Window gazing

If you have ever made a conscious decision to look beyond the surface in someone's life, you know just how conscientious you have to be to not just stop at the "surface stuff" you observe with the eye, but to look deeper.  It is easy to think you might get to know the "real" someone just because you see them act a certain way or say certain things.  Truth is, we aren't really getting to know the "inner struggles" of a man or woman until we get beneath the surface.  For some, the holidays were a tremendous time of reconnecting with family and making new memories.  The homes were filled with laughter and lots of stories which added to the good times.  For others, the holidays were kind of melancholy and lonely.  The memories of yester-year were just not enough to bolster their enthusiasm for the holiday.  Relationships had been lost, hearts were left open and hurting, and things just didn't ring with the same cheer as in years gone by.  Still others seemed to enjoy it, but deep inside, something was missing, leaving a hole not really filled, needs not really met, and moments not fully realized.  Surface-reads only tell us so much, don't they?  Sometimes we just need to stop long enough to really recognize the heartache, reach out to the emptiness, and re-energize the weak.  To do this, we have to look beyond the surface.

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you.  (2 Corinthians 5:16-20 MSG)

Looking inside gives us a different perspective, doesn't it?  Look out from any window in your home and what might you see?  Other homes, some landscaping, a fence or two, some cars, a bird, a neighbor's cat - infinite possibilities because even what seems "normal and customary" changes on the "outside" doesn't it?  Now, go outside your home and look inside through the same window.  What do you observe from this side?  If you stand back a ways, you might just see a reflection of some of those things you saw when looking out, right?  Get closer and you begin to see rooms, hallways, furnishings, and even maybe a few people.  Why are those people there? Isn't it because someone let them in?  Why are those furnishings arranged as they are?  Isn't it because it meets some need of those who have to make use of them?  Truth is, we don't really know what is on the inside until we begin to get close enough to see more than a reflection of what is on the outside!

Try as I might, I cannot "convince" someone to change the way they are feeling, to fill the emptiness of their lives with something which really makes a difference, etc.  I can set an example, but I cannot do the "convincing".  You don't convince someone TO enter or change, but you do convince them that what awaits them presents a pretty convincing argument that they SHOULD enter or embrace change.  

Too many times we look "inside" past the reflections we see on the outside and what we observe indicates to us someone needs something specific in their lives.  We might even point it out. Like if we were to observe through the window of the house that the couch facing a direction which did not give a view of the TV without craning one's neck in an awkward position.  We might try to convince them to move the couch, or to get rid of the couch and opt for two armchairs instead.  Either way, it is not our part to convince them TO change, but we can show them the possibilities of what change might look like by presenting an example for them to see in the way we "arrange" and "live out" our own lives!

I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I got this wrong in my own life.  I'd be looking INTO someone's life and then go about trying to rearrange their "furnishings" and fill their "space".  Only God really has the right to do this in another's life.  Admit it, we don't like it when someone actually does this to us, so why do we go about doing it in anyone else's life?  Am I the only one who has ever interjected myself INTO someone else's "space" without specifically being "invited in"?   

The purpose of anyone looking "inside" is to really begin to see another for who they are, as life has made them through the series of events and choices they have made over time.  When we look "inside", we might just begin to see Christ at work within - rearranging what needs movement and has become stagnant or stale in their lives.  Me might see him cleaning away years and years of "built up" dirt, giving a sense of freshness and purity.  Maybe we observe him at work making places for others to enter in and to find a place of special purpose where other relationships left gaps or holes never refilled again.  It is his work - we are only observers of his "life change".

I don't have many who I have really "let in" to see me as I am, but those who have done more than really only see a reflection of what is really on the outside have come to recognize it is Christ in me setting things right - convincing me of the need for life change.  Others have been content to see the reflection of what is on the outside, never getting close enough to really look inside.  I am okay with that, as long as they don't judge me by what they see on the surface, because sometimes I can present a pretty picture "out there", but I am pretty much a mess on the inside!  To really get to know each other, we need both vantage points, but most importantly to see each other for what God is doing on the inside!  Just sayin!

Among or In?

I am sometimes guilty of judging a book by its cover - like when I pass a quick judgment on someone or something because I see something on the "surface" which kind of gets my dander up, but really don't understand the reality just beneath the surface.  We never really know what another will bring into our lives until we get beneath the surface - look beneath the "cover". Lest you think you are beyond concealing things beneath a "cover" in your lives, ask yourself this question:  When was the last time I was truthful about the toughest struggle in my life today?  That question can be very telling - for we often don't have anyone with whom we can share these struggles; or we don't really want to be honest about the struggle because it is kind of humbling to admit we struggle in that area of our lives.  In reality, we have no struggles which are not "common" among all men and women - things like fear, anxiety, mistrust, pride, addictions, lust, etc.  We ALL are "earthen vessels" - plain folk with down-to-earth problems and desires.  

If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!  (2 Corinthians 4:7-12 MSG)

It should not catch you by surprise that God uses "earthen vessels" to display his greatness.  Plain folks with plain old real life problems putting him on display before a hurting and hungry world.  God doesn't go for the most glamorous, or the most charismatic - he uses us!  As with all truth, we have to believe it to make it worthwhile in our lives.  I can "know about" gravity, but until I fall a few times, I don't really believe it exerts a forceful pull in my life!  You come to appreciate the truth once you realize it has validity - having "validated" it by exposing yourself to its reality.

I had knee surgery when I was 19 and they did a little nerve damage in the process.  For days, I tried to tell the therapists I couldn't make my leg do what they wanted me to do with it.  For days, they ignored me thinking I was just trying to not face the pain.  So, day after day, they'd lift my leg, in the bulky dressing and partial cast, dropping it to the table and having to catch it just before my leg smacked the table with full force.  After about a week of this, they began to unwrap the leg and do some "deeper" investigation.  Do you know what they realized?  I really wasn't kidding!  I couldn't feel portions of my leg!  

What made the difference in their realization of my true problem was not my "confession" of the issue, but the "unwrapping" of the leg.  As soon as they got beyond what they could "see" with their eyes, they could begin to understand what I was trying to tell them.  The same holds true if we are to finally get beneath the "cover" in our lives and the lives of those we have relationship with in this world.  We ALL are "earthen vessels", holding onto some things we would do well to get out in the open, and containing light which needs to be shared with those around us.  

Look just at the "earthen vessel" and you can make pretty inaccurate judgments, huh?  Pour out the contents and you will often see a different side of a person.  Most of us are concerned others won't "like" us if they see the "real" us, so we only allow "surface" looks.  It isn't until we begin to be "poured out" that we can actually see what it is that God has been doing "inside" us all that time.  He contains himself in "ordinary lives" - using "ordinary lives" to touch "ordinary lives".  Here we find the "connection" we so desperately need - one "ordinary" life pouring out into the "ordinary life" of another.

As with my knee, there may be "severed" parts of our lives which really need the skill of one more knowledgeable of the issue, and the time to allow the healing to occur.  This is the value of connecting with another, allowing them beneath the surface, and into the "severed" parts of your life.  There is this opportunity to allow another to share the path to healing.  Most of the progress I made with therapy and the return of this lost function was not because the doctor told me to give it "time" to heal.  It was because I went twice a day right alongside others with different types of injuries and we worked together to get each other back on the mend!

God knows exactly what we need in order to break free of our struggles - and it is often best accomplished when we aren't trying to walk alone!  It took me a while to get off the crutches, but when I graduated to the cane and then to halting independent steps, my companions in therapy cheered me on.  The same was true in their progress - one step forward, two back, but eventually, we made it.  Each supporting the other - each not afraid to encounter the other when one of us was being a sissy!  Some of us need that - someone telling us we are being a little bit of a sissy when it comes to our issues.  We need a "goading" once in a while.  God places "ordinary lives" together to do just that!  

The good news - what Jesus did AMONG us, he does IN us - he lives!  We cannot settle for just having life "among" us, we need it "IN" us.  We don't get life IN until we are willing to go beneath the surface stuff.  A book has to be cracked to be read.  A light needs to be switched on before it illuminates what is hidden.  A buried treasure cannot be found until someone starts to do a little digging.  Just sayin!