I've seen him weep

It's been a rough week. Not the worst, but rough. The kind of week where you need to hang on to God's goodness. When I have weeks like this there is one place I always turn to. It's a passage in the Bible that blows me away again and again. That grabs me by the guts, that shouts in my frazzled exhausted brain above the various other voices and noises that have lodged themselves in there.

Here it is:

"Jesus wept" (John 8:35).

And here is why I love this passage so much:

1) Jesus knows Lazarus is going to die. He loves him. And he lets it happen.

We are told Jesus loves Lazarus and his sisters, that he knows he is sick. Yet he waits two days, until he is able to tell his disciples for certain that Lazarus is dead before going to them at Bethany.

2) Jesus knows that Lazarus' death is for God's glory

When discussing Lazarus' sickness with his disciples Jesus says,  “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” And when Martha objects to opening the tomb of her dead brother Jesus says, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”. He is about to raise Lazarus and he knows that it will glorify God as it will lead many to believe in him and his resurrection.

3) Jesus knows Lazarus' death will result for his disciples' good

Although he clearly loves Lazarus, Martha and Mary very, very much he waits until Lazarus is dead before going to them. He waits two days until he knows he is dead and he tells his disciples,  “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵ and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe." Jesus allows Lazarus to die for his disciples sake, so that they might believe in him as the resurrection and the life.

4) Jesus knows he is about to reverse the death of Lazarus

He knows that in a very short time he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead, that is clear from the very beginning of the story to the very end. The pain and suffering around him is about to turn to joy and celebration.

And yet...

"When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled, ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked.“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
³⁵ Jesus wept."

He sees their pain, their grief, their ache of loss, the confusion of death which seems so empty and senseless and as if it should never have been. And in spite of all he knows he weeps.

God, my God, weeps for me. For the pain I feel in the fallen world I live in, for my ache and loss and confusion. Even though he allows it. Even though it will be to his glory. Even though it will result eventually for my good as I see in it more of who he is. Even though one day he will reverse it and restore all that was lost and damaged, because he is the resurrection and the life. All that knowledge, all that truth doesn't make him rationalise away my pain. He doesn't excuse it, or justify it, or try to make it better with words or logic. He just hurts and weeps with me.

Of course in time all the other things are true and will help, which is why they are here in this passage too. Suffering is for God's glory, for Christians he will redeem it for good, he will reverse it and restore what is lost. But the precious truth for me here is that there is nothing cold in God towards my suffering. So when he says in the moment of swirling anguish and darkness, trust me, I'm here, I haven't forgotten you, I see and I hear and it matters to me that you hurt, I know I can trust him. I've seen him weep.

What do you expect?

First a disclaimer - this post is about the expectations we have of one another within church of real, deep and meaningful relationships, not our expectations (which are idolatrous) of a specific person being available to meet a specific need at a specific time, or having a knowledge and understanding of us they can't possibly have.

Expectations is a dirty word. A word we use to beat each other up when we feel inadequate before another’s needs. A word we use to express our frustration and disappointment at the people that let us down. You need to expect less of people, you can’t have expectations, it’s not fair to expect…

Relationships in a fallen world are painful, difficult things. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all felt rejection and loss and betrayal. But I have never found anyone who has been helped by being rebuked for their unrealistic expectations, or who having said they have lowered or changed their expectations has ceased to really long after real, deep committed relationship.

Because that is what we are made for. Real, deep, committed relationship. Garden of Eden relationship where we can be naked, known and accepted and feel no shame. But however much we long for these relationships, we feel how inadequate we are at giving them. We think with shame of the friendships, at one time so close, that distance, circumstances and sin have allowed to fall into neglect. And we hide ourselves and our selfishness behind the rhetoric of expectations. You can’t expect that of me, surely?

Furthermore we do it to ourselves. We start to feel that friendships like that are for other people, there’s something about me that means people just can’t love me that way, and if I don’t expect it, I can’t get hurt. It doesn’t work though, our soul cries out, even through the bitterness and pain that pushes others to arm’s length, for intimacy and security.

What is it exactly that we shouldn’t expect of each other? Should we not expect each other to keep promises? Should we not expect each other to care? Should we not expect our family to give us relationship in real and meaningful ways? That is what Christ tells us we are in church, family.

At this point I want to point to my limitations, I do my best, I’m just so busy, there are too many people, too much going on. To that I say to myself, yes, I am limited and I am busy but mostly that is my choice. Like the time I waste, not resting, not refreshing myself, just waste. And the times I let my guilt at failing you get in the way of loving you. And the times I run after my own needs instead of thinking about yours. And the times I am angry with you but don’t want to admit it. And all the times I make choices based on what looks good or makes me feel good instead of actually being faithful. Not to mention the times and times I waste my physical and mental energy not trusting God with things in my life so I have few resources left over to love. I feel guilty, and rightly so, because however limited I am, I hurt you infinitely more because I am sinful. Which is uncomfortable as it’s much easier to blame your expectations of me.

The answer is, as always, not more guilt but more grace. Guilt puts up more barriers, makes it harder to step over and begin to love you again. Grace says what I really should be saying is “I am sorry”. I am sinful, frail and selfish. I know what you need from relationship because it is exactly what I need: consistency, patience, grace, perseverance and love, but I just can’t give you that. Because I am inadequate, because I am weak, because I am, deep down, wicked and I don’t want to. The problem is not yours, it is mine, and I cover it over by blaming your expectations of me.

Real relationships start with grace. They start with the fact that I will let you down, I won’t love you the way that I ought. And when that happens I need to ask God’s forgiveness and yours, not blame you for expecting me to love you. Real relationships start when I know you won’t always be there for me, that you will choose your happiness over mine, that I have to let you make promises of commitment and love, and trust you to keep them, and forgive you when you don’t because that is where real relationship happens and if I cut myself off from that, I cut myself off from part of my humanity. A really good part too.

And of course this is all missing the obvious. These real relationships can only happen in Christ. Only when I am freed from my guilt in Christ can I be free to see my sin, say sorry and start over. Only when I am clinging to Christ for ultimate security and intimacy can I dare to expose myself to your frailty and sin in intimate relationship.

So think of that person in your life of whom you are tempted to say, “they expect too much from me!” Recognise you have probably sinned against them. Recognise that what they need from you is real relationship, which can say sorry and start over, which isn’t enslaved to guilt and fear. Recognise that Christ has set you free to love them and continues to do so every day as you continue to sin. And through the mess and the pain and the struggle just keep loving.

And think of that person in your life of whom you are tempted to say, “I can’t trust them again, they have let me down too many times,” or even for some people “I can’t trust anyone, they will always let me down, I will just never have that kind of deep friendship.” Recognise that in Christ you are utterly loved and safe and secure. Recognise that people are sinful and weak. Be brave. And through the mess and the pain and the struggle just keep loving.

We all long for relationships that are deep and real. We all live in a world where relationships are broken and messy. But the miracle of the church is that by grace broken and messy relationships can become deep and real whilst never stopping being broken and messy. God is just that good. So don’t give up.

If I give you a baseball bat you could beat yourself up better...

I got a phone call from a friend today. From one of my best Christian friends in fact, the one who astonishes me with her willingness to go the extra mile, who's generosity verges on the extraordinary, who's prayer-life I most envy of all my friends. But every now and then she calls me up in a pickle. When she is tired and low she has a remarkable tendency to succumb to the same lies over and over again. We talk them through, I point her towards the truth, we pray and often she ends the conversation in a much more positive frame of mind. I thought I might write this post for a couple of reasons, partly so she has somewhere to go back to and read the truth when I can't be there one day to give a her shove in the right direction and partly because it's a joy to share how Christ set me free from the same trap she finds herself caught in from time to time.

Because you see whenever she calls in her pickle, I feel like I am listening to myself on the other end of the line. 20 years of myself. 20 years of a very miserable self. And the way it changed for me took dozens of people, words in season, great Bible teaching and a lot of mess in my life.

I'm talking about grace. The most offensive or most beautiful word in history depending on your point of view. The easiest thing to understand and the most difficult thing to live.

You see I was an expert at explaining the offense of grace to people who weren't Christians and absolutely hopeless at living it out in my life when the rubber hit the road. I spent hours and days and months and years of my life in angst and doubt over my salvation, in despairing of my weakness against sin, of hating my sin and by extension myself for my failure to conquer it, given everything I knew. I knew Christ had died for me, I knew that I had been given a new heart to worship God, I knew I had received the Spirit within with resurrection power, the old was gone, the new was come and yet, and yet... There it was. Again. Ugly, inconvenient, ever-present. I couldn't escape it. I would repent and pray in tears, "I'm so sorry Lord, I won't do it again, Lord please help me, please don't cast me off," but time and again the same bad habits, the same bad choices the same self-centred and selfish motives corrupting even my best attempts at loving others and loving God with all my heart. Every sermon felt like a blow of condemnation, every book on holiness I desperately read for help, a tattoo beating out the words hopeless, dirty sinner.

I masked it, often well, I tried harder, or I just got so busy I didn't have time to think about it, but it always came back at those low, tired moments, just like my friend. Why does Jesus love me? How could Jesus use me? Was I even really a Christian if I could turn my back on Jesus over and over again to choose what made me feel good, when my sin was so deeply ingrained that it corrupted everything in my life, when I knew that I was barely scratching the surface with the sin I was aware of. Wasn't the gospel supposed to set me free from sin?

I was trapped in a lie of the devil. A lie, like all good lies that closely resembled the truth. But there was an important omission. Grace.

I knew all about grace in theory but my practical application, you will gather, was highly sketchy. Grace was for other people. People who had it sorted. People who didn't know as much as I did, so weren't as guilty as I was. Ultimately people who deserved it, not awful people like me. Of course, being theologically correct I never would have put it into those words, but that was my practical application for all intents and purposes of the doctrine of grace. I was a Romans 7 Christian, trapped in an endless cycle of law, despair and more law and more despair. I knew Jesus had died for my sin, but I also knew that did not excuse ongoing sin, in fact it made it worse. I longed at times for death to set me free from the body of death I lived in.

Escaping the trap was a journey of years for me which I am going to attempt to summarise in briefly below.

1) "You know God doesn't love you any less, right?"

This was probably the first major incursion into my dark cycle of misery. It came like a bolt from the blue from an unexpected source. A casual conversation from someone I knew very slightly after church one day and to whom I had been pouring out the woes of a sinful week. "I feel so bad, I let God down again, I'm so rubbish." Then the unexpected reply, "You know God loves you just the same when you feel sinful as when you feel like you're doing it all right, don't you?" It stopped me in my tracks, because no, I had somehow never realised that. Casual words, spoken in a casual way and probably long forgotten by the speaker, but not by me. God loves you just the same. That can't be right, can it? When I just did that? Just the same? But think about it just for a minute, God's love doesn't change, his promises don't change, so yes, it must be true. God's love for me depends on Christ, not me, that's the gospel, so however I feel about my sin and myself God loves me just the same. Not an excuse for sin, just a fact. Mind. Blown. But that was just the start...

2) Breaking into Romans 8

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." (Rom 8:1-2)

I had the privilege of hearing a wonderful couple of seminars on Romans 8 some time later which was the moment that I finally realised that the answer to sin was not more law but life by the Spirit. I realised fully for the first time that in the guise of taking sin seriously I had become trapped in a cycle of law when Jesus had come to give me life to the full. As we went on I saw that the answer to my sin was not trying harder or knowing more it was sonship. The Spirit that cries Abba Father called me not to work harder to please God and defeat sin but to enjoy the life he had given me as a child. That would mean saying no to sin, for sure, but not with the burden of the law heaped up upon my back to crush me in judgement, but through knowing myself to be a beloved child, free to choose God's ways from the heart and knowing in those lovely words of Thomas Brookes, "that which it pleases God not to mortify in the flesh, he will be pleased to forgive". In other words, sanctification is not my job, it is God's, which I do my absolute best to join in with. It was the realisation that the power given by the Spirit to put to death sin is not a magical, impersonal power that was mine to wield like a comic book hero's superpower, it was Christ's power that came through relationship with him by his Spirit. So the place to go when I saw my sin was not more law, more effort, more judgement and condemnation but more Christ.

3) Separating the old from the new - and then replacing it

"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Col 3:1-4)

This is one I continue to grapple with and which I still need to think more about. Given to me by a friend to think about, this is putting Colossians 3 into practice. When I look at my life I see nothing but mixed motives. The good, the bad and the ugly all mixed together in one big fuel tank powering my actions. In reality the Bible tells me there are two people inside me battling for ascendancy, the old sinful person and the new righteous one in Christ. Putting to death the former always gives and opportunity for the latter. Battling sin is no longer just an exercise in seeing and condemning the negative but asking what is the positive freedom that I obtain from putting that sin to death. What am I chasing, not simply what am I running from. Idolatries that have had me firmly in their grip are shaken when God gives me a glimpse of what it would be like if I was truly free to love those people, to enjoy those gifts of God. I see sin for what it truly is then, a cage, a dark room, and although it's what I know and it's scary to leave, the view from outside is breath-taking, so maybe it's worth the risk.

4) Free grace is not cheap grace

I had always been afraid that to seek grace for a sin I was struggling with over and again meant that I was holding grace cheap. Grace is not cheap. It cost Jesus his life, on the cross it cost the Father his Son. It's right to feel abhorrence at the idea of using grace as a free pass for sin. In the words of Bonhoeffer, "when Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die." Following Christ means death to self daily, which means death to sin. My mistake was to think that the most effective way to put sin to death was to try harder, mourn deeper. I missed the first part of the quote, "he bids him come", sin dies when it is exposed to the light of the gospel, the truth of sonship, the love of God, the person of Christ.

It's when we embrace the cross that we put sin to death, as it is the cross that restores that relationship which it is the essence of sin to reject. When we fly to the cross with our sin we see that better life of freedom which is on offer which robs the sin of it's savour. When we cry out to God for salvation at the foot of the cross we finally put to death the pride of self-righteousness and the wicked delusion that we can obtain righteousness for ourselves. We submit to God's ways and renounce our own.

5) It's all about the glory

When I fight sin and defeat it for a time, I get the glory. When I run to the cross with my sin, throwing myself on the mercy of Christ, obeying his word, trusting in his sacrifice, the glory goes to him. When I study the cross, meditate on its power and beauty and God uses that to change my desires so sin loses its attraction, the glory goes to him. When I cry out to the Spirit to change my heart and help me want to desire Christ so sin can no longer rule over me, the glory goes to him. And unlike my feeble self-discipline and attempted law-keeping in my own strength, it actually works. Often slowly, often painfully, often inconsistently, real change starts to happen. Life starts to happen, freedom starts to happen. And I am no longer afraid. God is my Father, Christ is my brother, they will sanctify me and bring me home and they will have all the glory, as they should.

"'Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,' says the Lord, who has compassion on you." (Isa 54:10)

So to my friend who called today, who is truly one of the most special people I have ever known, please don't let it take 20 years. He loves you, you're his child, that will never change, and the sanctification that you so long for, that happens when you cling to the cross. I know you know this, but sometimes you don't know. This is for then.

The 4 Fs of Friendship

In case you haven't already picked up from my blog so far, I am an idolater. I worship things other than the creator God of the universe. If you are a Christian, you knew that already. The most stubborn idolatry in my heart, the thing I find myself looking to again and again to tell me who I am, what I'm worth and to give me what I need is friendship. 

I was reminded of this yesterday when a very good friend gently reminded me for about the millionth time that basing my identity and security on what she thought of me and how she responded was not very wise. This is not a new concept for me. The emotional energy I expend on anger and hurt when someone I care about responds or fails to respond in a way that I can interpret as uncaring could power a small city.

And as it is an idolatry it can never be satisfied. As another good friend points out occasionally, rather hurt, it doesn't seem to count that she loves me and is there for me when I am focused on the one person in my life who I feel isn't. I have actually been blessed with incredible friends, who love me patiently and persistently and support me brilliantly and with whom I have great fun. However, often any one person with whom I am having a difficult time, dominates my emotional agenda and dictates how I feel about myself to the exclusion of the dozen other healthy, happy, close friendships in my life. This is utterly illogical until seen through the eyes of idolatry, if my friendships tell me my identity and worth they all have to be perfect, all the time, or I am a worthless nothing. This puts a pretty awful strain on the relationships themselves as the nagging insecurity can spill over into demanding and affirmation-seeking behaviour. This makes it harder to be my friend, leading often to less positive relating and intensifying insecurity. 

The only way to escape this vicious circle is for the gospel to break in. I have to be able to take a step back and see my relationships in their proper places, below and in the shadow of my primary relationship - with Christ. Failure to invest in this relationship for me inevitably leads to a distortion of my friendships as I begin to put them into the place that belongs to Jesus. This has created a train of thought in my head that have led to the 4 Fs of friendship - which is actually 4 reasons that friends can't meet your deepest needs and are a useless place to put your self worth and identity and why Christ is better. I plan on meditating on these to try and train myself to turn to him when the warning signs start showing that my friendships are getting out of perspective. 

1) Friends are Fickle

People have emotions that change. They change depending on the weather, how tired they are, how busy they are, what stresses they have going on. It's part of being human, we have emotional weather, I ought to know, mine goes from sunshine to hurricane several times a day sometimes. However much friends care about you they cannot be completely consistent in the way they relate to you and feel about your friendship. 

The same cannot be said of God. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. One of my favourite verses in the whole Bible is found in Malachi 4:6, "I the Lord do not change, so you, O children of Jacob are not destroyed." God loves us and cannot ever stop loving us because he does not change. Once God's favour and love is settled on you, however blameworthy your behaviour may be, he will not turn his back on you, or his promises to you. This is unpacked for us even more as we understand the cross. "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). God's unchanging love towards us is sealed by the blood of his Son who he gave up for us in our need. Having paid such a cost, can he then turn away from those he has purchased so dearly? The consistency of the love of God is told to us over and over again in his word. Friendships may change, day to day, moment by moment sometimes, but, "I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the Lord. He is the one on whom you can rely.

2) Friends are Fallible

However well you get to know your closest friends, however well they listen, however much life you share they will never get it right 100% of the time. They cannot see your heart, they are bound by limitations of language and time, however thoughtful and well-intentioned and caring they are they will inevitably get it wrong sometimes. They will misjudge how you are feeling, they will misunderstand you, they will say the wrong thing. What seems obviously the right response to a situation to you, is far from obvious to them because they simply don't have the full picture. 

But what is true about friends is far from true about God. To him we are "fully known," (1 Corinth 13). Psalm 139 is an exploration of the extent to which we are known by God. It is a great piece of scripture on which to meditate when you are feeling misunderstood.

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me!

                 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from afar.

                You search out my path and my lying down

and are acquainted with all my ways.

                Even before a word is on my tongue,

behold, O Lord, you know it altogether."

The Lord Jesus who "saw what was in their hearts," and still sees what is in your heart will never make a mistake. He will never misunderstand or misjudge you, never crush you when you are a bruised reed or placate you when you are rebelliously proud. He is the one in whom you can have confidence.

3) Friends are Fallen

However lovely your friends are, however kind and generous and fun and patient, they are fallen. They have sin in their lives and sometimes that sin will spill out in ways that hurt you. They will be selfish at times, proud at times, unfairly angry or impatient or ungentle at times. They will choose their own comfort and happiness over yours, they will speak unguarded words, they will break promises. They are sinners just like you. It isn't OK, it isn't right, but it is reality. You can't have perfect relationships because there are no perfect people. Starting with you. You don't have to condone or excuse the sin of others (or yourself) but you can expect it, accept it and forgive it. 

And the reason you can is because it is not so with God. In him was and is found no sin. The Lord says, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” God is love (1 John 4:6), God is light (1 John 1:5). Jesus' closest friends could say of him that he was a man in whom there was no sin. He will never speak destructive words to you in selfishness or anger, he will never break his promises to you, he will never cease to act in your best interest and out of love for you. He will never exclude you or mock you or reject you when you are difficult. You cannot wear out his patience or forgiveness, you cannot exhaust his kindness and compassion. He is the one in whom you can place complete trust.

4) Friends are Finite

Ultimately friends are finite. They need to eat. They need to sleep. They can only listen to one person at a time. They need to go on holiday, they have responsibilities and commitments. They cannot always be there to respond to you when you want them to or in the way you want them to. Friends get tired and busy. However much they want to, they can't always be there to pick you up when you fall down. Nobody has the capacity to meet all your needs all the time. No group of people even. God doesn't allow it apart from anything else because our faithless hearts would quickly elevate them to his place in our lives. 

For him though this is not a problem. He is the Lord who never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121), his eye is always on you ready to bless, he is the Father who tirelessly waits and watches for you to return to him, the Shepherd who goes out searching for each lost sheep. He is the all-powerful one to whom the nations are dust on the scales and the universe is a hands-breadth, who stills storms and walks on water and raises the dead and stops the sun in the sky or blots it out completely. He is the one who says, "Surely I am with you always," (Matt 28). There is no need you have that he cannot meet, no moment that you are not under his tender, loving eyes, no second in which you are not receiving his care and compassion. He is the one on whom you can depend. 

The Lord, Our Lord is perfect in faithfulness, perfect in understanding, perfect in holiness and perfectly able to meet our every need. The absolute truth, the ultimate truth is he is the friend we need. The only one who will never let us down, who's friendship is entirely unconditional and inexhaustible. I love my friends, but if I try to make them tell me who I am and what I am worth our friendship will become a tiresome burden to both of us. There is only one friend who can do that and his name is Jesus.  

Being angry

Anger and Fear. Two emotions that 18 months ago I would have told you I didn't have. I don't do anger, I was born without fear. I wasn't lying, I was just wrong.

When you spend a long time in a situation that is both hurting you and completely out of your control, anger and fear are your primary responses. Anger against the person hurting you and those you love, fear of being hurt again. But often in those situations they are not safe emotions to express towards the right person and fear and shame can stop you from expressing them to anyone else. So what happens to that fear and that anger? You can't afford to feel it, but it doesn't just disappear because you fail to express or acknowledge it.

For some people it starts coming out in other interactions, anger becomes mis-directed towards others in situations where you can be safely in control. Children 'act out' and demonstrate inappropriate aggression and sometimes violence. This is a more typical path for boys who tend to be less discouraged from outward expressions of anger than girls in our society. My path was the more typical one for girls. I mutilated my anger and my fear until they were unrecognisable to even me. I couldn't risk feeling them, I didn't want to feel them, so I twisted and distorted those emotions until I couldn't tell what they were any more. I don't do anger, I don't do fear. I just have a twisted mass of emotions that I can't categorise, can't identify and can't therefore deal with. Like many others in this situation, the mutilated mass of emotions I had was so confusing and painful that in order to deal with it I began to mutilate myself.

Thankfully for the most part the outward expression came under gospel control a decade ago. My body isn't mine, Jesus says he loves me and I shouldn't treat it that way and for the most part I don't. The scars remain and I am super-grateful for living in a culture that doesn't ask about them as I still find them difficult to talk about. Mainly because of shame at the evidence of my weakness and brokenness that's written unambiguously on my skin.

But the delusion that I don't have fear or anger persisted. In situations where I got hurt I continued to mutilate my emotions into an undefinable mess. Then one day 18 months ago someone showed me I was angry. "Are you angry?" she said. And I asked myself that question for the first time ever. "Yes," I said. "I'm angry." And I was. Suddenly it was there. The mess resolved, it untwisted and there was anger. Unbelievable anger. Disproportionate anger. Anger so intense I didn't quite know what to do with myself. But such a relief. I could see it, I could name it, it wasn't a hopeless, confused mess any more. "The truth will set you free." I was angry and I felt free.

That was a turning point, I still don't spot it sometimes, some of my closest friends have learned to ask the question, "Are you angry?" when they see me act in certain ways, but increasingly I see it for myself. Hard on the heels of angry came scared. Sometimes I get scared. Scared of being rejected, scared of being controlled, scared of myself. What a relief to know it, to say it, to be able to talk to my heavenly Father about it.

So it turns out I get angry and I get scared. In fact, I may be the angriest and scaredest person I know. I get outrageously angry at trivial inconsiderateness, terrified by minor rejections and feeling out of control. It turns out that knowing you are angry is only the first step. A lot of my anger is sinful, unjustified, out of proportion and I have had to try hard to learn not to let it loose on the people who caused it. Sometimes I joke with the person who helped me to recognise it that she has unleashed a monster. But it is better. So much better. Because mutilating anger doesn't take it away. It just re-directs its destructive power whilst leaving you powerless to change.

Knowing what the monster is gives you weapons to fight it. Gospel weapons. To my mutilated emotions I had nothing to say, to anger I can say look at Jesus who entrusted himself to God who judges justly in the hands of deep injustice and pain from sinful men. Be like him, they hurt you, but God can deal with it far better than you can. Let it go to him. He loves you and it matters to him. Look at the cross, see how much it matters to him. See how he deals with the damage you do to others. He pays for that too and he forgives you. See how he accepts you and won't ever reject you or let you down. Talk to him about your anger, he understands, he loves you and he cares deeply when people hurt you. You don't have to hold on to it anymore. You are free to love.

To fear I can say, “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.”

I still have loads to learn about how to deal with fear and anger. They can still get the better of me and I can unleash them accidentally on innocent bystanders. But at least I can see what I'm fighting now. And that is hope. Fear and anger can be appropriate responses to a broken and sinful world. Jesus had them and expressed them at times. One day in this life I have hope that with gospel grace and under gospel control they won't be enemies anymore, but appropriate and useful responses to help me to pray and love and long for heaven. And one day when the night of these dark times ends and the day of heaven breaks I know I will be able to put them down, I hope no longer as weapons against myself or others, but as useful tools that have done their service but are no longer needed in that place of rest and peace.

Touching Christ

Something happened today. I was with a friend who is grieving a recent and terrible loss, she was crying and I leaned over and took her hand. And we sat. And cried. I have only known her a few months and for many of those we did not see each other much but I knew that taking her hand was the right thing to do, that it would be OK, for one simple reason. She’s not English.

We have fetishized touch as a culture, limited to romantic relationships only, to the extent that walking around in public holding another woman’s hand feels awkward for fear onlookers will question your sexuality. I have some female friends with whom I will snuggle under a blanket or lie with my head in their lap to talk about serious things, but although I get a huge amount of comfort from the action, talking about it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. This is not a universal cultural norm, in fact in my experience it is rare. My Chinese boy students will hug and hold hands throughout a class in a completely unselfconscious, platonic way, my female Arab friends will sit with their hands on my knee when we are talking, but for many of us Brits at some point in our life we learn that close, prolonged physical contact is reserved only for people who are ‘in a relationship’ and anything else is weird.

This creates a problem for some of those of who are single. It’s a difficult thing to admit but I need physical contact. It makes me feel loved and safe and secure. It makes me feel connected to other people and accepted. And the point when I need it most is the point at which it is often completely withdrawn. See a person in pain, wrapped up in a ball, head down, hurting and the English instinct seems to be back away, give them space, ignore it. We think it is what people want. It’s what many people do want, and to offer physical comfort to a person experiencing such intense emotions is a risky thing in a culture where most physical contact is taboo. But there are a significant minority of us for whom that is the wrong answer. When people see me in distress they touch me less and it leads eventually to me feeling untouchable, even dirty. It contributes to my sense of isolation, to feeling not understood, separate, sometimes even not quite human.

That’s a very specific issue which operates when I am very unwell but being a physical person affects my day to day relationships as well. My desire for sustained physical contact which is often chronically unsatisfied can lead to feeling profound wellbeing when with certain friends who are capable and comfortable with friendly touch. I value these friendships to extremes, frankly I often make idols out of them and often experience acute fear of rejection and envy of others with whom I have to share their friendship or a dramatic feeling of betrayal and overwhelming hurt when they let me down or seem to reject me, as humans must inevitably do. I hate this reaction in myself and I fight it and hide it and deny it, but it exists and it certainly can make me a difficult person to be friends with.

People with BPD are vulnerable to black and white thinking when it comes to people, believing them to either be perfect and unable to hurt you or horrible and deliberately out to damage you. I have the gospel that whispers in my ear, they are human, sinners in the image of God and loved by Jesus but it can be difficult to hold on to that interpretation when you feel baffled, bewildered and desperately hurt because this friend that you thought cared about you, who you love intensely, suddenly seems to be saying, “hang on, you’re not that important to me”.

Some people will read this and think, the culture is right then, we shouldn’t touch, look how powerful it is and what it can lead to. I think that is the wrong conclusion. The people who have most profoundly helped me change for the better in my life are the people who have loved me and kept loving me through my difficult behaviour, who have been hurt by me and have come back again and again. Because I am a Christian and I can change, and the more you put me in a situation where I see my rotten, stinking sin, the more you love me so I hate what that sin does to you, the more I pray and turn to God and seek to become more like Jesus. Pull away, try to teach me ‘boundaries’ and I will turn inward with self-loathing and self-destruction but keep loving me when I am awful and I will turn outward to Jesus in desperation for change. And I’m never going to boil anyone’s bunny rabbit. I have walked away from several people for a time when I just couldn’t get any perspective and my idolatry has been out of control. Walked away, prayed and in time been able to come back and start again on a healthy footing by the grace of God and of those friends. I hope they know who they are and how much I appreciate them.

But this blog is not about coping it’s about healing, so how can I move from fighting to keep my relationships under the Sovereignty of God to freedom to love my friends and enjoy my friendships, especially the ones that give me a deep sense of peace and contentment? I have been thinking about this lately and have come to some discoveries. The first is that the Bible recognises us as physical people and offers a multitudinous array of imagery that involves receiving comfort and safety from God, Father and Son in the form of physical contact. From the image of a father carrying his son through the desert in Deut 1:31 to the picture of a hen gathering up its young under its wings (Matt 23:39). Even, astonishingly, we find the glorious and terrifying Son of Man of John’s vision in Revelation 1 stooping to lay a hand on John’s shoulder as he lies face down in terror before uttering his words of comfort.

But the Bible goes further, far further than I would possibly dare to go. I hesitate to imagine physical contact and intimacy with Jesus for fear that I will pollute him with my sinful thoughts but the Bible pushes right through where I fear to tread in describing the church as Jesus’ bride. His bride who he has cleansed (Jer 33:8), divested of her filthy rags (Zech 3:4) and beautifully clothed, coming down to him in Revelation 21. The Bible says that marriage is only a partial fulfilment of our desire for intimacy, our need to know and be known, to accept and be accepted, to be one flesh, united with another, and that the true fulfilment of that desire, true intimacy in every sense, will only arrive when we are finally united with Christ in the new creation. That intimacy will be so absolute that the partial picture of it in marriage that we have here will cease to be needed or have meaning.

What is more we have already tasted this intimacy. I fall into a trap of thinking that Jesus isn’t here. He’s ‘up there’ in heaven, loving me, yes, interceding for me, yes, but not physically here. And of course I am wrong, Jesus is very much here by his Spirit. Just because you can’t see the Spirit doesn’t mean he has no physical presence, Jesus describes him like the wind, which has a very powerful, palpable effect on the physical world. Of course the Spirit is able to interact physically with the world he helped to create. The idea that Jesus is not physically with me is a massive lie that is concocted somewhere between my low expectations of God and my culture’s cynicism of physical, spiritual manifestations, and like all of Satan’s lies it has robbed me of a precious truth. Christ is here, physically with me and he is not running away from my sin, my dirt, my mess, my need. He’s not frightened by it, he’s not disgusted or repelled by my filthy heart, my filthy life. Not this Jesus, who touched lepers and ate with ‘sinners’ and washed his disciples’ feet. This Jesus says, “I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you”, (Ez 36;25b-37a).

Jesus’ Spirit is here and he is within me. And I am in hidden with him in God (Col 3:3). You can’t get more intimate than that. The complete intimacy that I will enjoy with Christ has already begun. Jesus does not keep me at arms’ length, he doesn’t give me space and to him I am never untouchable or too dirty. When I start to panic with a fear of rejection, I have begun to imagine Jesus placing his arm around my shoulders and saying the only message simple and direct enough to get through, “I love you, you’re safe, I’m here”.

Chosen

I won’t be the only one who finds the experience of rejection difficult or perceives it in places where it doesn’t really exist, but I learnt a long time ago that I couldn’t let the feeling of being rejected pass unchallenged. Rejection often feels a lot like being cut with a knife, small ones are like paper cuts, for me there are dozens of tiny ones every day and they build up over the week until I hurt all over and every new one is agony. Bigger rejections feel like someone has stabbed me in the guts. Often the rejection is totally unintentional or even imagined, or a consequence of a seriously unrealistic desire for intimacy and belonging in places or with people where I feel safe.

Whatever the cause I have become adept at applying gospel first aid to feelings of rejection, in the knowledge that if I don’t, sooner or later I will become completely incapacitated by the anger or more usually, the swirling sense of emptiness and pain. Reason and reality don’t make much of an impact on raw emotions, they feel like a rebuke and make me feel helpless. Yes, I know perfectly well that I am not justified in feeling rejected in this situation, that I am probably imagining things, that people have limitations and a hundred other reasons why my feelings are unjustified. Which is why most of my friends will hopefully not even know that I feel them, I do my absolute best to hide how hurt I am most of the time, knowing that it is utterly unfair. But the feelings exist and they exist all the time and knowing they are wrong and unfair and out of proportion doesn’t make them go away. It just makes me feel ashamed of feeling them.

So like I say - gospel first aid. “I have loved you,” says the Lord, “I will never leave you or forsake you”, “you are precious in my sight”. Quick prayer, “Lord Jesus please help me.” Repeat over and over until you calm down and perspective and/or your sense of humour snaps back in. In my experience the emotion of rejection can only be quelled by a stronger emotion of safety and security in Christ.

So that’s all fine, except maybe I want to live in a world where I’m not constantly doing first aid. Maybe I particularly don’t want to live in a world where occasionally a toxic mix of exhaustion and rejection produce hysterical panic or overwhelming anger and consequent stupid and dangerous behaviour because it gets beyond my first aid skills.

One possibility I am exploring this week, suggested by a very helpful friend, is to look at the Bible and spend time investigating what it means to be chosen by God. I know from experience that finding a truth to speak day by day into my heart can bring real change to difficult emotions. I’m hoping that it might be possible to find such a deep and abiding sense of acceptance and belonging in Christ that I am protected from the intensity of my feelings of rejection by people.

I have been looking over all the places where the Bible talks about being chosen and have picked out the following themes and verses to meditate on:

We are chosen to receive

This is the most common reference to being chosen in the Bible. God has chosen us in order to pour out his love and blessings. I have found 30 things that we have been chosen in order to receive, including freedom, deliverance, mercy, victory, purpose, peace, joy, glory and gloriously, the Holy Spirit. Most powerfully for me, we have been chosen to be loved.

Romans 8 is my favourite ‘chosen to receive’ reference, it spells out in detail the extent of the cost and the consequences of God’s choice to love me. Because I am chosen I cannot ever be rejected or condemned or separated from the love of Christ. It is a well of acceptance and love that can never run dry. It has been purchased for me so abundantly and at such a cost that all I ever need bring are my empty hands to receive it.

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

 we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are chosen to belong

To me, the most precious way we are chosen is to belong to God’s family. We are told throughout the old and new testaments that we are chosen to be children, to be adopted, to be God’s people, to be God’s possession and to be on God’s side. I hunger after secure relationships, to belong, to be safe, to have a place where I will never be turned away. I hunger after relationships in a way that I know in my mind can never be fulfilled by people. But God can give me what I need. He can satisfy that hunger, he alone has the resources and the capacity to provide the love and intimacy that I crave. We are children, chosen to be a treasured possession. I belong to God and to his people. Deuteronomy 14:1-2 declares this very clearly – along with a very specific application!

You are the children of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, ² for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.

We are chosen to become

God chooses us just as we are but he doesn’t choose us to leave us just as we are. We are promised in many places that we are chosen in order to be made more like Jesus, to bear fruit, to be holy, to love. This is a precious truth. I am not stuck in my sin and idolatry, I am free to change, to grow, to flourish. This is how I know that I am not wasting my time trying to learn these truths, change is not just possible, but if I keep walking with Christ it is inevitable.

John 15:16-17

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

Colossians 3:12

¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

We are chosen to proclaim

Finally we are chosen to proclaim. We receive and belong and become so that we at last are able to give. Give hope, give peace, give forgiveness, give compassion, give truth, give love, give Christ.

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I am chosen, before the creation of the world he saw me and knew me and chose me. He said I want you, you are mine, you belong to me. I choose you to love you, to pour out my overflowing blessings upon you, to give you everything you don’t deserve, simply because I want to. I choose you to purify you, to make you whole, to fill you with love and beauty that shines from the inside. And when I am done with you, you will be so loved and so lovely that others will look upon you and praise me.

This is the truth I need to face the manifold and constant rejections of life. The truth that can sing to my heart when my brain has stopped working, when reason is overwhelmed and nothing makes sense any more. This is the truth that we all need. God grant us the power to learn it.