Lent: Perfect Through Suffering

A wonderful thing about writing this blog has been having friends reach out to describe their own experiences with singleness.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for lending me your eyes and insights. It takes courage, and it gives me courage, too.

In reconnecting with an old friend this past week, she offered a unique perspective: singleness after divorce and the tragedy of a broken marriage. In our conversation, I found myself doing all the things I said I wouldn't do during Lent: I was trying to fix her grief, trying to bolster her perception of herself, trying to shake the sadness out of her by offering helpful articles or pithy encouragement.

And I just hate that.

I wish I had had the courage to sit with her in her disappointment and fear - to face it bravely rather than offering answers and bandaids.  More than that, I wish I had gotten out of the way and listened to the voice of the Spirit rather than my own.

So much of my journey toward maturity has been learning to get off the throne of my life. To stop living for my own glory, worshipping and enjoying God instead.  Because of this, I have this fascination with John the Baptist.  First, I'm pretty convinced we would be, like, best friends.  We're both a little weird; we both have loud mouths that can sometimes get us in trouble; and we're both okay to be on the outskirts of society, just doing our thing, eating bugs and stuff.

But more than that, I truly admire him - he lived this life of self-forgetfulness, telling everyone about the Promised One who was coming.  With an easy confidence, John the Baptist describes how excited he is about Jesus,

"A person cannot receive one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.'  The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.  The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.  Therefore this joy of mine is now complete.  He must increase, but I must decrease."  John 3:27-30

What a cool image.  I want that kind of heart, that easily forgets my own ego and need to be right or perfect. I want the kind of heart that allows Jesus to increase because of how beautiful and wonderful and mysterious He is.

So in talking with my grieving friend, what was driving my pithy responses to her sadness? I think I honestly felt like she needed me.  Her grieving, questioning, and confusion were wrong - and she needed me to help her snap out of it.  But that's just not true.

If I want John the Baptist's words to be the song of my heart, then allowing Christ to increase means that I can't be afraid of suffering - mine or anyone else's.  If Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, was made perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10), then how can I expect to be His follower without also allowing suffering to shape my character?

I've been reading parts of Larry Crabb's Inside Out lately. I love this:

"Ever since God expelled Adam and Eve from the garden, we have lived in an unnatural environment, a world in which we were not designed to live.  We were built to enjoy a garden without weeds, relationships without friction, fellowship without distance.  But something is wrong, and we know it, both within our world and within ourselves.  Deep inside, we sense we're out of the nest, always ending the day in a motel room, never at home.  When we're honest, we see we handle our discomfort by keeping our distance from people, responding more to our fears than to another's desires for love."