God’s Sneaky Mirror

I feel certain I’m not alone in this, but I really don’t like the way I’ve been affected by the political environment this year (and I promise, this is NOT a political post!).  Because of social media, I think it’s harder to get emotional distance from it.  I used to brace myself for the daily 30-minute dose of cynicism, fear and negativity from the national news, but now it seems constant.

I am an optimist and a joy-seeker.  I am a Christian who has experienced God’s “peace that passes all understanding.”  I believe in the power of love to bring out the goodness of people.  But sometimes I feel cynicism creeping in, and for the first time, I feel like I have to actively fight against it.

And while I am not ashamed to be a skeptic (I think some doubt and skepticism is healthy), I am ashamed to be cynical.  Cynicism isn’t just doubt – it’s distrust.  It is dark and lacks hope and filters everything through a lens of pessimism.  My joy-seeking heart started to feel miserable as cynicism made its way in.

This began to happen earlier in the year and I had to start limiting some of the negativity I was letting into my soul and find some balance by adding positive things.  There were certain angry people that I had to “unfollow” for a season (emotions are contagious – you have to be careful).  I found myself putting people into “camps” based on political affiliation and I didn’t like that outcome either – I didn’t want to be angry with people (that I know are good and loving people) based on their political views.

Here’s the dilemma . . . I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but sometimes that seems far easier than feeling overwhelmed by all the things going on the world (over which I have little or no control).  I want to be able to love all people regardless of their views, but still stand up for what is right.  These are “tensions of opposites” (a phrase Keith and I use regularly, after reading it many years ago in Tuesdays With Morrie).  It is very difficult to live in that space, to keep yourself from falling into one extreme or the other.

I knew if I was going to be able to handle peering into the darkness of the world, then I needed to first allow God to shine His light into the darkness of my own heart.  I’ve learned that when I am pissed about something, God always wants to deal with me first. (Ugh! Why can’t He just change everybody else?)

I felt compelled to read the stories of people who were good forgivers.  I know Jesus was the ultimate forgiver, but it helps me to read about people in our modern day, flawed humans like myself, who are able to forgive, and even discover empathy for those who have hurt them.

So I spent about six months plowing through books about people who forgave when they were wrongly accused and imprisoned, who forgave their families for rejecting them for “coming out,” who forgave the person who killed their child in a tragic accident, who forgave the Nazis for unspeakable torture, who forgave their parents for hypocrisy and lies that shattered their world . . . and I learned that people can, with God’s help, be incredible forgivers.

And while I learned a lot of wonderful things from these writers, I still felt unsettled.  Toward the end of Miroslav Volf’s book, Free of Charge, a sentence jumped off the page at me and made me realize why I wasn’t finding my “happy place.”

“Prideful forgivers are bad forgivers partly because pride subverts what forgiveness seeks to achieve in the first place.” (Free of Charge:  Giving and Forgiving in a World Stripped of Grace, Miroslav Volf)

I really hate those moments when God turns the tables on me.

I go to Him seeking one thing and then He holds up this “sneaky mirror” and shows me what I really need to know. (Note:  I know God isn’t sneaky, but He is wise and patient, and He surprises me – I think He sometimes has to surprise us when He is revealing things we don’t want to see.)

Maybe God is the originator of “discovery learning” where you lead the person to the answer instead of giving it to them.  Or (more likely) maybe I’m so full of myself, that’s how He has to work with me.  If He came right out and said, “Yeah, your search for forgiveness is really a nice mask for pride and judgment,” I’d probably just get defensive and ignore Him.

No, He let me get deep into my forgiveness research before He hit me with the sneaky mirror and showed me that I’m the one who needed to be forgiven because I was trying to be a “prideful forgiver” – an oxymoron.

Volf says, “Do you want to become a forgiving person?  Seek the company of forgiven forgivers!” Taking in the stories of people who are “forgiven forgivers” helped me learn about forgiveness, but what I didn’t expect was that the forgiveness would start with me.

Have you ever looked at one of those optical illusion pictures, where you stare at a bunch of dots or lines for a long time and suddenly an image appears?  That’s kind of what the sneaky mirror feels like.  I was searching intently, but suddenly this image appeared that I wasn’t expecting to see.  At first, I didn’t really like the sneaky mirror – I didn’t want to see the image of a person who was so certain about her position or opinion that she felt the need to forgive others who held a dissenting opinion.  Once I saw it, it looked very arrogant, and I didn’t want to admit that it was my reflection.  It just “appeared,” but once I saw it, I couldn’t “un-see” it and had to deal with it.

But incredibly, once I had seen the ugliness, I was also able to see God’s goodness, and that’s a really beautiful reflection.  I am flawed and human, but I’m also loved and forgiven.

God’s sneaky mirror works both ways . . . sometimes it shows you ugly things you don’t want to see, but it always helps you see beautiful things that have been there all along.

In the warmer months, we like to spend time on the patio, usually around the fire pit with a glass of wine – it’s very calm and serene.  And as the sun goes down and the earth gets darker, we begin to see a few stars come out.  But once the darkness has totally descended, the stars are innumerable and bright.  They are so beautiful and awe-inspiring, but we can’t see them until it gets really dark.

Sometimes I think this is how it works for us (how the “sneaky mirror” works) – there are some beautiful things about God that we can only see in the dark.  As we see the darkness of our souls and of the world, and recognize our need for Him, we can also see the beauty of His love, mercy and grace.  It’s vast and awe-inspiring.  It’s mysterious, and yet it brings peace to know that we are connected to the One who is beyond our comprehension, who is there with us in the darkness, and loves us so deeply.

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3

The political environment hasn’t changed, and it seems to be getting worse in these final days leading up to the election.  But I hope and pray that somehow God will use all of this to show us both the ugliness in our hearts, and the beauty of God’s grace to redeem us.  I pray that we can become a country of forgiven forgivers.

I still struggle with “labeling” people who are voting one way or another and I fight feelings of anger and fear.  But at least now I can see it for what it is, and I know what I’m fighting against and what I’m fighting for.

This nasty environment has forced me to carve out time to let God restore my soul and find peace in Him.  When I am reminded of Who He is, and how short and precious life is, it puts things in perspective and I’m able to be grateful and find beauty.

May God hold up His “sneaky mirror” to all of us, so that we can see ourselves clearly, and clearly see His amazing love.

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Just in case it helps, here are some of my go-to verses during this strange political season:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”    John 14:27

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Romans 15:13

“Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”  Colossians 3:13