Fumbling Toward Holiness...

I've always liked to swim. I don't do it very often now, but, when I was younger, I would spend hours swimming back and forth in our pool. I've never been scared of the water and would jump right into the deep end, no problem.

Maybe that sounds brave and fearless.

Could be. But, I can tell you that generally there's a pretty thin line between bravery and foolishness. And I've done plenty of things that teetered rather precariously on that line. And yet, even though I know that I have this tendency towards foolishness masked as bravery, that doesn't much stop me from continuing to jump in the deep end, be it the deep end of the pool or a deep end of a more metaphorical sort.

I guess I keep doing such things because, to be honest, the fool in me is really too naive to understand the danger I might get myself into. The fool in me doesn't see impending doom. The fool in my sees only the excitement or the good that will come out of taking the risk, if the fool in me can even understand that it's a risk being taken.

I was thinking about this today, as I fumbled around in a bit of a funk, sad about everything. I won't go into detail about what all I was sad about because there were a great many things, and each of them are so large they'd necessitate a separate post, if not a collection of books.

But, anyways, I was in a funk. And I was in a funk precisely because I had jumped in the deep end.

You see, I'm usually a pretty distant person, at least emotionally speaking. I'm incredibly funny. I mean, I'm not even bragging here, people. I'm hilarious. I know this because I totally crack myself up most of the time. I say some of the funniest things to me, you wouldn't even believe. Again, that's a whole different post.

But, suffice it to say, I can communicate well with people because I'm funny. But that's often pretty much it. I mean, I'm not going to cry on your shoulder and tell you my feelings. And, for the love of all that is good in this world, I hope that you don't try to put your head on my shoulder and cry. I'm telling you, seriously, I'm not sure what I would do. I would probably implode or have a panic attack or just plain pass out. Barring those things, I would at least tense up and have no idea what to say to you. I would have no words to communicate.

Yes, I am that person. I'm not saying I like it. In fact, I really don't. And that's how I ended up jumping in the deep end.

It started off simply enough. I decided that, if I was to truly open up to people and care about people, I would need some help. And, I decided I'd get that help by praying about it. Yep. It sounded like a good idea. I'd pray that I could really and truly love people. That I would see people as God sees people. And that (and here's where I really got myself in trouble) I'd love people as Jesus loves them.

Sounds great, right? Jesus is loving. God is love. Jesus loves me. We sing songs about this stuff. They're good songs. Happy songs.

So, I decided to pray that I'd love people as Jesus does. Now, I wasn't great at this prayer. I kept it up for a while, and then I dropped it for a while. Here recently, I'd really started it up again. And that's how I ended up in the funk, treading water in the deep end. I'm a good swimmer, but I wasn't quite prepared for what I'd jumped into.

You see, when I thought about loving people as Jesus loves them, I'd simply thought about feeling warmly toward people. Caring about them in a way that's a little more personal than the sort of abstract way that I'd always cared about people before. To love people like Jesus would simply mean to care about them. To see the good in them, to seek to see that good even when I didn't really like them. That's what I figured loving people like Jesus would be like.

But, loving people like Jesus loves them means hurting for them. How I didn't factor that in, I'm not sure. And yet, I didn't. I didn't think that loving people as Jesus loves them would mean that I would see their hurts and hurt for them. I didn't think it would mean that I'd think about people I don't even know and worry for them, care for them. But that's what happens.

The other day, I was in the campus bookstore, and I bought a book called Redeemed. So far, I'm kind of in love with it because I'm kind of in love with reading stories of faith and how people come to faith. The author, Heather King, writes about falling in love with Christ and coming to understand His love for all of us.

"I couldn't get my mind around a God who ruled by such apparent powerlessness. If Christ is God made man, it came to me one day, for instance, then God lets us kill him. He didn't, and doesn't, so much "die for our sins" as love us so much, so fiercely guard our free will, that he allows himself to be in a relationship with us in which he is capable of being hurt; in which he allows himself to be totally, totally vulnerable. He could have made himself impervious to hurt, but he didn't. And when we hurt him--because it did hurt, almost beyond comprehension, to be betrayed by his friends, to have his life's work go for seemingly nothing, to be scourged, mocked, scorned, to be crowned with thorns and have spikes driven through his palms, the soft part of his feet, to basically suffocate to death, publicly, with people spitting at him and jeering, which continues to happen, throughout the world, every day, as we kill the Christ in ourselves and others, revile him, commit barbarous acts in his name--he doesn't hold a grudge, doesn't have a word of reproach. He says, Oh come back, you're back? Oh that makes me so happy, come over here by me and I'll tell you what I've learned, I'll show you how to be awake, alive, reconciled..."

It's so beautiful, isn't it? To love like that. And so, though I do feel the pain of that kind of love, I also feel the joy that comes from knowing what it is to love like that, if only to know some small part of that kind of love. And though it feels at times like I won't see the surface of the deep end again, I'd rather foolishly keep jumping in. I'd rather let the fool in me jump into loving too deeply than to play it safe by the water's edge.