Am I Wanted?

No one ever picked me first at game-time. As a kid, I didn't mind. But there was a particular time where the sting of getting picked last still lingers. I had played plenty of ultimate frisbee and volleyball skirmishes post-high school. We always split off by ones and twos rather than captains picking teams. But I distinctly remember a time when I wanted to go for a walk and everyone else wanted to play volleyball. We didn't have many students, so I was 'needed'—except that one or two persons made it clear that I wasn't any good. I played that day because I felt obligated, but I fought tears over not getting to do what I enjoyed, along with being made to feel incompetent and unwanted.

It is that horrible feeling of being inferior, of being on the outside, that causes so much damage in our world. "Look, God is withholding something from you. He's on the inside of this secret knowledge and you could be, too..." says the serpent to Eve. She takes the bait and bites. "You're all alone. You don't matter to anyone." The enemy whispers this lie, and too often it is answered with bullets and bloody wrists. "You aren't good enough to fit in," says the 'in' crowd. And many people make it their life's goal to become good enough to fit in—never sure if they've made it, even if they get on the inside.

Trying to fit in or accepting that you don't fit in are hard roads to walk. I know, I've tried them both. I like myself and my life better when I'm trying to be who I'm made to be (and more like Jesus)—not trying to be what someone else thinks I ought to be or wishes I were. I hate disappointing my family, friends, or my supervisor—but I don't mind not pleasing people. There's a difference. When I try to please people, to be what I think they need or want me to be, or to do what they want, I am suffocated, stressed, and annoyed with myself. When I love and respect someone, I naturally want to give to them, to build them up, to serve them well.

I am most free to grow and to love others (and to like myself) when I am not needed but I belong and am wanted.

I thought I was longing for freedom, but what I've been longing for is being wanted, not needed. To be needed means to try to fill a void for someone. To be needed means feeling obligated and duty-driven—it can be drudgery. I can try to fill the need, but after a while, I burn out. It is life-sucking to be needed. But to be wanted...that is a different story. I need to know that I didn't just waylay my neighbour on their way to do laundry; that they really wanted to talk with me for twenty minutes about books and what God is showing us both. I need to know that laundry was simply the means to a good conversation, not something more important that I kept them from. I need to hear the actions and hearts of others say:

Come inside from the cold and rest your weary soul

You belong, you are loved, you are wanted

You're not alone

I've missed you so

Welcome home¹

Don't we all need to hear that somehow? We want to be our one-of-a-kind selves—not a cookie cutter person—but also to have someone, some ones, who get us, who welcome us in—to welcome us home. The enemy lies to us and tells us we're on the outside, that we don't matter to anyone (not even God), or that we're all alone...but he's wrong. He lies. 

Home is real. Acceptance is real. Jesus invites us to belong, to rest our souls in Him. He shows us scarred hands and tells us how utterly wanted we are. And He often brings those one or two—or more!—people into our lives who don't try to make us into what they expect or want, but who encourage us to grow, to be better than we are. They love us—even when they know just what we're really like. They remind us that we fit, we belong somewhere. And we do that for someone and some ones, too.

You belong.

You are loved. 

You are wanted.

You're not alone. . . Welcome home. 

_______

1. Joy Williams / Matt Morris: "Welcome Home" lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Have You Noticed Beauty?

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. 

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have notice that many folks claim that humans are animals. After all, we are mammals and are classified as Homo sapiens in the scientific realm. But that is a mere classification. God tells is from the very beginning that humans are different than animals. We are made in the image and likeness of God. While the animals may also have been formed from the dust of the earth, it was only into man that God Himself breathed the breath of life. 

I have noticed something else: all animals eat food, but only human beings arrange food on their plates and take photos of it. Only humans stop to watch the sunrise or the moonrise for the sheer beauty of it. Only human beings write poetry or draw and paint—even from the dawn of time. When Adam first speaks of Eve, it is recorded in a couplet. When Eve is tempted by the serpent, she sees that the tree is pleasant to the eye. Perhaps it is a few readings too many of Lewis and Tolkien for me to hope that God formed and filled the world by singing the words of creation. Even if He did not, two books of His word brim with poetry and songs. 

I have noticed that on my most exhausting days of travel or work what I long for is Beauty. To watch the sun set and the stars creep into the sky, one by one and then in clusters. To read a story or a poem. To listen to an album straight through while I eat my dinner. To dance in my kitchen. To make food, yes, but also to group it by colour on my plate. To sit down—feet free of shoes—listening to the evensong of birds give way to cricket choruses. To listen to an audio book because I'm too tired to read anything beyond five lines. 

I have noticed that when I'm not reading much or stopping to enter into the Beauty I see in creation, it is then that I have no words. I cannot write. I make a poor conversant. I feel too tired for friends. I run and run, but it is more like a crawling car on petrol fumes. In short, I get crabby and withdrawn when I am not able to be immersed in Beauty in some form. Goethe explains why: there is a sense of the Beautiful which God has twined into the human soul. We are different from the animals...and the angels, and from God Himself. Yet neither animals nor angels are made in God's image, only man is. We are distinct—imaging God in our very being, in our capacity to know and appreciate Beauty, in our cultivating and stewarding whatever things God gives to us, from children and gardens, to art and music. 

I have noticed that Beauty is a gift that we get to enjoy. That we are allowed to savour the words of a poem on our tongues. That our eyes burn with the glory of a sunset or a sky on fire with meteors. That our hearts nearly burst in the highest swell of a song, either poignant or joy-filled. It is a gift to know that Beauty itself is a gift. It is a gift to know God and to be known by Him. It is Beauty that leads us to praise. Beauty is our companion to draw us into worship. It is Beauty that beckons us to enter into itself and find that we are in the courts of God. Beauty it is that leads us further up and further in.

Have you noticed?

To Be Fully Known

And I don't want the world to see me...
...I just want you to know who I am¹

Omaha, Nebraska. That paragon of culture is precisely where I spent a long weekend with friends. Now, I know that many of you will think of steak, cornfields, and farmers when you hear the word Nebraska, but there is quite a lot to that Plains State aside from plains. The highlights of my weekend were all cultural experiences: from the Joslyn Art Museum, a symphony, and a gourmet dinner, to a tea emporium, exploring the grounds of a mansion, and spending time in prayer at a beautiful Catholic edifice.

Though we spent less than an hour at the Joslyn Art Museum, it was meditative time well invested. Upon exiting the European art section, there was a small room containing a Monet painting and a small bronze statue of Auguste Rodin's Eve. Unlike many portrayals I have seen of Lady Eve, this one was not sensual nor was it sanitised. There she was, naked, with no hand covering her sexuality, no long hair hanging down to hide her womanhood; she hid only her face. Though she was bronze she was not brazen—contorted in remorse and agony for the curse she had unleashed upon mankind. When I gazed upon this mortified Eve, I saw fear and sorrow. I saw vulnerability. I saw humanity in the wake of the Fall. I saw the hope of repentance. I saw myself.

How can human hands take cold metal, making it live in ripples, effulgence, and emotion? How could the artist cast one woman who would resonate with so many of the women who gazed upon her abject form? Yet somehow, in broad strokes, Rodin made just such a woman. Eve in all her remorse and repentance was a woman—she was human. From this bitter moment of knowing sin, a veil was placed between God and man. 

From this time forth, humans began to hide—and we choose to hide behind much more than fig leaves and excuses. We hide behind our accomplishments or our identity, behind our careers, cars, or kids. We hide behind walls that we have built, brick by brick, barb by barb. We hide behind our intellect and our to-do lists, behind styles and having it all together, behind addictions and amusements—we hide because we are afraid. We are afraid that we aren't smart enough, handsome enough, or successful enough. We are afraid to let anyone see our mess, our turmoil, our uncertainties, our weaknesses and inabilities. And when our first emotion isn't fear, it is fear hidden under the guise of pride. We pride ourselves on our achievements or our brutal honesty or some other thing, in order to prove that we are enough, we are strong, we are worthy of love and acceptance, or at least of respect and awe.

What if we were like Eve, not hiding our humanity—for it is our glory, our being what we were made to be. What if we did not try even to turn our eyes away from our Maker in agony and ignominy? What if we recalled Isaiah's words, that our Maker is our Husband and that the Holy One is also our Redeemer (Isaiah 54:3)? What if He turned our faces toward Himself, sought our eyes with His, and called us His belovéd? There is no "what if?" about that—He does exactly that. From the very first He has pursued us. 

Beginning with Adam and Eve, in the cool of the evening the Lord sought them, He called out to them "where are you?" (Genesis 3:9). Adam answers the way I so often do, "...I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." (Genesis 3:10) "...I was afraid, because I was naked..." I was afraid to come to You, Lord, because You would see through my accolades, accomplishments, and intellect. I felt vulnerable and raw, so I didn't want to come before You. I have sinned and I couldn't wash it off. I want to fix myself before I come to You. Slowly, slowly I am learning that this is when He cups His hand under my chin and searches out my eyes. The searing Love in His own eyes burns away my impurities, illumines my darkness, heals my brokenness, makes me worthy. It isn't that there is no consequence for sin, there is. Yet it remains that the payment was made by the injured party. The One who covenanted with us is the One who paid the redemption price when we broke the covenant. The Holy One is our Redeemer.

Like Eve, I forget the kindness of God that leads to repentance and I can think only of His Holiness. I forget that His wrath is directed toward my sin, not my self, so I hide. I try to be fit enough, smart enough, encouraging enough, anything-else-enough-to-atone-for-myself—except being vulnerable enough, honest enough, and humble enough to come before Him. 

The irony in all my fears, in all my brokenness, is that I deeply want to be known—to have someone know me as I am and not walk away. Those great theologians, the Goo Goo Dolls, put it this way: And I don't want the world to see me/'Cause I don't think that they'd understand/When everything's made to be broken/I just want you to know who I am¹. They understand the ache of every human being, the desire to be known—but also the fear of being known. We don't want the whole world to see us as we are, just the one person who will know us for ourselves and not run away. It is a scary thing to be vulnerable with another person. What if they betray you? What if they reject you? What if they take what they know about you and use it against you? That is the risk of love. A risk we fear and long to take, all rolled together.


Love is the risk God chose to take on mankind. He chose to create Adam and Eve, though He knew the Fall would happen. He chose to love them, even though He knew they would choose not to trust Him and would break the world He entrusted to them. He chooses to love us, even though we put up walls or try to win approval rather than receiving His gifts of love, reconciliation, and redemption. He chooses to love us, even though we often snatch gifts from His hand, yet run away from Him when we don't get our way. And even when we nail Him to a cross with our manifold sins, piercing Him to His very heart, He still loves us.


Perhaps I see less of myself in Eve after all—at least she stood before her maker in all her nakedness and sorrow. I run from my Maker in those moments, or try to cover myself with the flimsy fig leaves of my accomplishments and intellect. I ache to be known, yet I fear it. I want to be naked and unashamed before my Maker rather than clothing myself in my own attempts at being "enough".

“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.²”

O my Maker-Husband, let me be content in Your Love. Let me be vulnerable enough to come before You. Make me able to know that You are enough and that You make me worthy.




_______________


1. The Goo Goo Dolls, Iris (Written by John Rzeznik, Warner Bros. 1998)

2. Lewis, C. S., Prince Caspian (Scholastic Inc., New York, 1987) 211-212

All Scripture is taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.