And
then he’ll swoop in on a white horse, simultaneously eradicating the
world’s problems and my own, so that we can spend the rest of our lives
in a charming home with darling children in our little Shire, reading
books and gardening.
I’ve
always had an active imagination. Although the story shifts and sways
(not always my tall, dark, handsome knight-in-shining-armor singing a
love ballad while riding his trusty white steed... sometimes, he pedals
into my world on a tandem bicycle, then we ride into the city at sunset
and tango at a jazz club...and other times, it’s just a big, red easy
button for life’s little emergencies), regardless of the form of my
deliverer, I often yearn to be rescued. I want to be rescued from my
loneliness, rescued from my boredom, rescued from my apathy, rescued
from my inability to sprout wings and fly, rescued from awkward moments,
and rescued from my failure to set the whole world aright.
I
often get lost in Christy's microcosm of reality and miss out on real
life. Christy's microcosm: Disney movie. Real reality: our good God
constantly taking our deep-seated issues and quick-fix solutions and
uprooting them (often painfully), so that little seeds of simple trust
and utter love can sprout into abundant freedom, and we can welcome
others into that reality. It’s not quite as glamorous, but it is good.*
_______________________________________________________________
*These thoughts may have been inspired by the following quote, from Shauna Niequist’s Bittersweet (thanks goes to my roommate Ryn for sharing this with me):
"I
was miserable because I lost touch with the heart of the story, the
part where life always comes from death. I love the life part, and I
always try to skip over that pesky death part. I believe that God is
making all things new. I believe that Christ overcame death and that
pattern is apparent all through life and history. I believe that
suffering is part of the narrative and that nothing really good gets
built when everything is easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and
confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom. But for a long
season, I forgot all of those things. I didn't stop believing in God. It
wasn't a crisis of faith. I had failed to live with hope and courage
and live instead a long season of whining, self-indulgence, and fear.
I'm able to see now that what made that season feel so terrible to me
were not the changes. What made that season feel so terrible is that I
lost track of some of the crucial beliefs and practices every Christian
must carry. Looking back now, I can see that it was more than anything a
failure to believe in the story of who God is and what he is doing in
this world. Instead of living that story - one of sacrifice and purpose
and character - I began to live a much smaller story, and that story was
only about me. I wanted an answer, a time line, and a map. I didn't want
to have to trust God or anything I couldn't see. Even while I prayed
fervently, even when I sat in church and begged for God to direct my
life, those things didn't have a chance to transform me, because under
those actions and intentions was a rocky layer of faithlessness, fear
and selfishness. If I'm honest, I prayed the way you order breakfast
from a short-order cook. This is what I want. Period. This is what I
want. Aren't you getting this? I didn't pray for God's will to be done
in my life, or, at any rate, I didn't mean it. I prayed to be rescued,
not redeemed. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped
in significant ways. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of
trying to learn about patience or anything else for that matter. I
couldn't make peace with uncertainty - but there is nothing in the
biblical narrative that tells us certainty is part of the deal."
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