Unmoving Mountains: Faith and Bitterness

I’m not typically an angry person, but when bitterness comes, it sticks. When I feel wronged, I spend months and years fantasizing about justice or reconciliation with the offending party; all while holding my most volatile and venomous emotions at bay (lest conscience force me to apologize to someone who owes me the apology!)

I wish I wasn’t that way. I wish I wasn’t so sensitive, so thin-skinned. On the one hand, I crave the authenticity to just be mad, unbounded by the shackles of religious sensibilities. On the other hand, I want to simply stop caring, to insulate myself from people’s thoughtless remarks and cold indifference. But I’m learning through my involvement in WDA’s Restoring Your Heart, that numbness is a defense that may insulate me from pain, but also insulates me from joy. I’m learning that it’s useless to deny when I’m feeling bitter or angry or sad and that the quickest route to the other side of those feelings is through. Through the venom. Through the emotions which if fully explored threaten to completely overwhelm me and my community.

I’m also learning that forgiveness is a one-sided transaction. I think I knew this on some level, but needed to see it in black and white. You and I don’t need to become friends again for me to forgive you. And forgiveness doesn’t mean I have to trust you not to hurt me again. That’s the difference between forgiveness and reconciliation.

Forgiveness is a personal choice, and it’s primarily for my benefit.

Honestly though, it can feel like the most impossible choice to make. How do I just will my attitude towards a person to change?

So I laughed to myself this morning while reading Mark 11. Jesus tells his disciples that if they ask for anything in prayer with full confidence that they’ll receive it, it’s as good as done… Even if they ask for a mountain to go jump into the sea!

But at the end, Jesus adds… oh yeah… “When you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins” (v. 23).

Thanks a lot Jesus. In some ways, that mountain feels more moveable than my bitterness.

But I think the same principle of praying in faith applies to mountains AND forgiveness. In both instances, I’m claiming and trusting God for something that hasn’t been fully realized: In the first instance, a dramatic miracle. In the second instance… a dramatic miracle.

I’ve always seen forgiveness as the begrudging, painful obligation of Christians. I’m beginning to understand that the ability to choose forgiveness by faith restores an element of choice to victimized people. I’m no longer a slave to what you did to me. I’m not a slave to my bitterness. I can choose to trust God to give you the justice you deserve and release my need for personal vindication here and now. And even if I don’t feel particularly forgiving right now, I’m still choosing to forgive, trusting that God will seal the deal and heal my bitterness.

Of course, it’s always been a multi-layered process for me. If you step on my toe, I can forgive you today for hurting me physically. But I may not realize until next month that I’m also mad you did it on purpose or that your actions are part of a pattern of carelessness in your life. So I go as far as I can now and I’m not bothered if I experience new levels of emotion later, which must be dealt with at that time.

I’ve also discovered that on the other side of my anger and pain comes a surprising empathy. It’s not contrived or forced. And it doesn’t excuse your behavior. But suddenly, once I’ve expressed how bitter and hurt I am about all the things you’ve done to me, I begin to understand the reasons you did them. That empathy opens the door for me to accept you as a person even if I can never accept or excuse your behavior. Empathy humanizes the transgressor while still insisting on a specific code of conduct.

So this morning, I rehearsed a short list of lost relationships and wounding parties which have needed progressive levels of forgiveness from me. And feeling God’s presence out on the porch with me, I spoke forgiveness over those broken relationships.

Suddenly out of nowhere, I said outloud, “and I forgive myself.” Now where did THAT come from?!

Maybe forgiveness is a state of being. When we give or receive forgiveness in any way, it begins to infect us. Forgiving others allows us to receive and embrace God’s forgiveness. Likewise God’s forgiveness emboldens us to forgive others. And both things allow us to forgive ourselves. Suddenly forgiveness is flowing to and from every relationship in our lives.

And THEN, we begin to live in a “state of grace”: the ONLY place in the universe where justice and mercy can peacefully coexist. This is a place that empowers victims, humanizes wrong-doers, accepts people, rejects evil, and infects everything with love. I want to live there. Don’t you?

It begins with a choice, a prayer offered in faith.

Jesus and the Snot-nosed Kid

 When I'm in Africa, kid's are usually either ignored or sternly warned to behave. Fathers love their children but I don't often see affectionate fathers. Children run with a posse of older siblings and friends from dawn to dusk. Babies ride on their mothers' backs all day. Often kids are considered non-entities until they demonstrate that they will survive pandemic infant mortality and grow into an initiated adult. In fact, in some cultures, a child isn't given a proper name for several years! Until then they are, "Hey you with the boogers hanging down!" (My experience in Ethiopia was the exception. There, I wa surprised and encouraged to see parents who were both firm and affectionate.)

One of several photo-op pitstops we took with
our preacher friend, Zekarias to say hello
to the children passing by. He loved
those snot-nosed kids.

I believe the culture Jesus lived and taught in was more akin to your traditional African context where small children were assigned value only in relationship to their parents (which is why all the OT babies are given names relating to the stories of their parents.) So, when Jesus scooped up one of these free-ranging little ones and shouted, "here's the kingdom!" I think it was quite a statement indeed!

And the shock value is still there today in many traditional cultures. I don't think the message is that we should think more highly of our children, but that we should think less highly of ourselves. Our culture idolizes our kids and in my opinion, we put a lot of pressure on our kids to continue to be "so cute, so talented, so wonderful." But many societies are so ridigly structured around a top-down hierarchy--even in churches--that Jesus' upside-down kingdom is intentionally lost so that we can focus on whether an apostle is more important than a pastor... or a female preacher is more valuable than a male deacon! 

Pastor Elias was one of those precious attentive
 fathers who glowed when he talked about his kids.

Not to pick on the African church too much. After all, American churches rarely have trouble filling volunteer roles that get the spotlight. And for full disclosure, this is usually where I end up: leading the music, garnering applause. 

But I'm trying something new these days. I'm volunteering for the nursery. I think it's healthy for me to be around 5-year-olds who won't say, "wow, that was such a profound lesson today!" And I think I can learn a thing or two from them as well.

Whole, Home, Forgiven

Here's an old song I re-recorded recently. I think it does the song better justice, even though the original had a cute 3-year-old Annabel chirruping in the background.

This song was written when Levi first came home from the hospital. Here's what I wrote in my blog: 


Do you know how to make sure your baby gets a full feeding? Put a cold wet washcloth on his back. Seems cruel right? But it wakes him up so that he can eat all he wants and then he’ll sleep soundly. Most kids are half-hearted, sleepy eaters. But I understand that regular full feedings are one of the best ways to establish a normal schedule for your baby. Do you think I find a spiritual metaphor in that? You bet.

Levi's first song!

For the record, I did not autotune, stretch, or synchopate Levi's singing. Just trimmed, copied, and pasted. And pasted. And pasted. That's right. He's a born rock star.