There is nothing that will change your perspective on a thing like really needing it. Water is pretty unamazing stuff, until you haven't had it for a day or two. A length of rope is pretty unspectacular, until you're hanging from a cliff. This is what happened for me with one of the most taught-on, preached on passages from the bible, Philippians 3. Now, if you're not completely familiar with this passage, I tend to, in what follows, refer to the passage in a way that assumes knowledge of the passage. (And also keep in mind that Paul was a great persecutor of Christians before he became one and had to repent of being what basically amounted to a multiple murderer.)
I have come to this place in my life before, but probably never in such an exaggerated manner, in a way determined to get my attention. I am looking backwards (but only a moment, or I am lost) at several years of what I thought was doing things right--not just right, but much better than those around me. I'm sitting in a heap of ruins right now--I have been for awhile, so I believe my grieving period has ended--taking a look at what got me here.
I've gone through several losses over the past year, some that came against my will, and some that I layed down willingly, realizing they were beyond redemption--at least any redemption I could perform. So what do I do now? Do I figure out what my mistakes were and try to rebuild a replica of what I lost? Well, like I've said, I've been in this place before, where I walked in pride with a mistaken view of reality and came to a screeching halt when things came tumbling apart just when I thought they were going so well. And trying to redeem it all is what my response has always been. I figure out where I went wrong and go through a period of "self-improvement", hopefully to provide a better outcome.
Now I don't want to say that we shouldn't learn from our mistakes or be willing to improve ourselves, but this approach has not brought me freedom. It's merely ended me up in the same mes I was in before.
Now let's look at the passage that God told me to read this morning and I'll tell you the new way I'm looking at it. It may only be new to me, but here we go.
"Indeed, I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ." --Philippians 3:8,9
Now when I look back at the list of things that Paul counted as loss, they were things that looked familiar to me. I had always thought of him heroically laying aside all things, risking his life, etc. in order that he may gain Christ. Not to say that Paul is not a heroic figure, but I realize that it is never a proud moment when you have to look at something and count it loss.
The Great Pool Debacle
Here's an example that I just recently experienced. We had a quick set pool last summer that fit neatly on our patio and Abby and Emily played in it all summer while the older kids played in our larger above-ground pool. This summer, Emily was still in need of this alternative, although Abby had grown big enough to join her brother and sister. The pool from last year had been discarded, because it had been so well-used and could not beyond any more patching up. So we invested again in another one this year. But we had terrible luck with the thing. It kept collapsing. (It's one of those self-supporting quick-set pools) I thought this was because it was defective, because the one we had last year didn't do this. So we finally just threw the thing out. (write-off number one). I then began my search for the replacement. Being the end of June and with a mere 3 months of 100 degree temperatures in our future, of course, the stores are already clearing out their summer stuff. This is the annoying part of living in the south and having store chains driven by by New York weather.
So I finally found one quick set pool left at Academy and it seemed a great bargain. It was 12 feet wide and we got it for only $50! I eagerly went home to try to set it up. Well, it was too wide to fit on our patio, so I began to look for a relatively level spot of ground and the closest thing to it was directly in front of our shed. Hmmm... it will block the shed door, but I don't really need anything in there until Thanksgiving right? So I proceed to set it up and it proceeds to collapse while being filled up like the other pool. But I figure it's only because it's not completely level. So I go and by 7 bags of sand from Lowe's to attempt to level it. this of course was not near enough, so I began to transfer shovelful's of dirt from our old sandbox halfway across the yard and also building a ridge of slightly higher ground around the edge of the pool. This was about 3 hours of back-breaking hot work. As it filled up, it seemed to be doing relatively okay, sagging still on the end that was only a yard or so away from our big pool. so I took an old Little-Tikes playscape piece that we never use anymore and shoved that between the big pool and the little pool. Success... or so I thought until Abby tried to get in a swim. The water quickly started going over the side towards the big pool and the whole thing collapsed and washed the Little Tikes playscape half-way across the yard.
Now I wanted to cry. Not only did I have to face Nick, who had thought the whole thing was more trouble than it was worth from the start and advised me not to try this. (When, oh, When will I start listening to my husband?!) But I had 7 bags of sand completely unreturnable, a whole day devoted to obtaining the sand and moving sand and filling to pool lost, and when I remove the pool that I have to return, I'm going to have a really ugly spot in my yard where I put all the sand. By the way, if I'd only bothered to open the instruction manual, the first page says to find completely level, unbumpy ground to put the pool upon. Tell me, who has 12 feet around of this kind of space in their yard?! So the problem with the original pool had simply been, I guessed, that the patio had settled since it's been built on the end towards which we drained the little pool last year. We actually had a tree that almost died from root root because we didn't care for the water well enough and had to empty it too often. I checked with a leveler, and sure enough, the patio was not at all level.
Now what do I do, do I continue to try to redeem this situation? In my stubborner days, I might have actually tried to figure out a way to get that ground perfectly level and smooth. Bring in the construction team! Lay some concrete! Uh... no. Just stop. Move on.
Back to Paul's Life
So this is what Paul was looking at. He devoted his life to the pursuit of what he thought was holiness. He had achievements out the wazoo and alot to be proud of, so he thought. When he was faced with the truth of who his Lord truly was, he came to a fork in the road. He could deny the truth to hang onto the things that brought him the approval of his peers and made him feel good about himself because they were the things he had been taught all his life to value. But no... Paul could not. He valued one thing more highly than all, and that's doing the right thing. He did really want to do the right thing, and when he saw he was doing the wrong thing, he had no choice. He did not have a heart that could live in denial. All those things had to be left behind though to pursue Christ. It's bad enough when you spend $100 on dress that it's too late to return before you realize it looks terrible on you. But how do you feel when you have a lifetime of being mistaken.
You write it off. You cannot try to redeem the past and embrace the future Christ has for you. And you can't embrace Christ and keep your eyes on men. And the approval of men is what Paul had lived for formerly, and so had I. He had done all things correctly, except he had not love--neither the ability to give it nor was he lovable. I'm there... totally there. It's time to take a completely different direction. To write off that past, not hold onto old ways of doing things because it seems a shame to throw away what you've been perfecting for so long.
"Not that I have already obtained all this or am already perfect. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12,13
