Spark 3/24/23 #spark 01

I woke up this morning exhausted and consumed with the tension of my job search.  

I’ve been unemployed for almost five months now, and the tension of not knowing what will happen next or how it will turn out is gnawing at me.  It’s like a Rubik’s Cube that never solves, but I keep turning it this way and that trying to figure it out. It’s like a maze that just keeps extending into the infinite distance.  I keep walking, but the next corner is just a new alley with another turn in the hazy distance.  

When I was younger I played the original Warcraft game (ca. 1995).  When the game map loaded, everything was black, shrouded in darkness, except for the little circle of light where your character stood.  As you walked, the darkness parted around you and you could see more of the map, until finally the entire map was revealed.  When the darkness parted, you might find treasure or essential resources - joy!  Or you might find enemies waiting to kill you - terror!  The game designers knew what they were doing tapping into our collective fear of the unknown. There was this little thrill of adventurous excitement at the outset when the entire map was obscured.  When you didn't know what you'd find.  

The thrill of that Warcraft adventure existed because I knew I was safe in my room with the lights out, in my secondhand computer chair, with my big headphones on. It wasn’t real.  In about an hour, I’d have the whole thing solved, and I’d be on to the next level.  

Imagine playing a level for five months, and it’s still expanding infinitely into the darkness. 

As I was contemplating the frustration behind me - being asked to leave my church community of 20 years - and the cloud of ambiguity before me - not knowing how or when this will resolve and I’ll be meaningfully employed again - the weight of the uncertainty felt particularly exhausting. Then I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me.  A simple little intersecting thought crossed my mind, spoken to me.  

You stand against ambiguity.  

I know it’s not that impressive, and you might be disappointed at the reveal, but these were the “words” whispered into my mind in my time of need.  I grabbed ahold of the little thought and pulled it in for a closer look.  The rightness of it - the inherent truthfulness of the thought - resonated through me.  This is an example of Saint Ignatius’ “drop of water on a sponge.” This is God’s gentle assurance.  God's benevolent “yes.”

As I contemplated this little idea, it unfolded like a flower in my mind and blossomed into my awareness. Runners went out into the past and present and even out into the future, connecting experiences and thoughts not previously associated.  As I ruminated on what the Lord was showing me, I realized God had spoken a deep word of self-awareness to me.  As always, this kind of awareness is a gift!

Standing Against Ambiguity

I’ve always stood against ambiguity.  I HATE ambiguity.  My entire life from my earliest memories up till now has been etched with a desire to bring clarity, order, and certainty to the things that are mine to control and to help the people I love. 

This little idea explained the jobs I’ve had in the past, and even the jobs I’m still pursuing.  "Standing against ambiguity" has been a tremendous gift to me vocationally.  

I realized in this moment that “standing against ambiguity” was deeply embedded in me, much deeper than I would’ve guessed.  It resides at a subterranean level, way below the soil where the roots grow deep.  It may be a holy glimpse of how the Lord made me.  

This puts words to my present discomfort, emotionally wrung out like a dishrag over the lack of clarity as I look into the future.  Options and opportunities have been coming and going.  I’ve been enduring the gauntlet of rejection that many 50-year-olds must traverse when they suddenly find themselves unemployed. I’ve been fumbling around in the darkness trying to discern God’s perfect will in the moment, and yet, I remain mired in ambiguity.  I HATE it.

Greater Clarity  

But as I continued to turned this idea over and over, exploring it from different angles and asking the Holy Spirit to illuminate it further for me, I recognized a flaw in the expression.  The idea, “I stand against ambiguity” was stated in the negative.  The identity statement was actually the absence of identity - not what I stand for, but what I stand against.  I smiled in my mind, as I’ve learned this lesson so many times already in the past.  I turned the phrase around. 

I desire clarity.  

I desire order.  

I desire to bring light into the darkness, 

...like the little Warcraft character carving out tunnels of light in the haze.  

When I spoke this version of the idea to myself, I got another thrum of that chord of resonance the Lord strikes when we stumble onto God's truth.  The drop of water on the sponge again.  Letting out the breath we didn’t know we’d been holding. A holy epiphany.

Imperfect Words

Before I move on, I imagine that some of you are chaffing under the idea that I could correct the word the Lord gave to me. You won’t be able to read on until I address it. The idea that God would say, “You stand against ambiguity,” when what God really meant was, “You bring light into the darkness,” seems to suggest that the Lord makes mistakes.  But that’s not what I’m suggesting. 

I don’t believe that’s how these kinds of “words” from the Lord work.  In 1 Corinthians 13:12 the Apostle Paul relates his experience of the Lord’s communication with us as “looking at yourself in a (ancient bronze) mirror” (not very clear, although you do get a general shape and outline) and “knowing in part” (like having only one half of a text thread).  These phrases so accurately communicate the innate ambiguity in the human experience of God’s divine will.  Humility is the essential virtue in handling “words” from God: holding them loosely and allowing them time to mature, ferment, and speak for themselves.  

My friend Andrew describes God’s speaking voice as, 

“It sounds just like me, only WAY smarter.”  

There’s wisdom in this idea.  In my experience, the Lord rarely speaks in an audible voice.  God most often communicates through more subtle means, what we might call “notions” or “promptings.” Some would describe this as the Holy Spirit touching our spirit, and in this communication that transcends mere language, we perceive a “nudge,” or an “utterance,” or a “compulsion.”  But this sacred utterance is parsed through our layers of humanity, our essential nature, our defenses, our wounding, our worldview, and our present circumstances.  The word we “hear” has often been run through a lot of filters by the time we perceive it.  It’s common for the pure word to be interpreted into our native internal tongue through no fault of the Creator.  

Thus, because of me just being me, the positive expression, “You desire order,” spoken into the core of my being by my loving Savior becomes the negative expression, “You stand against ambiguity.”  There’s perfect clarity in the transmission. The confusion lies on the receiving end.  

This is why grace is also an essential practice in discerning God’s speaking voice.  Grace for those who think too highly of their “words”.  Grace for those who don’t believe the Lord speaks in this way.  Grace for myself as I clumsily apply my childish decoder ring to the universe-altering declarations of the Ancient of Days.  

In gracious love and expansive patience, God knows I’ll get closer to what was actually said in time.  

The Problem Of Fear

Returning to my rumination on this word from the Lord, I was disturbed by how easy it was for me to parse this idea into the negative.  A negative declaration is essentially a declaration of fear.  When you hear someone say what they don’t or won’t do, what they don’t like, or even what they hate, you're most likely bearing witness to the manifest expression of fear in that person’s life.  This isn’t always true, as disliking chocolate cake may simply be a matter of preference.  However, if upon closer investigation, we learn that you don’t like chocolate cake because your mother shamed you for overeating when you were a child - we can now see fear raising its ugly head just high enough to be spotted by anyone who’s looking.

I traced back through the idea “I desire clarity” to “I hate ambiguity,” and found the beast of fear hunched in the shadows of my wounding just out of sight, feeding on my residual anger and bitterness.  I thought I’d starved this particular specter, but my healing is clearly not complete.  I suppose that’s to be expected.  What does grace look like here?

I desire to live my life in the light and clarity of God’s love, framed in the ethic of Jesus’ manifested life here on earth, and expressed through the moment-to-moment empowering of the Holy Spirit. This could be summed up as “The Way” or “Walking in the light as He is in the light,” or some other pithy marketing phrase.  

However, when my thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions are being dictated by fear, I’m walking OUT of “The Way.” To allow fear to dictate the terms of my day is to walk in darkness.   

I’ve seen my fears up close, and, as I become aware of them, I’ve surrendered them to Christ to the extent that I’m able at this time. This shrouded beast of fear in my heart (I imagine Swamp Thing crouched in the darkness) isn’t new.  It has gone by many names: insignificance, stupidity, foolishness, the scorn of others, failure, and incompetence, just to call it by some of the names it answers to.  

It’s nothing new and it’s been with me since I was a child.  It’s been there from my first desire to impress my father out of my primal sense of inadequacy. It’s been with me since I first tried to convince my mother that I was worthy of her praise. It was with me as I strived to impress my friends and employers with my brilliance.  It was with me when I first became a pastor and felt like a boy in his father’s clothes and shoes, clomping about the place, waving my sleeves and knocking things over.  And here it is again, telling me I’ll never be enough, telling me that nobody wants me and I’ll be unemployed for the rest of my life, telling me that I deserve to be unemployed for daring to challenge the lead pastor at my church.

The most harrowing and heart-rending moments of fear are when fear mimics the voice of God and whispers death into your heart.   

Hearing From God

And HERE, as I write these words, is the inestimable grace of God, poured out over me like oil for the anointing.  God speaks again. 

“You are my light-bringer!” 

God declares over me, and all thoughts of self-indulgent pity and shame are burnt out in his radiance.  

“You are my child,” 

God speaks, and I fall to my knees, weeping.

“You are mine, and I love you,”

 God whispers, and I bow prostrate no longer able to bear God's glory.  

Overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, the darkness recedes, and the swamp thing of fear is driven deeper into the shadows as the light of Christ illuminates my interior.  I know the beast isn’t gone, but for now I don’t care as I bask in the golden glow of being known and loved by the King of the Universe.  

Nothing has changed in my physical world.  I see the same things I saw when this epiphany began: uncertainty for the future, ambiguity in the present, and lurking doubt in the past.  The only thing that has changed is that my sense of self has been affirmed and fortified by my Creator, and that makes all the difference. The Living God has spoken light and life into my darkness, and I know that whatever comes next, it will be OK.  Is this what it means to build your house upon the rock?

Sharing In His Suffering

I have a brief flash of Christ in the garden, doubled over in agonized prayer, pleading with his Father to take this cup away. I imagine in that moment that he looks up from his prayer, tears streaming down his face, and he sees me.  Our eyes meet for only a moment, but in that moment I share his suffering and he shares mine.  My cup is so insignificant compared to the one he chose to drink for me, for us, but his eyes show only compassion and understanding.  That brief glimpse is enough.  

Enough for today.

Enough for tomorrow. 

Enough for what comes next.

Enough.