I know the kind of prayer that I would pray. Because it’s kinda how I’ve been doing it all these years. It’s the “Just suck it up, hold your head high, and walk on” kind of prayer. Something like this:
“It’s okay, Father. Whatever You want. I mean, yeah, it hurts and, yeah, I don’t really want to do it, but if it’s what You want me to do, well, then I’ll do it. I mean, You are God and You know what’s best. And so if this is what You decide, then it’s going to be okay with me. I’m okay, I’m okay. I really am. I can do this. But be with me during the incredible, unbearable pain as I pay a penalty that isn’t mine. Help me have the strength to face the cruel nails and the awful suffocation that comes with hanging on a cross. Even though I really did nothing to deserve this. I mean, not that I’m complaining or anything. In fact, I want my life to shine brightly for You . . . if this is what You really want me to do. But if You don’t, if You want to change Your mind, I’ll be right here, waiting. The choice is Yours . . . Hey, are You there? . . . God?. . . I said that if You want to change Your mind, I’ll be right here. Waiting! “
But Jesus didn’t pray that way. And I don’t think that’s what God wants. And this is the message that I am getting from Jesus in the Garden and the story with the woman: He doesn’t want us to be doormats. He doesn’t want us to be self-sacrificial martyrs that stuff our feelings and march bravely and obediently forward after facing seeming rejection or hardships. He doesn’t want us to silently, compliantly “accept” whatever He says when our hearts are breaking inside.
Yes, He wants our obedience. Yes, He wants us to trust in His sovereignty and to abide by His decisions. But more than that, (and what I have been missing out on this whole time) He wants a deeply genuine relationship with us, one that is built on honesty and transparency. He wants a relationship where we don’t settle for distance and hide our real feelings from Him, but where we fight to stay close and be His child. He wants us to draw even nearer, especially when we feel like throwing in the towel because life got too hard or our pride took a blow.
He doesn’t want us to hide our broken hearts; He wants us to run to Him with the broken pieces, the fears, and the doubts. He wants us to pursue Him, to plead with Him, and to pour out all the ugly feelings inside - until we can get to the point of genuine acceptance, immersed in His love. And this takes faith. Great faith!
It’s easy to walk away defeated, to give up on God. But it’s hard - it’s, oh, so hard - to hang in there and to cling to Him or to wrestle with Him until the end. And sometimes, I think that (like the woman of great faith) He puts us in hard situations to force us to dig deeper, to force us to develop a “warrior” spirit that doesn’t fold easily, and to force us to tap into this deeper well of faith.
He pushes us to find a stronger faith that is beyond the pain and the doubts and the confusion. It’s not a faith where we let the sting of silence or rejection crush us, and then we walk away cradling the tiny, little bit of shattered faith that we have left. The tiny, little bit of faith that says, “See, I knew He would let me down!”
Instead, maybe God pushes us (by His silence and His apparent “rejection”) to get to the point where we say, “I don’t know where You are and I’m hurting! But I can’t possibly believe that You would let me down and abandon me. I won’t believe that You are that kind of God. And even if I don’t get the answer I’m looking for, I will wait and plead and pursue until You prove to me that You are a loving, good Father that cares! Show me Your greatness. Show me Your glory! Show Yourself to be the God that I know You are!” This is great faith based on who God really is, and not a fragile one based on our own misconceptions and fears.
This, I believe, is what the woman illustrated for us. She wasn’t going to walk away easily, giving in to the idea that Jesus was the kind of Messiah who didn’t care. She knew that He was capable of so much more, that He loved people immensely, and that He cared about the things that she was going through. She trusted Him to be a good, loving, powerful Messiah. And she knew that He was the only real hope that she had. He was the answer!
She believed in Jesus enough (and knew that He was what she really needed) that she was willing to pursue Him, to pour out her heart honestly to Him, and to hang in there. She clung to her faith in who He is - and wouldn’t let go - until He revealed Himself to be who she already knew He was. No wonder He called her a woman of “great faith”!
And I think that this needs to be our approach when we have a concern. We need to pursue Him passionately, honestly, and transparently, as the only real hope that we have and the only real thing that we need, until He shows Himself to be the God that we know He is. The God who listens and responds and cares. The God who doesn’t remain silent forever, but who eventually says (in His wisdom) “yes” or “no” or “wait” or “change your request.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that we always get what we want, but it does mean that we get Him. A closer, more real relationship with Him. And we learn what it means to be humble.
I think that Jesus praying in the Garden was the ultimate example of the kind of relationship that God wants us to have with Him. Jesus lived in transparency before His Father. He poured His feelings out honestly and held nothing back. Even though He wouldn’t bail on the cross, He still pleaded with God to take the cup away. And He did this for hours with sweat and blood and tears. But it wasn’t about getting the cup taken away; it was about maintaining an honest, close relationship with the Father, especially when He was hurting. Anything less would have been dishonest. And dishonesty leads to distance.
After considering Jesus’ example, I realize that it’s not wrong to struggle with God’s Will or to have my own preferences. It’s not wrong to have doubts, fears, questions, and pain. What matters here is the relationship with God, that I come to Him honestly with all that is within me, the good and the bad. That I am transparent with my God about everything. (He knows it all anyway! So why do we hide it?) This creates closeness.
Anything less is a door that blocks Him from our hearts. Being a good, self-sacrificial, obedient martyr might just keep us from a close relationship with our Heavenly Father. He won’t force His way into our hearts and lives. It’s up to us to open the door through honesty, to let Him into our inner worlds because the relationship means more to us than just being pleasing to Him. And it means more to Him than just getting a good performance out of us. And I think this is what separates the children from the step-children.
During the years of house-hunting, there were times that family members would try to help us find one. They wanted to help and I appreciated it. “Oh, here’s one you could look at . . . We’ll get you into one . . . I could rent out to you one of the rentals I own.” But I would bristle at these suggestions. And I wondered, Why would I do that? They are just trying to help, too. But for some reason, I didn’t want whatever they offered. Why was that? Didn’t I just want to get out of this cramped mold-pit and find a house somewhere?
And then I figured it out. This search for a house became more than just a search for a house . . . or a home . . . or even a search for stability. It was a search for healing. I didn’t just want a house anymore. What I really wanted - no, what I really needed - was for God to come through for me. I didn’t want someone else to fix it, someone else to answer my prayer. (Unless we absolutely knew that God was using them as part of the answer.)
It wasn’t really about the house anymore. I needed to know something . . . I needed to know that I mattered to Him! I needed to know that He heard me and that He cared enough to answer, whatever the answer was. I put this request at His feet, and I needed to know that if I relied on Him, He would be there for me. I guess all along, I was begging Him to prove me wrong – to prove that He wouldn’t abandon me when I reached out for Him. I was begging Him to show me that I meant something to Him!
I didn’t want the house so much as I wanted to take my place at the family table. I wanted to know what a relationship based on His love was like, the love between a Father and a child. I wanted to know that I belonged in the family just because I was His. And that He would be there when I called on Him. And I was going to wait until He showed Himself to me. And like the woman in Matthew 15, I wasn’t going to walk away rejected! I dug in my heels!
I remember talking to a friend one day. And I was telling her that I felt like Jacob. Genesis 32: 22-32 tells the story about how Jacob wrestled with God. He wrestled with God all through the night, until daybreak. And when God realized that Jacob was clinging so fiercely and that he wouldn’t let go, He said, “Let me go for it is daybreak.” But Jacob would not. Instead, Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And God, seeing his determination and his persistence, blessed him. He gave him a new name and blessed him because he had wrestled with God and overcame.
This is the point that I had gotten to. I had come so far in waiting for God to show up and I had lost all confidence in anything I had ever relied on (especially myself) that I could do nothing less than dig in my heels and wrap my arms around Him and say, “I will not let go unless You bless me.” I had nowhere else to go. I had to believe that God wouldn’t abandon me. I had to believe this so much that I was willing to wait for Him as long as it took.
I couldn’t make anything happen. I couldn’t force Him to reveal Himself to me. I couldn’t make Him reveal the next step. I could only cling to Him right now, refusing to give up until He blessed me with His presence. Until He proved that He was the kind of Father that the Bible told me He was. A good, loving, relational Father. Nothing else really mattered to me at that moment, not even getting out of the moldy rental.
You know, I have been thinking recently about the whole “David was a man after God’s own heart” thing. I never really understood that verse too much before. I used to think that it meant that his heart was the same as God’s. That David was somehow extra spiritual, extra holy like God. Like if I crocheted a blanket after a pattern that I found, they would be the same, identical. But how does that jive when David sinned the way he did, when his heart was so human? It didn’t make sense to me, and I knew that it could never apply to me.
But a different interpretation popped into my head awhile back which made more sense to me. (This probably just shows how slow I can be sometimes.) Maybe it’s not that his heart was patterned after God’s, but that it panted after God’s. David was a man running after God’s heart. He desired closeness, just like God did. Nothing short of complete closeness.
Even though he sinned as he did, he wasn’t complete until he was unashamedly honest with all that was within him, until his heart was realigned with God’s. He couldn’t bear distance between him and God, so he held nothing back in his prayers and he was broken over his sins. This brought him closer to God’s heart. Pain, doubts, fears, repentance, praises, joys, everything. He kept nothing hidden from God. Complete, humbling honesty.
My whole life, I wasn’t a woman after God’s own heart; I was a woman insulated from God’s own heart. I feared letting Him as close as He wanted to come because I could get hurt. It was just too risky trusting others to make you feel safe, secure, and accepted. I was okay with Him being a provider. But a Father . . . a Daddy?
Of course, I did want His guidance and answers. I wanted His presence and His blessings and His love. But I didn’t want to need them because I was a helpless mess on my own! It’s one thing to be able to choose His help and to enjoy His presence and love, it’s another to absolutely need them to get by! Very humbling! I had been abandoned by too many earthly fathers, I couldn’t bear to be abandoned by my Heavenly Father, too. So for so long, I never risked it. I tried not to need Him.
The thing was, I knew that He could care for me, that He could provide food and shelter; I just didn’t expect Him to really care about me, no matter what! I didn’t really think that He wanted me to just be with Him, to relate to Him openly, honestly, with all that is within me. The good and the not-so-good. The pretty and the ugly. The pleasing and the not-so-pleasing. The joys and the sorrows. The praises and the doubts. All of it!
But through the pain, I was learning that He didn’t want my performance as much as He just wanted the honesty, the closeness . . . me! And I was learning that I didn’t just want His performance or His blessings. I was beginning to really want the transparency, the closeness . . . Him! He didn’t want a step-child anymore. He wanted me to lay my fears down and accept His healing and become His child!
