Holding On

The words I heard coming from my mouth could have been a recording, I'd said them so many times. 

"I don't know what you're looking for," I said in exasperation. "You asked me to help you, and now you're not willing to do any of the things I suggest. It's like you just want an excuse to complain and have no interest in actually fixing the situation." 

My child stormed out of the room, now equally angry with the situation and with me. I returned to the dishes, fuming inwardly.

What do you want? I muttered to myself. I offer you solutions--easy solutions-- and it's like you don't want to fix it. You just want to go on like this and complain about it.

It's so easy to identify it in someone else, that death grip that stubbornly clings to the behavior or habit or relationship. I'm baffled by the commitment to keeping this thing, even though it disrupts everything and keeps him from living fully. Self-righteously, I scoff and fume and mutter under my breath about the foolishness of it. 

It happened in Jesus' time too. Matthew tells the story of two men who'd been demon-possessed. They'd grown so violent that no one dared pass by them as they sheltered in the tombs outside of town. Mark tells the same story, although in his story it is only one man who is possessed. For years, the townspeople had tried to bind him--for their protection and his-- but not even chains could hold him. His life and the lives of the townspeople were impacted daily by his condition. 

When Jesus arrived by boat on the shores of the town, the man (or men) came out from the tombs to meet him. Immediately the demons spoke to Jesus, begging him for mercy. They asked to be allowed to possess a nearby herd of pigs when they were driven from the man. The request was granted, and the newly-possessed pigs rushed headlong off a cliff and into the waters below. The townspeople, having heard all that happened, came out to the tombs. They found the man dressed, cleaned, and in his right mind. And they pleaded with Jesus to leave their region.

We read this story recently with our kids and, to be completely honest, there's a lot here to unpack. After some discussion, we asked them one question: why they thought the people had begged Jesus to leave. 

"Well," one child answered, "I mean, they had just lost all of their pigs. They were probably pretty angry."

And I'm sure they were. But I think it was more than the pigs. Could it be that although life had been disrupted by the problem, they weren't quite ready to let go of it and embrace the solution? Could it be they were holding on, even though it disrupted their entire community and kept them from living fully?

John shares a story of a man that has always fascinated me. In Jerusalem, there was a pool that was thought to have healing powers. The sick and crippled made their way to its waters and were healed. But this man had been disabled for nearly four decades. Not only disabled, he was apparently friendless. There was no one to help him to the water. Jesus came to the place and found the man, and he asked him a question that I've wrestled with for years: Do you want to be healed?

What kind of question is this? How could this man not want to be healed? After all, for thirty-seven years he'd been unable to do the simplest things for himself. He'd been coming to this place of healing day after day, never able to reach its waters. How could Jesus ask whether he wanted to be healed?

I think Jesus knew him. Knew us. He knew the love-hate relationship that we have with our own weaknesses, how reticent we are to let go of the familiar and uncomfortable in favor of the unfamiliar and free. He knew how often fear and habitual behavior and simple stubbornness keep us from dropping the thing in our hands and reaching for his. 

We have a complicated relationship with our weaknesses. On the one hand, we resent them and fantasize about the day we will be free from them. On the other, we tend to wear them as a badge of honor, as if they entitle us to the freedom to complain and claim martyrdom when we're compared to others. 

The question has never been whether God is willing or able to free us from the things that hold us back. The issue has always been our willingness to let him. 

It usually isn't long, after storming out of the room, before our kids return to us. Sobered and a little bit more humble, they often say things like, "I'm sorry. Can you help me figure this out?" We sit down together and unpack the things that need to be let go, the behaviors that need to change, and the steps to get there. It's like a microcosm of the thing God is doing all throughout the Bible and throughout history and in our own lives.

It takes courage, yes, to watch our sin and weakness slip from our fingers. It's often uncomfortable at first to feel the lightness of wholeness when we've become used to the oppressiveness of all that we carried. Sometimes it requires making some deep cuts to excise from our lives the thing that has infected us for so long. But in the end, there is healing. There is freedom. There is life. 

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