IVP - Strangely Dim

The Risk of Asking

Here’s something you should know about me: I hate to ask for help. There are certain instances I’ve deemed worthy. One is stopping to ask for directions. I’ve gotten so lost a few times since moving out here that I have no qualms about asking for directional help. My sister is my first choice; she’s my personal GPS: always gracious, never says “How did you get THERE?” and has never failed to lead me safely out of wherever I’ve gotten myself into. If she’s not available, gas-station and convenience-store clerks will do.

I’ll also ask for help if it will save me significant time, such as when I’m shopping. You don’t want to tell people you spent your entire Saturday afternoon wandering around the grocery store looking for wheat wraps because you wouldn’t ask a store clerk where to find them.

But in most other situations in my life, I have a very hard time asking for help. I’d rather take the task on myself than involve other people who already have enough going on in their own lives. Or sometimes I’m not sure who to ask to find the answer I need.

I know the main reason I don’t ask for help, though: I’d have to admit that I don’t know the answer, that I’m so clueless about a situation I can’t even begin to sort out my options, that I’m ignorant or naive or incapable or weak. I can’t get around two details that asking for help always involves: first, I have to name and face my limits. I know I have limits, of course. I accept my limits in many areas (such as in swimming); there are hundreds of skills and tons of information I don't need. But asking means I recognize both my limit and my need in that area. And then comes the second detail asking always involves: recognizing another person's strength or power in my area of weakness and need. That's when things get risky.

But asking, I'm realizing, is powerful. I recently studied Matthew 8 and 9; they’re full of people whose lives were changed by Jesus because they dared to ask him for help. And for most of them, asking took immense courage. Take the leper in chapter 8. He had to walk through a crowd of people who’d been taught since birth to scorn and reject him. He couldn’t hide his disease, his neediness. And he likely had never met Jesus before, so he couldn’t have been sure what sort of answer he’d receive. But he asked anyway, and found a compassionate Savior who was eager to help.

Admitting my own limits and neediness, my dependence on God and others, is the way it’s supposed to be; it’s how God created us. I know that in my mind and can see the practical value of it lived out. But my individualistic, be-independent, American self tries to fight it, and often wins. I’m amazed when I read David’s psalms how natural and deep his dependence on God was; in many ways he was such a strong person (brave warrior, powerful ruler), yet in his psalms he freely and frequently admits--without shame--his utter helplessness and fear, his complete dependence on God. He accepted that that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Jesus reminds us of this in Luke 11: “Ask and it will be given to you. . . . For everyone who asks receives. . . . Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Asking and receiving are a natural rhythm of any healthy relationship. Especially in our relationship with God, who loves to give help.

And really, figuring things out on my own isn’t all that much fun. Easier? Sometimes. Less complicated? Sometimes. Less humbling? Sometimes. But it's often lonely. It keeps others from opportunities to use their areas of strength. And the sense of accomplishment that might come when I do something myself can't ultimately be as satisfying as the connections nurtured when I do something with others. Because at the core of who we are is a need for relationships.

But asking is still hard. When I do take the risk, I often feel the same way I imagine the leper felt: unsure of what reaction I’ll receive (scorn? ridicule?) and acutely aware of my need. Usually, though, I receive what he did: compassion, and the help that I need.

So why am I so afraid to admit how much I need others, afraid to accept that as part of what it means to be human, afraid to accept my own limits? And how do I get past my fear? Just asking. I suspect that’s the only way I’ll find the answer.

What?

I recently had a long and perplexing conversation with some friends about what it means to have a "personal relationship with God." You know you've been hanging out exclusively with evangelicals for far too long when you don't get what's so weird about that phrase. This is, after all, God we're talking about--"Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen." As one friend of mine put it: "There's six billion people in the world. What kind of meaningful relationship can anybody have with that many people?"

Still, I feel very strongly that God does in fact relate personally to us. The idea that he has so many of us to relate to doesn't freak me out so much; I'm pretty comfortable with God's infinitude, which I imagine brings with it a much higher threshold for exhaustion and exasperation. Similarly, the idea that God is personal--not just some uber-ooze that keeps everything going--is a basic tenet of my beliefs.

Nevertheless, we bring a lot of baggage with us to a phrase like "personal relationship with God." Our understanding of who God is affects our approach: Is God the author of evil? Is God impotent or indifferent in the face of evil? Is God likeable, impressive, praiseworthy, approachable?

Our understanding of what comes with a personal relationship affects our take on the idea too. If I've been hurt over and over again in my personal relationships, the last thing I might want is to get personal with someone who controls the weather and steers comets. If my personal relationships have been with really boring people, I might imagine a personal relationship with an infinite being as infinitely boring. I might take my worst experience in personal relationships and expand it to a cosmic level, and decide that I'd rather do without, thank you very much.

I think, however, that I would then be oversimplifying things. A personal relationship is not reducible to one thing: my friend may be boring, but he donated me his kidney. Your friend may spit when she talks and chew with her mouth open, but she knows all your secrets and cries with you every time you get hurt. He may be heavy, but he's my brother.*

That kind of complexity extends infinitely when you start talking about a personal relationship with God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Eventually, God created me, along with the six billion people surrounding me and the various billions who went before me. Because of God I have a body and a brain; because of God I'm able to wonder whether a personal relationship with God is even remotely possible.

If a relationship with God is anything, it's complex. Sometimes it helps me to sort through how we relate to God by reading, of all things, 1 Kings 1:

Bathsheba went to see the aged king in his room, where Abishag the Shunammite was attending him. Bathsheba bowed low and knelt before the king.

It's funny to me that David's response to her entering is "What do you want?" That's a really colloquial, really earthy picture: not a king receiving a queen, not a tyrant deciding whether he will indulge or behead this upstart unannounced guest, but an old married guy who long ago dispensed with all pretense when it comes to relating to his wife. For Bathsheba, this is a complicated encounter; for David, it's a simple question: "What?"

In this picture, as I see it, David's a metaphor for God, and Bathsheba is a metaphor for the rest of us: participants in a ridiculously lopsided, complicated relationship that nonetheless puts us in an unbelievably privileged position. We approach God juggling these various ways of understanding who we're approaching, and God simply looks at us and says, "What?"

*My brother, in case he's reading this, isn't heavy. It's a play on words. I'm being witty, not petty, I swear.

Mixed Blessing

My fellow blogger Lisa Rieck found this Franciscan blessing in the book Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? by Philip Yancey. She shared it with me, and I wanted to share it with you. The Franciscans are known best, perhaps, for living simply out of solidarity with those in need. But they also have a way with words that I regularly covet:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

I like the blessing; it gets you thinking in a way that requires a response. I'm reminded of the words of the less artful Henry Pym, Marvel Comics' "Ant-Man," in the epic miniseries The Kree-Skrull War: "Think! And, having thought, act!"

So, how has God been blessing you lately? With discomfort? With anger? With tears? What do you hope will come of those blessings?

For myself, I'm hoping for an extra shot of foolishness.

Go Ahead--Pass Me

In the last few months I’ve started swimming for exercise. I’m not really a swimmer; I just do it once a week to cross-train. However, at 6:00 a.m. at the YMCA, there are many Serious Swimmers. They bring bags of props. They wear caps and goggles. They time themselves. They do the same stroke for an hour. I, on the other hand, am too weak to do the same stroke two laps in a row, so I alternate between four: freestyle, side stroke, back stroke and, um, “kick board stroke.” And I never time myself.

The pool is divided into four lanes, in theory to separate the fast from the slow. The “slow lane” is on the far right and the “fast lane” is on the far left. Helpful signs also tell whether you’re supposed to swim clockwise or counterclockwise in each lane. At first I assumed (with relief) that the “slow lane” is for people like me. But “slow,” I’ve discovered, can mean anything from swimming laps to treading water to draping oneself over brightly colored noodles. It’s difficult to navigate around people with noodles, even if you swim laps as slowly as I do.

So I tried out the second slowest lane. One day I thought I might manage to stay out of the way of the only other person in that lane (a middle-aged man), but he didn’t notice me until he ran into me. And of course, he was fast. I moved over to let him go by, but he took that to mean I was bucking the system by swimming clockwise in a counterclockwise lane. When we reached the wall he informed me of my directional error. Well. I wanted to say that I may not be fast but I can read (and get paid to do it for my job, thank you very much)—but I said okay and tried to swim a little faster in a perfectly counterclockwise kind of way.

Last Wednesday the second fastest lane was open, so I jumped in and was soon joined by a pregnant woman. I thought I might have a fighting chance of keeping up, since she was swimming for two. I was wrong. She swam freestyle, lap after lap, while I had to be particularly careful on the side stroke, because I did not want to kick a pregnant woman.

As more people arrived I moved to the second slowest lane so the faster swimmers could have their speed to themselves. There was just one man in the lane then; once I joined him, though, I realized he was wearing: flippers. Twice the kicking power. We fell into a rhythm that worked, however; he passed me every five laps or so.

When he finished, two even faster men joined my lane. Unfortunately for them (and me) it’s much more difficult to pass a slow swimmer when there are three people in the lane. I started to panic. I tried to swim faster. I paused at the end of the lane to let them go by me. I might have prayed.

My self-consciousness about my slowness didn’t really surprise me. It just reminded me how much I hate to get in the way, to draw attention to myself by hindering others. I don’t think others should have to deal with my weaknesses, especially two guys I never met who just want to have a nice (fast) morning swim.

But as I was about to cut the workout short and escape to the locker room, I was struck with a thought: it’s all right to get passed. I don’t have to keep up; it’s okay and even good to have to cooperate with others to make things work. I don’t have to buy flippers or leave early when faster swimmers come. In fact, staying and swimming at my own pace can serve as a reminder to me on a broader scale that I’m not called to fit in by keeping up, or to follow a pace set by a culture addicted to speed.

So—I think I’ll go for a swim this week too. You can look for me in the pool. I’ll be the one doing the side stroke, getting passed.

Gotta Go, Got Stuff to Do

The Sloan donkey gets a call from her agent, who's concerned about overexposure.

Put Your Donkey on My Shoulder

Likewise guru Andrew Bronson at play with the Sloan donkey.

Bringing Donkey Back

Here's the, uh, rear view of the Sloan donkey. It's a music box; you wind it up and it dances while playing "Amazing Grace."

I'll Never Be Your Beast of Burden

The Sloan sisters--Emily and Karen--gave us cute little donkeys for Christmas. This is the front view.

Saddle Up Yer Donkey

Lazy

Likewise Books had its own lounge at Urbana St. Louis, complete with couches, books and videos.

Lisa Lounging

Strangely Dim writer Lisa Rieck lounges at Urbana St. Louis, sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Urbanarama

Likewise Books was out in full force at the Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention in St. Louis, home of this arch.

Typo-theology

From an unedited IVP manuscript to remain unnamed, the award for most crass marketing campaign in Christendom goes to IVP for

Offer thanks to our God that he suffered for our sales.

The Mystery of Expectancy

After two very different weeks—one spent relaxing before Christmas with my parents and sister in a small Pennsylvania town and the other working at the Urbana Student Missions Convention in downtown St. Louis with 22,000 people—I’m wondering the same thing: How can we be expectant without knowing what to expect?

I had a lot of time for reflection in Pennsylvania, particularly (since it was Christmas) reflection on Christ’s birth. The story is, of course, full of expectancy. Births generally are. But how much more with Jesus’ birth, coming as it did in the midst of Herod’s reign after thousands of years of expectant waiting (not to mention four hundred years of silence from God). But the Israelites’ hopes about what the Messiah would be like were, of course, full of error. Everything about Christ’s birth was utterly unexpected—redemption in places you’d never guess. A virgin. A poor carpenter. A stable. Shepherds. A baby.

In ways not so different from Christ’s birth, Urbana is also full of expectancy. I studied students’ faces as they streamed into the opening session at the Edward Jones Dome. They were clearly expecting God to do—something.

How can we be expectant of a God who moves and acts in completely unpredictable ways and places? How should we expect a God whose presence comes in both “a gentle whisper” on a mountain and a burning bush in the desert to reveal himself to us?

Though Jews were looking for a Messiah when Jesus was born, many missed him because they expected someone different. I’m afraid that I too will miss the redemption he gives—that in the midst of my pain or distractedness or despair or busyness I’ll miss the grace that comes quietly, humbly, unexpectedly, even if I’m looking for it.

Expectancy seems to hold the hope of something big. At past Urbanas I know God has shown up in unexpected, even miraculous ways. Once he even healed a speaker’s laryngitis while the speaker talked and the thousands of students gathered in the arena prayed for him. When I attended Urbana as a student I too went expectantly. I received no epiphanies, yet God still brings to mind words and moments from that Urbana, and continues his work in me through them. I don’t know if my expectations were met, but God has certainly moved in the years since.

At the start of 2007, after a year-and-a-half that’s been full of personal struggle, I am trying to be expectant. I recently read in Philip Yancey’s book Prayer that “[Jesus] understood that redemption comes from passing through the pain, not avoiding it: ‘for the joy set before him [he] endured the cross.’” I also just read Psalm 5, written by David, with his high highs and his low lows:

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice;

in the morning I lay my requests before you

and wait expectantly.

The story of Christ’s birth and death, and Yancey’s reminder, and David’s prayer, and 22,000 students gathered together to seek God, give me hope for this year. When God moves in big ways in obvious places, we’ll probably notice. But for the rest of the time (which is most of the time) when God is not speaking through thunder or fire or miraculous healings, maybe the fact of expectancy, the act of being still and waiting in the midst of hard moments, the choice to trust God in a day that’s unknown, will help us see his redemption in the unexpected places: the painful places, the broken places, the humble places.

So here’s to a year of expectancy and meeting God in the places we are (I’m raising my cup of chai to you). And thanks, to Dave and to all of you, for letting me join this Strangely Dim journey. I look forward to walking with you . . .