Coming to the End of Myself

But you, O Sovereign LORD, deal well with me for your name’s sake;
   out of the goodness of your love, deliver me.
 For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.
--King David, Psalm 109:21 

Am I really a man? Have I got what it takes...when it counts?  Most men live their lives haunted by that question, or crippled by the answer they've been given.
--John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

When I was a boy I didn't get to spend as much time with my dad as I would have liked. He was a farmer and worked hard to take care of our family, often from dawn till dusk. One effect this had on me was that I started to believe I was less important to dad than the farm work or his other responsibilities (he served on supervisory boards for several organizations). Now I always knew dad loved me, there was never a question of that. But the subtle lie crept into my psyche anyway. It wasn't until many years later when I read Wild at Heart and spent time in prayer and self reflection that I realized dad's "absence" represented a wound to my young heart that carried over into adulthood, manifested as a form of diminishment, aka inferiority complex or low self esteem.

It is amazing how the wounds of our youth shape our personality in very significant ways, and how unaware we can be of it...consciously at least. Feeling inferior really hindered me from trying many things for fear of failing (for example, I didn't like...no, I hated competitive sports). To me, the answer to the question "Am I really a man?" was something like: "Well, probably...but not nearly as good as most". One classic mistake I made was to take my question to the woman. Somehow I felt that if a woman noticed me or felt that I was special, well then I must be special! One problem with that was I was so shy that most women didn't notice me. But if they did and we became friends, my sense of worth seemed to be based on what they thought of me at any given time, kind of like they were my report card. And if they decided they weren't interested anymore, I was devastated.

Although some wounds are more evident or traumatic than others, everyone has taken them (for example, my father's 'absence'). And each wound comes with a message (for me it was "I am not that important"), and from that place we take a vow (my vow was "I accept that I am inferior...it is just the way it is") and choose a way of life that is dysfunctional in order to diminish the pain (I avoided competition, withdrew from many social engagements to avoid feeling inferior to others, especially those who were the "life of the party"). Eldredge calls this way of living (or rather, surviving) the "false self". We don't live out of a center, and we often aren't aware of the root cause.

Fortunately God loves us enough to not leave us in that place if we want freedom and healing. But the process may be painful. We have to come to the end of our own efforts of "making life work" and reach out to him. I came to the end of myself about 10 years ago (more on that in a future post!). Through some of the process I felt almost like I couldn't bear the emotional pain though, almost as though I was self destructing. Eldredge in Wild at Heart calls this process the failing, or shattering of the "false self". An entertaining taste of how I felt is on the YouTube clip below (click on picture below to view, or http://youtu.be/8M7mM_iHd9I). It is a scene from Star Trek III of the destruction of the beloved USS Enterprise. To make a long story short, Captain Kirk self destructs the ship in order to save his and the lives of his officers (in Dr. McCoy's words, Kirk used death to give them a fighting chance to live). A fitting analogy.

The USS Enterprise begins to self destruct as the Klingon ship makes its
getaway. Click on image to view the video on my YouTube channel!

A brief disclaimer.

I dearly love my dad and I know he loves me. This post isn't about my dad's failures because Lord knows I wasn't the perfect parent to my beautiful daughter either. Dad did more right than he ever did wrong. I share this with you because it is a part of my journey where I suffered and God clearly rescued me, and some of you may relate to it in some way.

Click "Read more" below for a brief excerpt from Wild at Heart (John Eldredge) about the concept of the "False Self":

A Wild and Untamed God

The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11:12. 

Man’s thought is always of the punishment that will come to him if he sins. But God’s thought is always of the glory man will miss if he sins. Watchman Nee, in The Normal Christian Life.

In my last blog post I mentioned that through a series of events I came to realize that my perception of God was distorted. I had viewed him as a rigid, repressive “Cosmic Cop”, ready to thwack me at every turn if I made a mistake or misbehaved. This perception was so real that I had begun to put distance between him and me. I didn’t turn my back on him but rather participated in a church with a more “liberal” theology where God could be, at least in my mind, more like what I wanted him to be.

Then about 10 years ago I became interested in a devout Christian woman who I knew wouldn’t be compatible with attending my church. Recognizing that I had distanced myself from God, I acknowledged that to him in a prayer. I told him I wanted to move toward him again but that I was afraid to move back into repression. I simply asked God to reveal himself to me in a new way and show me more of what he is truly like. That prayer began the dramatic “series of events” through which God began to dismantle, or destroy my incorrect perception of his nature and then rebuild it in ways that are still “wowing” me to this day.

There is a warrior in every man's heart.

Within a couple of years I read the book Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. That was the beginning of God’s answer to my prayer and it totally rocked my world! Through it I learned, among other things, that the model of being a Christian man was not to be “just a really nice guy” who doesn’t smoke, drink, or swear. In Wild at Heart, Eldredge described how most Christian men in the Western church are “bored”, whose highest aspiration is to be “dutiful” and perhaps, if they are really good, to reach the lofty goal of being an elder. I had occasionally heard in church that eternity in heaven will be a “never ending church service in the sky”. In truth, that didn’t sound fun to me. Eldredge boldly stated that that view of heaven sounds more like hell than heaven to him; and I agree.

The basis of Wild at Heart is that a man’s heart yearns for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. And that a man’s heart yearns for these things…passion, freedom, life…because God made it that way! Eldredge uses Scripture to illustrate that the God of Christianity is wild, untamed, and passionate about our rescue and restoration.

I will conclude with a couple of thoughts.

The first is that in this post I described how God answered a sincere prayer in a very personal and powerful way. I challenge you to ask God to reveal himself, his true nature to you. Then watch for his answer.

Second, God usually has to tear down some of the dysfunctional beliefs and habits we have built up around our lives before he can bring new life and restoration. Some of that may be painful, but I can attest that it is definitely worth it in the end. If any of you have seen the Narnia movie or read the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (by C.S. Lewis), it is like when Aslan the lion tore the scales and skin off Edmund, who had been turned into a dragon because of his waywardness, to restore his humanity. As Edmund described it: “It hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt…but it was fun to see it coming away…then [Aslan] threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone…and then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.” God can bring beauty from ashes. He does it all the time.