Common Ground with Charlie Brown, Part I

You know that feeling when you need to undo a zipper and you can’t reach it? Twisting, turning,

pretzeling your arms isn’t producing the desired result. That’s what this piece of grave clothing felt like. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it to take it off. I couldn’t even find the words in prayer to point to.

I knew there was something else buried, I just couldn’t make it out in the cavernous reaches of my soul. I went through my mental check list of things I’d grieved through but maybe didn’t finish. One by one my fingers tapped on an invisible memory. Nope…it wasn’t connecting.

Then, the Holy Spirit gave me a mental picture of Charlie Brown and Lucy and the infamous football gag. I laughed thinking, “The Lord uses Peanuts to get His point across. This is new revelation.” Then the meaning of the mental cartoon took my breath away.

I didn’t trust Him.

HIM! The maker of the universe, King of all Kings, my Abba, my Beloved.

I didn’t trust HIM.

He showed me that in all the moments of grieving lost dreams - after I had forgiven all others connected to the loss - I still superimposed HIS countenance on Lucy and I was Charlie Brown. My hopes and dreams didn’t feel safe in His hands anymore. Somewhere in this deep cavern a little girl expected her Daddy to protect her dreams and destiny from death. She expected Daddy to protect her castle on a hill.

When the castle burned to the ground, she never fully grieved the loss of perfect trust in a perfect Daddy.

When dreams and hopes are pulled away as you race to launch them and you fall on your back looking at the sky, you stop trusting the one holding the promises.

And on a REALLY bad day a bird flies overhead and poops on you.

“And those who know your name will put their trust in You; 

For you, Oh Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.” Ps 9:10

The Wilderness, the Red Shirt, and the Cave

Here’s a riddle: What do the wilderness, a red shirt, and a cave have in common?

At first glance very little; however, to a wilderness wanderer, quite a bit.

After spending 18 years drifting in a spiritual and emotional desert, I found a lovely cave to nest in. Dark, warm, and safe, my emotional and spiritual cave became a recovery zone of sorts. It gave me a beautiful solitude and territorial solidarity to serve as my rehab center. Safe from prying eyes and probing legalistic religiosity, I learned of and leaned into a deep, precious sense of the unmerited, unwavering grace of my Abba.

But even rehab needs to end. Most people are anxious to get out of rehab. I guess I’m not most people. I knew what awaited me outside – more dusty, erred wilderness. Yet in His infinite wisdom my Lord knew what would get me back on the road out of my wasteland.

Forgiving Him.

I have been in the church long enough to have been the perpetrator and the victim of someone Bible thumping the message of forgiveness:

“”If you don’t…God won’t forgive you.”

“If you don’t…you could lose your salvation.”

“If you don’t…”

But even though the Lord knew I needed to forgive Him for, in my mind, abandoning me, do you know how He handled it?

He waited with open arms.

He didn’t thump His Word. He didn’t point a finger. He didn’t lament with stern expressions. He waited with open arms. And so a few weeks ago, I ran into His arms with abandon and found myself on the very short path out of my wasteland.

In football there is a term known as a “red shirt.” Players that wore the red shirt were a part of the team; however, due to injury or illness, were forced to sit out during convalescing. The red shirt was a sign to others that this player is still a valued member of the team; however, they needed to be out a season to heal.

After guiding me out of the wilderness, the Lord handed me back my team jersey, lovingly slapped me on the back, and put me back in the game.

Wanderlust or Just Wandering, Part III

I didn’t realize these offended thoughts toward my Lord - seeds as it were – could find fertile soil within the barren arid ground of my spirit. But they did. Offended thought-seeds can germinate anywhere, especially when the enemy waters and fertilizes it with verbiage from his bag of tricks.

These offense seeds are like cancer cells are to our body. They start small and replicate when the environment is out of alignment. Pretty soon illness takes over, but because the malignant seeds are well-hidden from view by this point, you can’t see the forest from the trees. For 18 years I didn’t see where the originating offense came from because I was too busy blaming everyone or everything else. 

Since this divine revelation of my offense with the One that died for me, I’ve asked Him and myself, “Why did it take me 18 years to get it?” Am I that dense?

The Lord brought me to a devotional from Oswald Chambers that put it in perspective:

Our Lord does not hide these things; they are unbearable until we get into a fit condition of spiritual life. There must be communion with His risen life before a particular word can be borne by us.” *

I have been communing more with my naval than His risen life. My hurt, pain, and betrayal were far more palpable than who Jesus was in my circumstances. How sad. I have spent the better part of 38 years walking with the Lord, but not connecting with who He is. My only measuring stick was what He’d done for me – but that was not enough to keep offense from multiplying and dividing like an insidious diseased cell.

The cry of my heart now is the see Him; the kind of seeing as when you can’t take your eyes off the object of your affections. The kind of seeing and knowing that sees past the “doing”, past the flesh and soul.

The kind that sees His heart.

*My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers

Wanderlust or Just Wandering, Part II - Shaken not Stirred

Offense is a funny thing. Sometimes it sneaks up on you like a cat ready to pounce on its prey; sometimes it is disguised with self-righteousness or blanketed with irritation so you don’t recognize it.

The Lord spent 18 years shaking my foundations to see what remained. Thankfully, very little; but like a California earthquake, I have been tossed and shaken until all I see is rubble. And it was necessary.

There are those that would claim it was the enemy as God doesn't cause earthquakes or catastrophes.

Really?

What about Sodom and Gomorrah?

What about the idolatrous Israelites in the wilderness?

What about David losing his son? Or Peter denying his Lord? Both were shaken to their very core.  Why?

Because God can’t build on a faulty foundation. God’s version of shaking brings down works of the flesh so that only the Spirit remains. Still not convinced? Here are just some of the benefits of shaking:

·         It reveals what our foundation is made of and brings us closer to it.

·         It awakens us.

·         It removes what is dead or useless.

·         Weakness and breaking points are revealed.

So yes, shaking is necessary, and yes shaking is Holy. And by the Grace of God, it will be used to rebuild upon a rock.