Perspective: A Life, Unearthed

Disclaimer: I am, by no means, an expert in living out the advice I give in this article. This message is as much for me as it is for anyone else.
I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

A Life, Unearthed

Scripture:

God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled.

2 Timothy 1:7 (CEB)

What good is chance not taken?
What good is life not living?
What good is love not given?

Here goes nothing
Here goes everything
Gotta reach for something
Or you'll fall for anything
Take a breath; take a step
What comes next, God only knows
But here goes!

From "Here Goes" by Bebo Norman

Jesus once told a parable about a rich man who entrusted his investments to three of his servants. To one, he gave the sum of five talents; to another, he gave two talents; and, to the third, he gave one talent.¹ The first two servants were bold: they invested aggressively and doubled the money entrusted to them. The third servant was afraid of what would happen if he were unsuccessful, so he played it safe and buried the money he was given. The rich man was very happy with the success of the first two servants, so he rewarded them. With the overly cautious servant, on the other hand, the man was quite angry.²

The "Parable of the Talents" is a call for us to faithfully use the things that God has given us. Typically we associate the "talents" in the story with the resources God has entrusted to us: our spiritual gifts, our abilities, our time, and our money, to name a few.³ The more I think about this story and the more I think about life in general, the more I see that this parable is also a call to boldness.

What if the "talents" in the story are not just our gifts and our resources, but something a lot more personal? What if the third servant, in burying his talent, was actually burying himself? Perhaps Jesus is warning us against burying the very things that make us who we are:

our hopes,

our dreams,

our desires,

our passion,

our creativity,

our love,

our calling.

Maybe we bury our "talents" when we work for decades at jobs we hate. Maybe we bury our "talents" by not pursuing a relationship with someone we care about. Maybe we bury our "talents" by living lives devoid of passion, purpose, and drive. Maybe we bury our "talents" by not reaching out to others. Maybe we bury our "talents" when we don't express ourselves because we fear the disapproval of others. Maybe we bury our "talents" when we never leave our comfort zones. Maybe we bury our "talents" when we don't follow our hearts but instead live our lives in a meaningless rut, all in the name of security, practicality, and realism.

God's desire for us is that we live life to the fullest.⁴ How often do we find ourselves spending day after day doing business as usual, all while feeling a sense of restlessness deep within our hearts? How often do we bury our hopes, our passions, and our souls beneath a mountain of fears, doubts, and excuses? How often do we content ourselves with dreaming of a purposeful and meaningful life and settle for mere existence? We all have dreams and desires, but they will never come true unless the dreamer within us awakens and pursues them, working to make them a reality.

Often Christians speak of dying to self and of being a living sacrifice. While it is true that not all desires are good and that some dreams are best not chased, I believe that some dreams and some desires are given to us by God. To bury such things would be to bury our calling, to bury the person who God created us to be. It takes wisdom to discern which dreams are God-given and which dreams are nothing but sandcastles. Thus, it is important for us to boldly ask God for direction in life.⁵

The servant in Christ's parable was afraid of what would happen if he made an investment and lost money. He thought it better to play it safe and to do nothing. Ironically, the rich man would have probably been happier with the servant if he had invested the money and lost every penny. At least he could have said that he tried, and he would have been wiser for the wear. If this were the case, judging from Christ's other parables and teachings, the servant would have probably begged for mercy, and the rich man would have given him a second chance.

Perhaps, like the servant, we fear failure. It is important for us to remember that God forgives failure. I am not advocating recklessness, but we should not be afraid to fail, because each failure gives us an opportunity to learn from it and to grow. Our God is a God of second chances. The fearful servant, though, had no second chance. After all, each of us has only one life to live (or not to live).

Maybe it is not failure that we fear, but the disapproval of others. There are nearly seven billion people on this planet, and it is impossible to please all of them. Ultimately we have no control over people's reactions to what we say or do. Maybe we fear conflict. Though we should always try to be considerate of others, we can end up stepping on people's toes even when we do nothing wrong. It is important for us to learn how to handle conflicts with grace and maturity.

Maybe we bury ourselves under excuses because we doubt ourselves or feel inadequate to achieve our dreams. Maybe our motto is "if only." "If only I were smarter." "If only I were more talented." "If only I were more like this person or that person." "If only I were better looking." "If only I had a better personality." "If only I had more money." "If only I were younger." We have no reason to make such excuses. As a friend recently reminded me, if God puts a dream in our hearts, He will also give us the means to make the dream come true. It has been said that "God does not call the equipped; He equips the called."

The rich man in the story told the fearful servant that, if he was too afraid to do anything else, he should have put the money in the bank because then at least he would have gotten some interest. The lesson we can take from this is that God is happy with us for any progress we make, even if it is just a baby step. Any step in the right direction is better than standing still.

As a friend once told me, "Sometimes you just have to grab life by the horns." God did not create us to merely exist but to truly live. We need to stop hiding behind doubts, fears, and excuses. We need to unearth the parts of ourselves that we have buried so that we may be truly complete in who God created us to be. Don't just live...

LIVE OUT LOUD!

Notes:
1 - Average wages for 75 years, 30 years, and 15 years respectively
2 - To read the "Parable of the Talents" in its entirety, see Matthew 25:14-30.
3 - For more on that point of view, see my perspective "A 'Talent' is a Terrible Thing to Waste"
4 - "I came so that they could have life - indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest." ~ John 10:10b (CEB)
5 - "But anyone who needs wisdom should ask God, whose very nature is to give to everyone without a second thought, without keeping score. Wisdom will certainly be given to those who ask." ~ James 1:5 (CEB)


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.

Introspection: What Forgiveness Means to Me

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.


What Forgiveness Means to Me

Scripture:

This is how I want you to conduct yourself in these matters. If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.

Matthew 5:23-24 (The Message)

I have seen the healing hand of God
Reaching out and mending broken hearts
Taste and see the fullness of His peace
And hold on to what's being held out
The healing hand of God

From "The Healing Hand of God" by Jeremy Camp

Last year, I wrote an article in which I admitted my difficulties forgiving other people for the things they have said or done that hurt me in the past. I lamented the fact that, though God has forgiven me for so many things, I could still hold grudges against others.¹ Looking back, I believe that a lot of my trouble was that I did not know what it truly means to forgive someone. Reflecting on the things I have learned in the past few months, I realize that my former concept of forgiveness was altogether wrong.

Back then, I thought that forgiveness meant pretending that something never happened. Back then, I had confused forgiveness with forgetfulness. So often we hear the words "Forgive and forget." It sounds as though it should be simple enough, but in some cases it is much easier said than done. I am not talking about instances when someone cuts us off in traffic or when someone borrows something and neglects to return it. These things actually are forgettable. Sometimes, though, people say and do things that hurt us deeply, and getting over these things is a lot more difficult.

To truly leave the past in the past and to be reconciled with those who have hurt me, I needed to learn what forgiveness really means.

Forgiveness is not simply pretending that something never happened. When we try to pretend that someone never hurt us, we are not properly working through the pain that the person caused us. We are not forgiving the person at all. Instead, we only cover up our feelings. Though unacknowledged, these feelings become infected, changing us from human beings into toxic, tangled masses of pain, anger, bitterness, and even hatred. Instead of letting go of the things that hurt us, we make them a permanent part of ourselves.

Sometimes forgiveness looks nothing at all like forgetfulness. In fact, sometimes it is quite the opposite. Forgiveness actually requires us to dredge up the hidden pain of the past so that we can deal with it properly. Forgiveness means digging beneath the hard outer layer of bitterness and confronting the feelings that have been covered up for so long. It means bringing these things to the surface so that healing can begin.

Forgiveness requires that we admit that someone has hurt us. Pain caused by others, particularly when we are young, can profoundly affect who we are and who we become if it is not dealt with. Sometimes forgiveness even requires us to confront those who caused us pain. When one does so and when the offender is willing to listen, the doors to reconciliation are opened. One may even come to better understand the offender and to realize that the two are not so different.

Forgiveness requires us to be honest enough to admit when someone's actions have made us angry. Forgiveness means allowing ourselves to experience the anger in the moment so that it does not have the chance to fester into bitterness or hatred. St. Paul once wrote "Be angry without sinning. Don’t let the sun set on your anger."² Paul realized the dangers of unresolved anger. Perhaps you believe that anger is wrong. The truth is that it does not even matter whether or not anger is a sin. If you are angry, hiding your anger or condemning yourself will not make it go away. When we do not acknowledge our anger and fail to work through it, we hold on to what has angered us, and we do not forgive.

Forgiveness requires that we acknowledge that others have hurt us, but it does not mean that we assign blame. Forgiving is sometimes compared to canceling a person's debt.³ When we forgive someone, we no longer hold the person responsible for undoing the damage caused, and we no longer expect the person to pay for the transgression. When we forgive, we no longer use the offender as a crutch, blaming the person for everything that has gone wrong in our lives.

Forgiveness requires us to admit and to experience the pain and the anger that someone has caused us, but it requires another step. Forgiveness means moving past the pain and the anger: it means healing. This is not something that we can do by ourselves: we need the grace of God. Recently, a friend pointed out to me the healing power of God's grace. He told me that the human body cannot heal scar tissue, but God can heal the scars on our hearts. God's grace often comes to us through other people, so we should be willing to ask others for help as we seek healing.

Sometimes forgiveness requires us to be mature enough to accept responsibility when necessary. A friend of mine once pointed out to me something I should have done for someone else. I became angry with him and proceeded to give him a piece of my mind. The truth is that I was not angry with him because of his criticism: I was angry with him because he was right. In this case, forgiving him meant apologizing to him.

This is what forgiveness means to me. I have stories to go along with each of these points, but they are too personal for me to include in this article. It has been said that forgiveness helps the one forgiving more than the one being forgiven. Now I am seeing the truth in this. I had destroyed myself on the inside because of things that happened in the past. God, in His graciousness, put me back together again, reconciling me to others and to myself. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a normal human being.


Notes:
1 - See my introspection "Excess Baggage"
2 - Ephesians 4:26 (CEB)
3 - David A. Seamands. Healing for Damaged Emotions. 1981, David C. Cook. Chapter 2.


If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.