How AA Meetings Destroyed My Chances of Being a Pastor

Over a year ago, I left a well paying job as a worship pastor in a church. The job was great on so many levels... a wonderful staff, the freedom to create, talented fellow musicians, and the spontaneous late night hangouts in the sanctuary while watching films like Dead Poet's Society on the big screen. I proposed to my wife in that building. I learned how to use a technologically advanced copy machine in that building, too. I wrote songs on the massive grand piano up on the stage every so often, as well. And on every Sunday beginning at 9:30am, I would sing my little heart out with a hundred or so attendees, many who were sipping on freshly brewed coffee that was served from an espresso stand out in the foyer.

I was there for just a little bit over a year and my reason for leaving was not circumstantial at all. My boss at the time- a good friend of mine- was and is such a quality human being... a man with a warm presence, an upbeat persona, and just a big kid at heart. The staff- 7 of us or so- were all very complimentary of each other, both in interaction and in personalities. Staff meetings were fun and always left space for the 7 different minds of the staff to come up with new ideas for Christmas services, family days, and ways we could make the church decorations look less 1992-ish. Truly, we were paint brushes on a stretched canvas of existing colors.

So why did I leave? It doesn't make sense.

Slowly, as I got more involved there, investing my life into the church, my heart began to take an uneasy shift. I don't know how to explain it other than to say that it felt like I was falling less in love with the product I was supplying, to the point where I was actually beginning to resent it. It probably had as much to do with processing my unattended wounds from church in the past as much as it did in processing my purpose for the present and finding hope for the future. It was a stew of emotional and aggressive chaos and although it didn't feel fuzzy and fluffy, it somehow felt invigorating and... well... correct.

I guess you could say that I was going through some sort of brutal awakening experience, where I was becoming aware of things that I was never aware of and angry that I had been blind to them all along. My days were a series of moments where I consistently wondered, "what the hell am I really doing?" and then bitterly realizing what the hell I was really doing. I think I felt a little bit like Peter Gibbons in the film Office Space, where he realizes one day that his life revolves around filling out TPS reports.

To the staff and others around me, I probably just looked like a bitter guy that was just wanting to fight "the man." My voice at the staff meetings began to reverberate with dissatisfaction rather than contentment. My arms were folded more often than they were open. And my eyes rolled more frequently than the rain drops fall onto the Seattle sidewalks. At the time, I wasthat guy, the guy I didn't want to be and yet the guy I knew I couldn't help but had to be.

[Enter AA Meetings]

I think that the game changer for me was when I began taking notice at the AA group that met on Wednesday nights in the church sanctuary. The group must have been about 200 or so people, twice the amount that trickled into that same space on Sunday mornings. They were of all addictions, yet no one looked any different than me. Before what looked like a town hall meeting took place, I would sit up on stage and play the piano or guitar as they walked in through the open doors. I'd play and sing renditions of Michael Jackson songs, old 70's rock and roll songs, and Beatle songs like, "Hey Jude." They loved it and they would give me an applause when I would finish each tune, as though I was Paul McCartney himself (this was the closest I ever felt to being a rock star). And as I left the stage, some would stop me and tell me how much it meant to them that they could experience live music for a small portion of their week. I felt like I was giving them a much needed gift and maybe putting a smile on their face was all they needed.

After I got done, instead of heading home, I would more often times than not, just sit in the back of the sanctuary while their meeting would go. I was mesmerized at how much they cared about each other and listened to each other. During the meetings, a couple of people would share their stories in front of the entire group and all of us would listen intently. You could tell that some people were gifted speakers and others were far from it, but their elegancy didn't matter. All that mattered was that each person would be known, supported, embraced, and loved. That was the atmosphere of those AA meetings... transparency and vulnerability being embraced by grace and understanding. There were more hugs given out at the end of those meetings than what I would imagine would take place at a hugging convention (it that even exists). Many times, I couldn't escape a random hug either. It was the purest sense of community I have ever witnessed.

Sunday mornings would come back around and I would always be the first one to step into the dark building and flick on the lights early that morning. As I would step into that same empty sanctuary, I would imagine... what if church today looked like the same Wednesday AA meetings that I was experiencing earlier in the week?...

What if instead of having the worship music that has lyrics that most people singing them probably don't fully believe, are aware of, or even comprehend, we listened to the sounds of nothing? What if instead of 3 point sermons with fancy power points, predictable thesis', and catchy titles, we had people standing in front of the congregation, sharing their raw story as we learn from them and in turn, all of us feeling valued and known? What if instead of doing the awkward get up for one minute and turn and greet someone next to you, we took an intentional half hour to have conversations with each other during that hour long service? And what if we actually came to church, not as people who needed to be reminded that we are sinners, but people who have already come to terms with our sinful nature and just want to be with others like us in a place of intentional recovery?

And that is why my heart fell off of its axis halfway through my pastoral employment during that time. I didn't believe in the vision of what we we were doing and I was angry about it. I was supposed to be invested in the church, yet I didn't really believe in what the church was doing anymore, especially on Sundays. I realized that really all we were doing on Sundays was creating more noise on top of the noise that we had been abused by all week and hoping that God showed him/herself somewhere in the chaos that we had created. I've come to know that the church is probably more scared of silence rather than the devil itself.

See, the thing about the typical model of the church these days is that in all of its good intentions, the design has created a huge space where people have and are becoming more and more lonely. Today, the church is about spectatorship and entertainment (and mostly unoriginal and poor entertainment to boot). It's about inspiring sermons and in turn, pastors are becoming the idols of worship. You could have a pedophile who is in desperate need to be known and cared for sitting right next to you in the pew and if he/she doesn't join a small group and doesn't have the courage to tell you about their need during your brief encounter in the foyer, you wouldn't know it. They would be just one more victim being pummeled by the noise of it all and being inadvertently degraded at the same time.

Much of today's church is designed to reinforce independence than it is to encourage vulnerable community. Just listening to a transparent teacher does not make you a vulnerable person. Although, it is safer (and more numbing) to go that route. This is why the largest growing churches in the U.S. in terms of attendance on Sundays revolves around excellent preachers. Christians are becoming obese on Biblical interpretations when in retrospect, they need to become hungry for life's recovery with others.

So where am I now? I'd say I'm halfway between knowing my need for recovery and actually taking steps in recovering. I think that's like the 4th step or something. Slowly, I'm learning my essence- the original me that is buried underneath the dirt of my past. I don't know if you sign up to be a pastor or if a pastor is just something that you are, but as my brother-in-law (who happens to be a pastor) says, "We are all just beggars."

I don't want to see the church destroyed by any means, I want to see a revolution... where the noise ceases and the billions of wounds begin to be noticed and tended to. I want to see community... where the commonality does not have to do with doctrinal belief, but of human suffering. And I want to see God... not by theory or information, but by the tending of my throbbing wounds.

** To avoid the possibility of damaging my relationships with pastoral friends/family of mine with this blog, I want each of you to know that I have thought of you in the highest regards as I have poured my soul into these paragraphs. Furthermore, I know that everyone of you have unique and amazing visions as you lead your congregations and communities in the Kingdom of God. Even if our visions may look different. With much love and respect, Rob.

The Devastation of Uncensorship

My earliest recollection of church was around the age of 6 while we were living in Texas. It was an early Sunday morning and on that day, I was going to get baptized. I had no idea what baptism meant and I knew that when my parents were putting me in a situation to have something strange done to me, I would inevitably be sitting on rolled out butcher paper next to a jar of tongue depressors, painfully bearing a shot to the arm. Of course, I found out soon after that I was just getting some warm water splashed on my head while being propped up in front of mass of strange people by the Jesus pastor- who sadly, resembled Elizabeth Smart's kidnapper at the time. I didn't really feel anything different following the event, but I'm not sure Simba felt anything different when Rafiki held him up atop Pride Rock, minus the Elton John song about circles and life.

So church began as something strange done to me where, for the most part, it didn't seem to be as impactful as the event was meant to be powerful- at least in the short term. I don't blame my parents for getting me baptized at the young age of 6 and I think that I understand why they did it. But as I look back through my faith journey, there just seems to be a pattern of doing things in the church that we do just because that's what we do. For instance... a baby dedication in a church service is usually just a comedy hour where we watch the baby obsessively pull on the lapel mic attached to the pastor... the pastor who cradles a kid like a chef holds a fresh honey-baked ham. We all laugh when it happens and then we recite some words of commitment at the end of the comedic routine to make it meaningful. But rarely do we actually think about those words 8 years later when that same kid is pouring Elmer's glue into the back of a little girl's hair in Sunday school.

I was publicly baptized 3 times in my life because I felt like it either never worked or somehow it expired as I got older. In my twenties, although my intentions were mostly sincere, I usually felt more like a rebellious atheist who really just wanted the sexual satisfaction from a girl with a nice rack (insert joke about "laying hands on"). I existed on the hamster wheel of wanting to do good, making bad choices and then feeling guilty afterward. The wheel violently spun until I would be thrown off. The routine would send me back to the dunk tank, hoping to renew my faith and start new... again. At one point in my life, I was just quietly taking late evening baths so that I could secretly baptize myself before I went to bed to save the public embarrassment.

Now I must say that I don't think that these traditions are pointless or without purpose in many cases. Please hear that. If done with intention and sincerity, baptisms and baby dedications can be pivotal and transformational (apparently, it was for Jesus in the Bible, among many others then and now). But for those who are just doing the routines because that's what we are supposed to do... I think that we need to stop and retreat for a bit. We need to lower the out-stretched worship hands of insincerity and put away the choir robes that cover up our transparency.

See, I believe that people cycle through the church routines and traditions without intention- not because they are lazy or unoriginal- but because they are living a fear-based life. They are serving traditions out of fear of being rejected by God and by others. Many people commit their lives to doing what looks like the most God-ordained thing, yet have no sense of a relationship to the entity that is God. It is much safer to be captive to a mission than it is to be vulnerable to a higher being. Why? Because we can control missions and control can help us avoid hurt.

I led worship for 15 years until 2010 came around and then eventually I stopped. I quit my job as a worship pastor and walked away. I did this because I realized that I was faking it up on stage and I was tired of being insincere. As authentic as I was as a worship leader in years past, I was now doing it for the attention because playing music and watching people sing with me somehow made me feel better about who I was or rather, who I was not. Sundays brought relief to me because I spent the rest of the week beating myself up and talking myself down. As for the music, I didn't actually buy into most of the words I sang and began realizing that many people in the room probably didn't buy into them either. When I realized that I was seeing the congregation as a crowd and myself as a rock star, the green lit exit sign in the back of the auditorium finally caught my attention and I darted for the door. Leaving was quite possibly the first time I had been honest in worship in a while.

The church will radically look different if it begins to become more honest with itself. I totally believe this. I'm quite sure that if it happened for even a moment, you would begin to see radical changes...

Church buildings would empty out because people would be spending their limited amount of spare time in therapist offices and recovery centers, wanting to be known and heard in their new found pain....

Communities would become vulnerable and less formal...

Many pastors would step down from the pulpit and let their messages be relational through conversations with those around them...

Inspiration would begin to emerge naturally because it is less forced and manipulated...

Silence would be longed for instead of something we try to convince people to value...

And most of all, we would stop censoring ourselves because desiring to understand each other would be of second nature.

Honesty reveals darkness and darkness invites light.

The Uncensored Room

For the past year or so, I've quietly pulled myself out of what I would call conventional church. Younger generations may call it the emergent church and older generations may call it something that doesn't look like the church they once knew. It's the church of Sunday sermons, uninspiring music, over-worshipped pastors, and spectatorship. Why have I pulled away? I found myself so sucked into the system of church, that I was becoming a stranger to the outside world- even a segregationist- and this eventually began to bother me. So I left.

Since then, my questions have become irresistible to ask. Questions like...

Was this straight and narrow path of church community in fact more community-less that I thought? Why did it seem as though my unchurched friends who hang out at bars accept and respect each other, while my church friends sit around arguing theology, constantly bickering about whether or not Mark Driscoll is a chauvinist asshole and if Rob Bell is indeed a universalist? Why in all of this bickering am I so lonely? Why am I so filled with fear operating inside of the church, maybe even more than outside of the church? Are we actually worshipping dynamic teaching pastors rather than this entity called God? Does God even exist?

So while the pastor was preaching his Sunday sermon, I quietly opened the back door and stepped out into the fresh air that I have been longing to breathe. This is where I am now and it is here that I want to write my thoughts to those who will listen. These thoughts are unbound and to many, maybe even vulgar (you may have cringed at the word "asshole" that I used in the previous paragraph). I guess that I just don't care about censoring what I see and how I see it anymore and I think that somehow, there is a profoundness that thrives there. I want to witness the profound.

I started this "Between the Waves" blog a while back and I must say that it isn't until now that I actually feel as though I AM finally between the waves. I was on the shore when I started this thing and maybe my previous writings give you a glimpse of that. Many Christians do what I did for so long and fantasize about being in the dangerous waves, even write about it and reading about it from others who have taken the leap. They convince themselves that they are fearless Christians- they do this as they hide behind their favorite podcasts of pastors that they listen to each week, filling themselves up with more and more knowledge- LOTS of speculation and very little experience. My hope is that my writings will encourage you to put down the books, take the leap, risk the safety, and begin to be more honest at this very moment.

So get ready to lose the religion and put your faith on the stand. Get ready to risk becoming an atheist and an agnostic and on the contrary, quite possibly become a deep lover of a mysterious God and of wounded people. Get ready to be offended and pissed off and quite possibly, find a new joy within the conflict. Stuff I say is going to rub you the wrong way and that's ok. Our ugliness is radiant with beauty and we need to reveal what we are indeed so scared of... our ugliness. We live in the dark, calling it light, when most likely, we've only seen specks of light in the distance. Honesty welcomes light and the light is good.

Now, let's turn on the lights...

From Genesis to Miles Davis

In our little two bedroom apartment just north of Greenlake, my wife and I have this room that models a creative playground of sorts. This is what I mean… The space is no bigger than 15 square feet, yet it stretches as wide as we let our imagination reach and as steep as our dreams will go. It’s a room without limitations… no right or wrongs, no fears, no judgments, and certainly no rules. In fact, the slogan of the room is written on a white board in bright pink fluorescent ink: a Miles Davis quote that reads, “Do not fear mistakes… there are none.”

His words can feel wrong in so many ways. Do not fear mistakes, there are none? NONE?! That logic doesn’t even qualify as reason. Of course there are mistakes. Three years ago I was making a left hand turn onto Mercer Street in downtown Seattle when out of nowhere I clipped a man with my side view mirror who was kindly passing in front of me. I’d love to tell you that it took place in a hail storm with limited visibility but the fact of the matter is that I was paying no attention to where I was going. That is called a mistake (and luckily the police officer believed it was, as well). Then there was the time I was driving in a convertible with the top down to pick up my prom date and out of nowhere a gust of wind picked up my date’s corsage off of the seat next to me and flung it into oncoming traffic, only to be crushed under the tires of a passing truck. Again, a mistake indeed. Well, actually, that was just my own stupidity but you get the point. Mistakes happen.

Whether intentional or not, I think what Miles was referring to was more about the imagination of God the Creator than the limitlessness of the human condition. Perhaps the greatest jazz musician of all time was talking about the miracle of creating the way God did at the beginning of time… creating something undeniable out of nothing. I can only imagine that God was not editing himself much as he made the heavens and the earth, the fishes in the seas, and the birds in the air. I don’t think He had some holy eraser, wiping out anything that didn’t resemble a Thomas Kincade painting. In fact, God looked at what he created and called it good… including man and woman.

I wonder how our lives and our communities would change if we looked at the things we know as mistakes and instead, believe that they are good. And not good by comparing ourselves with others, but good because we have this supernatural ability to channel the acoustics of heaven through our every being. What if we cherished the fact that we come in all different shapes and sizes, big and small and by all means, call it good? And what if we lived every day believing that life is a big blank canvas desperate in need for the ink of our souls? Would you dare risk the predictability of your life for the knowledge that you are not a mistake?

Whether in the mind or in a house, we all need that 15 square foot space to allow our wild imaginations to become significant realities. We need to risk losing the fabrication of our adulthood and learn to play in the sandbox like children again. We need to let the lion out of her rusty cage so she can explore the forest once more. And by all means, we need to listen to Miles Davis’ famous recording Kind of Blue and find out just what it means to be of no mistakes.

Beneath the Holy Used Car Lot

At the beginning of the show "Cops" (which is my favorite show of all time, second being "Three's Company"), this creepy moviefone voice says "Viewer Discretion is Advised." Please use your viewer discretion while reading this blog. Understand that as blogs go, this is one interpretation not the interpretation. I have raw and very painful experiences that are carefully interpreted here, but I do not expect everyone to see them as I do and I certainly do not intend to hurt anyone or cause division with my opinions. This is very subjective; as goes the lense of an individual. Capiche?

Onto the blog!

I think that when the smoke clears- when the goals, the dreams, the fears, and the memories vanish away- we will only stand with one question (THE question)… am I loved?

The church has in many ways become the greatest detractor from this core question and it has accomplished this through avenues that CAN be used to project artificial authenticity (but not ALWAYS). In some ways, they can be a protection against intimacy with each other and God...

Sunday staged emotions, activity-driven youth groups, adorable kid programs, and song lyrics that bastardize the pain of human life.

At the same time, we fervently involve ourselves in ego-laced theological debates; that which I refer to as Holy Roller dog fights. Michael Vick, watch out!

Whether the intentions are pure or not, we are consistently doing everything we can to avoid remaining in our most painful spaces… the crevices where years of neglect and abandonment have been treated by Scooby-doo Band Aids and Flinstone vitamins time and time again. The pain is so raw, yet there are no shortages of supplies to numb the nagging reminder that indeed something is missing. Some may believe that vanilla icing on top of feces may just be chocolate cake. Grotesque, but you get my point.

Many of us find our niche in Band Aid treatment and child vitamins by sufficing our extracurricular hours to church volunteerism and/or social justice issues. There’s something about doing “God’s work” that affirms our wholeness. And then some of us go a step further and become church employees; guaranteeing ourselves that not only are we complete, but we are now called to complete the world. This just may be the reason why for many outside of the church, the Christian church is nothing more than a world-wide used car lot business trying to gather more pushy salesmen (Christians) all while selling crappy vehicles (salvation).

** Now before I go any further, I would like to make a "however" statement. HOWEVER...

I am also a big fan of the church. In fact, I'm part of it. Like any relationship, the church and I have had amazing times and tough times. It's the essence of trying to be intimate, isn't it? Church isn't all destructive and much of my wounds from the church were brought on by my own lack of having boundaries. You will understand by the bottom of the email. Read on...

Years ago I began detaching myself from the church used car business for a number of reasons. For one, I hate being pushed into buying anything (I’m trying my hardest not to say I despise salesman, but I do) and two, I’m not sure selling salvation like used cars is what Jesus meant when he said, “Go make disciples of all nations” and “love your neighbor as yourself.” In drawing myself away from the used car vision, I began to experience the friction between believing that I was a rebellious out of placed church nuisance and knowing I was starving for so much more than the happy church musical (figurative) in which I was an actor, a director, and a playwright.

What I came to understand is that the church (its people, its functionality, its vision) can look a lot like love when in many cases, it is not (or at least not the satisfying love that we are talking about). And of course, anything in the world can appear to be the embodiment of love (a rule of thumb- do not try to cuddle with adorable jungle cats). It’s only when you give yourself to an apparition of love that you once again try to heal a wound with a Band Aid, believing that this time I will be complete. And that’s what I did with the church for 15 years. I married something that I thought would completely love me and when it didn’t, I resented it. Truly, it’s no one’s fault but my own. And here's what I mean by that...

God uses every aspect of our life (family, friends, spouses, desires, failures, dreams, jobs, community, churches, etc.) as an avenue to tell us that he loves us completely. It's never about the "avenue" as much as it is about that truth he gives to anchor the soul. Although this blog focused only on my painful experiences with the church (that some of you can certainly relate to), any avenue can be drenched in pain. Thus is the result of a flawed world with flawed people. The point of this blog is to encourage you to journey to that pain; to tend to it. There's a lot of redemption there and as you will see in the next paragraph, much much more.

The fact of the matter is that among all of our differences in beliefs, theology, and ways of life, we all share the same desire as I’m finding out: to be loved completely. This sort of love whispers truth into our pain like a flickering light in a dark cave.

You are cherished. You are delightful. You are known. You are important. You are unique. You are forgiven. You are endless.

And beyond your own doubt, you are loved completely.

The Murky Lake and Snapping Turtles

I'm in that really weird position right now of not really knowing what I'm supposed to do next and currently, I'm not really doing that much. It's that uncertain place of not really knowing who I am anymore. I've been a leader in the church for 15 years and now that I no longer have that pasted on identity, I'm not quite sure of who I am.

I've been a musician, a pastor, an artist, a student, a visionary, a desperate/horny single man [these all being my adult years] and now I'm also a husband and a bearer of a ridiculously enormous vision (starting a pub) that's unbearably overwhelming. And yet, I'm still struggling to find that foundation to stand on. I guess it's like being in the shallow end of a murky lake, all the while you are stretching your toes in order to find the bottom but cautious enough that you won't get bitten by an angry snapping turtle.

And that's just it- I'm not really searching for what to do next, but rather reaching for the foundation on which I'm stranded above. I'm a little embarrassed that I've spent 15 solid years dedicating my everything to God yet at the bottom of it all, I'm not sure if I have ever actually trusted that God is there for me. Maybe this is why I've struggled with the reason to pray because to me, prayer has felt more like an expected action that an intimate necessity. I mean, do we talk to our pillows?

I guess that at the age of 30, I'm tired of living without a solid foundation. Without the foundation, I'm constantly afraid and when I'm constantly afraid, I'm paralyzed from living. And I know that I'm paralyzed right now because I'm highly uncomfortable leaving my own house. I'm afraid of looking stupid, afraid of being unimportant, afraid of abandonment, afraid of failing, afraid of getting abused, afraid, afraid, afraid. Sadly enough, my entire life I've been told that to escape your fear, you just need to do something. The problem is, I've done that and when you're a person who struggles to find a true and solid identity, you live to get the world to give it to you. It's a life plan that no longer works (as if it did in the first place).

I love my wife for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that she continually encourages me to stop trying to follow expectations (such as "go get a job" and "be more creative") and begin nurturing my pain and emptiness. Just today, while she was going off to work her butt off (and I was feeling guilty for that), she insisted that I stray from the "should's" today and just enjoy being who I am. She's more concerned that we build a strong foundation of who we are individually and collectively rather than do everything we can to avoid looking like deadbeats. She knows that I won't really be a healthy influence to the world until I understand why I'm in the world in the first place. That's my wife for you.

There's an old adage that says, "It's not about who you are but 'whose' you are." If you go to a church with the baby boomer generation, you've heard that line a thousand times. But when you are at the bottom of your bruises as I am right now, you come to the realization that the old adage is indeed true. Because when you find out where you came from, you begin to understand who you really are. I think this is why many adults who are adopted try to go back and find their birth parents. There is some inner completeness in doing so.

**

This is the last thing I'll say and then you can go on with your day. We, as an aspiring generation, need to pause and engage in the art of listening. And to do so, we need to face the uncomfortableness of silence. I know that my story is also some of your own stories. Indeed, we live in a deafening noisy chaotic world that fills the soul with a lot of lies (i.e. "you're not good enough"). Hearing truth will silence the lies and burst forth the complete self that we are all dying for. I'm convinced of it.

The Pause

It baffles me sometimes that when you stop and take a silent pause for even a second… [pause]… you become aware of yourself. It’s sort of like the moment when you’re driving your car through a chaotic rainstorm and in an unexpected blink of your eyes, the standing ovation of lighting and thunder seizes, the 70 mile an hour knuckleball of wind halts and your windshield wipers seem to be wiping, well, nothing. Then the sunshine sneaks out from the black curtain, every bit of nature turns to dew, and you sit there at the stoplight fully aware, yet caught off guard of the said situation. I’m guessing, like me, you’ve had these moments.

It happened to me tonight but in a less metaphorical way. I’m writing you at 12:19 in the middle of the night because I had this full awareness moment and I knew it would annoyingly tap on my sleepy eyes unless I got up and wrote about it. (By the way, I write when I have these transcendent realizations and they almost always happen at night; hence “the pause”). My fiancé… the overwhelmingly wonderful sounding board of my life, is asleep right now so all I have at this time of night is a blank Microsoft Word document. So all of this to say, thanks for staying up and listening to me Mr. Gates.

Anyway, I took advantage of “the pause” as I nestled myself under the cold sheets of my bed while I retraced the highlights of the day. Usually, the “pray before you go to sleep” prayer for me is being conscious of the messes I made in the last 18 hours of my life and asking God to forgive me of it all in hopes that he doesn’t kill me out of frustration before I awake. Yes, it really happens like this… most nights. But tonight, instead of backing up my request for holy forgiveness with the typical excuses, “the pause” didn’t let me hide in my excuses about what’s really going on with me.

And what’s really going on right now is that I’m walking deep into a forest of greed and inebriated pleasure. I have some ideas of why I’m doing this, but it feels like I’m surrounded by tall oaks of instant gratification and I’m hugging those tall oaks tightly one-by-one.

Now at this point, with this sort of understanding of my current perpetual sin, the usual response is to beat myself up to the point where I’m numb enough to believe that because I punished myself, God will find mercy not to unveil his wrath upon me. See, what I’m finding out is that it’s uncomfortable to sit in pain and embarrassment of a moment and not be able to do something about it. That’s why I find the need to interrupt “the pause” and immediately respond in some way (mine tends to be along the lines of inner self abuse). Some people find the remedy in drugs and alcohol. Some find it in the distraction of television. And some simply find it in avoidance of further thought only to dive back into the addiction of numbing pleasure. But the dysfunctional remedy isn’t the point.

(In a future blog I will share with you more about this personal problem of greed that I’m fighting right now, the fact that it’s a symptom of something deeper, and where my battle with it could affect more important things in life.)

But the point is this… “the pause” is simply an opportunity. In fact, it’s actually a gracious space to be in. In other words, it’s a moment where grace is available to be experienced. Of course, more condemnation- brought on by self- is possible, too. But I think God is continually inviting us to a place- rather, a space- where we stop, we let the chaotic storm simmer to nothing, and we become fully aware of our screw-ups so that we can experience the fullness of being understood and forgiven by Him. And then, at that point, we come to believe him more as the waterfall of love rather than the volcano of condemnation.

Pause.