HOPEFUL SEEDS OF HELPLESSNESS

Standing at the kitchen sink mundanely washing dishes, I heard my old friend, Chuck's voice in my mind, “J, you can’t fix it!”

Tears poured down my cheeks as my heart flooded with a mixture of helplessness and hope. The words of my late friend, who struggled mentally himself, sounded like a call from the grave to stop trying so hard. Stop trying to fix the heartache. Stop trying to change what is. Stop trying to fix everything. Stop trying to find all the answers. Stop trying to convince people to understand. Stop hoping it’ll all go away... because it won’t.

It was a hard night. My son, who struggles with bi-polar, wanted to play video games, but we said “no.” He had plenty of time throughout the day playing and it was close to bedtime. We were exhausted from a long day and just wanted to go to bed. But, how dare we say no and set a boundary.

When he can’t see or it doesn’t make sense to him, it feels unfair and the feeling of unfairness catapults him into a maddening state of blame, finger-pointing and rage.

Seeds of Injustice

Throwing his water bottle with all his strength into his nightstand, he yelled angrily, “Get out of my room!” I knew in my spirit he wanted to harm me in that moment. Yet, I also know that when he’s in a good place emotionally and in his heart of hearts, he would never do such a thing. I walked out of the room wondering if he would come after me in his fury and later, become trapped in a prison of regret. That is the last thing I want for him, but I’m powerless to choose for him or control the outcome of whatever he decides. I left his room and sobbed.

Seeds of helplessness

I felt like a fly with its wings stuck on a sticky strip waiting to be eaten by a lizard with no way of escape. I’m glued; I can’t break free. I can’t change any of it. I can’t make his anger go away. I can’t cause him to think reasonably and objectively. I can’t control whether or not he will choose to lunge at me in his rage or stay sitting on his bed fuming. I can’t. I’m helpless.

Seeds of oppression

And so is he. He’s drowning in the waves of strong emotions that are flooding out his sense of reason so he attempts to calm the internal chaos by controlling whoever represents authority (those who seemingly have the power to affect his internal chaos). And the voice inside his head keeps telling him, “I’m worthless anyway. I don’t care anymore.”

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In my sorrow, the Lord brought to mind Jesus anguishing in the Garden of Gethsemane over the painful suffering he was about to endure. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.” Yes, Lord, take this cup from me! I cried. I opened my Bible to read the account in Matthew 26. After Jesus prayed and submitted himself to His Father’s will, he went back to the disciples and found them sleeping. Exhausted from his sorrow (yes, I’m feeling that too!), he urged them, “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” What temptation? I wonder if it could have been the temptation to take control of the situation with the soldiers soon approaching?

While he was still speaking, a crowd came, with Judas (the disciple who betrayed him), to arrest him. When the disciples realized the soldiers were going to arrest Jesus (an innocent man), they asked, “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” Peter didn’t even wait for Jesus to answer and immediately struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.

Jesus rebuked him, “No more of this!” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.

Both Jesus (in his humanity) and Peter felt helpless. Jesus felt a sense of helplessness in the anguish of the suffering he was about to endure and Peter felt fearfully helpless with the thought they would take the one he loved. Jesus’ helplessness was rooted in the soil of hope, but Peter’s was rooted in the soil of fleshly fear. The fruit of Jesus’ submission was healing. The fruit of Peter’s desire to take control was more pain. Peter took justice into his own hands, distrusted what Jesus said must come (Mark 8:31), held on to his need to be in charge and clung to his own sword. Jesus waited for God to bring deliverance and trusted He would do it however He saw fit (even if it meant dying on a cross), he let go of any need to look out for himself (Philippians 2:6-8) and clung to the promise of redemption (Hebrews 12:2-4).

The same patterns are present in me, in us, unless we bury our helplessness in the soil of hope. By definition, helplessness is having a lack of protection or support (what I felt in the moment of my son’s rage), but helplessness is also the inability to be controlled or restrained (what my son felt). Oppression sprouts in the soil of helplessness because we both want to regain control just like Peter. I have the desire to protect myself or others, so I react against his need for power. He has the desire to calm his internal chaos by having power over me. I fear he’ll continue to hurt me. He fears I’ll never hear him or understand his rage. All the while, fear is laughing at both of us saying, “There’s no hope.”

Lord, I feel helpless. Where’s hope in all this? What does faith look like in the midst of this chaos?

He reminded me of Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” Hope in this context is confidently waiting for redemption—change for the better. Of course, I want what’s better for my son and I’d love to see change. But, when it doesn’t come (especially in my timing), I want to fix it and make it better myself by brandishing my own sword. This is the humanness of Peter that lives in all of us. We want to take charge of one another and “cut each other’s ears off” when we don’t do what the other wants or see the desired outcome in them. We demand the better way. These are seeds of oppression (the desire for power and control) that are in all of us and we struggle with letting go of what we cannot change (that’s a future post ;-). When we allow the Farmer to till our heart’s soil and pull out the weeds of oppression in us, we're free to leave the fruitfulness of our circumstances in His hands. and wait patiently for Him to do it in His timing and in His way.

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If colleges offered a PhD degree in waiting, I’m convinced they’d have the lowest enrollment rate ever. Waiting is hard. Few want to do it and even fewer make it a practice. We’re too impatient. We want to plow ahead and make things happen. We’re driven by the desire to see results and when we don’t, we push for something to move.

“Yet, fruitful waiting requires us to re-set our pace and pause for another to catch-up. When we wait, we create space for growth."

In the case with my son, waiting requires me to pause, reflect, ask questions, engage in his pain and listen carefully while he catches-up to what is right and true. If I yell at him to pull himself up by his boot straps and get over it, his heart would stay in isolation and it would be harder for him to trust me emotionally.

Trust is relational fertilizer sinking into the soil of our human experiences at every turn of the plow. It's about the character of someone. It’s not about unpredictable circumstances. In order to cultivate trust, we have to separate character from circumstances.

For example, if I were lost at sea, but my husband couldn’t find me, am I going to distrust him? No. Why not? Because his inability to change my circumstances is not a reflection of his character, it’s a reflection of his limitation in power over my circumstances. If we want to have fruitful relationships, we must understand trusting God in the chaos requires us to lean on His character more than our desire to see change in our circumstances.

"Trouble comes when we believe God’s power is at our disposal to get what we want."

We test God to prove his power to us by doing what we want him to do and in the way we want him to do it. When we don’t get what we ask for, we simply believe he’s untrustworthy.

Here’s the deal… God didn’t create us so he’d have someone to work for, He created us because he wants a relationship with us and wants us to imitate that relationship with others. Last I checked, relationships never work under coercion. So, when we lack trust because our circumstances haven’t changed, the problem isn’t God’s character, it’s our need to coerce him to do what we want.

So, in our situations where there’s such a longing for God to “fix” whatever it is producing chaos in our lives, are we leaning into hopeful expectation of what he says he will do (eventually, in his timing and in his way) or are we getting lost in the wilderness of wishing for everything to be different and trying to find our own way out?

Are we separating character from circumstance?

Are we concluding God’s untrustworthy because we don’t like how the hardship feels to us and he’s not succumbing to our way?

Are we distrusting because it’s not happening in our timing?

Are we willing to wait in patient trust when he says, “I will work ALL things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose” or are we surrounding to pandering unbelief because we can’t see the longing fulfilled in the here and now?

Do we really believe he's able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all we can ask or imagine?

Are you willing to surrender the seeds of your helplessness into the soil of Hope in order to see His character sprout-up in you?