Good Morning Friends,
I wish I could have shared coffee with you this morning, but perhaps this is second best - here’s what I would have talked with you about if you were sitting with me at my kitchen table at 6am.
Much love,
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
I've been thinking lately how easy it was for me to bury my issues when I was active in the Church world. Pastors, teachers, people who know things ... they are supposed to have it all together.
You know ...
They're supposed to have answers.
They're supposed to have a strong faith.
They're supposed to be happy and energetic.
They're supposed to be confident and outgoing.
BUT.
The moment that they show a sign that is perceived as "weakness" or a sign that they are human or a sign that they don't fit that mold ... those pastors, teachers, and people who know things are never looked at quite the same again.
I can't tell you how many promising "leaders" I've heard of or have personally known whose lives have blown up because the expectations on them to be "god-like" were so high that their lives with all of their issues and baggage and wounds and trauma and questions and doubts ... their lives just couldn't bear the weight of the expectations that were heaped on their shoulders.
And so (knowing that), it was really easy for me to hide my own issues and hide my own questions and doubts so that I could keep on a good face, keep telling people what they wanted to hear, and keep portraying myself as the strong, confident, answer guy that everyone expected me to be.
I wanted to be accepted.
I wanted to be appreciated.
I wanted to be revered.
I wanted to be respected.
... And if I let the issues of my younger self or my doubts and questions about God and faith and doctrines and theologies creep out from the internal boxes I had jammed them into ... I knew that I would never have those things OR that it would take me much, much longer to really "earn them".
The problem is that when we demonize the hurting places inside of us along with our questions and doubts, we do very little more than build our own internal Gehenna where we ...
Pile up the dead bodies of our past selves who have lived through traumas and pain that have molded us and shaped us into who we are today.
Pile up our questions about God.
Pile up our doubts about what we've been told is true.
Pile up our uncertainties about the Bible, faith, and all the things.
... We shed the blood of these things on the altar of being accepted and revered and looked at as great spiritual leaders and stack up the dead bodies in the recesses of our hearts and minds where we expect them to stay.
The stench, however, from the death we've created can only stay there for so long before it seeps out into our daily lives and begins to effect how we live and how we interact with the people around us, even how we interact with ourselves.
What I'm saying is that in order to live as the fully alive human beings that God modeled for us in Jesus, we need to go into the Gehennas we've built inside of us and ask The Christ to resurrect the dead bodies we've thrown there so that we can slowly begin to befriend the hurting versions of ourselves, befriend our questions and doubts, and work through our baggage and wounds.
We might need to connect with a therapist.
We may need to do some "inner child work" (see Wednesday's podcast episode).
We may need to engage in "deconstruction" and "reconstruction".
All of this, I believe, is the only way to be true to ourselves and to live as authentic human beings who have pasts filled with various traumas and pains and present moments filled with doubts and questions.
We mustn't be ashamed of who we are, we mustn't be ashamed of the questions and doubts that have arisen inside of us - we must listen to our pain, listen to our heartache, listen to our questions and our doubts. We must probe into these things, we must ask them questions, we must let them linger, we must let them express themselves, we must help them heal and become whole.
AND.
If all of that causes the people around us to look at us differently than they would if we would just keep pretending that we have it all together, then they don't deserve to have a place in our lives.
YES.
The best way that you can honor those younger versions of yourself inside and the questions and doubts you have is to show those people the door.
Ah, but you did share coffee with me this morning! I am usually sitting down with my first cup when i get these coffee thoughts! Love the