Put the Animals in Their Place

In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis painted an image that will forever be etched on my heart:

…the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it.  It comes the very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day.  Standing back from all your natural fussing and frettings; coming in out of the wind.1

My mornings have never been the same.  Every morning when I wake up I can imagine a pack of wolves storming my room and my immediate task is to push those animals back outside.  My alarm is set for 0530.  As I awaken in a drunken stupor, a stagger towards my phone “cock-a-doodle-doing” in the living room, down the hall.  I’m moving as fast as I can so that the kids are not awoken from the annoying farm animal noise!  In the 30 yards I travel these thoughts came to my mind:

“…I wonder if I got an email…”“…should I brush my teeth or shave first?”“…man, I really need to put that pile of clothes away.”“…maybe I should do some push ups right now.”“…I feel like picking up my phone and checking for text messages.”“…should I heat up my oatmeal while I get ready for the day.” “…should I read my Bible first or my devotional classics?”“…maybe I should brush my teeth first to wake up…”

And this is all within the first two minutes of the day!

So here’s how God has given me a vision in order to shepherd my family and encourage those he has placed in my life; I live to demonstrate what it looks like to constantly re-direct my focus from things below to things above.  When the “things” of the day start to fill my soul with worry I want to take the proverbial knee, face outboard, and redirect my focus by telling myself, “Lord, what are you doing in this moment?  I just want to do that.”  Lewis also captured this vision by boldly stating, 

“…the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs…God became Man for no other purpose.  It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.”2

The struggle I face is straightforward; namely, giving all areas of my life to God.  And right when I confess this to my friends and family, they are given a dilemma: to admit or deny that reality. I think its best if everyone just join the club!  This week I’ve been struggling with desiring the control of my wife’s emotions.  If Christ wants all of me, including these desires to control/regulate my wife’s emotions, I must confess (out loud) and renounce (out loud) that temptation.  

I want the desires of my heart exposed in order that it loose its power and a life of constant and complete surrender is demonstrated for all to see; first in my house, then out and about in my daily life.  I choose to live not only transparently, but in vulnerability - and there is a difference.  I simply don’t want to be known, I want to be fully known.  How else can anybody pray for me if they are in the dark concerning my real struggles?  They can’t.

One of my favorite quotes from my wife is, “Lazy people work twice as hard!”  She told me that years ago and it has been playing in my mind like a broken record.  Lewis is certain that the hardest road we can take in life is the one that appears as the easiest.  For the first seven years of my marriage I was convinced that keeping secrets was a good thing.  This poisonous mindset was reinforced by my theology and my like-minded friends who re-reinforced it.  I heard a sermon in Bible College Chapel that reinforced it too (or so I heard it that way), “It’s good to remain a mystery in your marriage.”  

Choosing a life of secrecy and emotional insulation or isolation is the “easier route” that leads to destruction.  The lies that I believed and that the enemy continues to whisper in my head sound like this, “Just maintain the peace and keep this one to yourself.  Your wife doesn’t want to hear about this again!  If you confess this one, you will definitely pay for it and there will be chaos, hate, and discontent in the house.  Just keep this one to yourself.”  But I reject that voice because it is from “the enemy,” which I don’t limit to the Devil.  I believe my enemy is either/or, my flesh, the world, the Devil, his demons, and sin itself.  Since they all exist to flood my mind with thoughts that take my focus off of God, they ARE my enemy.  I am my worst enemy because I am the reason why I believe all of the lies that I believe; namely, to keep a few secrets.

God tells me the opposite. Be fully loved by being fully known.  To be 99% known is NOT to be known.  So, as my favorite Dustin Kensrue song, “It is Finished,” proclaims: “…and go bravely into battle knowing HE has won the war.  It is finished, lift your head and weep no more.”

The cost of discipleship is crystal clear.  Luke 14 says,

25Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' 31Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Following Christ has cost me my comfort, my longing for power, my desire for approval, and wanting control of people and circumstances.  At any moment of the day, these four animals tug at my clothes and I have to smack them in the nose with a rolled up newspaper and put them in their place.  I do this through confession to God while people are listening.  There is nothing that I confess to God that I have not confessed to the body of Christ.  Sounds weird right?  So, let me say it this was.  I trust God by trusting the people he has put in my life.  I am called to “do life” with other people.  So I am constantly reminding myself, “If God knows this secret, why am I afraid to share it with Andy, Chad, or Nicholas?”  Here goes my comfort, control, and approval Lord…

And the result every single time is grace and peace in my soul.  Thank you Lord for delivering on your promise.  The Gospel truly is Good News - a goodness that only comes by being fully loved by being fully known.

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1. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins: 2001).  pp. 198-199; Richard J. Foster, Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups.  Harper: San Fransisco, 1993. pg. 9.  
2. Lewis, p. 171; Foster, p. 10.