Divine Plagiarism

When facing an in-flight emergency, the least useful question is ‘who is more to blame.’ The entire crew is bound together in their fates, regardless of who caused the problem or why. They either save the aircraft together, or they die together. If it is saved, the question of blame ceases to be important after a safe landing (except insofar as answering it can prevent future emergencies.) If the aircraft crashes, the safety board will have plenty of time to figure out who was more to blame, most likely without the assistance of the crew. Raising the question of blame in flight all but ensures that the safety board will close the question well after the answer is of any use to the crew.

Relationships are no different. ‘Who is more to blame’ is a question for divorce courts, not for a marriage. Even if the other person is 99% wrong, you are still 1% wrong. Which means that you are wrong. The wrongness of the other does nothing to mitigate your own. Anything that goes wrong in a relationship involves both people in the relationship. If we break things together, then the only way to fix them is together. I spent so much time arguing about who was more wrong. That was never the question.

The reality is that we both hurt each other. Not Proverb’s ‘honest wounds from a friend.’ Cruel, vicious wounds. Two people who value loyalty and honor above all things (save One) attacked those very things in each other. She and I both accused each other of disloyalty, dishonesty and dishonor; we named each other as lacking in courage and integrity. It is one thing to misunderstand each other. Surely there was some of that. That could be excused; two people can be well-intentioned and well-meaning and still crash into each other as their words ricochet off the walls. But it is one thing to find yourself in the crossfire between crooked souls trying to stand up straight. It is a quite different thing to fashion words into weapons and aim them at the heart of the other. Something in both of us wanted to hurt the other the way we had been hurt. Instead of being found naked and defenseless in a moment of vulnerability, we did what we had always done to keep ourselves safe. We attacked.

In a way, it was a perfect trap. Take two Christians whose spiritual resumes looked quite good on paper; two Christians who loved God as best as they could, but were both deeply proud and deeply scared. Set up a dissonance between them, where they are equally attracted to and repelled by each other. Convince each to try to fix that dissonance through their own power. Make sure that fear keeps both of them from really being honest with themselves about their own hearts. Watch as the tension grows until the situation finally explodes.

I never respected her will, when it really came down to it. I thought I had, I convinced myself that I had, I forced myself to act as if I had, but I never really had. Somewhere in the depths of my heart, I never considered her ‘no’ valid. And even if I wasn’t willing to see it, she saw it. And resented me for it. She was not wrong to do so. This was my contribution to the brokenness.

She never respected my heart. I think she thought that she did. I think she thought as if she was acting as if she did. But she never did. Somewhere in the depths of her heart, she always resented my feelings for her. She was always wrong to do so. Just as she had the right to her will, I had a right to my heart. I don’t think she was willing to see it, but somewhere deep I saw it. And I resented her for it. I was not wrong to do so. This was her contribution to the brokenness.

My disrespect and her disrespect fed off each other. She blamed my heart for my disrespect of her will, just as I blamed her will for her disrespect of my heart. The more I resented her will for disrespecting my heart, the more I disrespected her will. And the more she resented my heart for disrespecting her will. The broken chord was complete. The only resolution I could see was a change in her will, and I think perhaps that was why I tried so hard to be friends with her. The only resolution she could see was a change in my heart, which is why she preconditioned our friendship on my not being attracted to her. So I killed my heart in the insane hope that in doing so she would learn not to resent it. But my heart did not stay dead. Two months into waiting for a phone call that was promised but never came, it returned with a vengeance. All the pain, the heartache, and the resentment that I had been burying for months, years really, declared thatit would be buried no longer. All the words that should have been said long ago were said all at once, and the already tenuous relationship shattered into a million pieces. Her counter-attack came months later. The first time she was truly honest with herself, and with me, she told me in no uncertain terms the depths of her resentment toward me. The trap had worked perfectly. Two Christians in very good standing went for each other’s throats. What could have been a mockery of disunity had become a case study in it.

Pride seems to be the enemy’s weapon of choice against those in Christian leadership. Few in ministry will risk their influence or livelihood through open rebellion. Self-will provides us the appearance of righteousness so important to public perceptions, while leaving us wide open to temptation. It is a root sin; a gateway sin leading to all kinds of unrighteousness. Unless God lances the wound, it will burst at a time of the enemy’s choosing, usually one disastrous to our witness and our ministry. This is a lesson we should be all too familiar with.

Pride has a special seduction for those who are highly gifted and for those who have been deeply wounded. It whispers ‘you can be safe if you trust in your own power.’ Those who have been hurt desire safety more than most, those who are gifted trust their own power more than most. It tells you that you can fix things if you try hard enough. I have found that I have no power to work miracles; a miracle is what it would have taken to fix things between her and I. Pride cut me off from the source of miracles. Not only that, it blinded me to my contribution to the problem. Pride always looks outside for problems, never inwards. I tried so hard to fix her, but I never fixed myself. I never started with the plank in my own eye. Just as the Spirit is the guarantor of salvation, pride is the guarantor of brokenness. The Spirit promises that He will complete the work started in us. Pride ensures that no work is done in us. Under its watch, all the things that are broken will stay broken. And so it was with us.

We both tried to convince ourselves to feel the way we knew we should feel. I knew that I should respect her will, but simultaneously I refused to believe that two Christians could not manage to have some sort of positive interaction. So through my own strength and my own mind, I set out to do both. I felt as if she was saying ‘I will resent you if you like me. You must kill your heart if you want to talk to me.’ I accepted that rule, ostensibly in the hope of being friends. I found the topics of relationships, marriage, children, and love unappetizing. But I was never honest with myself. I killed my heart, over and over, but it kept coming back up and poisoning the interaction. And it kept hoping that she would change her mind, that she would magically figure out I was a good guy if I kept putting up with abuse. So the tension built.

Perhaps it was the same from her side. Perhaps she knew that there wasn’t a good reason to resent my heart, but something in her heart kept pushing her to hating mine. So she decided to fix it through her own power, to choose to feel the way toward me that she decided she should feel. Perhaps, just as it was with me, whatever it is in her heart kept bubbling back up and poisoning the relationship. During the best conversation we ever had, she promised that she would call soon about the dynamics between her and I. She told me that she still wanted to be friends. I think she may have had the intention of keeping that promise, but it was a promise borne of duty, not Phileos. Perhaps she knew that was what she was supposed to do in that circumstance, what she would have wanted to do if her heart was doing what she told it that it should do. But it came back up, convincing her not to call, to avoid, to run. And the tension built.

Humility is the constant companion of love. It tells us that we need love, that we owe love to others, it teaches us to be open to love. In the same way, fear is the constant companion of pride. Fear whispers that we cannot need anything from anyone, that we cannot owe them anything, it teaches us to close ourselves off from love. Humility teaches us to be broken. Fear prevents us from being broken. In order to dismantle pride, you must destroy the fear that drives it. In order to do that, you must find the courage to face your own heart.

Both of us were afraid to face ourselves. For me, I was terrified to face my heart, because I was terrified of being hurt. I knew that if I faced my heart, it would tell me that I loved her. And if it told me that, then she would hate me for it, and I would be deeply wounded again. She had never carried that well, never done anything to be gentle or to honor my heart. To love her was to be told that my heart was disgusting and hateful, so I decided not to love. I decided to hide my heart, bury it because I was afraid.

I think she may have been afraid too. I don’t believe that things were entirely simple for her. It seemed there was a part of her who liked me, and another part that hated that part for liking me. Something in her knew that it was illegitimate to hate me for that, so she made the rule that I could never like her. Therefore, her hating my heart would then be my fault, and hence legitimate. If she were to face her heart, she would have to face two terrifying things: she was neither in total control of the situation nor in total control of her own feelings. So it was safer to run, to hide and to bury. But fears do not stay peacefully in the grave. They haunt our waking lives. The only way to undo them is to exhume them. Both her and I were terrified to face ourselves, so we never really faced each other. I wonder if either of us really had faces to begin with.

We were cruel to each other over and over. God mourns for that; He mourns for the way His son treated His daughter, He mourns for the way His daughter treated His son. There is no balance in brokenness, no balance in the fall. We are hurt, and we hurt others, over and over again. We are the slaves and the slave owners, both at once. Brokenness cannot be balanced. It must be overthrown.

I am a part of the brokenness. I was the son of God who hurt His beloved daughter. The fact that she hurt me does nothing at all to mitigate my guilt. So I will own it, and I will lay it down at the foot of the Cross. I ask Him to forgive me for hurting His beloved daughter. I ask His forgiveness for my disrespect toward her, for the way that I resented the will He gave her. I ask His forgiveness for my failure to confront her lovingly when she treated me with disrespect. I ask His forgiveness for responding to her with rage. I ask forgiveness for my tremendous pride, for my tremendous fear, for my unwillingness to yield her into His hands. I was so concerned with outcomes. Jesus, teach me obedience instead. God, teach me to love her the way that You do. Whether or not I ever get to express it on this side of eternity.

May His grace and mercy flow over this. Where there was disrespect, may He sow honor; where there was resentment, compassion; where there was pride, brokenness; where there was fear, love. May what is a case study in disunity become a mockery of disunity. May we both find our faces, so that we can be real with God and with others. May the God who does the impossible work a miracle here. May the God who reconciles the irreconcilable reconcile the two of us. I ask all of these things in the Name of Jesus Christ, the Name above all Names, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. May that same sacred Blood that flows through her veins and mine cover all of our sins toward each other.