As some of you that may or may not know, Buzz Wright, my childhood best friend and best man in my wedding, is going through some hard times. Really hard. Things I can’t comprehend. He’s struggling and we’re struggling to help him. It’s not easy, but he’s worth it. And because I love him. Not because of his struggles, but in spite of them.
I’ll be honest. I thought about writing about this. I wanted to. And then I decided not to. But then, I saw Scott Van Pelt close out his SportsCenter show Tuesday night with his “One Big Thing” as he always does. This one was about his dad he lost 31 years ago. SVP talked about how he always avoided the negative and grieving and, instead, focused on birthdays and celebrations.
Then, he gave examples of a friend who lost her dad and his funeral was earlier Tuesday and going back to his hometown of Maryland for the funeral of one of his best friends’ dad on Thursday. How he’s surrounded by death and grief on his dad’s death day. But he realized he’s been pretty good at giving other’s advice because he can empathize. And then said it’s time he took his own advice.
That advice: when the grief comes, don’t run from it. Don’t bury it. Because it grows and gets a whole lot heavier to carry around. And then encouraged people to share the grief, to articulate it, to say it out loud. Not swallow it and ignore it. That’s a mistake.
I encourage you to watch it…
So after I saw it that night, I decided to write this. Because we all have our pain to deal with. We all struggle. Our situations are different, but our struggles are the same. So, as SVP says, maybe this helps somebody else, or encourages someone to tell a loved one that’s still here how you feel. But maybe it doesn’t. That’s okay, too.
I’ve had the misfortune of seeing my best childhood friend — the best man in my wedding — in his darkest place. A place I had no idea about because we, as a society, do such a good job hiding behind the masks, often in the form of filters on social media. But the sooner we realize social media isn’t real life, the better off we’ll all be. I am terrified of the future results that will stem from the teenage and childhood depression that’s already rampant. The future isn’t promising as long as we continue to compare our real lives — the dirty, ugly, grimy, grit in the trenches of everyday life — to that of other people’s lives they pretend to be living through the digital filters.
It’s a facade. You know it. I know it. We all know it. Because we all do it.
There’s good news in a Savior that can bear all the weight of our feelings of insecurity, dishonesty, worthlessness, and grief. No one wants to talk about this, but we must learn to. Because when he look up from our screens, we realize we have a lot more in common with our fellow man than differences. But we must engage. And we have to be intentional.
For those that have known us, you know me and Buzz grew up together in the Trailer Park. And you probably saw his posts after Mac Miller’s death. To see that isn’t pretty. It’s a cry for help. I talked with him and of course, he says what we all say. “I’m fine.” But he clearly wasn’t.
We’ve had some hard conversations lately. They’ve been ugly. The hardest conversations I’ve ever had. They’ve been open, honest and raw. There’s pain, confusion, sorrow, shame and regret. And a lot of it.
But we serve a God who is present in that pain, that sorrow and that shame. But it can be hard to think of Him that way. We’ve got this picture in our mind of what we think Christianity is and there’s never any dirt on it. It’s always that image of Jesus, dressed in glowing white, so clean and pure. Almost unrelatable. In fact, very unrelatable.
But he’s right there with us, in the trenches of everyday life. In the grit, the grime, the dirty. In our falls, our failures, our foolishness, our brokenness. Even during the mornings when you’re trying to get 3 kids ready for school and no one wants to wear what they picked out the night before even though they picked it and instead they’d rather argue with you and all you want to do shred the clothes like Hulk Hogan. He’s there. And God just won’t stop lavishing us with his grace.
It’s like us earthly fathers watching our toddler learning to walk. They pull up on their own, struggle to balance, take a step and fall down. We don’t get mad, walk away, or give up. We’re right there, supporting, cheering on, calling back up and encouraging as they struggle. To get back up. To take another step. To make progress. And ultimately, end up closer to us.
That’s the visual of our heavenly father. He doesn’t abandon us in our struggles when we fail him. Because it’s not a matter of if we’ll fail him, but when. Even for those of us who love Him and commit to following Him, in our brokenness, we take a long time to mature. And in this information age, we learn truths much quicker than we can apply them. Therefore, progressive sanctification, the process of becoming more like Christ, is incredibly slow.
Everybody loves to talk about the conversion story. It’s a very positive and sexy story, but nobody likes to talk about the next 6 years. 10 years. 12 years. 2 decades. Nobody tells that story. We assume it goes something like this: “And then he was converted. The end.”
Nope. The beginning.
But you hear these false teachings, stuff like, “Well, if you’re a christian, you wouldn’t want those things.” Which is why when we’ve been saved and baptized, some of us come out of the water like “Okay, that was weird. Now let me dry off.”
And nobody explains this to you, but you still have these monumental issues. Yet, you’re in this place where no one else did. At least you think. But come to find out all these years later, as you grow, learn and understand, you realize that’s a lie. So we never want to come clean about what’s actually going on in our hearts because we would rather be a hypocrite than be seen as one.
To be 99% known is to be unknown.
It’s okay to not be okay. But it’s not okay to stay there.
If the Holy Spirit has revealed to you that you’ve got issues, you can’t sit on that. You have to move. God meets us right where we are, but he loves us to much to leave us there. If you’ll put your faith in the radical transforming power of the gospel, I promise you’re farther along than you think you are.
Trust me when I tell you this. You don’t ever really get to see spiritual growth. You just kinda wake up there. Which doesn’t get preached enough because most of us are waiting for a moment. But it’s not enough to just know. You have to be hungry enough to walk towards it. He said, “blessed is the one who’s hungry enough to pursue God for he’s going to find Him”.
Until you can get this, and the Holy Spirit has to do something in us to get this, because until you can, you’ll always have some finish line in view that’s not with Jesus forever. You’ll have a finish line of, if I could just start this behavior or just stop this behavior.
But the affection of God doesn’t fluctuate like that.
He who began the good work in us will be faithful to complete it. He didn’t save you to leave you where you are. But he also did not save you so you could row towards where you should be. He saved you and though the highs and lows of your life, will shape you and mold you to fulfill your ultimate purpose. His steadfast love is unbreakable and sealed in you with a promise.
Not your promise to Him. His promise to you. This is the gospel.
Because the really tough part about being this guy over here, and then this guy over here, and then this guy over here, is it makes it impossible to ever receive love. Real love. Because any love you receive, in the deepest part of your heart, you’ll justify that what they love is not the real you and, therefore, that love is counterfeit. And it’s a really lonely place to be.
I’d rather be rejected by 99% of the world and have 1% know me and love me than be loved falsely by 99% and rejected by the 1%.
There’s freedom when you fully understand that we’re not wrestling flesh and blood. That’s not our fight. He said “blessed are you when you’ve been so transformed that people see Jesus on you.”
Leap for joy.
If they’re criticizing you and attacking you and excluding you and hating you because you love the Lord, then congratulations. Christ has begun to transform your heart in such a way that’s it’s visible to others.
Leap for joy.
But woe to you if everyone loves you because chances are you’re lying to everyone. Even you. So if you’re hanging on to that 1% because you think if anyone were to ever know that 1%, everything about your life would change.
In Jesus, it’s not that it won’t change, but it might just change for the better. Love and listen. We need each other.
