Shaping
Up
Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later and then you still have to decide what to do. When Jill stopped, she found she was dreadfully thirsty. She had been lying face downward, and now she sat up . . . she listened carefully and felt almost sure what she heard was the sound of running water.
The woods were so still that it was not difficult to decide where the sound was coming from . . . Sooner than she expected she came to an open glade and saw the stream, bright as glass, running across the turf a stone's throw away from her. But although the sight of the water made her feel ten times thirstier than before, she didn't rush forward and drink. She stood as still as if she had been turned into stone, with her mouth open. And she had a very good reason: just on this side of the stream lay the lion. . .
"If you're thirsty, you may drink. . ."
For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, "If you are thirsty, come and drink . . ." It was the lion speaking. The voice was not like a man's. It was deeper, wilder and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened
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than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.
"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl . . .
The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion . . .
It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn't need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once . . .
"Come here," said the Lion. And she had to.
Thus C.S. Lewis tells his allegory of the "shaping up" of Jill
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in his book The Silver Chair.1 Jill had been a nasty, competitive pain-in-the-neck before she met Aslan. That encounter made all the difference in her life.
That's the first step in "shaping up" for any woman — meeting the Lion, quenching your thirst and feeling suddenly safe. You may try other streams, but there are none. And you drink at his invitation. Jesus' invitation is, "If any one is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me . . . streams of living water will flow from within him."
An encounter with God and entering into a personal relationship is not the same as being religious. Passionately religious women may still not know God. Emotionally they experience lofty thoughts that make them feel good; ideas about God stimulate them and they affirm their belief in Him. Something is missing. It is the encounter — the personal relationship — that makes the difference. God wants to free us so that we can get on with life.
Some women have managed to shape up and ship out into the mainstream of life, handling the currents and the rapids and the quiet pools with a gracious, confident ease. Others are trapped in one eddy after another, going nowhere at all, hung up in swirling pockets of confusion. Everyone gets sidetracked once in a while, and requires a rescue operation. That's the way life is. But some have been caught in an eddy or on a piece of dead wood for so long that they have forgotten that life was meant to be lived in the mainstream.
Too many people are weighted down with appendages and loads they were never meant to carry. We are our own worst enemies. We harbor the ugly and neglect the good. Too early we lie down under the burden and say, "That's just the way I am." I am so foolish. I am good-for-nothing. I am full of fears.
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I am so bad-tempered. I am weak in this area. I am jealous. Our lives are full of wretched I ams that spell failure. The I AM that can rescue us is the I AM of God. He says, I am the all-sufficient One. Remember when the people of Israel, in bondage to Egypt, asked Moses the name of the one who would deliver them. God said, "Tell them I AM has sent you." God's name is I AM and behind that I AM are all the resources we need. He says, "I am your peace. I am your strength. I am your deliverance." His I AM cancels out our failures.
Below is a list of words that describe different kinds of women. Look it over carefully. Check off the combinations that describe you.
Scared and frigid
Nervous and demanding
Warm and loving
Callous and thoughtless
Boisterous and nervy
Pessimistic and small-minded
Gabby and short-tempered
Sensitive and self-conscious
Always right and misunderstood
Perfectionist and rigid
Wise and understanding
Sensual and undisciplined
Complaining and unthankful
Jealous and possessive
Thoughtful and appreciative
Fearful and uncertain
Which of these burdensome realities would you like to unload?
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You can be different. That is one of the joys of knowing God. We are not stuck with what we are. Many of us are like the woman who was walking to the market in town carrying a heavy load on her back. A friend came past in a wagon and offered her a ride. The women thankfully climbed aboard, but still sat there bowed under the weight of the burden. Finally her friend said, "Why don't you put your load down on the floor of the wagon?"
The woman replied, "It's very good of you to take me to town. I couldn't ask you to carry my burden too." We need God for disasters, for the final moment of death, but isn't it asking a lot of Him to help us get rid of our measly uncomfortable burdens?
I am reminded of a story that Corrie ten Boom told of a journey she took into Amsterdam with her father as a young girl. Her father had purchased a suitcase full of parts for his watchmaking business and when the train was nearing their home station, he asked Corrie if she would like to carry the suitcase off the train. She was eager to try, but could move it scarcely an inch. Then her father wisely said, "Remember, Corrie, there are some things too heavy for you to carry. You must give them to your heavenly Father, just as you must let me carry this case off the train." In the years that followed when Corrie was interned by the Germans in a concentration camp during World War II those words came back to her often, and she would pray, "Father, this is too heavy for me to carry. I will give it to You."
The starting point is admitting to the symptoms that make our lives diseased. Dis-eased, that is. Some may be overly sensitive and wondered if they didn't have all the negative traits on the list. Others read it over and checked off only the positives or else skipped over it completely. Why the difference? The first case could be a low self-concept or an
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overly eager attempt to be honest. The second could be self-protection or an inability even to evaluate one's own person.
This is why it is so important to have daily fellowship with God where your spirit is tuned in to listen as you read the Bible and pray. God is a good teacher. He points out one thing at a time for us to work on. When we feel like a confused failure who needs to be changed all at once, the source of our feelings is not God, but our enemy. God will help us deal with one item at a time. He puts a gentle finger on first one thing and then another and suddenly we have insights into ourselves that we never had before. The person who never has a new insight either has no hangups — or she isn't listening!
Look back over the descriptive list of personality types. How many of these could be taken care of if you simply believed God loved you? Believing this would give you a different self-concept and potentially free you from many habits. But it isn't a push-button cure. You believe and then you must take a stand repeatedly on what you believe. Thoughts come to you, and you resist them and say, "I will not feel that way because I know . . ."
A second question. Looking back over the list, how many of these might be eliminated if your physical condition were different? Maybe your thyroid is out of whack. Or you are suffering from anemia or some chronic medical condition. Perhaps you have a physical disability which affects many of your activities. I learned long ago to inquire into people's physical health when dealing with spiritual problems. One affects the other, and it works both ways. Fearfulness, uncertainty, sensitivity, nervousness can cause physical problems. In that event, the solution is a spiritual one. On the other hand, a rundown physical condition can cause spiritual problems. Some people need to see a medical doctor and take some hormones or an iron pill. Others need the discipline of more sleep and a slower pace.
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A third question: How many of these traits stem from just plain old-fashioned sinfulness? Self-centeredness is the cause of at least half of these traits. It's the opposite of being filled with the love of God. Any time we are more conscious of ourselves than we are of others or of God, we are in a trap, an eddy that keeps us out of the mainstream of life as it ought to be lived.
What's the solution? It is found in the Beatitudes. We begin by recognizing spiritual poverty. Blessed are the poor in spirit. We mourn because we are so poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. We realize that in ourselves we cannot become what we need to be; we need God's love to fill us. Blessed are the meek. We hunger and thirst for God Himself. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied. Hungering and thirsting for God changes our whole set of priorities, our viewpoint, our lifestyle. God fills our hearts with His love when we are hungry to know Him. We are changed by a spiritual exercise born out of intense desire to be rid of a most disfiguring burden — self-centeredness.
It hurts to face your sins. Admitting that you lose your temper or get angry is hard on the ego. If you mean business about cleaning up your life, you'll have to learn how to ask for forgiveness and say, "I'm sorry" to others — your husband, your children, your mother-in-law, your friends. If you are really sorry for your lack of control, you'll stop rationalizing about what caused it and how you couldn't help yourself and earnestly ask God to quiet your insides and work out patience in your daily experience. And you'll learn that at the moment when the flare-up is being ignited you can turn instantly to God for strength and control. "Oh, Lord, calm me down. Give me Your perspective. Fill me with Your love." And He
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We can't forget the woman who gets a great psychological boost from telling someone off, and then recounting her cleverness in lengthy descriptions to others. "I really told her," she says. It may be a business deal, a child's teacher, a fellow employee, but whoever or whatever, the abrasiveness of the situation makes the rest of the world cringe. Some people collect resentments and outrages. I think of the Lord Jesus who was right and righteous, and how people marveled at the gracious words He spoke. When the boisterous, the aggressively nervy, the always-right, the bellicose come into His presence they must hang their heads. God wants to provide amply for inner needs that cause us to act in these ways. He wants to take care of our need to feel superior by making us like Jesus Christ.
Some people are angry at God. Perfectionists often are, even though they won't admit it. Life hasn't been neat and tidy and the way they planned! Anger at God is a symptom. The basic problem is unbelief. God isn't in charge, or if He is, He blew it. Which says not so much about God as about them. Perfectionists want to be God's chief counselors because they don't believe He can do it without them.
Unbelief is the most disastrous of all our attitudes. It keeps us from coming to God for the resources we need. We don't believe He can produce the goods! We are not sure He is completely trustworthy and so we try to limp along pretending a faith we haven't realized. Unbelief makes people sick mentally, physically, and emotionally. A painful lot of the mental and emotional uncertainties experienced by many could be solved best by learning how to believe and how to cast one's self on the goodness of God.
The biggest burden carried around is the load of guilt. It drags us down with a steady pull. How how many people does a simple theft return again and again to haunt and destroy
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inner peace! I recently heard someone tell how she had knowingly accepted two one dollar bills stuck together when she had only been entitled to the payment of one. For twenty years she had felt unclean over that incident. Whenever she came close to God, this miserable memory made a barrier. Finally with the encouragement of God through reading the Bible she decided to be done with it once for all. She first confessed the sin to God and asked forgiveness, and then she wrote a letter, returning the dollar bill with an explanation. It was only a dollar bill, you say. No, it was a theft, and what a costly load it made. Twenty years of guilt that was unnecessary.
Restitution cannot always be made for mistakes we make, but where it is sensible it should be done, simply because it is right. And it is a therapeutic purging. However, if our attempt to make restitution causes more hurt than help, it can be the selfish therapy of unbelief that makes our actions more important than God's. When God has forgiven us, then what is crucial has been done. This is especially true in the area of sexual sins where some women feel constrained to confess all when the end result is only further hurt, not healing. God's forgiveness is enough in instances like these. And if no one else is involved in our wrongdoing, then the one to tell is God, not the whole world.
Do you know the quality of God's forgiveness? The Bible says, "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12). "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). "I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you" (Isaiah 44:22). "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
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He removes our sins; He blots them out; He will not remember them; He sweeps them away; He cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Why would anyone hang on to sins when such provision is made for their disposal?
People cripple themselves with both the memory of the wrong deeds they've done and the deeds done against them. God offers to dispose of all our guilt and wipe clean our memories. He offers forgiveness. When we accept it, we are suddenly more free than we have ever been to forgive someone else.
Is there any kind of sin He will not forgive? None, except the ultimate refusal to come to Him, which denies the Holy Spirit's ministry to us. People worry about the unpardonable sin instead of coming to Him to be pardoned. Some would make sex sins the next thing to be unpardonable, but God lists them along with gossiping and coveting. The Bible says that sex sins have serious consequences because they are sins against our own bodies and affect another's body as well. But no one needs to wear a scarlet letter A and be so presumptuous as to think they can make atonement for their own sins. Christ died for our sins. He invites us to confess our sins and be forgiven. Healthy people are forgiven people and forgiving people.
I emphasize this because many people enjoy wallowing in the past, reviewing their sins and almost revelling in the sorrow of their guilt. Other's forget everything else except the sins of others. Spiritual health is forgetting what is behind and pressing on to the mark of the high call of God in Jesus Christ.
Some sins become habits, like lying. Isaiah the prophet wrote about this long ago. He said, "We have made a lie our refuge, and falsehood our hiding place" (Isaiah 28:15b). The liar
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has a quarrel with life; it isn't good enough as it is. Lying thus reflects on the character of God. People lie because of low self-esteem, to get attention, to take advantage of someone else, to destroy them, and for a variety of other unfortunate reasons. Lying makes no sense because it usually hurts the liar most. But that is characteristic of sin. Lying means you have to keep your lies straight, which seems a terrible trouble unless you live in an unreal world. Jesus called the devil the father of lies.
The best way to beat the lying habit is to confess your lies to the people to whom you have lied and ask their forgiveness. Nothing is harder on pride, but if you mean business with God He will help you break out of this trap by facing the consequences of lying. Then if you ask Him, He will be your constant, present help to keep you from repeating the habit.
Confession to others helps break any habit, because it asks for human support in your weakness. If the habit is a private one, the encouragement of one loyal friend who has the integrity to help you may be a tremendous boon. For example, confessing our fear to a friend gets them out in the open where they can be looked at honestly. Most of us think no one else ever feels as we do, and we are surprised to discover that others really understand. And sometimes when things are out in the open they seem less serious than we thought in private. Another person can hold us to our intentions and help us break habits as well.
Jealousy is one fear that prompts a lot of foolish behavior. Some jealousy is petty and stupid; she spoke to her first, not to me or their son was chosen last time. Or the second wife who is jealous of a father's love for his children and does all she can to drive them apart, thus managing to make a loveless home. Some mothers can't let their children belong to anyone else at marriage,
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and some children can't let their parents remarry. The Bible calls jealousy covetousness, which is the same as idolatry. It's a matter of worshiping at the wrong shrine again.
Other jealousy comes from deeper hurts: a husband who flirts or whose business is suspiciously monkey business. God knows how unfaithfulness hurts, so go to Him and get your strength and comfort there. Ask Him how to handle the situation — whether to confront or keep your hurt a private affair. If may be good also to take an inventory to see whether anything in your life has made it easier for your husband even to think unfaithful thoughts. Obviously no one is perfect, but we can be too busy, too tired to love, too unconcerned with his world, too careless in our appearance — and make the temptation of someone who isn't too tired or too busy more appealing.
Here is where your prayer life will prove the power of God. In fact, if your life together is lived in the Lord's presence with integrity, and if you are praying honestly together with each other, unfaithfulness is an unlikely event. And especially if your husband does not share your personal faith in God, your prayers for him may keep him and bless him in ways he will never understand. But a careful life must back up your prayers.
No matter how we rationalize in the end, sinful jealousy turns out to be a manifestation of unbelief. It is the opposite of a faith point of view. It must go to the rubbish heap with the rest of the trappings we collect that keep us from really living life.
Feeling neglected you may have some temptations yourself. It's a free-swinging world that says only happiness counts, that if something makes you happy then it is good. Nonsense. Our lives must reflect the character of God if they are to know anything about the real stuff of happiness.
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Happy are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And it is of inestimable worth to grow old liking yourself and having no regrets.
A word about temptation, any temptation — the temptation to swear, drink, be angry, sleep too much, be unfaithful, lie or shout at your children. God has made provision for every kind of temptation. "And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it" (1 Corinthians 10:13). Others before you have been tempted as you are. No one needs to be swept away as a helpless victim. Claim this promise and memorize it. But you will have to do more than memorize a promise; you will have to utilize the way of escape he offers. That means calling what is wrong exactly what it is: sin. We must not justify our wrong behavior.
We've scarcely scratched the surface of all our hangups and touchy places that need to be discarded and cleaned up if we are to live as we were meant to live. Paul wrote a good word to the Ephesians when he said, "Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as those who do not know the meaning and purpose of life, but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days. Don't be vague, but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of God" (Ephesians 5:15 J.B.Phillips).
