Descent to Rock Bottom

Posted on by bcp1662

Addicts and those who try to help them acknowledge the need to “hit bottom” before recovery can begin.

Do things really have to get worse before they can get better? Or is this just a coping mechanism, to prepare ourselves in case things do get worse. (“But, please God, don’t let them.”)

It is painful to watch a loved one go deeper into dysfunction and pain. Naturally we try stop or slow the descent. Love demands it! But hoping we can buy them a little time to come to their senses, we end up supporting otherwise unsustainable behavior and soothing painful consequences, thereby sabotaging any motivation for change.

The Enemy is the Master Enabler. He and his helpers do everything in their power to soften the consequences of sin. They teach us how to quiet our consciences and blame the pain of natural consequences on others. There are always sympathetic ears to reassure us that we are “good people” and that none of it is not our fault.

The 12-step process begins with a heart-felt confession that “our lives have become unmanageable” and so we recognize and cry out for the help of God, a.k.a. “a higher power.” If this is sound, then the sooner a person’s life becomes unmanageable, and the pain unbearable, the better. It is hard to wish this on anyone, much harder to pray for it.

Most of us have learned to manage our pain. We live with a low-grade fever. It’s not so bad, really. Others have it worse. It’s certainly than better than the alternative. Until the pain of status quo exceeds that pain of change, we will keep on coping.

Betting Our Obedience

Posted on by bcp1662

Eugene Peterson took the title of his book, “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction” from this statement by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: The essential thing in heaven and earth is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction…

You can see why a pastor/author might be attracted to the phrase as a call to discipleship.

What we do every day forms us far more than great events. Events, even traumas, are momentary. The enduring impact comes from how we remember and ruminate in the days, stretching to months and years that follow.

”Sow a thought, reap and action; sow and action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”

”Sow an obedience….”

What have I been “obeying” for a “long” time?

We learn things through long obediences that others cannot know.

A man who keeps his marriage vows for 30 years knows something that a philander cannot. Both are obeying something, and learning something.

Likewise, a life-time alcoholic and the teetotaler.

Young people who nurtured their walk with Jesus Christ through their 20s know things at 30 that their worldly peers do not.

We only get our 20s, or 30s, or 40s once. At 60 we can (and often do) attempt what we wished we had done in those earlier years, but of course it is not the same. We aren’t the same. Nothing is.

There are also those precious first-time, one-time, only-time experiences that can never be repeated.

What we learn from experience (often we say, “the hard way”) seems to go deeper and last longer than what we learn by observation or hearsay. Mortality sets a hard limits to experiential learning. So do the boundaries of space and time; I can only be in one place, doing one thing at any one time. Second-hand knowledge is seemingly infinite in our Information Age.

The old beer commercial was right when it said, “You only go around once.”

Experience yields a kind of confidence. But who can isolate the defining variables in even the most straight-forward “I did X and Y happened and now I know Z with more confidence than I would have otherwise if I hadn’t tried it for myself.”

But even doers have their doubts. Was Robert Frost being ironic, even cynical, when he said that “taking the road less travelled by” had “made all the difference”? Really? Or is this just something we tell ourselves? How can we know?

Still, we think, we decide, we act — not necessarily in that order. We obey and disobey. We observe. We imagine that we learn.

Lately I have been conducting some experiments with shorter one-year “obediences” in the same direction. On my birthday I committed to reading through the New Testament every month for a year. I can tell you what it feels like at this point. That’s about all. I’ll be able to tell you more next November. You might be able to tell me something.

I am also experimenting with 30-day obediences.

People often say that they tried this or that and it didn’t work. Yes, but how long did they try it? And what do you mean by “work”?

I’m not the first person to think that “obediences” of any duration are like bets. See “Pascall’s Wager.” But unlike everyday bets some “obediences” pay off long after they are placed, and sometimes only in eternity.