15 Feet of Gospel

I don't want to share this, but I have to. Keeping with the whole "How does the gospel apply to us as a work place" theme that we've been exploring here in the Sending Center, here's a true story that happened just yesterday.

I had arranged to have a call with an outside organization about a conference that they wanted WHM to come and speak at. On our end I was going to be joined on the phone by someone else from the office. About 5 minutes before the call, I noticed that my co-worker, we'll call him Saul, hadn't come by my office yet. So I went to swing by Saul's office to see if he was ready to go.

As I was walking down the hall, about 5 feet before I got to his office I thought to myself, "He better be here! I went to the trouble of arranging the call and making sure the other organization knew that he was going to be there for it." And as soon as I saw his empty office, I immediately snapped to myself, "Well that's just great. Where is this guy?!"

As I continued to walk down the hall another 5 feet, I noticed the lights on in the conference room and I immediately thought, "Oh Patric.... You sad, small, judgmental legalist. Saul is probably in the conference room right now, attending our morning prayer meeting, praying for our missionaries and maybe even for your meeting. Why do you jump to such conclusions and never seem to think the best of your brother?" It was such a great reminder of how instantly my heart reaches out and judges someone for even the slightest infraction of rules in the "Fifedom of Knaak."

As I approached the conference room, I looked inside without breaking stride and saw that low and behold, Saul wasn't there either. My response, before I had even walked another 5 feet? "I KNEW it! I knew he wasn't in there and that he would be late. This is just like him. He better get here soon or I'm not going to be happy about this. At all."

So in the space of 15 feet I had judged Saul for not being in his office and ready to go, was then convicted of my sin and repented (assuming that he was in the prayer meeting), then sinned again against Saul with my self-righteous attitude as soon as I saw he wasn't in the prayer meeting either. Two rounds of sin and 1 round of repentance in the 10 steps it took me to walk 15 feet down the hallway. My heart turns on dime when it comes to sinning, but when it comes to receiving and resting and relying on the grace of God my heart responds like a semi-truck being pulled by Chihuahua.

And the best part of this... in the 30 seconds that I was gone to see where Saul was, he had called and left a very nice message on my voice mail saying he hadn't forgotten about the call and was on his way up the stairs right then. The call started right on time, with everyone present an accounted for.

I can't help but think that my big brother Jesus had a huge smirk on his face as I was listening to Saul's voice mail. For the Savior of the World, he's got a pretty good sense of humor, and he just loves irony.

The Injustice of Jesus

In the Sending Center here at WHM, we've starting going through our new small group study, The Gospel-Centered Life in an effort to keep thinking about how the gospel renews and transforms us as work place.

A recent lesson on minimizing our sin got me to start thinking more about how and why I minimize my own sin, especially at work. One of the things that is definitely a "hot button" sin for me is the need to justify myself. Sometimes it is big, and grandiose, and I need to let everyone know about it. But most of the time it is far more insidious--it is a quiet, private, ongoing conversation in my head where I reply to each action and each response of everyone involved arguing my case, showing them how I'm right I am (or at least more right than they are). These sorts of conversations, whether public or private, always feature some element of, "I may not have done things exactly right, but that's because so-and-so ___________ (sinned against me first, didn't do what they were supposed to, is so stubborn and unrepentant, expects too much of me, doesn't understand how hard things are for me... take your pick). Ahhh... the heady elixir of blameshifting. It's hard to admit, but I'm addicted to it and no amount of resolution on my part will cure me of it.

So as I was thinking and praying these issues through, I was again reminded of a simple truth that I hadn't really thought about in a long time--Jesus knows exactly what it is like to have someone misread his motives and accuse him of something that isn't true. Although he was perfect, he came and lived and ate and worked with people who were decidedly not perfect. And as the quintessential human being, there was at least the temptation on his part to respond the same way I do when I feel that I've been treated unfairly. But he never does this does he? You never see Jesus walking around muttering to himself while mentally rehashing events, or yelling at the Pharisees, "Oh yeah. Well if you wouldn't have been such legalists to begin with, I wouldn't have had to turn Elias into a pile of dust! This is your fault."

The truly remarkable thing to me about Jesus' consistently perfect response to these challenges is that he KNEW he was right! Every single time something happened, Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wasn't misreading someone's motives, or going off half-cocked without all the facts. He knew that whatever sin was messing things up, it wasn't his. The false accusations, the willful rebellion, the stubborn refusals, the out and out rejection of him in favor of pet idols... in each and every case, Jesus would have been perfectly justified in executing the exact judgement that the law required, because he knew that he was never at fault. And yet the only judgement that gets executed is upon Jesus, as he pays for the sins of his children on the cross.

I think one of the many (many, many, many) reasons I fall so short of Jesus in this particular area is that I find it impossible to completely, utterly and totally rely on his merit instead of earning my own. Think about this for a second, Jesus never (ever) tried to establish his own reputation before men and women because he rested so secure in his Father's love for him and the identity that the Father had established for him. I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've had someone be in opposition to me at work where I've consciously and convincingly relied on the merit that Jesus has earned for me, instead of jumping in to start explaining why I'm right and they are wrong.

Sin has rewired my heart to be "auto-justifiying." I don't even need to try, it just happens. So here's to praying for more disruption and rewiring of my sin-hobbled heart. Here's to more situations where I can see clearly that my Father's love, Christ's hard earned merit, and the Holy Spirit's gentle helping and empowering offer me far more at work than a well worded e-mail, a well argued case, or a sense of "I may be wrong, but they are more wrong!" Here's to the seeming injustice of not defending my record, so that I can more desperately and clearly cling to Jesus' record.

Vacation Postlude

We recently returned from vacation. One of the great things we did this year was return to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, in Stratford Ontario. Seeing 7 plays in 4 days isn't everyone's cup of tea, but for me it's "rejuvenation therapy by drama."

One of the most interesting plays was Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov. The play traces the plight of three sisters who have been uprooted from their lives of culture and prominence in Moscow when their father, a general in the Russian artillery, is transferred out to a small town in the middle of nowhere and subsequently dies. Chekhov is masterful in his study of what happens to people when their deepest hopes and longings go unmet. The constant refrain of the sisters is that all will be put aright when they finally find a way to return to Moscow and their former lives.

The play had a bewitching, soul searching effect on me. It takes very little empathy to realize that "Moscow" in the play represents the deepest longings of the sister's soul--the things that if they were forced to live without would make life unbearable. To be honest, the play threw me into a bit of a funk for the better part of the next day! It really made me ponder the question, "Patric, what is it that your heart most longs, which you secretly fear will never come to pass?"

I'm not sure even now how to answer that question, other than to say deep in my soul there are many, deep, primal unmet desires and more often than not, I simply see Jesus as inadequate to meet them. In the same way that "Moscow" represented much more than a city for the sisters, so too "career," and "relationships," and "money," and "security/control," represent so much more for me. The play, if nothing else, was a stark reminder to me that the in the warp and weave of my life's journey, I long for much that will never be fulfilled, except by Christ. And in the stillness of those moments, all too often my unbelieving heart clutches and panics in the same way my lungs do when I've been underwater for too long.

One of the deep truths of my life is that I'm afraid that even Jesus will never be enough for me. What happens if at the end of my life I look back on all that has been said and done (or left unsaid, and undone) and find that I have never truly been fulfilled, or content, or loved enough to abandon my own selfish agendas and truly love others? What happens if in the midst of suffering and pain, I come to believe that Jesus is no longer willing to be good to me? Some deep part of me is afraid that Jesus--no matter how good, or strong, or loving, or wise--will never be enough to give me the peace I so desperately crave and which I so resolutely refuse to enjoy because it requires that I surrender my will to him entirely.

I do believe that Jesus is my only hope in life and death. (Help my unbelief.) And I do believe that Jesus has secured the Father's unbridled delight for me. (Help my unbelief.) And, as The Three Sisters reminded me, I also believe that there are things other than Jesus which will give me what he will not. (Help my unbelief.)

So in light of all this, what is your heart longing for? What is the thing that you secretly want more than anything else, and that if you do not get it, will make you discontent for the rest of your life? The gospel doesn't just free us once. It frees us every day, because our idols are new every day.

The Uganda-Naperville Connection

I have to admit, I'm a little dubious about most of the claims of modern technology. Machines can't do what a few minutes of face to face, heart to heart connection can.

Yet... there are times when technology does seem to make things possible that even a few short years ago would have never happened. When I started working at World Harvest, I started reading the blogs of our missionaries. Each entry is kind of like a "from the battlefield" report on how the kingdom is advancing around the world. Over time, I've passed along some of those stories to others, and in turn, they have also passed them along.

So imagine my surprise when Amy Pasqualini (on staff at NPC in the Children's Ministries department) wrote to say she'd had enough, was going to do something about it. Amy had been reading the blog of our team leader's in Uganda, as they noted the low supplies of HIV retro-viral drugs. So Amy took it upon herself to write letters to a few news outlets asking if they would consider highlighting the plight of rural Ugandans. And lo and behold... one of them did!

So the follow story appeared in Friday's Naperville Sun newspaper. Thanks to Amy, for making an effort when it seemed futile, and thanks to Drs. Scott and Jennifer Myhre for their ongoing love for all things Uganda.

You can read the Sun article here.

You can read the original blog entry from the Myhre's here.

Reading a blog isn't same thing as being there... but it does give you a front row seat to the ways in which our world is broken, and how Christ is coming to heal, redeem and make all things new.

And as a techno-skeptic, it has also reminded how grateful I am for all of the ways that all of you are interwoven in my life... even if at times it has to be through blogs and e-mails instead of face to face.

Even My Vomit is More Righteous Than Yours

Unbelief is an odd thing. It doesn't always look like I think it does.

Popular culture would have us believe that unbelief looks like a perpetual "dim night" of the soul where nothing is clear, nothing understood, nothing worth believing or living any more than anything else. And to be sure, there are some of us, who have stood with clenched fist, or searching, plaintive cry listening for an answer or response when none seems forthcoming. Or even worse, we've seen the best answers that can be marshaled and found them wanting.

I'd like to tell you that this is what my unbelief looks like too, if for no other reason than these versions of it seem understandable, "normal" if you will. But I was again reminded this weekend that I have a deep seated, flesh-driven sense that there is something other than Jesus, and his ways and his cross, which will make me feel full and content and free.

After what had been a pretty busy, but satisfying, weekend I was ready for a little down time. As I've grown older and busier, I've discovered an almost manic need for the opportunity to withdraw from human contact for a few hours a week. My shriveled soul needs space, silence, and solitude if it is to re-hydrate and be fit for human companionship.

So you can imagine where my heart started heading when 10 minutes into my peaceful reading session, there was a wail and then insistent crying from Parker who was tucked in downstairs on the sofa. A little further investigation revealed that he had thrown up all over himself, the sofa, his blankets and his pillows. And in that moment, seeing a vomit covered child, a vomit stained sofa, and my little boy who was scared and feeling unwell, I did what came naturally... I freaked out. By the time Jennifer came inside, Parker was standing in the kitchen dripping slime on the floor, saying over and over, "I didn't mean to do it, daddy. I didn't mean to." Yes, just another normal Sabbath day afternoon at the Knaak household.

At the time all the tears and apologies didn't do anything to quell my anger. After cleanliness and order had been restored by She Who Must Be Obeyed, we conducted our usual parental after action report.

"Patric!! What were you thinking. How could you yell at him just because he threw up?! He's just a little boy." (note from Jennifer: I don't remember saying it just like this.  Maybe it was the H.S. getting to him?  ;-)

"Yes, but you're missing the point."

"What point? I think when you have a five year old, covered in his own puke and a grown man freaking out, we've moved well beyond the normal situations where there is a point to be had."

"You're not listening to me. I wasn't yelling at him because he threw up! I was yelling at him because he didn't get up and go to the bathroom to throw up. Or at least get up off the sofa and get onto the kitchen tile. I would have even settled for any movement toward an appropriate venue. Don't roll your eyes at me! Over the last year, when he puked in our bed, did I complain? No. When he puked in his bed, did I complain? No. When he puked on me, and then you, and then me again, did I complain? No! I was calm. I helped clean up. But I've told him time and time again, 'Parker, when you are feeling like you might get ill, you need to immediately get up and go to the bathroom, or at least a garbage can.' He knows better than this! He did this out of pure carelessness. I think he knew what was going to happen, and just didn't bother to get up."

At this point in our conversation, Jennifer started looking at me like I had just thrown up all over the sofa. Seeing the sickness of my soul had elicited the same response from her that seeing the sickness of Parker's body had--it was really really sad, and really, really gross.

When I was talking about the event with some people at work this week, I started to see a little more of what Jennifer was seeing. It's true, I wasn't actually mad at Parker because he threw up--what kind of parent would get mad about that! I was mad that he didn't throw up the right way.

In my warped little head, things had followed this path--I had talked to Parker, lectured him, cleaned up his mistakes many, many times before, and thought that I had finally drilled it into his head--at the first sign of an upset stomach, immediately head for bathroom (or at least a hard, tiled surface). I don't have an iron stomach, so the sight that greeted me on Sunday afternoon would have likely stunned me even under the best of circumstances. But my anger really stemmed from the fact that Parker hadn't followed the rules, and now I was going to have to give up my peaceful afternoon and clean vomit chunks out of the sofa and living room carpet. Parker had failed to live up to my "vomit righteousness" rules, and so I did a nutty.

You'd be forgiven if you thought that we had gotten to the bottom of my sin here. Let's be honest, how much worse can it get than yelling at a sick child because he has failed to live up to your standards of "vomit righteousness"? Well... at least a little worse.

You see, this is what my unbelief looks like. It is an unbelief that whispers to me that even though Christ has given me everything I could ever need, it's not enough. It is an unbelief that is so deep, so insidiously intwined in my soul, that it needs to create rules, which when obeyed, will make me feel more righteous than other people. It's an unbelief that will cling to anything to help me prove to others that I'm better than they are. I've got "washing the car correctly righteousness" and "don't stand there with the door to the fridge open righteousness" and "how come I'm the only one who mows the lawn around here righteousness" and evidently I've also go "throwing up correctly righteousness." When any of these laws are violated, or challenged, or trampled, I can then see how much I rely on my efforts to make me a good decent person, instead of the righteousness and new identity that comes from Christ, and to which I have no claim, other than that it has been given to me freely as God's child.

In the clear light of day, with no bodily function emergencies, I can see how poor and weak this is. Who in their right mind would ever choose their own rules and expectations--with their enslaving desires and miserly rewards--over the freedom and joy of loving someone else through the power of the gospel? But that's part of what unbelief is... we are not in our right minds.

I'd like to tell you that I made all of this up. I wish that this was a hypothetical illustration to demonstrate how desperately our hearts will cling to the things that are "not-Jesus" in order to uphold our illusions of control or comfort. It would be great to finish by saying that now that I've seen the errors of my way, I'll never, ever, ever do that again. But it's just not true.

What is true, is that Jesus has come (and will continue to come!!) to me to lift me out of the vomit of my self-generated righteousness time and time again. With love and patience and tenderness, he has stepped in over and over again when my unbelief has covered me, or those that I love, with the foul taint of regurgitated sin. My heart is so desperate to prove itself good, and so mistrustful of what Jesus has already given to me, that I unintentionally make up rules that I think will generate a little bit of righteousness that I can claim as my own. And then I heap contempt and scorn on those who fail to meet those same standards and earn a little bit of righteousness of their own... even when they are little boys, with upset stomachs, who tried their best not to make a mess.

I don't now what your unbelief looks like. It may be clean and cool and detached. It may have elements of true searching and honest seeking, desperate to find better answers that have been so far offered. But I'd bet that somewhere down deep, there is a little bit of a desire to be "right" on your own terms, instead of forgiven on someone else's terms--even when that someone else is Jesus. I'm right there with you, on that one.

My unbelief is messy. It stinks. It splatters all over everyone in ways that have to be cleaned up, time and time again. When I move away from utter reliance on the One Who Was Pierced for Me, even for just a moment, my heart creates dumb-ass categories like "vomit righteousness" to try and cover the inadequacies that I know are there, and that I know that can't fix. Smelling the odor of my unbelief is also what causes my heart to long for a righteousness not of my own that comes through the law (and the laws I create for others), but one that comes from Christ alone.