Who Are You?

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

‘Cause I really want to know …

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

C’mon tell me …

Who are you?

Who, who, who?

As I sit here looking out over Carillon Beach I stumbled across this old song by none other than The Who repeatedly asking the haunting question, “Who are You?” How does one exactly answer this question? We are each so many things. But when you boil us down to our very essence, who are we?

I think many of us have forgotten just who we are, or worse yet, maybe have never really known. I find it ironic that it has only been in the past forty years that the concept of self-awareness has become so popular. Especially when I find that we are as a culture becoming progressively less self-aware. We are more self-absorbed but less self-aware. Most people don’t know who they are.

Have you ever watched the first few episodes of each American Idol season – you know, the ones where unimaginably untalented people audition for the show? Have you ever wondered whether its really possible that a person could be so unaware of his lack of talent? How can a person be twenty to thirty years old and not know? Did no one ever bother to tell them? Would that not be the loving thing to do? Yes, and that is the whole point. In a healthy context of loving relationships we come to know ourselves.

When we live outside of healthy community, we not only lose others, but we also lose ourselves.

Looking for a Reason

The wind is moving,

But I am standing still.

A life of pages,

Waiting to be filled.

A heart that’s hopeful

A head that’s full of dreams,

But this becoming

Is harder than it seems.

Feels like …

I’m looking for a reason

Roaming through the night to find

My place in this world,

My place in this world.

Not a lot to lean on

I need Your light to help me find

My place in this world,

My place in this world.

If there are millions

Down on their knees,

Among the many

How can You still hear me?

Hear me asking

Where do I belong?

Is there a vision

That I can call my own?

Show me …

I’m looking for a reason

Roaming through the night to find

My place in this world,

My place in this world.

Not a lot to lean on

I need Your light to help me find

My place in this world,

My place in this world.

This song written and recorded by Michael W. Smith in 1990 has haunted me for over twenty years now. Its release coincided with my graduation from my medical residency and the beginning of my “real” life … as if my medical school and residency experiences were surreal … which in many ways they were. It was finally time to seriously search for where God wanted me to go, who He wanted me to serve, and what church He wanted me to partner with. Never mind that the United States Air Force would still have quite a say in these matters for another five and a half years. But there was at least the illusion of choosing where to belong in 1990 and then especially in 1995 when I separated from the Air Force.

Now 21 years later, what has really changed? Sure my geography has changed … well not by much. I live a mere 140 miles from the Destin/Ft. Walton Beach area where I trained [and even now I sit looking out at the mysteriously green waters of the Emerald Coast as I write this] but that was by way of sojourns in middle Georgia and the South Pacific. Still where ever we went, we looked for community and struggled to find that perfect fit … whether it was the home-school community of both Warner Robins and Honolulu or the charismatic churches we attended in both Ft. Walton Beach and middle Georgia to the Calvary Chapel in Mililani to the Evangelical Free Churches in both Honolulu and Tallahassee as well as the spiritual community that forms Community Christian School in Tallahassee, our life has been a tapestry that only God could weave. But no matter where we’ve been, we’ve always looked for where we could “belong.” And isn’t that really what it means to be human after all?

I can't help but notice that we are a world of joiners. This goes all the way back to junior high and high school if not before. When you boil it all down, isn’t the principal trauma of those crazy years trying to figure out which clique it is that we belong to? There are the freaks and the geeks and the jocks and the nerds and the vandals and the rebels and lastly, the invisibles. I was never much drawn to the freaks as I had an inherent aversion to both needles and pipes. I guess I had the geek prerequisites down pat but never found that I much liked the crowd or the identity. It’s sad when you reject your calling. Makes the struggle all the more difficult. I most identified with the jocks but had too many incongruities … all they ever saw was the “brains” and they weren’t too impressed by the “brawn.” No need to explain why I didn’t want to join the nerds. No one really ever joins the nerds anyway; it seems like we get assigned there by acclamation. I didn’t see much future in the vandals either. Besides, I was trying to break the stereotype of being Italian and being in the mafia. Have you ever noticed that if there is ever an Italian on the screen, you know that he did it? So that pretty much left either the invisibles or the rebels – and aren’t the rebels really just the ones who are desperately trying not to be invisible while knowing they don’t fit in anywhere else? Maybe this is one of those things that make Jesus so attractive. If James Dean was the rebel without a cause, Jesus was the rebel with one.

This desperate need to belong doesn’t end with our high school commencement ceremonies; it haunts us for the rest of our lives. I like this think of myself as a person who is not trapped by the need to join but my wallet tells a different story. Just unfold it and self-awareness comes crashing in … I have both an AMC Theater card as well as a Regal Cinemas card. Two Visa cards and a MasterCard. A bank debit card and a credit union membership card. A State of Florida drivers’ license; AAA card; Best Buy Reward Zone card; Capital Health Plan insurance card; American Academy of Family Physicians card; Sam’s Club card; Premier Fitness Club card; both Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks beverage club cards [and I don’t even like coffee]. Heck, I even have a membership card to a now bankrupt bookstore chain [Borders].

Yes there are an endless number of symbols of belonging all around us. We join clubs, teams, sororities, fraternities, unions, guilds, churches, synagogues, organizations, political parties and, sadly, even Klans. We mark our tribes through labels, tattoos, piercings, colors, symbols, music, language, and style, and this is just the surface of an array of ways we find to belong, to fit in, to be insiders … how ironic is that the less genuine community we have, the more we create artificial communities?

We live in a world of planned communities [I sit in the planned beach community of Carillon writing this] and virtual communities that are growing as fast as the human community is disintegrating. I don’t think it is coincidental that over the past twenty years the labels on our clothes have moved from the inside to the outside. We know who we are by our symbols, and we can identify those who belong to our tribe by simply reading the signs.

Could something as meaningless as moving the labels to the outside of our clothing actually have deeper spiritual implications? Is it possible that we are all created with a need to belong to something, to belong to someone, and the less we actually belong to each other, the more symbols we need to feel like somehow we are making a connection? It goes so much deeper than what we wear. We will go to great lengths and great pain to become insiders.

At one end of the spectrum, we will pierce ourselves, tattoo ourselves and even mutilate ourselves to become our unique selves, who end up looking like a lot of other people. At the other end of the spectrum, we will use Botox, collagen and plastic surgery to become what we hope other people will love. We will go through hell weeks, allow ourselves to be demeaned through months of hazing [thank you Sigma Chi fraternity], and even commit unimaginable acts of violence to make it through an initiation just so that we can belong, so that we can be a part of a tribe. In the end, we are all tribal. We are created by a relational God for relationship. Why does this concept come so much easier to women than it does to us men?

Yes it seems to be true. God made us for relationships, and we only begin to experience life fully when we move toward healthy relationships and healthy community. Our souls will never be satisfied with anything else.

When we are estranged from God, we drift from love. Without God we lose our source of love but not our need for love. What was once our source of endless pleasure would become our soul’s deepest longing. What was intended to be an unlimited resource has become rare. We can spend the rest of history searching for love. And we would find ourselves far too often all too alone … and each of us in our own ways builds strategies to avoid aloneness.

Some people are related to each other while others are connected to each other. Some people share the same space while others share the same heart. Some people live in proximity with each other while others live in intimacy with each other.

Why do we find it so difficult to move from “me” to “us?” In our gut we know are not supposed to simply live for ourselves. Even the central figure in the L.A. riots of the early 90s, Rodney King, asked, “Can’t we all just get along?” It seems it is time to recognize the opposite of “me” isn’t “you,” but “we.”

Our need for relationship comes from the core of our being. It is the greatest of tragedies to sacrifice others in our effort to find ourselves. Our souls crave to belong. While the experience of love emanates from God, it is not limited to Him. We are created for each other.

It's a Jungle Out There

My family has never been good with pets. I could relate several horrifying stories that would serve as dramatic examples of this simple fact. But I'll confine this blog to our experience with one certain bunny [we have had a couple more tragic experiences with both before and after this one]. This bunny was the de facto Easter bunny for our church which for several years after we built our present home held their annual Easter Egg Hunt on our property and that of our next door neighbors who also are members. And it just so happened that one of these hunts occurred shortly after we got this bunny. Of course, he was the absolute hit of the hunt as all the children wanted to hold him and have their picture taken with "the bunny who had hidden all the glorious eggs."

Well just a few weeks after that particular Easter Egg Hunt, we allowed our bunny to hop around the front yard when suddenly a giant hawk swooped down from seemingly nowhere and flew off with our rabbit in his talons. Our girls and I were mortified. Yet another Currieo pet had succumbed to a horrific fate.

But now six or seven years later, it occurs to me that the world is full of hawks and bunnies. There are hawks that swoop down on helpless children in Thailand and steal them away to turn them into child prostitutes; there are hawks that use a caste system to keep millions oppressed and in poverty in India; there are hawks in the priesthood who hide behind their collars while they abuse children. Jesus described the spiritual reality in which we live is pretty simple: "The thief comes to steal and to rob and to kill, but I have come to give you life and life in abundance."

Way too many times the hawks that have swooped down are wearing the robes of religion. It is not that they are tormenting the innocent but they are tormenting the helpless. How could we ever guess that God would be the friend of the broken, the outcast, and the guilty? Because of religion, we have run from God when, in fact, He has been the only One ready to stand in our defense.

There was a moment in the life of Jesus when an unnamed woman was surrounded by the hawks.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. But early in the morning He went back to the Temple, and all the people came to Him, and He sat and taught them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery. They forced her to stand before the people. They said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught having sexual relations with a man who is not her husband. The law of Moses commands that we stone to death every woman who does this. What do you say we should do?" They were asking this to trick Jesus so that they could have some charge against him.

But Jesus bent over and starting writing on the ground with His finger. When they continued to ask Jesus their question, He raised up and said, "Anyone here who has never sinned can throw the first stone at her." Then Jesus bent over again and wrote on the ground.

Those who heard Jesus began to leave one by one, first the older men and then the others. Jesus was left there alone with the woman standing before Him. Jesus raised up again and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one judged you guilty?"

She answered, "No one, sir."

Then Jesus said, "I also don't judge you guilty. You may go now, but don't sin anymore."

If those who are the religious elite are closest to God, why is it that they are so rarely closest to love? If God is love, those who know God best should love people most. Jesus said He came not to condemn the world, but to bring the world life. Why is it that so many who represent Him are ever so quick to condemn? All her accusers could see was a woman guilty of adultery. Yet there is all too often so much more behind these stories -- a woman abused by her husband searching for love; a little girl abused by a relative, who would forever confuse love with sex; a prostitute who would sell love for a price but had none to give.

If Jesus' encounter with this unnamed adulterous woman tells us anything, it reveals the unexpected truth that the safest place for a sinful person to go is to God. He and He alone is the only One who will neither condemn us nor leave us in our brokenness. On the Mount of Olives she found herself most alone and discovered the unimaginable -- God wanted her. God was her place to belong, and this reality became the beginning of new things. This may be the most powerful thing about love. Love gives us a fresh start. Love gives us a reason to live.

When Will I Be Loved?

Anyone remember this great Linda Ronstadt classic song from the '70s? Seemingly, it is a refrain that is played time and again in our lives and the lives of those around us. We speak of true love not only lasting a lifetime, but lasting forever. Yet somehow, forever seems to have a clear beginning and end in our frame of reference. But in the end we cannot seem to meet the standards of love, and so too many of us just accept that love is not all that it is made out to be. It is like from the beginning we prepare ourselves to be disappointed. Isn't that just the history of love anyway? We find it impossible to live up to its standards. I think most of us have this concept when it comes to God. If God loves conditionally, we are all in big trouble. And when you distill it down, this is the bottom line basis of all the world's "religions."

Yes God loves, but only conditionally. Meet the conditions and gain the love. Love then becomes something that is attained. Oh, we are quick to spiritualize this with its own lofty lexicon -- forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, grace -- which are all really just different words for love. In this it would appear that all religions are the same. They give God a name and then establish the rules we must follow if we are to gain his affection and favor. I think this is why most people see all religions as just different ways of getting to the same place [that along with our post-modern sense of relativism and the lack of any absolutes]. So some people pray five times a day facing east; others pray rosaries; still others bring offerings, light candles, and memorize incantations; all for the same purpose, that of gaining the acceptance of their Creator.

But really, is it not absurd to think that any "religion" can somehow get us closer to God? It is like being in love with a person who has no interest in us. He may love our advances because they make him feel self-important, but really he has no motivation to pursue us. It's all one-sided. And while he loves being pursued and thus our desire only inspires him to be even more elusive. When this relates to God, we call this one-sided love, in its contextualized experience over time, worship. And if you were to think about it long enough, it would make you sick. And I see this as a common complaint against God from the secular world. "What kind of egomanical megalomanic is God anyway?!? Thanks, but no thanks. Not interested." And really, if one of our friends were in this kind of earthly relationship, we would do everything in our power to convince him or her to get out. But what really is the difference if a religion is created on the subtle premise that God withholds his love and we must submit to the system to earn that love? These traps only work because of two things: we long for love, and we are convinced that all love is conditional.

Ironically, this is where so many of us end up having a problem with Jesus. For centuries the church has been telling us that if we want God to love us, we need to follow the rules. This seems to be the only way the institution can maintain control over our lives. After all, if love is unconditional, what keeps us following their rules? If their goal is to get people to conform, well that can be accomplished without love. But you cannot maintain a civilization without the rule of law. And what governments have not always been able to do, religions have accomplished with remarkable efficacy. They keep people in line.

What in the world would happen if people actually began discovering the actual message of Jesus Christ -- that His love is unconditional? What would happen if we began to realize that God was not, in fact, waiting for us to earn His love, but that He was passionately pursuing us with His love? What would happen if the word got out that Jesus was offering His love freely and without condition?

Would anyone actually choose to be a slave to ritual and legalism when he could have relationship and love? The answer, unfortunately, is yes. The reason religion works is that we believe in conditional love and doubt the existence of unconditional love.

Sadly, the church is all too full of religious leaders who speak on behalf of God and yet have held God hostage. They tell us basically that it is our responsibility to raise the ransom to release His love. There are way too many people being duped into believing that if they give enough money, they will then unlock and receive all that God has been withholding from them. Thankfully, some of us have come to our senses and realize that we've been taken. For whatever kind of love it is that we can purchase, it certainly isn't the love our soul has been longing for. If we have to buy love, it is never worth the price. I believe it was John, Paul, George and Ringo who put it like this -- "Can't buy me love."

So where does that leave us? We end up face-to-face with a dilemma -- we can't earn love, we can't buy love and yet we can't seem to live without it. We know deep in the pits of our stomachs that if love is conditional, it can't really be love at all. But we also know that if love is truly unconditional then we are neither the sources nor the instigators of such a love, which then again becomes part of our conflict. We want what we do not give. We long for what we cannot produce.

Just where does this concept of unconditional love come from anyway? How can we hold such a lofty ideal when we live so far from it? Isn't this kind of like believing in aliens from outer space? We know they could exist; it is just that we have never seen one. Pretty much like love -- real love anyway, not the imitations we see all around us, the Hollywood movie scripts, lust, what passes for romance these days, etc.

And what about our "love" for such trivial things as coffee, chocolate, cars, sports teams, ice cream, the beach, boats, homes, etc.? Perhaps that fact that we love such meaningless things tells us even more about our capacity to love. Maybe if we really knew love, true deep, profound, unending love, we wouldn't love chocolate after all.

When it comes to love, we exist in a unique category. There are a lot of things that are dispensable to God. He can re-create pretty much whatever He wants. We, however, are not on that list. Each of us are unique and irreplaceable. And as such, we are the objects of God's love.

In Solomon's sensual Song of Songs, he describes a lover pursuing the one who has won her heart. He captures the hopelessness that one feels on such a desperate search for love.

"At night on my bed,
I looked for the one I love;
I looked for him, but I could not find him.
I got up and went around the city,
in the streets and squares,
looking for the one I love.
I looked for him, but I could not find him.
The watchmen found me as they patrolled the city,
so I asked, 'Have you seen the one I love?'"

Solomon is describing the desperation that comes when we seem unable to capture the heart of the one we love. Has it ever occurred to any of us that God feels like this? But if God's love is immeasurable and unending, as the writer of Hebrews describes it, how deep and profound must be His sense of sorrow and rejection. If anyone knows the pain of a love unrequited, it must be God.

In summary, "religion" exists not because God loves too little, but because we need love so much. In the end, all "religions" misrepresent God. They either dictate requirements for love or simply become a requiem for love. I think many have given up on God on this basis alone. We've been told that God is a reluctant lover and that His standards must be met before there can be any talk of love. This, of course, is lunacy. Love exists because God is love. Our souls will never find satisfaction until our hearts have found this love that we so desperately yearn for. And lastly, God is not passive, for love is never passive, but always passionate; and passion always leads to action!

Abandonment

I think all of us have abandonment issues ... just some more than others. My wife and I just returned from a midweek dinner date where that topic of conversation came up more than once as we discussed what God is doing in our lives and the lives of those we love. A couple of the people we discussed at dinner fell into the "more" category. Ultimately such conversations always return to God as He is really the only "person" who never truly disappoints ... not that we always see it that way.

Some of us begin with God at an early age [this was true for both Janna and me] and end up running far away searching for what our hearts long for. This is now more my story than Janna's. Like Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist, our long journey will lead us back to where we began, but we return as a changed people with new eyes to see what once we were blind to. In my medical practice I meet many people who are running from God, angry with God, and yet at the same time desperately searching for Him. If God is love, it is maddening to be running from Him and yet be searching for love at the same time.

I am reminded here of a couple in crisis that I know where the wife has huge abandonment issues. Abandoned by her father she was almost certain that her husband would do the same thing. He would eventually come to his senses and get out of the relationship. She knew it wasn't possible for him to love her unconditionally and she seemingly was determined to prove it. Sadly, sometimes the thing we want the most, we fear the most.

When it comes to love, often we are our own worst enemies. When we've been hurt in the past, when we feel that love has betrayed us, we can easily become the enemies of love. To see if it's real, we do everything we can to destroy it. We tell ourselves we're testing it, but actually we are resisting it.

This carries over into our relationship with God. The truth of the matter is that we're uncomfortable with God. We're disoriented by the way He loves. We want God to love us for an endless number of good reasons. While at the same time, we find ourselves nervous before Him because He sees right through us and knows everything that isn't lovable. He tells us that He is our place of rest and acceptance and unconditional love, yet we cannot reconcile this love. We know who we are. We know all that is unlovely within us. We wonder how we have become worthy of such love, and that is what worries us -- we know we are not. So we run. We run from God because He sees us best; we run from God to escape our own sense of unworthiness; we run from God because we are certain that the closer we come to Him, the more guilt and shame we will feel.

The truth is, it is just too hard to believe that if we come near to God, we will find ourselves not drowning in condemnation, but swimming in compassion.
Jesus called all who were weary and who found their souls exhausted to come to Him and find rest. He is telling us that God will be for us our place called home.
We run from God because we long to be loved and we have convinced ourselves that the One who is most loving could not and would not embrace us.
We run from the One our souls crave.

Yet it is a paradox to run from God and search for love.

At least on an unconscious level, a part of our struggle with God is our discomfort with love. It seems no matter how beautiful or wanted we are, there is always something inside us that remains insecure. All of us find ourselves uncertain when it comes to love. We have no real experience of truly unconditional love, and it goes without saying that conditional love always leaves us wanting. But at least with conditional love we have some control over the situation. The downside is, however, when we don't meet the conditions, we default on the love. Sadly, in our earthly experience, all too often undying love meets a premature death!

Love v. Someone To Lay Down Beside Me

It is my observation that much of our sense of self-worth is rooted in what others think or feel about us. Thus, if we belong to no one, we will ultimately begin to feel that we are worthless. As a result, we often will do virtually anything to belong to someone or to belong to something. We have an inherent longing to belong or to be connected to something bigger than ourselves. It is almost as if we've been purposefully designed with a factory defect that keeps us searching ... for love.

Sex, unfortunately, is often used as a shortcut to love. While sex can be the most intimate and beautiful expression of love, we are lying to ourselves when we act as if sex is proof of love. Too many men demand sex as proof of love; too many women have sex in hopes of gaining love. Sadly, we live in a world of users where we abuse each other to dull the pain of our aloneness. We all long for intimacy, and physical contact can appear as intimacy, at least for a few moments. But is there any moment that feels more filled with loneliness than the second after having sex with someone who cares nothing about you? Just last week, I just shared the tears of a young woman, now in her early 30's who has been my patient since her teenage years, and now whose long-term live-in boyfriend dumped her a few weeks ago after being caught cheating on her. So in her rebound pain she "hooked up" with another young man two weeks ago and he left her with more heartache and a genital Herpes simplex infection. How freely the tears flowed in my office as she reeled in shame, anger, self-loathing and regret.

Just another example of the truth that there is no such thing as free sex. It always comes at a cost. With it, either you give your heart, or you give your soul. It seems you can give sex without giving love, but you can't have sex without giving a part of yourself. When sex is an act of love, it is a gift. When sex is a substitute for love, it is a trap.

I am reminded of my high school and especially my early college days at Oklahoma State when the cool guys hunted women like the good old boys here in north Florida do deer and fish. Now I was never really one of those guys, but I must admit I was often jealous of them. Nevertheless, my conscience would never allow it ... nor was I blessed with the requisite looks or charisma. But I have learned that love isn't about volume and it isn't about conquest. When we live like it is, there is something deeper going on inside us that we're trying to ignore or even drown out. While we may be alone, disconnected and deficient in love, we know deep down inside that we cannot possibly fill the void in our souls by consuming people. Not only are we robbing others but we are also pillaging our own souls. For love is not about how many people we have used, but about how much we have cherished one person.

I have also come to learn over time that is actually the players who are the ones most afraid. They are afraid to love, and so they make it a game. They're terrified of loving deeply, and so they keep everything on a superficial level. I believe that deep inside they wonder whether any woman could actually love them if she really knew who he was.

Then there are those who believe deeply in love but do not believe they are worthy of it. These are more often women and I see them in my office when the wheels are falling off one destructive relationship after another. What they call love, any other reasonable person would call abuse. It's almost impossible to understand why they choose to get into or stay in these type relationships. But it's almost impossible to talk them out of it once they're in. If you dare say anything negative about their partners, they will be the first to defend them. It's almost as if they are held hostage by their need for love. They essentially become victims because they don't believe they deserve love, so they settle for whatever they can get. I have met far too many women who have given their bodies to men as a trade-off for a poor imitation of love. How can one make sense of a person, like the young woman I mentioned earlier, who moves from one relationship to another, making her body the object of another's pleasure or abuse, except to acknowledge the painful reality that human beings fear almost nothing more than being alone?

Suffering & Glory -- Inexorably Linked

"Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed." 1 Peter 4:12, 13

Judas got up from the table quickly and prepared to leave. After closing the upper room door on his Lord, he made his way into the night. The hard stones on the street received his heavy feet perhaps reluctantly. What he was thinking we do not know; what he did we do. He made his was to the Sanhedrin and sold out Jesus for a mere thirty pieces of silver. Judas could not stomach the idea that the promised Messiah's glory would be attended by rejection and suffering.

Jesus, however, walked a different path. That very night he make it His special point to connect the hour of suffering with the coming of His glory. The climactic hour of the one was inexorably linked to the glory of the other. On the night of His betrayal He lifted His eyes up to Heaven and said, "Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son" [John 17:1]. Somehow Jesus knew that the eternal glory of the Christ could be established only by suffering on the cross. He was not surprised by this. He did not think it strange. So when the hour came for Him to embrace it as His own, He was not ashamed.

This is a lesson that virtually all believers must come to realize in a personal way at some point in their journey of faith. It is no coincidence or accident that Jesus commands us to "take up our crosses and follow Him." Yet, perhaps the most striking thing I realize after each overseas medical mission trip I take, is how surprised Americans are when they must suffer. It almost seems to be the normal expectation for us here in this country that life will be easy. That we deserve to have everything go well. In Cameroon, Peru, Nicaragua, Uganda and dare I say virtually all of the third world, suffering is almost expected. Certainly the people I meet there are almost never surprised when things that we would consider horrific occur. They are virtually accepted without question. Here there would be loud protestations and likely lawsuits. Surely someone else is at fault and surely someone will have to pay. Not so in most of the world. So perhaps Peter was writing this letter to us in the west [as well as to the "elect exiles of the dispersion" ... who knew little else than suffering in their lives] to remind us that we should not expect a fate much better than that of our Lord.

I am reminded of what George Matheson said about suffering in the life of a believer. This 19th century man had been born with very poor eyesight and was virtually blind by age 18. Robbed of his physical sight, he nevertheless could see spiritual truth with penetrating insight and clarity. Suffering in life never caught him by surprise and he never thought suffering for his Christian faith was strange. And when, according to God's will, he was asked to enter into it, he was never ashamed. He wrote:

"There is a time coming in which your glory shall consist of the very thing which now constitutes your pain. Nothing could be more sad to Jacob than the ground on which he was lying, a stone for a pillow. It was the hour of his poverty. It was the season of his night. It was the seeming absence of his God. The Lord was in the place and he knew it not. Awakened from his sleep he found that the day of his trial was the dawn of his triumph.

Ask the great ones of the past what has been the spot of their prosperity and they will say, 'It was the cold ground on which I was lying.' Ask Abraham; he will point to the sacrifice on Mt. Moriah. Ask Joseph; he will direct you to his dungeon. Ask Moses; he will date his fortune from his danger in the Nile. Ask Ruth; she will bid you build her a monument in the field of her toil. Ask David; he will tell you that his songs came in the night. Ask Job; he will remind you that God answered him out of the whirlwind. Ask Peter; he will extol his submersion in the sea. Ask John; he will give the path to Patmos. Ask Paul; he will attribute his inspiration to the light which struck him blind.

Ask one more! -- the Son of God. Ask Him whence has come His rule over the world; He will answer, 'From the cold ground on which I was lying -- the Gethsemane ground -- I received my scepter there.' Thou too, my soul, shall be garlanded by Gethsemane. The cup though fain wouldst pass from thee will be thy coronet in the world by and by."

Ask the saints, any of them, and the response is the same. They never thought glory could be gained in any other way. Perhaps the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox said it best:

All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden's gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair.
God pity those who cannot say,
"Not mine but thine," who only pray,
"Let this cup pass," and cannot see
The purpose in Gethsemane.

To Nurture or to Sear our Conscience ... Our Daily Struggle

Tomorrow I must to carry out one of the sadly all too frequent and disturbing tasks that come with the position of serving as an elder in Jesus' church .... that of confronting a man who's life is culminating the end-stage fruit of a long path of resistance to the Holy Spirit's nudging of his conscience. Yet, his life also serves as an excellent launching point to consider just what great treasures our consciences actually are. Certainly, it is one of the kindest gifts God has given to every man even though I can't begin to count how many times I wished mine would just leave me alone. Nevertheless, I can clearly see that to vanquish my conscience would truly be the most disastrous of victories.

So what exactly is the human conscience? The Greek word for conscience, suneidesis, literally means to possess "co-knowledge of something resulting in one's sense of guiltiness before God." Thus it would seem that we were created with a unique and intrinsic faculty to give us a kind of third-person perspective on the rightness and also the wrongness of our actions. According to A. W. Tozer, the foundation of the human conscience is "the secret presence of Christ in the world." To support this conclusion, he points to John 1:9, "There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man." This inward moral awareness is simply the "secret inner voice" of the Lord "accusing or else excusing him." I personally think Tozer is on to something here.

In the physical realm, the conscience is comparable to the human nervous system. When a person is wounded, he feels pain -- it is the body's inherent means of alerting him that something has gone wrong. Likewise in the spiritual realm, when a person sins, the human soul has a warning system that sounds an alarm because the person's actions have wounded him spiritually. The soul-alarm cries out "Mayday! Mayday! Something is wrong!" He senses that his actions are not only wrong but will also result in destructive consequences.

A person with a tender conscience is keenly aware of every infraction against the Lord [my wife Janna is a good living example of this]. He or she recognizes sin for the ugly thing that it is. Immoral deeds, though seemingly insignificant to others, are viewed in this context as monstrous crimes against a holy God. Their importance, while not exaggerated, is internally magnified so that their true, insidious nature may be clearly seen. The person with a soft heart also remains consistently open to the Holy Spirit's conviction. He or she is not looking to push the limits of sin -- to see how much he or she can get away with -- but to avoid it altogether. Sin, to him or her, is a cancer which must be eradicated at any cost. The prayer of David expresses the unseen attitude of such a person: "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way" [Psalm 139:24].

Most people who have experienced a true conversion begin their new life with this kind of spiritual sensitivity. The eyes of their hearts have been opened to the wonders of Jesus Christ and His kingdom. Unfortunately, it is often only a matter of time until their "first love" for Jesus dwindles into religious form. As new believers begin to learn the ropes of Christianity, a slight hardening of the heart takes place. The deep sense of helplessness that once created such a humble dependence upon the Lord is gradually replaced with spiritual pride. Bright and innocent faith is slowly and progressively supplanted with cynicism. Eventually, the world's attractions begin to regain their carnal luster, old idols are re-erected within the heart, and once-forsaken sins begin to resurface.

The Scriptures describe this process as the "wandering away from a good conscience," [ 1 Timothy 1:5-6] and the corrupting of the conscience [Titus 1:15]. Both describe the same process of inner moral decay that occurs when a person allows sin to re-establish itself within his heart. If that person continues along this course he will soon lose the sense of evil that is inherent in sin. The person who habitually gives himself over to sin also loses the ability to feel the spiritual "pain" of that sin [see Romans 1:21-32 and Psalm 81:11-12 among other passages]. So what actually happens to people who lose this sense? Consider the leper who experiences a similar thing physically in his body. Having lost sensation in his extremities and his face, he is becomes terribly and sometimes fatally injured because he is unaware of the traumas that he has suffered. In the spiritual realm, this an excellent living picture of the hardening of the soul that occurs inside the person who remains in unrepentant sin. As his heart becomes slowly calloused, the spiritual system God constructed within him slowly loses its ability to detect the damage being done to it. It is little wonder that "Christian" men in habitual sexual sin can sit in church week after week, singing songs of worship to a God they continue to defy. "Hardened by the deceitfulness of sin," [Hebrews 3:13] their entire beings are riddled with a leprosy of evil which they can no longer even detect!

At this point I want to harken back to a blog entry I wrote on December 17, 2009 regarding the searing of King Herod Antipas' conscience. Herod had seduced his sister-in-law, Herodias, and then persuaded her to leave her husband, Herod Philip, to marry him. Of course this was completely forbidden under Jewish law. John the Baptist had told Herod [Mark 6:18] that "it was not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" and so for very personal reasons, "Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him" [v. 19]. But she was not able to do so because Herod feared John and protected him [despite having thrown him into a dungeon prison under his palace] because he considered "him to be a righteous and holy man." When Herod would hear John, he would become "greatly puzzled" and yet he still "liked to listen to him." One has to wonder WHY? John must have been a breath of fresh air amidst the debauchery of Herod's court. Perhaps Herod's spirit would feel inexplicably elevated in John's presence. Perhaps there were even some failed attempts at self-reformation. Nonetheless, Herod's discomforting fear of John was evidence that his conscience was at least stirred by John's words.

But in a trying and drunken moment following the seductive dance of Herodias' daughter, Salome, he unwisely promised to give her anything up to half his kingdom and with that, Herodias' trap was perfectly set. Salome demanded John's head on a platter ... and for a few moments the room went silent and Herod's soul teetered in the balance ... the Scriptures use a word for an anguish of the soul that was only used one other time in the entire New Testament and that was of Jesus' anguish the night before his crucifixion as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. For just a few moments Herod was having a crisis of conscience! There was at last a least a flickering of life. For just an instant, anything was possible, including his repentance.

But ultimately, fearing more what both his friends and even what Rome would think than the price his soul would pay, he ordered John's beheading. What a heartbreaking turn of events! Herod's conscience had begun to speak one last time, but he silenced it because he feared loss of reputation, he feared his "honor" would be besmirched, he feared what others might think and even that he might lose his position. Sadly, now only a deep and gaping darkness awaited Herod.

Fast forward to Jesus' trial before Herod. When Pilate transferred Jesus' case to Herod, he was thrilled ... but for all the wrong reasons. He had no spiritual interest in seeing Jesus as he had John in the past. Now it was all about SHOWTIME! He wanted to see a miracle [Luke 23:8]. He no longer had any spiritual fear or trepidation. His murder of John had produced an incapacity to see anything in Jesus. And Jesus gave Herod no response whatsoever, despite a very lengthy interrogation [Luke 23:9]. In contrast, Jesus was willing to reason with the scandalous high priest Caiaphas and even to prophesy to him [Luke 22:69, 70]. He conversed with Pilate and gave him very substantive answers to ponder [Luke 23:3; John 18:33-38]. He grieved over Judas in the Upper Room as he reached out for his very soul. But before Herod, he maintained a dreadful silence. Herod's days of grace were long since over. His conscience had long since been seared and could no longer respond! But beyond even lacking enough life in his soul to respond to the grace of almighty God standing right in front of him, he went even further and openly mocked Christ effectively holding the God of the universe in contempt.

What does it mean to have one's conscience seared? There have been many answers to this question over the centuries. Adam Clarke described it as "One cauterized by repeated applications of sin, and resistings of the Holy Ghost ..." The Fausett Bible Dictionary explains it as "... a harded determination to resist every spiritual impression ..." The Pulpit Commentary said it is "the gradual deterioration of sensibility produced by habitual sin." I especially like John Wesley's rendering as a "drunkenness of soul, a fatal numbness of spirit ... " Clearly it would seem that if one remains in sin long enough, he can reach a point of no return. A point where he is no longer influenced by the Holy Spirit. This is what the Bible terms apostacy.

How can a man know if he has gone too far? The very concern over such a possibility reveals the fact that there remains hope for him. Apostates, having lost all sense of morality, have no concern over such matters. And when a man in habitual sin repents, his hardened heart begins again to soften and he will gradually begin to feel the conviction of sin once again. Finally, he returns to the place where God can reach him and help him overcome. As the writer of Hebrews proclaimed, "How much more will the blood of Christ ... cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" [Hebrews 9:14]

The silence of Jesus before Herod is both a shocking and dramatic example not to trifle with holy things and not to suppress the nudgings of the Holy Spirit in our souls. We never know, on this side of eternity, when will be the last time our spirits will hear His call. "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts..." [Psalm 95:7, 8]. May we always have ears to hear.