collecting my thoughts

I have been told, to my face, more than once, that I was not what someone was planning on, hoping for, or expecting. I was not the person that they thought I was, based on my family background and/or my written application. I was a disappointment. I'm sure that has also been true at other times, but some people are too kind to say it out loud. I'm not sure if that is better or worse, but either way - I entered adulthood keenly aware that I did not live up to my own hype.

It is difficult to know how to allow something like that to shape you. On the one hand, I guess my ideas and reputation go ahead of my reality. This is a sure way to disappoint. I am optimistic, but not a miracle-worker. I am also not good at follow-through. And, I also think there's a lot of people out there who think they know me but really don't. Openness still chooses what it shares, but often people do assume that you're sharing all.

What does it look like to lean into church when you already know for sure that you're such a disappointment? I have wrestled with this on and off for most of my adult life, and I'm supposed to sit in front of a group of people and talk about community-building tomorrow, and that just feels a little daunting. The reality is that after you are a disappointment, or after you have been disappointed, you have to try again. That is the only way to make community work. But people would like easier answers. In some ways, that is the absolute easiest answer, but it does require so much mental strength and so much humility.

I have been reading the book "Unoffendable" by Brant Hansen and have been deeply convicted and touched by many of his easy-to-read words. One concept that has stuck with me particularly is the idea that deep down, we really all want to be our own savior. We don't want to need help or saving of any kind. We punish ourselves and make ourselves even smaller than necessary in an attempt to compensate for our own inadequacy and pride, which we will never truly be able to do successfully. As such, we are under-equipped to work humbly and confidently on the things that God has given us to do, and that results in this:

"We humans are weird. That's not just my editorial opinion. It's a biological fact. We are remarkably unique among all the creatures on the planet. Other creatures feel threatened, just like we do. The big difference, though, is that when they feel threatened, it's because they're being chased by, say, a lion. And it makes sense that they're threatened, since a lion can kill them. But humans don't need to be chased by a giant cat or wolves or a shark to feel threatened. We don't have to be chased by anybody or anything. We humans are special, because we can manage to feel threatened while being chased by... absolutely nothing. And amazingly, that "nothing" is killing us." (p. 101)

Our propensity to feel threatened by those around us and to be a threat is so deeply rooted in the ways we have been shaped and formed - the things people have said to us, the successes and failures that we have had, and our current state of confidence - an extremely volatile commodity.

And so we continue to disappoint others, because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy and/or because we don't care anymore. And we continue to be disappointed by others because we are looking to them to tell us we are better than we've found ourselves to be. And neither is possible - we're neither better than we are, nor does anything about us change if someone else says something about us. And so we just stay here - in this continual state of disappointment with each other and with the world.

I was going to try to summarize this recent Facebook post from Paul David Tripp and finally just decided to copy and paste the whole thing here because I think it just speaks so many valuable words into this topic:

"I mentioned last week that in my years as a biblical counselor, I quickly discovered that I was counseling eternity amnesiacs. What is an eternity amnesiac? It’s someone who has functionally forgotten the Forever life to come and tells themselves that this life on earth is all there is to life.

(I wish I could say to you that I have never suffered from eternity amnesia, but I have. I still do. And I still will, until I’m finally home Forever with Christ!) As eternity amnesiacs, we make our lives much more difficult than they need to be. Here is a quick overview of the consequences of eternity amnesia in our everyday lives:

1. Living with unrealistic expectations. Because we are hardwired for Forever, we’ll long for a perfect paradise, and we’ll struggle with the reality that our current address—a fallen world—is anything but perfect. This longing and struggle are reasonable, but in our moments of eternity amnesia, we’ll become unreasonable in expecting the present world to be what it can never be. We want the here and now earth to behave as if it is our final paradise destination, when in fact, all that we are experiencing in the here and now earth prepares us for the Forever destination that is to come.

2. Asking too much of people. In the same way, when we fail to live with Forever in view, we will unrealistically ask the people around us to provide the paradise for which our hearts crave. Just like a fallen earth cannot provide paradise, neither can broken people! No human being, whether your spouse, child, parent, or best friend, can give you inner peace and satisfaction that we can only ever experience in eternity. Asking too much of people only ends in disappointment, frustration, conflict, and division.

3. Questioning the goodness of God. If we don’t understand God’s Forever agenda and his purpose for keeping us in a less-than-perfect world with less-than-perfect people, we will end up questioning his character, goodness, love, and control. Unless we live with the constant remembrance that God’s promises only reach their complete fulfillment in the world that is to come, we will feel as if we have been hit with the cosmic bait and switch in the world we now live

4. Living more disappointed than thankful. Unrealistic expectations will always lead to disappointment and pain. Yes, we will suffer the pain of a fallen world, and yes, broken people will sin against us, but our disappointment often reveals more about our own eternity amnesia than it does about the world and humans around us.

Many of us are primarily disappointed, not because God has failed us, or because we have it extremely hard, or because the people around us have been particularly difficult to live with, but because we approach life today hoping that it will deliver to us things that we can only experience in Forever."

Earthly brokenness is not something we can escape, but graciously working into our own and each other's brokenness is a fruit of God's work in our lives. As I mentioned earlier, I am optimistic by nature - and optimism leads to a great deal of frustration and disappointment in general. It is unreliable to judge ourselves or others by our own set of standards because they are biased.

Back to "Unoffendable", Hansen writes, "Welcoming people into our lives isn't "glossing over important issues". Refusing to be angry about others' views isn't conflict avoidance or happy talk. It's the very nature of serving people. I don't pretend the differences aren't there, I just appreciate that God has a different timetable for everyone."

That timetable is an essential piece to successful relationships in the church, I think. God's standards are for everyone, and He makes it very clear what sin is. Everything else - the things we don't like about each other, the things we dispute about because they might matter but we don't know, the things we personally care about but other people don't, the things that other people care about but we personally don't - all the things - these are the places we will find ourselves experiencing disappointment most frequently. Disappointment is simply a result of earthly brokenness, but it is something God can redeem and turn into something that levels the playing field for us. We are all broken. We are all disappointing each other, a lot. That doesn't mean that we should have less opinions, less ideas, less action, less freedom, or less confidence. It doesn't mean that we fake smallness in order to feel better about ourselves or less conspicuous in disagreements. It means that we turn our brokenness over to God, turn toward each other, and allow the equality to help us emerge as more graceful, more grateful people.

Sometimes we have this vision for relationships that they will be a certain way - like that one that we see over there, we think. Or like this friend, who talks about her amazing mentor. Or like this other friend, who seems to always be connecting with people. We look at the end result of relational work, and we think we can have that without any of the struggle, slow build, or the time. It's so good to be able to see the potential end result of something and work toward it, but expecting that to exist outside of a realistic, holistic timetable will hurt our hearts and our egos probably too.

If you are a disappointment to others - someone who is not what people expected or hoped for - Jesus understands that pain. If you have been disappointed by others - betrayed, spoken poorly of, treated unfairly - Jesus understands that pain also. Even a perfect human on this broken earth did not escape these things that we ourselves somehow seem to think we can.

God's mercies are new every morning, and His compassion does not fail. Our brokenness is what enables us to serve others... and the clock is ticking.