Hard Love
Dancing on Lily Pads and Going Deep
Why does it always have to be so hard? One moment you’re gliding through life with some comfy habits and a decent grip on the future, then BAM, your carefully cultivated expectations meet a baseball bat wielding reality that pulverizes your career, your finances, your health, or worse. For days, weeks, and sometimes years it feels like God’s busy somewhere else and you're stuck here, pounding your head on the floor. And joy....it just vanishes into the mist. And I for one, am absolutely positive that I signed up for Joy.
When all this gets on top of me it makes me consider what would truly make me happy. If I had one wish, what would be my deepest desire? It’s a harder question than you might think. Our knee jerk answers are money or possessions or relationships, but wouldn’t you hate to waste your wish on one of those only to find yourself miserable when those initial feelings fade. Like they always do. Country music singer Chris Jansen says you should buy a boat, but you better believe there’ll come a day when it's too hot to take it out. You have to go deeper if you want something that could make every other wish irrelevant.
What I want is contentment. Bone marrow deep, completely filling contentment. I want to be content with who I am, with what I have, with where I am, and with who loves me. Easy peasy right? Only if there’s a genie granting wishes or you’ve got a contentment switch that you can flip and make the world change colors.
It’s bewildering, not to mention worrisome, but one of the deepest times of contentment in my life was in the worst of circumstances. It was during the ten months they kept me in prison too long. Yea, I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but it's true, the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) kept me in prison ten months longer than they were supposed to.
The short version of that story begins about a year before I was scheduled to be released. The BOP started implementing the First Step Act, a new law which required them to award qualified prisoners time credits that reduced their prison sentence by a year. Turns out I was qualified and had earned enough time credits but the BOP wouldn’t let me go. They said that although I had no criminal history, I had a state charge on record that had been filed alongside the federal charges six years before. And while I could still earn the time off, I couldn’t actually use it until I got this local matter settled. Of course, the state wouldn’t let me settle the matter until I got out of prison. Can you see my dilemma? My credits were usable as soon as I settled the matter that couldn’t be settled until I got out of prison, at which point the credits would be of no use since I’d already be out of prison. Bureaucracy is truly exhausting! It was doubly aggravating because it was a “read between the lines sort of thing”, the First Step Act said nothing about denying time credits because of state matters.
Meanwhile, it seemed every day friends of mine were given the indescribable news that they were leaving prison a year early. I was happy for them but each departure seemed to inch me closer to utter despair. I was in a horrible place spiritually and the first of that year was the lowest point in my Christian walk. I felt like the widow in Luke 18 begging for justice. I can say that I prayed, but mostly I whined and dressed it up like prayer. I simply couldn’t understand why God would torture me this way after I’d been so faithful over the last three years. I was an enthusiastic and public Christian after my conversion but now it felt like I was dancing on lily pads and any misstep might plunge me back into the abyss of unbelief.
I have no idea how or why, but I decided to double down. I ground my teeth and clenched my fists and did the one thing I was loath to do, immerse myself in scripture. At this point, I was pretty ticked off at God so this was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. Later, while I was bitterly stomping through this immersion therapy, He decided to reveal some things that, to put it mildly, were a bit hard to stomach…..
He reminded me that He hadn’t promised me a rose garden here on earth, and had, in fact, told me to count the cost before embarking on this journey. He challenged me to find anything in the New Testament that said things were going to improve and get better before His return. He explained that even an easy yoke is tied around your neck, and a burden may be light but it’s still a burden. He wondered if I believed He was sovereign, since I couldn’t seem to grasp that the decision to leave me in prison was His. What had I misunderstood when He told me that this would all work out for my good? He said this wasn’t some religious game to Him and that He was intent on getting His people home. Whatever it took to shatter our illusions and excise the evil we’d invited into our hearts. That all His people are forged in fire so they can be remade into conquerors and more. That I should trust and persevere.
Now, what do you do with that? A stern rebuke from God is…………….quite troubling. I did the only thing I could, begged forgiveness and settled into my predicament.
I don’t know if contentment is always on the other side of a struggle, but I know it’s not controlled by a switch. It's a gift and oftentimes it takes our lowest moments to unwrap it. Can it be possible that we hold the scissors to open the gift? Because after my white knuckle trek through immersion therapy, I entered ten months of remarkable peace and contentment. Whatever it is that God does when you immerse yourself in Him and His ways, it's better than any place we can get to on our own. Certainly better than a boat!
Ten months after the BOP started awarding time credits they said they’d gotten it wrong with me and out of the blue, upped and let me go.
I often moan and groan about God’s teaching me when I so wish He would just tell me what’s going on. But today, when I stumble down those same hard paths, I realize that He taught me what to do next…….
Double Down - Immersion Therapy Works.