All I have is what I need -some thoughts against Independence

“All I have is what I need…”  --Audrey Assad

I’ve been doing a bit of driving this summer; not to Waxahachie or beautiful downtown Wichita Falls or anything touristy like that –but to HEB, the mall, and appointments, and even once to Miller Outdoor Theater. And as I drive around Houston the CD I have been listening to the most in the car is a Christian pop CD called “Heart” by Audrey Assad.  I think it is quite possibly one of the great pop CDs of all time.  The melodies and rhythms are wonderfully catchy and sometimes quite thrilling, but the songs –the lyrics and the way she sings them—are often so strangely beautiful that they seem transcendent.  Though there doesn’t seem to be a narrative “concept” to the album, the songs do feel organically united and create a beautiful cohesive whole.  It is truly an album to enjoy again and again.

                But there is one phrase that shows up in at least a couple of the songs that has troubled me (in a good way –of course): “all we have is what we need…”  And as I read Genesis, I keep thinking about this phrase.  How applicable it is to the story of God’s love and grace and the story of His people.  And to the story of my own life. As a kind of disclaimer, let me say this: in the context of her song, I think it is quite possible Mrs. Assad is saying something more straightforward than what I am about to describe.  I imagine she means something along the line of –God has given me everything I need, why should I long for more.  But what I hear is: all we really have, any of us, is our need.  And perhaps that is exactly how God intends it.

                Going back to my recent reading of Genesis, look at Abram –called by God to become a blessing to the world—he is lead to a foreign land, separated from his family and home, called to dwell in a place where he lacks the security of all he has known and where he will find himself constantly in need of shelter and food and even a place to lay his head. And then there is Jacob, who seems so clever and wily, yet who –in the end—must submit himself first to the brother he has abused and tricked, then because of a famine to the will of some Egyptian power-broker (who it turns out is the beloved son that he lost so many years before).  Again and again we see in the stories of the people of God that all we really have is our need.  We are called time and again to place not our burnt offerings and incense upon the altar –but to offer God our brokenness and our contrition. We are called time and again to recognize our complete dependence on God; our need for His grace.  That is our greatest gift. And –on some level it is the only thing we have that is truly ours: Our need.  And so we are called to share it with the world. We are called to place our need upon the altar, to offer it to all and to become a blessing to the world.    

It is interesting to me that I am writing this on the 4^th of July: Independence Day. We –as a culture—do not value “need.” We have a little bit of disdain for it. Because need makes you dependent. And that is anathema in the land of independence!  A land where we can define and redefine ourselves any way we like, because we don’t need anybody or anyone’s approval.  We are autonomous and independent and that’s how we like it. And yet is that what God intended? Is that what Christ meant when He said:

Anyone who finds his life will lose it and anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it
–Matthew 10:39

What does it mean to take up your cross and follow Christ? What does it look like? Does it mean Independence? Does it look like self-sufficiency? Or is that the call of God asking us to come and share our brokenness with the world?   Perhaps all I really have is what I need –and that need is a door to salvation –not just for me—but for you as well. We tend to think of a need as a lack or an emptiness, but what if –like the song says—it isn’t a lacking, it is the thing we actually have been given to share with the world. All I have is what I need  --here, I hold it out to you. It is all I have –and I offer it to you.

Thank you, Audrey Assad. Happy “dependence” day to all…

The blessing of vulnerability --further reflections

“Go from your country, your kinsmen

and your father's house to the land
that I will show you... You are to be a blessing.”

–Genesis 12:1-2

What are the Beatitudes but a call for us to leave our place of security and comfort and go to a foreign land –a place of vulnerability, of risk and of blessing.  In Genesis, God calls Abram to leave his homeland, his kinfolk and his father’s house to go forth to a land that God will show him.  In that place and by becoming vulnerable to the curses and blessings of these foreign people, by leaving behind his security and earthly support system and putting his trust wholly in God Abram becomes a blessing. 

“Blessed are you who are poor…”

“Blessed are you who hunger…”

“Blessed are you who mourn…” –cf. Luke 6:20-21 & Mt. 5:3-11

Is this not a call to us to leave behind our homeland of culture and identity, our kinfolk of support and insurance, our father’s house of security and comfort and go to a foreign land that Jesus is showing us: a land of hunger, poverty, mourning, meekness and abuse?  Go not where we are safe and feel secure and accepted, but where we feel some risk of rejection and martyrdom even.  What greater love is there than to give up your life for another? 

But how do we live this out?  What does it mean in our daily life?  For me, there was a wonderful incident the other night that assured me that I had stumbled in the right direction.  I was volunteering at the hospital with the chaplain’s office. The chaplain tapes a list of names to his door for me. It is usually a longish list, but he will highlight the ones that he wants me to visit. Usually I just visit those highlighted names; I tend to be a rule follower. But as I was heading to the elevator I noticed a name --someone I had visited before–not highlighted. And something inside me made me feel that I should visit that patient.

I imagined that I would go up, say hello to him, perhaps offer a prayer and be on my way.  But when I got to his room on the 4^th floor, he was asleep.  So I was about to go back to my assigned list when I noticed a man who looked a little troubled in the room next door. So, I poked my head in and asked if there was anything I could do for him.  He was very hard of hearing, but he was also quite clearly agitated and needed someone (or something).  So I struggled to talk with this elderly man, but I listened as he told me that he was anxious about his daughters and confused about why he was being left at the hospital. After a while I offered to pray.  He didn’t understand at first, but as I began to pray the Our Father, he fell right in with me –as if suddenly something clicked.  A nurse arrived while we were praying and when we finished, she began her business with charts and scans, but she also began to ease his worries by reminding him why he was in the hospital. 

I left and tried the other man again. He was still asleep.  As I turned to leave and go back to my assigned names, another nurse approached me.  He wanted to know if I was the chaplain, because a patient had just died and his family needed someone.  My first reaction was a start of fear. I’m not a chaplain and I wasn’t sure what to do.  But, instead of hiding behind my lack of qualifications. I explained that I was a volunteer, and asked him to show me where the family was.  Standing at the door to the room, I asked God for a blessing and went inside to be with a family in deep and unconsolable mourning.

That was a place and a moment where I felt weak and slightly afraid. I hungered for the security and safety of the “right words,” but I had only my presence and a selection of psalm to offer them. I felt fearfully vulnerable. But, it was the place God lead me. And so I trusted. I trusted that whatever happened –this wasn’t about me. It was about their sorrow and their need to have someone come and pray with them in their time of mourning.  And so I went. And praying with them, sharing psalm 42, listening to their memories and their pain, hearing what a loving father the deceased was, all of it –I believe it was a blessing for them, but I am certain it was a blessing for me.

And it all started with me reading a name on my list that wasn’t selected for me by the chaplain, but (I guess) was by the Holy Spirit.  The first step was leaving the safety and security of the highlighted names, to go somewhere God was leading me.  Then, visiting the man who was almost deaf was a second step. He wasn’t the one I felt an attachment to, and I only stepped into his room because I could see him through the window and saw what looked like fear and confusion on his face –in his eyes. It was uncomfortable and awkward trying to talk with him –but because I tried, because I didn’t just give up and walk away, I was still on the floor when the other man died and because I left his room when the nurse started her work I happened to be walking out the door just as the other nurse came looking for a chaplain. 

And by being vulnerable what did I find?  An opportunity to become a blessing.  And an opportunity to be blessed.  And you know, I think in that moment of blessedness I had a brief glimpse of another foreign land: Heaven. Perhaps what Jesus is telling us in the beatitudes isn’t just that being poor, or meek, or hungry or thirsty or suffering for Christ is good for us; perhaps what He means when He says “blessed are…” is that to offer ourselves in this way is truly blessed; it is a taste of Heaven. 

Think about your own life. When did you feel most blessed? Was it in a moment of earthly success (a 100 on a test, a new job, successfully completing a project or getting an award for some achievement) or was it when you offered yourself completely (in all your brokenness and insufficiency) and found that you were received and you were a blessing to someone who needed you?

To become a blessing is to be doubly blessed.

Reflection on Abram, Vulnerability & Blessing II

“I will bless those who bless you…”  -Genesis 12:3

 

           Here is the other thing that I was thinking about in relation to this reading –to this verse in particular— what if it isn’t simply descriptive of how Abram became a blessing to the world –by leaving the security and safety of his homeland and his father’s house and going to a foreign land—but what if it was also instructive of how someone we turn someone from a curse to a blessing in our own life? Of course, it could certainly be both and most probably even more than that (i.e. the four-fold reading method), but with my own prejudices (or predilections) I tend to look for the paradox or the strangeness in a passage; that is the element that tends to call out to me and so I stumbled over the blessing of vulnerability in my first approach to Abram’s call.  But, ruminating over the passage I kept hearing this little piece echoing over and over again in my soul. And so, after a day or so, I began to contemplate whether the talk of blessing might also apply to how we look at others, how we treat them, how we transform we feel toward them. 

            And this all came into my heart as I was falling into a moment of personal failing and –if not sin, then a very near occasion of; I was doing something very much like gossip.  I was talking about someone who had been hurtful toward me. A person who frightened me even. It all started with me telling a friend why I wouldn’t be part of an event, and by way of explanation I brought up the event that caused me such pain and my need to avoid a particular person.  And if I had stopped there, my words might have simply been informative.  But, I began to elaborate on what happened and my own hurt feelings, and I began to speculate about this person and to shape my story to make myself the innocent victim and this other person a mean-spirited bully. 

            And then suddenly I stopped. Cut myself off. Sitting there, in that classroom, talking with a friend, I heard God’s words echo in my head: “I will bless those who bless you…” and I thought –What am I doing? I’m not blessing her; I’m cursing this person; therefore, I am cursing myself.

            It was probably that precise moment when I realized that this was not simply a description of Abram’s call to go become vulnerable, but also an instruction for how we are called to treat others.

I will bless those who bless you.

I began to suspect that this wasn’t JUST directed to Abram of Ur in 2000 BC. I began to suspect that, like most of the rest of the Bible, it contained a truth that was meant for me as well.  And I began to suspect that it had something to do with turning my heart around; with how to turn what seems like a curse into a blessing. 

I will bless those who bless you.

If this wasn’t just directed Abram of Ur, then it probably wasn’t just directed to me either. Maybe I needed to look at it from a different point of view. Step out of the middle of the “you-ness” of the statement and consider it from the other side. From this other vantage point I’m not simply the one being blessed or cursed, but I’m also the one doing the blessing and the cursing.  And reading it thus, I realized: God blesses me –when I bless others.  I don’t mean as a reward, I mean that the supernatural consequence of blessing another is to be blessed. The supernatural result of cursing someone is to be cursed.   

            For me the message was clear: Having a difficult time with someone? Stop talking about it and start blessing them.