the journey through pain pt. 3: two steps back two steps forward

Last Thursday at missional community we talked about the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl. Here it is:

‘“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

“Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!’

-- Matthew 13:44-46

Among other things we were examining what the cost is to follow Jesus, and how ultimately we have to be willing to sacrifice everything for living in his story. This is a hard negotiation, because on the one hand we have the things we want, the dreams we’ve been given, things that aren’t necessarily bad, but on the other hand we know and are promised that life inside his story will make us the happiest. In both of the stories there is a period where the man and the merchant leave what they have found and go back to their old life. They only go back to sell everything, but they still have to go back. They negotiate the terms and sell every last thing. Sometimes I think in a life of following Christ we think we’ve given everything up to him, but then we discover something we forgot, or neglected. I think we will always be finding these things that we need to let go of.

I’ve had these stories on my heart the last few days because there are many things I haven’t sold yet. I’m not going to say that the pain of getting broken up with was what God wanted, or that that relationship was only given to me so that he could teach me things when he took it away. I’m not sure he works like that, I’m not really sure of how He works at all, but I know he does. In losing this relationship, oddly enough I was taken back to issues I thought I’d gotten over. It makes me think, in an estate sale, which is what these men had to do, you have to sell everything. You’ve even got to sell all of that junk in the basement that is unusable, outdated or broken. So I’ve been realizing that I haven’t sold this one piece of junk in my basement.

I’m the kind of person who is cognitive enough to live out of the knowledge of the love of God, this allows me to hold on to blame for years without feeling his forgiveness. This kind of living neglects the heart knowledge, the feeling loved, and genuinely feeling forgiven. I’ve been carrying this blame from a previous relationship. I haven’t let him forgive me. I haven’t sold that. Like Ben Myers said last Sunday at the Gathering Network “everything flows out of identity.” If we aren’t confident in our identity in him, our obedience isn’t out of love but duty, and our actions, however sincere, to make wrong things right aren’t urgent but obligatory. In our stories there are things we want to happen, and will happen, but to be ready there are these little places of pause, of waiting, of resting in who we are in Jesus, so that we can know how to be what we will become. So rest.