It’s 11PM in India. Our faces are greasy from the heat of the day and the sweat box of a room we’re sitting in. We’re laying hands on our friends who are leaving the field, two because of leadership and group decisions, and one of her own volition. One of them is my best friend on the squad. We’ve been together 7 of our 8 months. I know how hard he’s fought. I know all the ways that everyone else has misunderstood him. I know the struggle it is to give grace when your raised in a culture that casually dismisses the emotions of men – besides the ones needed for football and ridicule. You put up walls. You learn how to read people and press their wounds for pressing yours – because the weaker person is the one who cracks first, right? Or so I believed not so long before I encountered Christ.
I see the pain that my brother carries and I know how far he has come, but it’s not enough. We needed a unanimous vote for him to stay. One person keeps him from staying. Now, I’m laying my hands on two of the men who are leaving and let the decision settle in. I cry. I sob under my breath and the tears stream down my eyes. I pray out loud because I know the disappoint all to well. I pray against the lies and self-questioning and rejection that I know accompany such moments. King David knew it. And I too know it – the pain of senseless disappointment.
In my past, I was rejected by the people I thought had my back. They were my brothers and sisters in arms. We served in a warzone together. But when it down to the moment where we needed to be there for each other, when solidarity and truth was most necessary and mercy most demanded, we floundered… and our integrity was compromised by fear. Now, in the spiritual warzone of India, we decided it was safer to be down one of our warriors than keep him in our ranks.
This was how two months of non-stop, inner-squad warfare were coming to an end. Two months of bickering, negativity, minimal buy-in, open ridicule of our ministry host, favoritism, individualism, emotionalism, and, most of all, gossip. Feedback fell by the wayside and I, one of the three squad leaders, realized that all my military experience and leadership training could not stop the massive ball that had been set in motion months ago from rolling off the cliff. It steamrolled me and every other leader that got in it’s way. The weeds had been planted. While I know that Jesus said the weeds and the wheat must grow together, I also know that grace has been abused and we as leaders have failed to realize that “with mercy comes responsibility” (read the parable of the two slaves who owe debts). This last lesson I could not learn in a by reading a book – even the bible. Some things must be experienced in life. Some pains must be walked through, trusting that it all is part of God’s plans for an ultimate good that we could never plan of our own accord.
My Mom once told me that the broken pieces of our lives are what God uses to make a beautiful mosaic that the light of Christ can shine through. She’s a wise woman so I know she’s right. But, sometimes, when a piece doesn’t fit, it needs to be broken again and that’s never fun. Then, we have to let God place it and wait for things to dry. To further complicate things, it’s not of our own power or timing that we can put the pieces back together. And that’s frustrating because it means we’re not in control…
The more I follow Christ, the more I realize that I cannot do it in my own effort. As of late, I am lost – I’m not who I once was. Who I am and who I am becoming are less clear than ever. My only solace and Sabbath is meditating (contemplative prayer). By being still and offering God all of me, body, mind, and spirit, I hope I will encounter Christ within. Christ Jesus, the one who died for me on the cross – a symbol the represents both the greatest suffering and the greatest victory in one moment. That moment is our symbol of faith as His followers. If that doesn’t send you a mixed message about life with Christ, then I don’t know what does.
In this whole affair, this is my comfort and my salvation. The wholeness of life represented in Christ on the cross. It this “both… and,” both suffering and victory, both loss and gain, both Son of Man and Son of God, that keep me coming back. Because I don’t know anything else that can make sense of all the suffering and hate as well as the love and compassion that human beings offer each other everyday. It is Jesus and the contradictions of everyday life that he reconciled which keep me going. This is my peace. This is my Sabbath. This is my love. This is my Jesus. Is this your Jesus too?
