October 22
Scripture focus: By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends." Their grumbling triggered this story.
"Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!' Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.”
"Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!' Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God." Luke 15:1-10 The Message
In Gerald May’s book, Addiction and Grace, he makes a preposterous suggestion. Listen in as he tells us how to prepare for an embrace with God. “To state it directly, we must come to love our longing. Any authentic struggle with attachment must involve deprivation. We have to go hungry and unsatisfied; we have to ache for something. It hurts. Withdrawal symptoms are real, and, one way or another, they will be experienced. If we can both accept and expect this pain, we will be much better prepared to face struggles with specific attachments. We might even come to see it as birth pain, heralding the process of our delivery from slavery to freedom. If we expect comfort and anesthesia, however, we will feel more distressed when the pain of deprivation comes; we will feel like something is wrong. We will become confused and far more vulnerable to self-deception.” (p.179)
Our nation has recently experienced a financial crisis of massive proportions. People have lost jobs, homes and retirement funds. It’s terrible. But I must ask the question, “What were we thinking?” Did we expect to never have to pay the piper? Who did we think would pay for our massive over-spending and under-paying ways? When did it become socially acceptable to live outside our means and expect someone else to pick up the tab for our gluttony?
Somewhere along the way, we lost ourselves. We became convinced that pain was optional and deprivation was for suckers. We tried to avoid pain and suffering by buying pleasure we couldn’t afford. We thought that “longing for” something made us “less than” or losers.
Little did we know that learning to love our longing was a God thing.
If you that your own season of deprivation tarnishes your reputation, remember what the Pharisees failed to take into account. God’s angels throw parties in heaven when lost souls find their way back to God. They do not throw rotten fruit at them, and yell out in shaming fashion, “How could you have been so stupid and gotten lost?” May we find our way back to God. Embrace our longing.
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