Tears and Typos

On the plane to Atlanta I decided to read through my book for the first time. I began working on this book twenty years ago. For the last year and a half I have spent almost every spare moment on this book about my father and his imprint on my life. My heart and soul are in it. I have read and re-read each chapter, struggled with each sentence, and revised and reworked every word. But until yesterday I had never just read it cover to cover. I was surprised. Reading the book brought me frequently to tears. I was surprised because the material is now so familiar I did not think it would touch me so deeply. I was pleased that it did. But I was also greatly distressed. After hundreds of reads and rereads, after a professional edit there are still so many errors! My deep sense of satisfaction at the emotional import of my father’s story was regularly dashed by typographical and grammatical errors in the preliminary manuscript! Just moments apart, I was taken from exhilaration to deep disappointment. I was brought to tears but I was also regularly distracted by the errors and resulting changes that would need to be made before this book is ready to publish.

Funny thing . . . life and ministry is like this too. Every day I find myself deeply moved by events and people, and within seconds I can be completely distracted by the slightest little glitch or idiosyncrasy. Seconds apart I can feel compassion and contempt. I can breathe in hope and as I exhale I can be brought to despair. Tears and human “typos” are the warp and woof of life. No matter how much I try to control my life and ministry, things happen. I am human. The people I work with are human. Human typos happen. The joy of victories and the agony of defeats are every day recurring themes.

On Sunday I was part of a team mediating conflict in a local church. The tears and typos were glaring. In this case, they were literal. Folks attempting to express their concerns and pain fought back tears. But in order to keep the conversation honoring of God and respectful of all who attended we had to correct verbal typos. The ground rules for conversation in times of disagreement require constant tracking of the words we use. “I felt disrespected” invites dialogue. “You are disrespectful” establishes monologue. One brings possible healing, the other further wounds. No matter what I am feeling the words I choose have the power to invite others also to feel and express what they feel, or, they have the power to shut them down. Tears draw us in, typos distract. But they are both regular and critical parts of life and ministry. Writing and speaking reflect life—full of tears, full of typos.

Reading my book through gave me great joy and significant frustration. But my reflecting on this experience has given me refreshing insight into my life and ministry. As I live my life and try to do ministry authentically from my life I will be less troubled by the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, tears and typos. I will revel in the deep emotion and I will work through the distractions wherever they come from. My manuscript will get better. But it will never be perfect. So too with my life and ministry. God is in the business of redeeming our lives and our ministries by using both the tears and the typos for his purposes and his glory. God in his grace and mercy is able to direct me through the ups and downs of ministry and life. I will keep reading, and I will keep improving the manuscript. And now I can better see the value in both.

Strength in Weakness

Yeah, yeah! I know the Bible verses (2 Cor 12:8-10). Christ is made strong in our weakness. It’s all well and good. I love it when others are weak, Christ is strong. I teach it, I preach it. I just don’t like it when I am the one feeling weak. I especially don’t like it when I am so weak I feel helpless. But I was reminded this morning in our staff devotion time that this is exactly what Paul is talking about. And he is talking about it for me.

George, our student ministries director, was leading devotions and asked the question, “When was a time in your life when you felt most led by the Spirit, like Romans 8 says, “walking in the Spirit”? I thought about it. Of course the immediate response from a pastor is some superspiritual thing like, “I am led by the Spirit every moment of every day.” Yeah, right! I confessed that when I think about feeling led by the Spirit I am more like a cell phone with poor reception. The connection comes and goes. But as I thought more, I remembered a time when I really felt connected and totally led by the Spirit of God. It was during the most difficult time in my fifteen years of ordained ministry. It was a time of explosive conflict in a church I served as an associate. What had been little brush fires around the congregation for years (we learned later) erupted into an inferno one August following a seemingly routine issue in the life of ministry. Within hours the conflict became personal and pointed. Though I was not directly involved in any of the related issues, my convictions about what had happened made me one of two targets for all the rage. And the battle raged for over two years. There were days when I did not want to get out of bed. There were times when I was paralyzed in an attempt to avoid those who were on the attack. I never knew who I would run into at the grocery store or bank, and even in the halls of the church I served I could suddenly be confronted with a very angry person. There was also the deep sense of sadness over the loss of people who were so confused by what was happening that they withdrew from fellowship. When it was all over about 100 people left the church of 700. It felt to me like 100 deaths without goodbyes. Though I was not suicidal, there were days when I felt as though I did not want to go on living. The pain was so deep and I could see no end in sight.

As George continued to push the question I realized that this was the time I remembered most feeling the Spirit leading me. In fact, I remembering telling someone that I felt so weak I did not know if I could walk. But I did walk. And I did work, and I did go on. But I felt numb, like I was floating around from place to place. That is when I realized that the Spirit of God was carrying me. I was walking in the power of the Spirit and completely led by him. My absolute weakness allowed Christ to be my strength. I was living out the poem Footprints in the Sand.

I have been a Christian since a very young child, and I have studied Scripture since I was a teenager. I know that one of the dominant themes of Scripture is about suffering and weakness, and that we grow most in our faith when we are tested. I know that the very heart of the gospel is that through death life emerges. Through the Valley of Achor there is hope. I know this and love the truth. I don’t like living it out! It is painful. And yet this is exactly what Easter is all about. Through Lent we prepare to realize the weight of our sin and the price for its eradication on Good Friday. Easter morning, resurrection, is only possible because, as Jürgen Moltmann said, Christ suffered godforsakenness for us. Total weakness and defeat leads to absolute strength and victory. I hate it. But it is the way of the cross and it is the way of Christlikeness.

The church I served during those years grew stronger through those days of agony and pain. So did I. And I have been strengthened to travel with others walking that way of agony. Christ is sufficient. Most of the time it requires our absolute insufficiency to experience this kind of walking in the Spirit.