Baggage

I stumbled onto a new perspective on screwing up this morning.

I was reading Romans 6 and 7, trying to break out of the mode of looking at the Scripture analytically and theologically, and reading the flow of thought about us in relation to messing up, our old selves, our new selves in God, and the inability to reconcile the two. I guess I was thinking about habitual hang-ups (which all of us have at some level), and pondering the question that many Christ-followers ponder: if I know Him, why do I keep (insert repetitive problem here)-ing all the time?

A few weeks ago, I read part of Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy. Not a great book, but he does make a point about the habits of our physical selves opposing the desires of our spiritual and emotional selves. Exactly what Paul speaks of in the Romans passage. Willard interperets it (Paul’s langauge is difficultly phrased even for seminary grads, depending on how formal a translation you read) like this: our spirit hates whatever this hang-up or bad habit or addiction might be, but our physical selves (what Paul is describing as “the flesh”) returns to it habitually. It’s almost dissociative, like the dream where you’re standing outside of yourself watching yourself screw up.

And it occurred to me that God sees us in much the same manner as I used to see my clients when I was in the counseling field. They kept messing up, but I kept encouraging and supporting, hoping that they would have more and more time between the mess-ups. Eventually they did. I guess I had never seen God this way before. I’ve always seen Him pounding His desk in rage everytime I would drop the ball in this way. He’s not, though. He’s disappointed, certainly. But He’s encouraging, supporting, moving me along in successive approximations.

I suppose that, because I came from a denomination, I was so steeped in concepts of God’s wrath and subcultural exclusivity that I’ve never seen God as loving me and being in my corner on things. Makes me want to try harder.

Part of my church baggage, I guess. It’s amazing how our perspectives can be slanted away from the truth when church is done wrong.