God is teaching me something, but I’m usually not in the mood for learning when he’s teaching. I like learning but don’t like learning the lessons God wants to teach me. So, this teacher/student relationship has a bit of friction. When the student whines too much about the lesson being taught, the learning process becomes constipated. I tend to think God should be spending more time teaching other students because I do not need any more learning from where I’m standing. When I think about it, I’m a pretty good guy. A little better than a few other guys I know. And, of course, I work with rapists, murderers, and child molesters 40 hours a week, so I think I’m a WHOLE lot better than a bunch of guys I know.
But am I really? Am I better than anyone? Isn’t my sin just as sinful as anyone else? Don’t I have more in common with prisoners than with saints? Isn’t the ground level at the foot of the cross?
It’s hard to learn when you are as proud as I am. Actually, it’s impossible to learn when you are proud. Excuse me… when I am pleased. And I am proud.
I prefer Jesus come to me in the form of text messages on my cell phone like, “Hey Andy, a little less eating after 8:00 pm. Remember, we talked about this already,” or “Hey Andy, I want you to call that one guy I was telling you about. He’s available between 7:30 and 8:00 tonight. Make sure you mention his daughter’s volleyball game. He’s really proud of her.” But Jesus doesn’t seem interested in teaching these “convenient” and “clear” methods. Instead, he took my wife and waited for me to come to him for the answers. Is that even fair?
It seems God is more interested in my character development than my comfort.
The truth is God doesn’t need to change. I do. He’s not the problem, I am. And, unless I am humble, I won’t learn anything.
But if I am humble….
I tend to be a self-centered follower of God. I usually can’t feel his tap on my shoulder because I have much better things to do with my attention (nothing comes to mind as I write this, but it seems sure it seems like there are lots of important mind-distracting items that float around my cortex). Jesus never shouts. He never demands. He can do anything, but it seems one thing he doesn’t do is say, “I told you so,” even though he has every right to do so.
Instead, he keeps tapping on my shoulder. They are light taps, like leaves falling on me. It’s easy for me to ignore the taps, though. I guess if I’m not paying attention, I never even notice them. But when I do, all kinds of things happen. He has lots of things to tell me. He doesn’t pout when we don’t listen to him. He doesn’t try to get even or “make me pay” for ignoring him. He’s just there, waiting for me to turn around. And for reasons I’ll never fully understand, he’s always gracious.
Listening to Jesus is, and always will be an option. I have the choice to listen or to be distracted. I think this is a constant for all humans. I don’t usually trust him enough to give him my full attention. He doesn’t stop me from sinning. He cries with me and laughs with me. He didn’t stop me from marrying my first wife, something everyone I knew tried to do. I married her, and she left nine months later, getting pregnant by some other guy. God never came to me and said, “What the crap were you thinking?” He has the right to do this (I would have), but God doesn’t do that kind of thing. He’s always gracious. He invites. He extends an open hand to me.
You can’t get a better God than the one I have. If you follow Jesus, you are a blessed man or woman.
God has been teaching me a lot over the last 18 weeks. Some of these lessons were sweet, while others were so painful that I had to redefine my painful scale. But he was always kind.
I’ve been hosting a men’s breakfast for the last year at my church (2nd Saturday of the month). So many of these good men asked me the same question: “Andy, how are you doing?” I compiled a list of things I’m learning. It’s a list of what God’s doing inside of me. Writing them out helps me with clarity as well. It’s easy to forget lessons unless you make a hard copy of them.
Below is a list of 19 things I’m learning in the present tense. Some lessons I learned years ago (but conveniently forgot), while others are things I think about every day.
I want to start this list with my “grief verse,” the verse my mentor gave to me the day after Deb died. It’s precious to me, so I hold it close, kind of like a blankie.
“After you have suffered a little while, our God, who is full of kindness through Christ, will give you his eternal glory. He personally will come and pick you up, and set you firmly in place, and make you stronger than ever.” 1 Peter 5:10 (TLB)
It’s hard to read this promise, especially the first part, “After you have suffered a little while…” Every experience in my life fits into the phrase “a little while.” I think this puts grief into its proper perspective.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
- To succeed in life, I need 1) the Word of God, 2) the Spirit of God, and 3) the people of God. Related to this, I need to learn how to listen to him through these three vehicles of grace. God is speaking through His Word, his Spirit, and his people. I need to ask myself two questions: “What is he saying?” and “Am I listening?”
- “It’s not about me” – “The Purpose Driven Life” opens with these powerful four words. God put suffering in my path to remind me that life is not about me. My mission is not my happiness (even though I live like it is). It’s not my relief. It’s about Jesus and how well I’m trusting him now. This is good news because I’d self-destruct if my life were about me. Healing occurs when I recalibrate my priorities and trust he has a better plan for me than I do.
- I have no control – Instead of increasing pressure to control others (outside of myself), I’m learning to rest in God (on the inside). This is the real battle.
- Life is short; eternity is long – Focus on the long game. Death can happen at any moment.
- I am rich—there are no qualifiers to this statement. Deb’s death shaped my priorities. I have more than I’ll ever need and everything I want. And more importantly, I have great friends. Life is more about friends than I realized. A man with good friends is rich.
- Grief is physical – My body is impacted by mourning. I’m tired; I have awful headaches, lots of stomach pain, chest pain, constipation, and occasional full-body symptoms that look like I have the flu (only it’s not the flu). This was the most surprising of all the things that have happened to me.
- I have little control of my emotions – Powerful waves of grief wash over me at unsuspecting times. And I have little control over when these events happen. Instead of pushing back on these waves, I am learning to let them wash over me.
- Crying is healing – I don’t like to cry, but I’m learning. Learning, by definition, means I’m not doing it right and have to learn how to do it correctly. I don’t want to learn this lesson, but God keeps teaching it.
- Happiness is a choice – Choosing to be satisfied frees me from defining myself as “someone who lost his wife,” to “someone who is chosen of God.” The first phrase is “what I don’t have,” and the second is “who I am.”
- I need people—I am a “Yesman.” Learning to accept love from others in the form of meals, phone calls, and prayers has been wonderful—just wonderful. I feel silly I wasn’t doing this all along.
- Surrender—Surrendering during grief is like surrendering any other time; it’s an adjustment of my priorities (how I use my time) and attitude (thankfulness). Surrender and worship overlap so much that I don’t know where one ends and the other begins. I think we should call it “Sunday Morning Surrender” instead of “Sunday Morning Worship.”
- Love has a price – C.S. Lewis said it best in this wonderful quote; “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
- Deb’s death did not end our relationship; it only changed it – I’m still in love with her. I wish she were here. I miss her badly. But I’ll never hold her until after I die. Death did not stop the love; it only changed it.
- I need to be conscious of how I find relief – My struggle for relief is my struggle in life. Addictions come from a misguided attempt to find relief. The greater the stress, the more intense the desire to find relief. I need to be pure, or I will fall into a black hole of misery and never find my way out. My actions have weight. Purity must be a priority, or I will lose myself.
- I have hope – I have a Savior. I have a God. I have someone who is making sense of my pain. He’s giving me a purpose for it. He defines the pain I’ve had and clarifies the pain I will have. Life makes sense with Jesus. Death is not an accident; it’s part of a plan that I can’t see. Tim Keller said, “Our hope in God enormously impacts how we face and process suffering, disappointment, difficulty, and troubles. The Christian life is uniquely shaped by hope.”
- Grief has three states (chaos, stability, and growth). These states move fluidly back and forth throughout the day, sometimes on purpose (growth) and sometimes by accident (chaos). I have little control over feelings (chaos), but I do have control over how I view the chaos.
Chaos – Grief always begins with chaos. It’s the overwhelming pain of loss that instinctively causes me to attempt to minimize the pain through denial or addiction. It’s a state of confusion with complete loss of control. It’s terrifying. For me to make it through chaos, I need a group of widowers surrounding me, helping me see what I can’t see, reminding me of the truth, and telling me that it won’t always be like this. They remind me who God is and who I am.
Stability—Getting back to work is an important piece of healing. Work is part of life; if I don’t work, I’m living half a life. I must learn to pay bills, do laundry, make meals, and sleep alone in an uncomfortably quiet house. I need to practice ownership over my problems. I don’t think life can continue until I begin functioning again.
Growth—Grief is a gift that will crush me or, if I surrender it to Jesus, expand my world in ways beyond my imagination. When I rest in God, I find I can do much more than I ever thought I could. With purpose comes motivation, and motivation changes people. God is doing something with my future. And when I think about this, I get excited because he’s on my side.
- The importance of walking – I’ve never walked this much in my life. Walking has become my “safe place.” I walk around the graveyard behind my house, so much so that I’m afraid someone will call the cops. Walking allows me to take in the beauty around me, pray, grapple with my losses, and think about things to write about. It’s my way of processing life. It’s good for me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s how I heal. John Eldredge said beauty is “redeeming,” a powerful word. I redeem my heart when I walk, smell, feel, hear, and touch the world around me. It reminds me I’m alive.
- Grief, like suffering, reveals who I am – I am reaping what I’ve sown for the past 59 years.
- Practicing thankfulness changes me—“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6 (NIV). After Deb died, I found a notebook in which she had written many verses. She hand-wrote this verse, with “with thanksgiving” underlined. I knew God was speaking to me through her handwriting when I saw it. I need to be thankful if I will make it through this thing.