Shattered Dreams, page 11
The soul’s capacity to abandon itself to God and to enjoy confidence in Him is a capacity that the Spirit’s companionship inspires. It develops most fully when our capacity for lesser pleasures is frustrated. Shattered dreams give us the chance to discover our desire for God and then to create space for Him (abandonment) and to watch Him enter (confidence). As that process slowly unfolds, we become aware of God’s desire for us.
Naomi’s story offers a powerful illustration of what it means to abandon ourselves to God with confidence that He is there. It’s a parable that may help us to depend more completely on God and to discover His desire for us. As I pick up the narrative in the next chapter, I pray that’s what happens. No one can make it happen, but we can ask for it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HIS PASSION RESTRAINED
There are times in life when it would be easier to not believe in God at all than to believe in Him and wonder where He is.
A friend’s wife tried to take her life. Their older daughter had died two years earlier in a car wreck. Their only son was in a drug rehab unit, fighting his addiction to cocaine. His wife could no longer bear the pain.
As we talked the day after her suicide attempt, he said, “If God lets her die, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to trust Him for anything again.”
Had he been a womanizer or his wife an alcoholic, I could have more easily dismissed his comment as an irreverent, unwarranted attack on God. If you smoke cigarettes for thirty years, don’t blame God when you get lung cancer.
But these folks were sincerely good Christian people who had faithfully served God in ministry for their entire adult lives. Instead of defending God, I wanted to throttle Him. My friend’s words seemed eminently reasonable. They made me want to grab God by the shoulders, shake Him till He paid attention, then tell Him to do a better job of caring for His children, to treat these people more fairly, to let up on them a little bit.
I know my reaction is wrong. I know God is God and I’m not. I know He’s never promised a rose garden till heaven. I know I’m to believe that behind the scenes a good plan is unfolding. I know I’m called to live for His glory no matter what happens. But sometimes it’s hard.
I am discovering that I cannot turn from these despairing thoughts that God is uninvolved until I have a better idea of who I’m turning toward. If I could see His face, if I could see passionate love coming out of His eyes, perhaps I could rest in the middle of shattered dreams.
Throttling God! The image is as ridiculous as it is insubordinate. But what’s the alternative? Are we expected to experience God as unresponsive to our well-being and pretend we like Him anyway? Things that matter deeply to us don’t seem to matter to Him. What are we to do with that fact? I find it hard to take comfort in God’s commitment to His own glory when it doesn’t seem to involve enough interest in me.
My friend with the troubled family put it disturbingly well. “When God does so little about things that matter so much to me, I have no categories for understanding God’s statement that He loves me. I know Calvary is God’s supreme expression of His love. I’m grateful that my sins are forgiven and I’m going to heaven. And I know all these troubles are somehow useful for good purposes, maybe necessary for making me a more godly person. But I can’t get past the thought that real love wouldn’t let me suffer like this.”
Everyone agrees: Love implies a concern for another’s burdens that translates into action. No action? No love! Praying can feel like furiously pressing the “call nurse” button dangling by your hospital bed. Is she drinking coffee? Finishing another chapter in an absorbing novel? I know she may be busy with someone else. But it’s hard to think of an absent nurse as caring.
THE CAKE IS CUT
What then are the options to mounting an assault on an unresponsive God? I see only three.
1. Dismiss Him, turn from bad thoughts about Him to no thoughts at all. You don’t have to reject God, just dismiss Him as irrelevant. Handle life as best you can with your own resources. Do whatever helps you function well and feel better. Define the morality of your choices by their immediate and felt effect. That’s the easiest option.
2. Confess anger at God and frustration with how He handles things as blasphemous irreverence and heinous rebellion. Grab yourself by the shoulders rather than God. How dare you talk like that to God! Remind yourself what is true, that God is the Almighty Sovereign Lord of the Universe, then kneel before Him.
Of course that’s the right thing to do. Why then does it feel like crawling into a small, dark box of uncomplaining submission? Why, when we bow before Him, do we feel more like a chastened criminal crouching in a windowless cell than a liberated slave dancing in the meadow?
What many call the Christian life is lifeless surrender to a system they cannot fight, coupled with an attempt to convince themselves they love the Judge. That seems the hardest option. It requires that I smother my soul, that I kick the life out of myself in order to get along with God.
3. Scream and holler until the terror of life so weighs you down that you discover solid ground beneath your feet. The solid ground is not doctrine. It is not merely truth to believe. It is not recommitment and trying harder to believe and do right. It is Him. It is our awareness of a Christ whose passion to bless is so strong that His restraint becomes not a cause for complaint, but a sacred and appealing mystery.
Solid ground beneath the pain of shattered dreams is the revelation of a mystery; it is the realization that it’s more difficult for Christ to restrain Himself from making all our dreams come true than for us to watch them shatter. At our moment of worst pain, Jesus’ pain is worse.
He could make everything better. Limited power is not the problem. He is right now holding Himself back from showering us with every conceivable blessing. Imagine what Jesus must feel as He stands next to every bed in every hospital. With a word, He could cure every patient. What must He feel as He observes every divorce proceeding in every court? He could do something. Most often He does nothing. The mystery is why.
Once our feet touch the solid ground of His passion for us, we can neither dismiss Him as uncaring nor cringe before Him as a ruthless despot.
He is not mad at us. He is not indifferent. He is not helpless. And His commitment to His own glory ensures our joy because He glorifies Himself by revealing His character—and His character is love.
Jesus is filled with desire for us. He is right now cutting the cake, eagerly awaiting the Father’s signal to clear away the vegetables and bring on the dessert.
If we believed that, we would rest. We would still hurt, sometimes we would scream, occasionally (but never as a lifelong pattern) we would sin to feel the relief of momentary pleasure, but we would rest. Without effort, like a drowning man yielding to his rescuer after receiving a blow to the head, we would abandon ourselves to God and discover a deep confidence in Him forming in our souls.
If we believed it.
To help us believe (Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief!), the Spirit has recorded an episode from Naomi’s life that illustrates the point He wants us to believe, that in the middle of our shattered dreams, Jesus is restraining Himself, for reasons we cannot fully understand, from ending our pain.
Rather than sorting through His reasons for holding back, we’re encouraged to focus on the passion that makes it difficult for Him not to swoop down in power and solve all our problems. A close look at what Naomi told Ruth might help us see that our unresponsive God is really a restrained lover.
HE WILL NOT REST
Picture what happened. Boaz, a middle-aged bachelor, wealthy, a devoted follower of Shaddai, wakes up one night at two in the morning and sees a beautiful foreign girl lying at his feet. Perhaps it was her delicate perfume that aroused him. He rubs his eyes, thinking it’s a good dream, then looks again. There she is, dressed in alluring clothing and making a clear statement: “I am available to become your wife.”
He recognizes her at once as the peasant woman he’d met earlier. Ruth had caught his eye. Boaz had felt immediately drawn, both by her character (he knew of her loyalty to Naomi) and by her youthful beauty. Apparently his tactful advances to her in the fields had struck a chord. Here she was, cleaned up and pretty, presenting herself to him.
Boaz wanted Ruth. The writer allows no question about that. He wanted to call the rabbi, exchange vows, and take her to bed. If I were writing a steamy novel, I would describe in lurid detail his sexual attraction to Ruth.
The description would be accurate. But his passion, though including physical desire, is deeper, richer, more enduringly passionate than fleeting, easily satisfied lust. The inspired writer tells the story of a man who strongly desires a woman. The picture of Christ is hard to miss.
But there’s a problem. The law stands between Boaz and Ruth. Jewish law stipulated that the nearest relative had the first right of refusal to marry his relative’s widow and assume responsibility for the bereaved family. Boaz was related to Naomi (and so to Ruth), but there was another man more closely related.
Like an honorable lover refusing to enjoy the pleasures of sex until the covenant of marriage was sealed, Boaz withheld himself from Ruth. He actually moved away from her, giving her the noble gift of his absence until he could be with her without dishonor.
Boaz knew the law of the kinsman-redeemer. To marry a relative’s widow and restore her to blessing, the candidate must satisfy three criteria. One, he must be a relative, the closest relative willing to assume the role of kinsman-redeemer. Two, he must have the means to pay the entire debt owed by the widow and her family. Three, he must have the power to remove anyone who wanted to remain on the widow’s property after all debts were paid.
Ruth, at best vaguely familiar with Jewish law, was aware only that Boaz was withholding himself from her. She must have worried that he didn’t really want her. She had discovered her desire for Boaz but was not yet confident of his desire for her.
I picture Naomi sitting on the floor of their little house, warming herself by the fire on a chilly morning. Ruth returns from her night with Boaz, still wearing her prettiest dress but no longer feeling beautiful.
“Naomi, what shall I do? I love Boaz and I think he loves me. But he said he can’t marry me until some legal problem is cleared up. Oh, Naomi, I don’t know anything about all those technicalities. All I know is that I want him. I don’t want anyone else. I want him. Doesn’t he want me?”
Naomi sits quietly. She knows. Her heart is at rest, quietly thumping with anticipation.
I’ve often wondered if it occurred to Naomi to suggest Ruth dress in an old rag, work up a sweat, and present herself the next night to the nearest relative. Maybe that would move them through the legal impasse.
Instead, with the wisdom of a spiritual director, she longs for Ruth to abandon herself to the heart of one who loves her, with confidence—in spite of his restraint—that his desire will find a way to bring them together.
“Ruth,” Naomi says, “Boaz wants you more than you want him. He is withholding himself from you for a time at great personal cost. It is harder for him to keep his distance from you than it is for you to wait for him. Know this, that this man will move heaven and earth to find a lawful way to marry you. And that’s what you want, a legal marriage that rests on an unshakable foundation. You want nothing less. Wait, my daughter. The man will not rest until the matter is settled today.”
Your wife tried to kill herself. Your husband left you. You thought life would get easier once the ugly split with your partner was over. Then the other shoe dropped. You woke up to the realization that your father is disappointed in you, that your friend isn’t the friend you thought she was, that your life is not turning out the way you’d hoped.
Perhaps Naomi’s words to Ruth can become the Spirit’s words to us.
“Wait, my child, your Heavenly Bridegroom is consumed with desire for you.
“For reasons you cannot now understand, He is holding Himself back from filling your life with every imaginable pleasure. He could do what you’re asking Him to do.
“When He appears to do nothing, to leave you in your pain and provide no relief, realize this: The Man will not rest till He makes everything good.
“In the mystery of suffering, enter the deeper mystery of His restrained passion. As the mother holds her baby still so the doctor can deliver the needed injection, so your Lord is allowing you to suffer for reasons you do not know.
“Don’t try to find comfort in explaining the reasons. Don’t try to find the spiritual means to trust more. Enter your pain until your feet touch the solid ground beneath you, the solid ground of the restrained passion of Jesus.
“I, the Spirit of Christ, will reveal His passion to you. Create space for Me to fill by waiting, by abandoning yourself to God. When I allow you to discover His desire for you, you will rest with confidence in His love.”
We are now in a better position to enter into the meaning of our Lord’s words to people whose dreams have shattered: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”
Naomi’s words to Ruth are a parable of our Lord’s words to us. Both the parable and the reality can be brought into sharper focus by understanding the Jewish customs of marriage in our Lord’s day. As I describe them in the next chapter, stay alert to the Spirit’s speaking to the secret recesses of your soul, empowering you to believe that Jesus’ restraint is a greater mystery than your suffering.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A HELL OF MERCY
God’s restraint has a purpose. When He appears to be doing nothing, He is doing something we’ve not yet learned to value and therefore cannot see. Only in the agony of His absence, both in the real absence of certain blessings and in the felt absence of His Presence, will we relax our determined grasp of our empty selves enough to appreciate His purposes.7
He could do something. Yet He does nothing, at least not what we ask Him to do. Why? To deepen our desire for His Presence, to strengthen our passion to pursue Him, to help us see how preoccupied we are with filling our God-shaped souls with something less than God.
Only when we want Him as we want nothing else will there develop in our hearts a space large enough for Him to fill. Because He longs to fill us, He hides His face long enough for us to discover how fervently and exclusively we want Him. When our discovery creates a secret space that nothing else can fill, and when we know that to be true, He enters.
Through the pain of shattered dreams, God is awakening us to the possibility of infinite pleasure. That is the nature of our journey; it’s what the Spirit is doing. When we understand that, we’ll define “doing well” on this journey very differently than before. We’ll come to see that the experience of a woman waiting for her man to come take her away to a better place is a clear picture of true spirituality.
That picture, which the story of Naomi presents, changes most of our expectations for what this life will be like. Let me explain.
SOUL DISTANCE
“I’m tired of doing great.” These were the words of a man who had recently suffered an enormous loss. His friends were concerned and supportive.
They sent books on handling grief (I’ve never liked the term “grief management”; grief can only be embraced, never managed). They spent time with him both in prayer and on the golf course. Several sent letters expressing their love; a few included verses from the Bible they said had been impressed on them by the Lord.
When his friends called or came to visit, the first question after a quick greeting was always “How are you doing?”
He hated the question the first time he heard it and hated it more each time he heard it again. He knew the “right” answer, the one his friends were hoping to hear, the one that had more to do with relieving their concern than with expressing his own heart. The hoped-for answer could be expressed in many ways, but its message was always the same: “It’s hard, but I’m okay, or at least getting there.”
To the last person who asked, he put the message in these words: “Well, it’s still really hard. I miss her so much. Sometimes I worry how I’ll manage. But I’m not breaking down as often now. And I’m going out more and getting back to all I need to be doing. Guess I’m moving in the right direction. Thanks for asking.”
His words had their intended effect. The questioner smiled with relief and said, “I’m really glad. Not surprised, though. Lots of us have been praying.”
I notice three things in this exchange.
1. The man’s friend assumed prayer has more to do with getting someone to feel better than with pleading for movement along the path into God’s Presence.
2. He further assumed that if the Spirit were doing His work, the suffering man would indeed feel better. Doing great on the path to God means feeling great—or at least feeling better. That’s what most of us think.
3. He distanced himself from the sorrowing man’s soul. Without consciously intending to, he let the man know that he did not want to be with him in his pain, he wanted rather to be with him only as an agent of improvement.
As the struggling man listened to his friend, he felt a tidal wave of intense loneliness sweep over him. He returned the smile but his soul shriveled behind a familiar wall that left him lifeless, more desperate and alone than before.
We spoke a few hours later. He recounted the conversation and described his reaction to it. That’s when he said, “I’m tired of doing great. Just yesterday, I overheard two of my friends talking about me. One asked how I was doing. The other said I was doing great. I wanted to scream.”
When life kicks us in the stomach, we want someone to be with us as we are, not as he or she wishes us to be. We don’t want someone trying to make us feel better. That effort, no matter how well intended, creates a pressure that adds to our distress.
