Tim and I had a few things in common. First we were both PKs growing up. For those not raised in the Bible belt or the church, that means preacher's kids. Tim and I sat down and broke bread together a while back. I said broke bread rather than ate, because this was the fellowship that a meal can be rather than just eating. We talked, caught up. I had somewhat recently at the time begun moving into ministry, and I think he wanted to see..
Let me go back just a moment. Earlier I wrote that we had a few things in common, and I shared one. Here's another. We had both been badly battered, broken and bruised over the years, and the worst of the damage seemed to come from folks who claimed to follow Jesus. We had both taken that hurt and the suffering we couldn't seem to shake or escape and turned it into a lens through which we examined the world. Tim looked through his compassion filled scar covered heart at a word with so much hurt, pain and loss, a world bigger than America with many belief systems and innocents, and came to the conclusion that he wasn't sure he could believe in a God who allowed such suffering and was so rigid as to only allow one way to heaven.
Maybe he wanted to see if my father and I would still love and accept him when he was being honest like that rather than spouting party line banality. I loved that he went there. I think Jesus did too. He (Jesus) said I would rather you be hot or cold rather than the sickening lukewarm. Lukewarm is easy. People are messy. If you hang around people long enough you will get hurt by them. Did you know that Mother Theresa hurt people? She did. We all do. And if you are around a lot of religious people, religious people are going to be the ones hurting you. Then, life happens. There is a real thing called evil, and bad things happen, even to good people. So we feel unprotected and scared and like God doesn't care. We question, doubt and get angry. Then we hide behind a fake smile and pretend that everything is fine. We spout one liners and quote scriptures we no longer believe so others won't judge us and won't see what a mess we are. That is lukewarm. Tim was way more real than that, and I loved it.
I saw him sort of brace for impact after he said it. I just looked at him and said, "Yeah, me too." He looked a little surprised. I told him briefly about my own brokenness, how the hands of God (we are the body after all) had beaten me half to death. I shared how I had come to the point where I didn't know if I believed what I believed because I believed it or if I had simply been raised that way, indoctrinated at too young an age to think for myself. Plus, it hurt too much to be a Christian. I didn't believe God really loved and cared and cared about me, and I believed even less that He would protect me. I felt alone, rejected in a world that was crazy and full of pain. It didn't match up with a God of love in my estimation.
So I walked away. Bogus. I ran. I ran from God, from pain and from the beliefs of my parents. I read and studied the Bible with malicious intent. I wanted to be able to turn the weapon used on me against my attackers. Spiritual aikido, if you will. I wanted to find the inconsistencies that meant it was all a lie so I could justify living according to my own will. I studied and explored many different belief systems, from Buddhism to Wicca. I've read the Qu'Ran cover to cover. I tried lots of different systems , even no system. I became a hedonist, living for the moment and pleasure and let tomorrow be damned. It was. I became a drug addict, and alcoholic and a felon.
When I came crawling back to the Father, not to Christianity but to Christ Himself, I did so knowing that I had looked everywhere else for an answer. I had tried everything else to fill the need. I came on my own, informed...and still doubtful, scared and wary as a wounded animal. What I discovered was a God who loved me, wrapped His arms around me and began to heal my wounds. The God of grace freed and empowered me from the false god of the Pharisees. The mean old getchya god who just waited for someone to step out of line so he can smash them isn't the God I serve. I sshared a little more about what I learned from personal experience in hell about this loving God and the problem with pain...mine, his and the world.
Then we moved on to his next teaching job. He poured out his love for his job, which was really his love for the people he encountered. I made it clear to him that I would be available if he wanted to talk about the other more, but if not that's fine to. I would always be his friend regardless. I would never try to bully him to belief.
I don't really know what he thought about what I said. I know he gave me a big hug when we parted ways and that amazing smile he had. I know we kept in touch and talked some, but never about the philosophy of pain or why I became the prodigal returned. It really doesn't matter at this point. You see we can run from our wounders. We can even run from the God we mistakenly blame for the scars that never heal. But once we become His children through the Spirit of Adoption and the Blood of Christ, we can never outrun God. We can never escape who we have become. which means that we will never be truly content with life, inside and out, until our relationship with Daddy is right, but we'll also never be separated or condemned by Him.
Tim knows this truth. He knows it better than I or you will ever grasp until we join him on the other side. He gets it now, the answers to all those hard questions and the problem of pain are so simple and clear. I'm happy for him, even while I mourn for the loss his family, his friends and the world has suffered with his leaving us. I don't know how much Tim realized the truth about Good's love that he knows now before He saw Jesus face to face. I know that as much as I talk and write about it, I'm basically clueless as to how amazing that love and grace is. The more I discover and understand the more I realize I don't know much at all. But I do know that coming home to Daddy isn't about making it into the house or not. If you're His child, you're His child. Period.
Coming home is about living. It's about having a place where we taste a little heaven in our life now instead of having to wait. Not instead of suffering, but even in the midst of it. It's about not going through the days, however many we still have, homesick. Sure summer camp iis fun for the most part, and so is doing our own thing. But in the end, in both cases, it's good to come home. Home is where we find freedom. Home is where we find love and a reason to be. Home is where we find Daddy. Tim has made it, and I;m going to miss him. I am heading home myself. Could be soon or in 50 years or so, either way it's just a blink and a heart beat away. Today I have learned that it's better to have a little bit of home wherever you are now than to wait. I'm betting everything on the faith that makes me believe that Tim would agree with me.
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