The Incomparable Pleasure of a Broken Heart

When we speak of a person’s heart being ‘broken’, we usually mean that she was dealt such a blow that either her joy of living or her will to go on living is shaken, if not extinguished altogether. Yet, Scripture tells us that “a broken heart” or a “broken spirit” is God’s favorite sacrifice.

Maybe I’m not using the terminology properly. What I mean is this:

I had always thought that I had given my “heart” (read “soul”) to Christ. I had supposed that, because I truly wanted to change and become conformed to whatever He wanted me to be, I was “yielded and still” before Him. Apparently, I wasn’t.

Each time I came to His altar, I prayed the sinner’s prayer and recommitted my life to Him. Each time I would return to my seat, I would feel as though “now, finally, I’ve sloughed off that burden! Now I can live for Him in power and glory! Now victory and triumph will shine from my life!”

What I was really saying/doing was this: “Now all of those people who thought I wasn’t spiritual enough or holy enough will see! Now the power of the Holy Ghost will shine in my life and I’ll get some respect!” I wanted my natural gifts and inclinations to be redeemed so that I could accomplish something worthwhile for the Kingdom without having to die to them. I wanted God to glorify me when it was my task to glorify Him!

When I would go to the altar, I would always come away feeling as though I had laid my burden down and given my life to Jesus. In fact, each time I did yield another piece of my heart. However, that is not what was wanted nor did it ever bring the desired result. The funny thing is that I knew all along what was required: I even wrote it into a number of songs: “He wants all my heart”.

Until a penitent actually believes that his life, such as it is, is WORTHLESS; that there is NOTHING of that old life—not one’s intellect, not one’s library, not one’s tool crib, not one’s wardrobe, not one’s circle of friends, not one’s family, not one’s education, not one’s physical appearance, not one’s physical strength, not one’s singing voice, not one’s facility with language—that can be redeemed, s/he will not truly repent. That is, s/he will not TURN COMPLETELY AWAY from that old life AND WALK IN NEWNESS of life. Until a sinner realizes that s/he is a sinner—as bad a sinner as has ever existed—s/he will not turn away from his or her former life and walk in newness of life. S/He will try endlessly to drag that ugly, stinking, cut-off-from-God, shell-of-a-life s/he’s been “living” to the Lord’s cross—not to crucify it but in hopes that it can be healed.

What I mean in this context by “a broken heart” is a soul that finally “gets” the idea that what passed for “life” in its former existence is merely a fake. That REAL LIFE CONSISTS OF WALKING AWAY FROM YOUR SELF AND BECOMING A VESSEL FOR THE HOLY GHOST. No longer do your POLITICAL BELIEFS matter; no longer do your SOCIAL AGENDAS matter; no longer do your PERCEIVED SLIGHTS matter; no longer does the COLOR OR YOUR SKIN matter; no longer does WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING matter; no longer does WHO YOU LIVE WITH matter. When you are filled with the Holy Ghost and completely yielded to Him as a vessel for Him to wander the earth in, ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT YOU DON’T EMBARRASS HIM BY GETTING IN THE WAY OF HIS MINISTRY!!

For Christ, Who is God, holiness is a state of being. For the rest of us, sanctification is a process. As we grow in His image, we become gradually less selfish and more Christian. It has been said that "we grow in His image by suffering tribulation". It certainly makes sense that we would do so when one considers that the reason He "came into the world" was to suffer the death we would otherwise have endured. What, therefore, we have called "reality" and "life" are neither. They are instead the death that God said we would "surely die" if our forebears ate of the knowledge of good and evil. When the serpent said, "Did God truly say..." and "You shall not surely die...", he was in essence saying "That depends on what your definition of the word 'die' is." No, Adam and Eve were not brain dead within twenty-four hours. However, the certainty of their eventual deaths was sealed the instant that they disobeyed. They were holy; they fell from holiness and perfection; they were damned to corruption and death. By the process of Christosis and sanctification, we who are dead can be made alive. We who are disintegrated selves can be transformed into members of Christ and of one another.

Only when our hearts are broken can we die to selfhood and be made alive as members of Christ's mystical body. Only when we partake of His suffering can we become fully what He is. Since He is Joy, Life, Love, Truth and Peace, if we would be partakers in these things we must suffer what He has suffered and die as He died. Then, raised with Him, we will experience the incomparable joy of having our souls grafted to His--the ultimate source of every blessing.

A Christian Faith

1. Then חןחי created Man in His image; male and female created He them.
2. Your Father in Heaven is holy so you should be holy.
3. Christ is the visible manifestation of the invisible God.
4. If you faith, whatever you ask in My name will be done.

Our Creator called us into existence as a perfect reflection of Himself. We have flourished as an imperfect, often disastrously flawed, one. Sacrificing His one perfect Son, He provided the means for us to be restored to perfection. Faith is imitating Christ Jesus, the Son of God. The more closely we reproduce the Son of Man in our lives, the greater is our faith. When we behave as he behaved, speak as he spoke, relate to others as he related to others, we glorify our Father—His Father—in Heaven.

The fallen, human nature that we have detracts from the faithfulness of the likeness we project. To the extent that we manifest that (fallen) nature, we are each a “self”. To the extent that we manifest Christ Jesus, we are each a “Christling”. The tendency of a Man or a Woman to manifest “self” is called “selfishness” while the tendency to manifest Christ is called “Christianity”.

The Church is a community of Christlings, called together to support one another in Faith. Its commission is to assemble its members into a mirror and hold that mirror up to the world. Not that the world will be mirrored in the mirror but that the Son will be revealed through it. Should the world detect a flaw in the mirror’s image, it need only supply the missing pixels to mend the flaw. Similarly, it is not the mirror’s purpose to judge either its members or the world. Rather, each member that perceives an imperfection in the image borne by the Church of the God that created it need only contribute a more faithful rendering of his or her own pixel. And so shall God be manifest in His Church.

I long for a fellowship that worships in this way: no “leaders” or “clergy”; only members of a mystical body. Instead of a few so-called “elders” (many of whom are younger than those they supposedly serve) displayed on a dais for the perusal of a multitude of “congregants” (other, essentially nondescript people) arranged in pews or rows of chairs, I long for a circular sanctuary in which each member faces each other and follows the example of the Head Member. As Christ Jesus trained his Twelve to replace him after his ascent into Heaven, so this Head Member should train his own flock to replace himself or herself.

If we are truly of one birth, no longer male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, it should not matter whether the Head Member is a Man or a Woman. Indeed, if we are all dead in our sins—having been made alive only by our assembly into the body of Christ—it should not matter that one is a thief while another is a murderer and yet another is an adulterer. Yet, it is commonplace in the “Church” of today for some sinners to imagine themselves as somehow less abominable than are other sinners. Those who hate or lie think of themselves as somehow less reprehensible than are those who fornicate or steal. This is ridiculous. If any are to be despised, all should be despised alike; similarly, if any are to be forgiven, all should be forgiven alike. The Head Member, therefore, should be the Man or Woman—whether Jew or Greek, slave or freeman, gay or straight—who most faithfully manifests the glory of the Creator. All other members should be of equal rank and equally authorized to minister to one another or to the world at large.

While all births are equal and therefore all memberships are equal, not all gifts are equal. Or, rather, while all gifts are of equal value, they are not all of similar nature. Therefore, the particular role any individual member plays in the Body depends upon what his or her particular gifts are. One may be an exceptional communicator while another is a particularly helpful servant. Yet another may be a gifted artist while another is an accomplished singer. The contribution of the younger members—or those whose gifts have not yet been tested in the world—should not be despised, however. They should be encouraged to serve in those areas that interest them. If, in the fullness of time, they should prove unequal to their areas of interest but worthy of another station, they should be encouraged—but never coerced—to serve elsewhere.

To be continued....

On Self Actualization

I began writing this as a diary entry. I try to write a few hours a day, just to "keep my hand in" as they say. Sometimes, a paragraph or a phrase written at such a time will find its way into an entirely different context and emerge as part of an essay, story or novel. What I'm wondering now is, if my "true" self never died on Jesus' cross, was I ever really "born from above"? Am I a real Christian or a poser pretending to be one? God warned me that this would happen...if I didn't commit to absolute honesty, I'd lose the ability to distinguish between bullshit and reality!

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I haven’t written for weeks—maybe months. I feel sort of like I’m coming off of a bender...that is, I feel sort of like how I’ve heard that coming off of a bender feels like. I’ll confess to you that I’ve never actually gotten drunk more than a handful of times in my life. When I did, it was only for a single night. Then I slept it off and was sober the following morning. No hangover or anything. Honestly, I can’t write about such things as lost weekends or hung-over holidays. I’ve never experienced them, except vicariously...through books.

Truth. I’ve spent the last several years talking and writing about it. It’s about high time that I started living it. One truth is that I’ve only been in about four bicycle races—not including time trials—in my life. Another is that I’ve only sung in front of people with a band about twenty times in my life. Yet another is that I’ve never been to Ireland. By the way I’ve been talking, one would think that I grew up on the Emerald Isle singing in pubs and racing in clubs as I went. The least comfortable truth, however, is that I need to develop as close a relationship with The Truth as I have with the pack of lies that I’ve worn as a cloak about my shoulders ever since I decided all those years ago that my real self and the real life that he lives aren’t worth knowing and that, therefore, they should be kept hidden. A much more palatable truth is that God has always preferred the real me to the fake one and that, in fact, He loves him.

The reason my real self needs to “come out” is that he has a destiny to fulfill. That destiny, which neither of us can know until we stumble upon it together, is the purpose for which God made us in the first place. Us! There I go again! There is no us! There is only me! God created me to fulfill my destiny! The point is that I can never know that destiny until I find it and I can never find it until I step out and face the world as myself.

Today in our discipleship class we discussed Abraham Maslow’s Needs Pyramid. At the pinnacle of the Pyramid is a need called “Self Actualization”. The pastor said that “Self Actualization is not our goal as Christians; Christ Actualization is.” Of course, in the final analysis, he’s right. Our ultimate goal as Christians is to actualize Christ in the world. However, actualizing our selves is an intermediate objective. That is because we cannot die to ourselves—and so be raised to Christ—until we have actually lived to ourselves. If we live lies instead of our own lives, never telling ourselves or anyone else the truth about who we are, we can only crucify the lies—which are already dead anyway—and so never actually die. Only when we own up to our true selves, living in the light as God is in the Light, can we die to our selves and be raised again as the True Selves we have been promised in Christ.

I desperately want to come out. I suppose I understand Negroes passing for white and Queers passing for straight in a straight/white-slanted world. I’m a real person passing for a fake person in a fake-slanted world. I guess I understand fat girls who try to fake out the body-conscious world by starving themselves into thinness, too. The beautiful truth is that Our Creator, Who designed each and all of us for His purpose, loves and accepts us as we truly are. As well, it is that we will find true happiness only if we shed our (behavioral) fig leaves and stand (spiritually) naked before Him and one another. For only then can each of us find the destiny that s/he was created to fulfill.

Only when I live life as my true self can I hope to discover my true passions in life. For the longest time, I’ve assumed that I want to be a vocalist. I want to sing in public. I want to write songs that “make the whole world sing”. But do I really want that? I think I do. I think I enjoy singing and racing my bike. I think I enjoy surfing on the ocean and hiking in the woods. But I can’t really be sure. For all I know, only my alter ego enjoys these things. The real me, if I ever live as him, may not enjoy them at all. Maybe, the Prophet, Teacher and Servant that surfaced during the Gifting Survey are my alter ego’s motivational gifts and not mine. Maybe, once I’ve connected with my true self, I will retake the survey and discover what my true gifts are.

Why I Write Fiction

I write fiction because I’m passionate about Truth. I’m not passionate about facts or figures; I don’t care much about dates or names. However, Truth and Fairness are two things about which I care a great deal.

You may wonder why, if I care so much about Truth, I don’t instead become a journalist or historian. After all, you may reason, fiction isn’t about reality. It’s just a lot of fanciful stories about people who never existed doing things that never happened in places that don’t exist either. You may suppose, as many do, that fiction is about as far from Truth as one can possibly get. And you’d be right, in a way. In another way, however, you’d be as wrong as wrong can be.

The fact is that people don’t like Truth. It bites. It stings. It smells like harsh criticism. It tastes like...nothing. Truth is a reality show without the show; it’s completely undressed and thus unpalatable. Dress the truth up in a tantalizing costume, though—give it some colorful makeup, a wild wig, a voluptuous voice and a hilarious history—and suddenly it is transformed into a tabloid feature story people can really sink their teeth into. Simply put, fiction makes Truth palatable to the masses.

When I become aware of something that is grossly unfair—such as one group of people being singled out for harsh treatment, ridicule or exclusion from some activity all others claim as a fundamental right—I become incensed. Perhaps it is the sting of some childhood slight that still reverberates in my adult psyche. Whatever its source, it moves me to discover the truth underlying the apparent inequity and expose it for all to see.

What I find all the more horrifying is that some people are aware of unfairness in their treatment of others but believe in what they’re doing. Then, merely exposing the truth fails to suffice. Then, it becomes necessary to shame those people by pillorying them in public and exposing them as the bigots that they are.

Sometimes, when I perceive an apparent inequity, further investigation reveals that appearance to have been deceitful. Sometimes, people’s shameful actions earn them their neighbors’ disdain. When this proves to be the case, simply sweeping my earlier suspicions under the proverbial rug is not an option. I must expose the truth as the truth, however ugly, wherever I find it.

This is why I write fiction. So people will know the truth and, having received it, embrace it and become married to it. I long for the day when Truth will be recognized for Who He Is by all who behold Him. Then, at long last, I will be able to remove my mask, stand to my full height, and walk as myself among my fellows, worshiping Him.

Knowing as I do that people find Truth unpalatable, I write stories. Dressed in flash and dazzle, He is unrecognizable; people think that He might be Indiana Jones, back for another sequel. If I call him something boring, like ‘Jesus’ or ‘Lion of Judah’, I know that few if any people will ever read what I’ve written. However, if I dress him up as a shabby professor and identify him as a werewolf, I stand a chance of revealing Him to millions of children all over the world. He will stride purposefully into their hearts and they will enthrone Him there forever.

This is my passion. This is why I write fiction.