Thoughts Outloud

What was it that CS Lewis said? Pain is God's megaphone to the human race? That is so true, but God does not use simple pain to make us hear; it's through disturbing our well-fashioned self-assurances that God directs us onward. Every jolt and defeat on the roads we try to walk on our own bring us closer to that surrender of self that sets us on the freshly laid yet well planned path the Lord has for us. An easy life is no blessing, for truly living is about standing, walking, pushing forward desperately and defiantly; in defiance not to God's sovereign Good Will, but to our own independence. A life with no crisis is a novel with no climax, a story without a point. Our childhoods are often carefree; or at least, that is the ideal that is all too often unmet in these days. It is typically in adolescence that we seek to break free and 'define' ourselves, though it seems that usually we only end up fitting more readily into the mold that society shapes for us. But somewhere along the way, we hopefully come to a point where our resources are not enough, our assumptions about the world and ultimately ourselves fall short, a valley where we forget or cast aside our identity. Maybe we lose that identity, so that we can find it again in Christ, but key is the fact that we are no longer sure who we are. It is an uncomplicated affair to then bolster our confidence with other believers, to let them tell us who we are. With those who are naturally prone to rely heavily upon others, this is done without much hesitation. Those who can't escape the notion that they knew themselves at a young age as individuals, though, sometimes have a lingering doubt as to what is expected of them. Does growing closer to God mean becoming an image of other Christians? Does crucifying yourself with Christ mean losing the kid in you that dreamed? Such questions can plague the mind that wants to seek after the Lord, that wants to know Him, but is besieged by the un-reconciled thought that he can do this best in the guise God fashioned for him in his innocent childhood. Are his dreams and passions, lost somewhere in the unapproachable battlefield of his half-hearted struggle for maturity, included in the beckoning call, "When you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you?"

Some acquired habits and characteristics obviously need casting aside for a boy to become a man after God's own heart. The character flaws, of course, are readily pointed to as unwelcome. But when a boy makes a monument to his own integrity, that too has to be abandoned. The pride deeply engrained in his sense of honesty, honor, courage, trustworthiness, it is still pride--the most dangerous kind, perhaps. It deceives him as to his own independence, blinds him to his essential need for others. Not only a need for God, though that is paramount, but he has also to accept a reliance on others, let it humble him, and eventually come to embrace that reliance. I've heard it said that love isn't about needing people, but that can't be true. We need God, and love Him. We need others, and so we can love them, too. God certainly doesn't need us, strictly, but His love for us does create a certain desperation for our fellowship, a need that was highlighted sublimely by His Son's Death.

And so, difficulties, defeats, disappointments, and even disasters in our life break down the walls of our fortress of security and self-reliance. Situations that bring us to the point of total loss, even after our salvation, are not necessarily trials; they can be God's desperate attempt to guide us away from the harmful obsolete habits of our old nature. Habits of turning inward, not upward. Habits of shutting down our hearts, rather than bleeding them out before the Father. Habits of thinking our own strength is enough. And yet, all that said there is still, I believe, a need to recapture something of the child in us. Not in the obvious way of coming to the Lord as a child; I think that has to do with childlike trust and an uncomplicated viewpoint. I mean recapturing the vision of who we wanted to be as children, and not the vision influenced by worldliness and culture, but the one that came from Deep Within. The man glimpsed half-knowingly in that best sort of dream, and the man undeveloped that yearned to be the heroes and adventurers in the stories that appealed for some unfathomed reason. God's call comes threaded uniquely to us, Oswald Chambers says, speaking of the private relationship between our soul and Him. That uniqueness goes beyond talents and vocation and personality. There is a unity among believers in our Spirit-encompassed rebirthed lives, but the Creator made individuals. I think, ideally, we find that perfect balance encompassing individuality and dependence. God, I must believe, wants us to experience those same dreams and passions we had as children (the true dreams, not the worldly distractions), but ever so more richly for being attached to Him.

When I reread 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' for the first time since junior high, I found a dog-eared page marking a quote that resonated strongly back then, strongly enough to cause me to fold a corner before I grew comfortable with that book-lover's guilty pleasure. It was when the children met Ramandu, and found out he was a star. Eustace pointed out that in our world, stars were huge, flaming balls of gas. I love Ramandu's response now as much as I remember loving it then: "Even in your world, my son, that is not what a star is but only what it is made of." I tend to think that the desperate, final surrender to God—that point that goes beyond casual phrases like "born again," that can happen long after salvation—the true alignment of our only hope with Him, this reveals what we are made of. Perhaps it remakes us after a manner, for of course we are new creatures in Christ. But after that spiritual high point—sometimes paired with an emotional low point—there is still a search to discover what we are.
I can think of no clear Scripture to support or disprove this idea, honestly I'm not trying too hard to, but I think that there are hints in our childhood of what we are meant to become. This is no imperative to recapture the essence of our innocence; still, I think it brings joy to God's heart when we reconcile the little kid that dreamt of an unimpeachable honor, and the man who confronts the reality that he is less worthy than the worst fairy tale villain without the Light of this world. The first step in that reconciliation, that catharsis of sorts, is the acceptance that God was in complete and loving control at the season of his breaking. The man must abandon the bitterness that accompanies the awareness of his own insufficiency, and relish the All-inclusive Sufficiency of the Cross. He must not trod forward with forlorn resignation, but spring after the certain hope of marching from victory to victory with joy, peace, love, and all that good stuff. Utterly important, though, is that he avoid simply recapturing the status quo of his childhood. We are not made for nostalgia. But to regain those characteristics that were unwillingly torn away to make us fit for crucifixion, the ones that spark humble, honest flames within us, this is good. God may have torn down the walls of our pride when we refused Him entry to our inner sanctum, but those same walls newly fashioned can become the expression of His dwelling place in our hearts. We must enjoy Him having the key to our hearts; more than that, he has utter possession of our hearts, which only find life through His Death. However, the Father Creator knit us together a certain way, and I believe He wants to decorate His dwelling as a grace-centered image of His original blueprint. So dream old dreams, do not shy away from the unchecked passion of a child's pure heart, and live as you are meant to live.