FACING THE FATHER

In Luke 15, we read the familiar story of a prodigal son who received a robe of restoration. Like Joseph, the son of Jacob, this son’s story also involved a robe. As a beloved son of a wealthy man, he probably owned several robes, signifying his honored position.

But unlike Joseph, whose special robe was taken from him, the prodigal son forfeited his robe, selling it for something better, flashier, more trendy. The story is familiar: the son  demanded his inheritance from his father, and left home to pursue wild living. The end of the story is also familiar: The son returned home, and his lavishly loving father blessed him with the best robe in the house!

As I was rereading Luke 15 recently, I thought not about the son setting off to pursue the life he always wanted. I was not thinking about the moment his father threw his arms around him. Instead, I was struck by the image of the prodigal son, walking down the homeward path, dreading the moment he’d have to face his father.

As a teenager, the very thought of facing my father after I’d done wrong filled me with terror. Truth be told, the thought of facing my mother filled me with even more terror! I can still remember the pounding of my heart as I walked down the hallway, going to face my parents after I’d failed them.

Like the son in Luke 15, I would rehearse the conversation in my head, and sometimes even in front of a mirror—so as to ensure that my facial expression reflected “sincere” remorse. I would rehearse my approach, come up with words to say how I hadn’t meant to do it, or how it had been an accident, and how I’d never do it again.

Isn’t that what it may have been like for the son in this story?  If we look at the text, it describes the state of mind of the son: Moving from euphoria to deep depression and disillusionment. When the son left home, he had money, he had time, he had no boundaries, he had friends, and he had wild living. But he soon became impoverished. The party died and his so-called friends left him lonely and broken.

Isn’t that often the case? Our sinful tendency toward God-neglecting self-reliance only leads us to loneliness and spiritual bankruptcy. Without the help of God himself, we find ourselves trapped in a self-perpetuating cycle of joy-robbing, isolating rebellion. That’s why, even in his initial poverty, the son was not quite desperate enough to face his father. He thought he could help himself by hiring himself out. Again, watch how our self-reliant tendencies only lead to further misery. Try as he might to pull himself up by his sandal straps, the real problem with the prodigal son was always an issue of the heart.

We find it hard, as did the son, to face the father and ask him to change our heart. It seems easier to try and fix ourselves than to confess our short-comings and face our father.

What happens when even our best efforts come to nothing? The story tells us that in the midst of pigsty and slop, the son finally had an “aha” moment. He came to his senses, owned up to his hopeless emptiness, and set off to face his father.

But while the son made his way home, dreading the moment he was to face his father, a shocking display of the father’s grace awaited him. Filled with grace and eager to forgive, the father had never given up on his rebellious son. I love the description of this scene: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20, NASB).

What was the father waiting for?

Did he wait for his son to return in order to get an accounting of how he’d spent the inheritance? 

Did he wait in hope for a blow-by-blow retelling of every stupid decision?

Did he yearn for a well-rehearsed apology for every poor attitude and wounding word spoken?

No, the father waited in hope that his son would one day break the horizon, and come on home.
To be sure, something changed in the pigsty. But the real point is how everything changed when the son experienced his father’s undeserved, intimate, and unbreakable embrace. In that moment—experiencing true grace and forgiveness—the son’s heart was changed, and he finally understood what had been in his father’s heart all along: Unconditional love.

Have you experienced the unconditional love of our God, who doesn’t demand an accounting, but instead, rejoices to demonstrate his incredibly patient love and mercy toward the children he loves? This is a love that frees us to live joyfully, as we remember that our God is a father who delights to do good to his children—especially when we don’t deserve it.

(This was originally published in Take Heart, 10/19/2012, a publication of Heartbeat International, Inc.)

WHEN GOOD IS ENOUGH

            There are those who go through life accustomed to having the best, buying only the best. We encourage our children to do their best. Truth be told, sometimes we want to be the best. We feel the sting of not being able to afford the best- of not being able to give our children the best, only good. But is it possible that good can be, and is, good enough?

            The NIV hosts 43 verses using the term “good things.”  I just read through all 43 and it blew my “superlatives-only” gasket. Psalm 34: 8-10 instructs me: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord, you His saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing…those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” That is a no holds barred promise. Those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. The openendedness of the verse leaves it to the reader to imagine: what good thing am I lacking? Our Father who spoke the verse into being placed no limitation on having the good things but one. The limitation is not on the number of good things. The qualifier is not on the one who seeks. The qualifier on having the good things is on the good thing for whom the seeker seeks. If we seek the Lord, and not just the things of his hand, we will, indeed, already have every good thing.

            Not too long ago we hosted a two year old overnight. It has been several years since we have had a toddler overnight and so my children spoiled her. Whatever she wanted was not too much. Watch the same movie five times?  Sure. Eat ice cream for dinner? Sure. Cookies for dessert? Absolutely. Carry her from room to room on the shoulders? Sure. Nothing was too much for her. Treats? Sure. On Sunday, when we were supposed to deliver this sugar laden child back to her father, her heart’s desire was reflected in her question as soon as she walked into church: “where’s daddy?” If her daddy had met her grizzled, scruffy, in his pajamas and with the worst morning breath-he would have been enough for this child. He needed no treat in his hand. He needed no toy in his backpack to offer her. He was enough. In fact, I think, had he not been there and we had tried to buy her calm with treats and sweets, she would have seen right through our ploy. I do believe that her question would have raised the roof: “Where’s daddy?” 

            In the midst of our hard times, painful circumstances, we whisper to Him: “You are my daddy; apart from you I have no good thing.” (Psalm 16:2). He whispers back to us, with accents sweet and clear: Child, seek me, I will withhold no good thing from you. I will satisfy your hunger with good things. I will fill your house with good things. Seek me and find the good things I will do for you according to my love and compassion. (Psalm 84:11, Psalm 104:28, Psalm 107:9, Isaiah 63:7)

SEAMLESS LOVE

                We’ve heard of timeless love, endless love, May-December love, puppy love…all kinds of love. Timeless love –love that makes time stand still. Endless love- love without end. Puppy love- love that is immature. This summer I learned of a different kind of love: seamless love. Seamless love-love without seams, is coherent, without lines or wrinkles, blemish or interruption.  Seamless love is beautiful and wondrous to behold.

My father is 82 and in July suffered a cerebral hemorrhagic stroke. It left him pretty well motionless on his right side and unable to communicate well. That is an understatement. Since the stroke, he has had two bad infections, one of which nearly killed him. It has been a journey for all of us, most particularly, my father and mother. The stroke happened about three weeks after they celebrated their 60^th anniversary. They were married in Jakarta, Indonesia, moved to the Netherlands and then to America. My parents had five children, suffered much discrimination as immigrants to America and managed to become quite successful. They have gone through much together across three continents. But that is not what seamless love is.

I saw seamless love one day as my mother and I waited forty five minutes for an aide to come. My father, at that time, was still fairly well incapacitated, unable to walk or stand. He had had a bowel movement. My mother pressed the button for the nurse to come. I went out to the nurse’s station and explained that my father needed help. No one came. So we waited. No one came. We waited some more. And still, no one came.  My father was uncomfortable in a different way then I was uncomfortable. It is an odd feeling to know your father cannot control his bladder or bowels. My mother is not one to bother with feelings of discomfort. So she did what she always does. She did it herself…the cleaning, I mean.

She didn’t want help. She walked over to the bed, then, very gently and tenderly started talking to my father, explaining that she was going to clean him and clucking her tongue, chiding the aides for not coming.  My mother laughed a little, making secret little jokes, All the while, she was rolling him on his side so she could remove the filthy diaper. Gently, so gently she pulled down his sweatpants, took off his diaper. Never, not once, did I detect one hint of resentment or disgust.

While I was watching this act of selflessness occur in slow motion, I found myself in disbelief and a thousand thoughts raced through my head: oh my goodness, it smells. This is her husband. This is her lover. This is her life companion. She’s cleaning his bottom. She’s using wipes. This is weird. My father wears a diaper now. This is beautiful. This is humbling. This is humiliating. That’s my father. And, all the while, my mother was whispering, laughing with him, talking gently to him to make sure that he was not uncomfortable. Then in about ten minutes, she was finished.

Without skipping a beat, without interruption, without a wrinkle, my mother moved from cleaning and serving my father, to romancing him. She leaned over, nuzzled him and whispered: “Hey I miss sleeping with you at night. You need to get better and come home. I miss you.”  To her, I was not even in the room. I just started to cry because I was witnessing beauty and intimacy-seamless love. To witness such a moment of seamless love is an honor and humbling.

What is seamless love? It is the seamless movement from the dirt and filth of reality and life into the wonder, delight and intimacy of true and genuine love. It is a woman who is able to clean her lover’s bottom of his waste and love him and whisper her aching and longing for him. It is the seamless movement of a father lifting up his robes, running down the road to embrace his pig slopped son. It is a God who takes us out of the pit of our disgusting filthy sin, picks us up into His divine arms and holds us close in redemptive love and grace. That is seamless love. And when we recognize seamless love, it overpowers us with its beauty and grace. May God reveal to us more and more the beauty of His seamless love in us and through us.

An Odd Connection: Muggeridge Meets Elihu

I scare myself. My mind makes such odd connections sometimes. The odd connections fascinate me, but simultaneously confuse me. They fascinate me because typically the odd connection is to a verse in the Bible which I have read many times and I get excited to see the link. The thoughts confuse me because I typically have not heard a preacher connect that Bible verse to anything else, which makes me wonder “am I the only one who thinks such strange things?”

For instance, I was listening to Ravi Zacharias on a podcast recently as he lectured a group of students at Oxford. He quoted Malcolm Muggeridge: “Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence…the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal or trivial to be endurable. This of course is what the cross signifies, and it is the cross more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.”  

As I listened to that quote, I heard the distinct sound of two previously unrelated thoughts, separated by time and space, come together like two railroad cars, now linked together on the same track. As I listened to the Muggeridge quote, I thought of a verse tucked away in the book of Job, words spoken by Elihu, the only wise man among the four friends of Job. 

"But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering;
   he speaks to them in their affliction.
 ¹⁶ “He is wooing you from the jaws of distress
   to a spacious place free from restriction,
   to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.
¹⁷ But now you are laden with the judgment due the wicked;
   judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
¹⁸ Be careful that no one entices you by riches;
   do not let a large bribe turn you aside.
¹⁹ Would your wealth or even all your mighty efforts
   sustain you so you would not be in distress?
²⁰ Do not long for the night,
   to drag people away from their homes.
²¹ Beware of turning to evil,
   which you seem to prefer to affliction."

Elihu was the last of Job’s friends to speak, hesitant because of his youth and his respect for the elders who had spoken before him. What I find so interesting is the last line from this speech: “Beware of turning to evil, which you seem to prefer to affliction.” Couple this with Muggeridge’s quote: “everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence…the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal or trivial to be endurable.”

Odd things to say, perhaps, even cold and heartless things to say to a man who had suffered as Job had; by this time. Job had lost house, property, servants, family, prestige, health and even the support of his wife. There seemed to be nothing else that could be taken away from him. Yet, Muggeridge, a writer and editorialist, who witnessed much affliction in the lives of others and experienced it in his own life apparently agreed with Elihu.  A twentieth century brilliant writer agreed with the sentiments of Elihu, spoken around 450 B.C., by some accounts.

Do we agree?  Do we normally perceive, let alone, accept, affliction in this way-whether that affliction be in our own lives or in the lives of those we love? I dare say not. Normally, in our earthly skin, we typically seek comfort and are averse to affliction. We do all we can to avoid affliction. I avoid it not only for myself, but even try to keep my teenage children from encountering affliction, even though at times it seems they are on a willful and intentional crash course with what I know will be cause for affliction. Affliction is, at all costs, something we seek to avoid, deflect, and pray, end quickly. In fact, affliction has become nearly synonymous with evil; it is unwanted, unwelcome and unappreciated. 

Elihu saw, however, that for all of the afflictions that had befallen Job, those afflictions were, in fact, being used by a sovereign God to woo Job from the very jaws of distress, being used by a perfect God to bring Job into a spacious place free from distress. And, he warns Job to not “kick against the goads” as it were. Sometimes, to resist affliction is, perhaps, a preference for evil over affliction. Indeed, to return to Muggeridge’s wisdom, a life free from all affliction will most likely turn us to ingratitude, to boredom, and ultimately, to evil. 

Elihu reminds Job, and us, that in the midst of affliction, God speaks to us.  As the famous twentieth century apologist, C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain” “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  May we be people who train our hearts to not run from affliction, but in the midst of our affliction to run straight into the arms of the loving God who speaks to us, holds us in His tight divine embrace and whispers His love to us.