Last night, Charlotte and I went to "Taco Tuesday" at Rosa’s. Mexican food on a cold night. Very nice. Afterward, we went to the Starbucks Christmas party. Each year, Starbucks has a Christmas party. No advertising other than invitations to all who have been by during the previous two weeks or so. For two hours there is music, complimentary samples of various cakes, etc. and complimentary coffees of all kinds. So we spent some time there, visiting with some we know who came for the same reason.
I was thinking about last evening when I picked up Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel. I began to look at some of the portions of the book I had highlighted:
At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend to believe we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss. (p. 136)
Some years ago, when we were living in Alabama, our church had a number of recovering alcoholics/drug addicts. I remember visiting an AA meeting with a friend, a recovering alcoholic, one cold winter evening. I had never been to an AA meeting before and was a little nervous. A large group had gathered. This was a special occasion. They were having a party — a birthday party for someone who had been sober for two years. We gathered in one large circle and began to introduce ourselves, "Hi, my name is Jack; I am an alcoholic."
Brennan Manning writes about his first AA meeting:
I experienced a significant breakthrough into the freedom of the children of God at my first AA meeting. In the past I would have set great store not only on looking good but on thinking too often about who is looking. My self-image as a man of God and a disciplined disciple had to be protected at all costs. My ravenous insecurities made my sense of self-worth rise and fall like a sailboat on the winds of another’s approval or disapproval. It was a supreme moment of liberation to stand up, kick the pedestal aside and simply state: "My name is Brennan; I am an alcoholic."
My spiritual director once told me, "Brennan, give up trying to look and sound like a saint. It will be a lot easier on everybody." (pp. 153-154)
Do you connect with this at all? I do. For too long I lived in bondage to peer pressure (whining about the church and its expectations) and people pleasing (defining love as making people happy with me) as well as to the craving for human respect (What if I do my very best and I still don’t matter to that person?). This kind of thinking avoids two critical realities:
My genuine sinfulness.
My desperate need to receive God’s love and to find my identity and my sense of self-worth in that love.
Without those two realities, I will simply be (as Manning suggests somewhere in his book) like a travel agent who is handing out travel brochures to faraway places. Places that I can talk about but have never visited.
Do you relate to this? Does this sound familiar?
Jim,
All my life I have tried to please people. It can be very painful for me and those around me. I have sought a way to overcome this fear of rejection as long as I can remember but to no avail. I try to discover just who I am in Christ but get nowhere. I want to know the me who God knew before the foundations of the world, not the me that everyone else has invented for me. It is a real battle. Yes I fully understand where Brennan is coming from. I have read a couple of his books including the Ragamuffin Gospel and I find him to be very challenging (in a positive way).
Approval and Affirmation are addictions….praying to live free of them….
Thank you for the call to be genuine. Manning is one of my favorite authors. Blessings.
Jim,
I grew up witnessing the birth of Rosa’s (my hometown!) and am now 1800 miles from the nearest thing anyone could rightly call a taco.
This post is sin, brother. Ha! Oh well, Lord willing I’ll make my yearly trip to Taco Mecca.
Kidding aside, thank you for this post. It’s something I’ll be chewing on (no pun intended) the rest of the day.
I find it difficult to consistently find the balance. I need to not be overly concerned about pleasing others, whilst loving them.
"As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss." How true. Infact I began blogging and chose the name Schizo to symboloze thsi dichotomy in my own life. after some time, the lines between pretense and reality dim and one is not sure which is reality and which pretense. ciaoschizo
Becky–That is very true and sometimes we become very dependent on these two. But what a dead end street.
James,Thanks for your comment (and I read your post!). We have enjoyed Rosa’s!
Julie,I suspect a lot of people search for that balance. Yet, perhaps loving people is actually much different than pleasing them.Thanks for your note.
Bobby,Thanks. Manning has been a blessing to me. May God bless you in your move. Jim
David,Thanks for your comment. It seems that it takes a long time for some of us to really grasp our identity in Christ on the level of experience and feeling. I identify with this.In many of our minds, there are old tapes that are still playing from our youth. These messages are incredibly powerful. May God bless you, and the Spirit give you power as you struggle to accept the love he has lavished upon you.Jim
schizo–Thanks! The background is interesting.You strike me as a person who seeks to be a person who is authentic and genuine.