Post Tenebras Lux

“I’d like to have everyone step into my world for a minute or two. Imagine it’s a Wednesday afternoon, around three o’clock. You have been up since five AM, and been sitting in seminary classes since seven thirty. You’re mentally exhausted. You’re hungry. Your head is so full that you think it’s about to burst. All you want is to go home, relax for a moment or two, and then try to make sense of all that you’ve learned before your brain just dumps it all out due to overload. Not to happen. You see, you know that now it’s time to go off to work at your local neighborhood YMCA after-school program, where thirty, that’s right, THIRTY first graders are lying in wait to destroy what is left of your tired and tattered soul! You walk into the school gym where they are already sitting and race to fill out your roll sheet before first activity begins. With one eye you complete the roll, with the other eye you’re watching Timmy, the kid who can’t seem to go ten minutes without a violent eruption against one of his fellow campers. He starts to squirm, not being able to sit in one place for more than a minute or two. You inform him that he needs to stay seated quietly until our huddle is dismissed to first game. He keeps moving. You can see it coming. The boy three people down just stuck his tongue out at Timmy, and Timmy has gone into killer-combat mode. You warn him, but it’s too late, because Timmy has already gotten up and slapped the other child. You probably then swiftly swoop in, instruct the child that this behavior is unacceptable and that he needs to spend the rest of assembly time on the back wall. You might do that. I don’t. I’m exhausted, remember. I don’t really want to be there in the first place. And I don’t react as I should. I pounce on this child, venting my righteous rage for his obvious coup on my sovereignty over this huddle. He has become my bane, my enemy, and must be eradicated.

Enter this relationship conference. Dr. Paul Tripp spent a large portion of the time explaining the purpose of relationships. I learned that relationships are part of God’s ordained means of making me holy, and that the adversity that occurs in the realm of how I deal with other people has a purpose. That purpose is to prepare my heart to be molded and shaped so that I react to broken people just like myself in a way that more and more reflects the character of Jesus Christ. God has sent relational adversity to mold me into someone who lives the Gospel even during the trying times. A great illustration that Dr. Tripp used was that of raw gold ore. Gold does not come pure like we have it in jewelry. When it is mined, it is filled with impurities and other materials that take away from gold’s beauty. In order to get the gold to something that is beautiful and valuable, the goldsmith has to melt down the gold. He has to heat it so hot that the impurities separate from the gold, and only then can the beauty of that gold be seen and made into something of worth. Relationships are God’s boiling pot for removing impurities within me, that I may become something beautiful for Him.

The second major truth that I learned is that much of the conflict and turmoil I experience in relationships is due to idols in my life. By idols, I mean those things that I value more than God Himself. When I argue and war with another person, whether it is my wife, a friend, my parents, or any other person, it is a power struggle within me. Do I let my idols rule my heart and behavior, or do I submit myself to doing what God desires? The real war is within me, not with the other person.

So how does this related to the YMCA situation? Well, little Timmy is not the problem here. Unwittingly, Timmy has become God’s chosen boiling pot for my heart. His eruption against the other camper has become a venue for God to turn up the heat in my life and to boil out impurities. Those impurities are the idols in my life. When I descend upon Timmy, I am outraged because he has stepped all over my authority, my control, my sovereignty over his little six-year old life. He obviously failed to realize my superior status, and thus must be chastised. The fact of the matter is that Timmy became God’s chosen vessel for exposing the idolatry of my heart, in this case, a desire for control and to be made comfortable. If I do not get what my idols crave, then I feel cheated and thus justified in my response. Timmy is not the problem here, I am. But the Gospel gives me hope, because God has promised that He would complete the good work that He began in me (Philippians 1:6). Jesus Christ is the only One who can bring true change and growth to my world, my relationships, and my life.”