Forgiveness

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'  For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." - Matthew 6:9-15

Somewhat of an over-acheiver, I graduated college with a degree in math, computers and statistics and a GPA of 3.97. For the next 10 years I buried myself in 24 semi-annual actuarial exams while dragging my growing family back and forth across the country in pursuit of the highest bidder. Finally a full fledged Actuary, I thought I had acheived my dream when someone offered me ownership in a small  consulting practice. The temptation to work long and hard was now stronger than ever.  For the next 3 years I threw myself into my new job working hard building computer systems, websites and marketing materials for what I thought was MY business.  Only it wasn't.

The long promised and long delayed legal documents spelling out my stake in the firm would not be coming.  Ever.  The man I had counted as a partner became like Darth Vader when he said to Lando Calrision, "I'm altering the deal, pray that I don't alter it any further." I was furious! I had been betrayed and lied to! I began to spend my morning shower thinking and praying for justice.  For vengance. God should punish this man. I channelled my anger into more professional exams to beef up my resumé so I could leave, but no job offers came. My bitterness would grow and fester for almost three years, affectng my relationships and even my health.

At long last, I was ready to hear what God was trying to say. While sitting in a pew listening to a sermon on the last part of Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32 jumped out at me.

"...forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Forgiveness was not the topic of the sermon that day, but God had a sermon just for me and I could feel Him tugging at my heart.  Desperately, I tried to find a loop-hole, an escape clause, but knew that there was none.  I had harbored my bitterness for so long that it had almost become a part of me.  Being a Christian from childhood I was no stranger to the concept of forgiveness.  When it's theoretical, when you can stand at a distance and coolly analyze it, forgiveness seems doable.  But when its up-close and personal you realize how truly difficult it can be.  As I sat in that pew, I could feel God trying to drag my bitterness from my clenched fists.  Like a selfish little child clings to a stolen toy I refused to let it go.  This was mine!  My rights had been violated!  I was owed.  Slowly, I could feel my grip loosening and I yielded to that holy tug of war.  I decided to forgive.  I cried.

What surprised me the most was how I felt.  As I made up my mind to forgive, I began to feel more forgiven.  I began to realize that by withholding forgiveness I had limited the power of Jesus blood. I wanted it to be just enough to cover my own sins but not those of my offender.  I wanted Jesus to be my personal savior in a bottle that I could pull out to blot out my own transgressions, but not the sins committed against me.  I had become like one of those men Paul had warned Timothy about.

"...holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these." - 2 Timothy 3:5

But His forgiveness is infinite. His blood more powerful than we could ever imagine.  His blood was not just powerful enough to erase my sins, it was powerful enough to erase the sins of the world.  I felt clean like never before. By holding back my forgiveness I had been limiting God's forgiveness of my own sin.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'  For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." - Matthew 6:9-15

I had always interpreted the last line of this passage as a threat.  Now I saw it as more of an explanation of spiritual reality.  My lack of forgiveness was, at its core, a lack of faith.  Faith in the power of Jesus blood, but also faith in God.  These last two verses are not just a footnote to the Lord's prayer, they are its thesis and the Lord tries to gently lead me there.

I needed some perspective.

"Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name."

Why am I still here?

"Your kingdom come..."

Was God in control of what had happened to me?

"...Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..."

Was God in charge of my welfare?

"Give us this day our daily bread."

Did my offender really have any power over my life for evil?

"...do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Forgiveness is the golden thread running through this passage (and the entire Bible).  By attempting to deny forgiveness, I had essentially denied who God is and ruled myself out of the Kingdom.  I felt like a fool for having lived so long and not understood. But, perhaps for the first time, I truly felt forgiven.

The End of My Rope

A close friend of our family in another state has been going through a painful divorce.  Her husband, who has chosen a self-destructive path, began the proceedings over a year ago and has been dragging the whole process out in the courts as he plays the part of the victim and slowly wears away what little money to which his wife has access. 

A couple of weeks ago I heard through the grapevine that a key hearing was approaching at which his lawyer was going to attempt to saddle my friend with a myriad of court costs, liabilities and as little spousal/child support as possible.  Through it all, our friend has continued to cling to God's word and lean on Him in prayer.  I too have prayed fervently that God would protect her and her children and give them justice.

As the time for the hearing came and went, I found myself wondering what God had done for my friend.  My mind wandered to the story of Daniel in the lions' den.  I couldn't help but wonder if I was feeling a little of what King Darius had felt:

When he had come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?" - Daniel 6:20

As I pondered the story, it occurred to me that Daniel (and his friends) had probably prayed like crazy for some legal loop-hole,  some Perry Mason worthy last minute surprise witness, that would save him.  But then I thought how lame the story would have been if Daniel had merely won his day in court.  No, the whole point of the story was that God didn't save him from the lions den.  God saved him from the lions.  And in order to do that, Daniel's prayers of not getting tossed in had to go unanswered. 

Perhaps my friend's case will fall on the ears of a ruthless judge who has had a bad day.  Maybe her counsel will screw up.  It might be that all of her hopes for a modicum of financial security will be crushed.   Just as I am sure many saw Daniel's descent into the pit as evidence of either God's impotence or His callousness, so do many today view their own unanswered prayers.  Ironically, in Daniel's case, God's supposed weakness was merely a setup for an even greater display of power.  There is a point where mere mortals declare, "Oh, it's definitely over.  They're toast!"  But God delights in breaking our paradigms.  And then I think of Jesus, and it occurs to me that God has used this M.O. before. 

How often do I draw a line in the sand and declare that God must do something before things get to there?  How small is my God?  In doing so I set myself up for disappointment.  God is not constrained by my concept of the end.  When I've come to "the end of my rope" He makes more rope.

Weakness

I knew that I would eventually need one, but crossing that line was a lot harder than I thought.  Over the past month my legs had felt more and more unsteady and I found myself browsing cane sellers on the internet.  Although they did their best to try to make them fashionable, none of them really got past pathetic.  It actually took me about a week of back-and-forth before I finally pulled the trigger and ordered one. 

Up till this point Multiple Sclerosis was my secret to keep.  Because most of the disease's symptoms were not completely obvious, I had had the luxury of informing only the people I thought had a need to know.  The cane would change all that.  Total strangers would know that something was wrong with me.  That I was weak.  But as an embarrassing spill on a public sidewalk slowly shifted from possibility to probability out came the cane.

All the years I had spent trying to fit in went up in smoke in an instant.  I could feel the stares.  I could hear the questioning thoughts:  "What's wrong with him?  Why is he using a cane?"  Suddenly I found myself in an etiquette no-man's land.  Women didn't know whether they should get off the elevator first or let me open doors for them.  I shared their uncertainty.  Should I play the part and walk slower?  Would people think I was faking?  Was the weakness in my legs really just in my head?

All of this brought back memories of adolescence.  Why was I so worried about what other people were thinking about me?  These weren't even people I cared about or who cared about me, they were total strangers.  People who played no roll whatsoever in my life and yet somehow I still craved their approval.  It wasn't my need for a cane that was pathetic, it was my need for approval.   My legs might feel weak, but clearly my character wasn't much stronger.  If this is how I cowered over a stupid walking stick, how would I act over something more important and more controversial?  My cane may have exposed my physical weakness to the world, but it was certainly revealing a deeper weakness in me. 

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. - 1 Corinthians 16:13

Diagnosis

I had no idea how difficult it was to come up with a title for a blog that has not already been taken. This difficulty is partly responsible for the above title, the other part is more complicated.

When it was "discovered," the Platypus baffled the scientific establishment.  Reports of the existence of an egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal were deemed as sensationalistic or even fraudulent.  Who could blame them?  The animal looks like an accidental mishmash of parts that shouldn't belong to it.  A mistake in God's creature-lab.  Precisely the kind of mascot I needed for my blog.

Sometimes that is what a life feels like.  Certainly that is what my life felt like four years ago.  My career had taken an unexpected turn for the worse and so had my health.  Bitter and stressed out, I began to experience a numbness and tingling in my left hand that wouldn't go away.  The first doctor I visited declared it Carpel-Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) and prescribed a wrist brace.

After doing a little research on the web, I discovered that CTS was the lesser of two evils.  My other option was not nearly as palatable.  Two weeks went by and my numbness hadn't improved, instead it had spread to my right hand as well.  A second doctor performed a nerve conduction test that ruled out CTS.  Hoping it was simply a pinched nerve, he suggested I improve my posture and sent me off to a physical therapist.

When I started getting electric like shocks up my spinal cord, followed by brief immobility on my right side, I knew what my diagnosis was: Multiple-Sclerosis.  The first Neurologist I went to was incredulous, declaring me too old (I was 38) to have developed the disease.  Two days and ten-thousand dollars worth of MRIs later he apologized profusely as he confirmed my own diagnosis.  I promptly switched doctors.

As I pondered the vast landscape of possible paths to eventual disability (MS progression is anything but predictable), I questioned God's affection and His intentions.  I had been an outspoken Christian since grade-school.  Growing up on a steady diet of "God's wonderful plan for your life" and "Jesus, your personal Savior," it became suddenly hard-to-swallow.  I didn't feel wonderful and God didn't feel very personal, rather I felt like a discarded pawn in a cosmic chess game.  I took the view that God cared more about His grand plan than my pathetic hopes and dreams.

During this period I found a measure of comfort in C.S. Lewis' short autobiographical A Grief Observed.  Like Lewis, I was in mourning.  He over the loss of his wife, I over the loss of a future without disability.  I didn't stop going to church, or reading my Bible.  Instead I approached them both with new suspicions, looking for confirmation of my nascent views that God was an impersonal deity who cared only for the greater good and not for the individual. 

Unfortunately, no confirmation was forthcoming and slowly, as Lewis described in his book it was like Winter turning to Spring, my icy view of God began to melt and give way.  There was never a pivotal moment, just a slow thawing.  I had no explanation, nothing to which I could point to and say, "that's why I have M.S."  Somehow I felt that even though I didn't comprehend how this might be for my good, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was.

As I struggled with these thoughts, our little dog, Max, developed painful stones in his bladder and had to have surgery.  After the surgery came the obligatory little head cone to stop him from chewing on his stitches.  The cone was big enough that it made it difficult for him to walk in the grass, so we would remove it when he went outside.  At first he would resist having the cone put back on when he came back inside, but eventually he would just give you a sad look and obediently stick his head into the cone.  He'd accepted his new lot in life and was moving on.  He even learned how to use the cone to catch treats that were tossed his way (he's a horrible catch). 

As I thought about poor Max and all he was going through, it occurred to me that this whole process must seem like some cruel torture routine.  He had no way of connecting the pain in his stomach to the surgery or the cone on his head, and we had no way explain it to his little doggy brain.  The analogy was obvious.  Maybe there was a reason for my incurable disease, but one my finite mind could not possibly understand.  My lack of understanding had led me to dismiss God as uncaring and impersonal.  Instead I should have dismissed my own ability to understand my circumstances.

Like some people's reaction to the platypus, my initial reaction to my unfortunate turn was to declare God's plan for my life a haux and His love a lie.  Surely nothing this obviously accidental could really have been planned, could it?   And even if it had been planned it was clearly not to my benefit, was it?  Although I still have no solid evidence to the contrary, I am beginning to believe in both.

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."   - Romans 8:28