Our true name

By nature, I am an introvert. I really do like people. I even long to connect with people. It is just that when the opportunity to connect presents itself, I am tempted to withdraw. Meeting someone for the first time? Please excuse me. I need to crawl into a hole. Crowds full of fun and laughter? How about I just watch? Team building exercises with strangers? Oh my! This might as well be a Medieval torture chamber. I guess you get the point that connecting with others is extremely painful for me, and yet I wrestle with the internal desire to do this very thing. I live with the tension that what I desire causes me incredible pain.

I have been thinking a great deal lately about connecting, probably because I am coming off a retreat with forty other people, people with whom I have connected over the past two years in the deepest way, a people with whom I long to connect. Even though I have spent the past two years living with and loving them, even though I know them and am known by them in ways that I would never have imagined, it is still painful for me to connect. I love these people and yet when I am with them, I have to fight the desire to run back to my room so that I can hide. On the one hand, I have this internal drive to connect, to know and be known. On the other hand, I have this incredible to desire to run screaming from people so that I might be alone. Why is this? How can I be this living contradiction?

For a long time I thought that my introversion was just the way that I was wired. I am coming to believe that is a false narrative I have told myself to justify my withdrawal. I can’t get around the truth that God made us, made me to connect. He made us in his image, to live out the reality of Trinitarian connectedness in our every day encounters. So what gives? Why the desire to withdraw?

Over the past few weeks I have been wrestling with Jesus’ words in Matthew 5, specifically his words we call “The Beatitudes.” For a long time, I have tried to understand what Jesus is saying, really. I always was told that these were realities that Jesus wanted us to live. To be honest, I couldn’t wrap my mind around how Jesus wanted us to be a spiritually bankrupt people who moved about in life grieving and bullied (Matthew 5.1-10). If that is life, then no thank you. As I have been meditating on these words the thought came to me, what if these are not the ways Jesus wants us to live? Rather, what if these are the ways we are living? Could it be that we are a people who go about mourning? Might it be that we are a people who go about spiritually bankrupt? Would it be so hard to identify ourselves as a bullied, ostracized, marginalized people? Don’t wince if the shoe fits. If it fits, then what might Jesus be saying? With this thought, I dove into Jesus’ words once more. As I did, I realized something. I realized why I withdraw. I don’t withdraw because of the way I am wired. I withdraw because of who I think I am.

When I introduce myself, I will say “Hello, my name is Blake.” What you don’t hear me say, but what I am actually saying to you is, “Hello my name is Blake, and I am insecure. I am one who bears the scars of abuse and I don’t know if I can trust you. I am one who struggles with perfectionism and self-worth. I am full of doubt and worry.” I could go on, but you get a pretty good picture. Here’s the deal. Because this is who I am, I am tempted to withdraw. I don’t know if you will like the real me. I don’t know if I am worthy of your love and friendship, so it is safer to withdraw. It is this way with other people, and it is this way with God.

Are not these the very attitudes that Jesus addresses in the opening words of his sermon (Matthew 5.1-10)? Does he not look at his audience and say, “Some of you here might think introduce yourself as depressed, as those who are marginalized, as those who are non-assertive, as those who have nothing to offer others or God.” What comes next? Jesus continues,“You might introduce yourself in this way, but let me tell you who you really are. You are blessed.” There it is; the reality of who we are smacks up against who we think we are. What a collision it creates. We may carry many labels, labels given to us by our past, by our peers, by our culture. It is these labels that keep others and God at arm’s length. However, when we are honest, these labels do not reveal our true identity. There is but one label that speaks eternal truth to the depth of our being, truth that draws us to connect. It is the label given to us by God, the one that reveals that we are blessed.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

I encourage you to consider the following as a way of handing off faith to your family. . .

Bless your family: We learn to identify ourselves within the context of community. The deepest and most influential community we experience is that of our family. Consider making the blessing of your family members a regular part of your interactions so that through you God might teach them how they appear in his sight. Blessings might include saying one of the following: “I take great delight in you. You are a wonderful gift to me. How thankful I am that God gave you to me.” These blessings, given daily over a life, root one in the reality that they are blessed and loved by God.

I encourage you to consider the following as a way of nurturing your own faith. . .

State your true name: We were made to connect, to connect with God and others. As we come to see who we truly are, we are freed to connect with openness and authenticity. While we may identify ourselves in many ways, God sees us as one who is blessed. This week, consider opening your life to God so that he might teach you who you are in his sight. You might consider saying the following at least five times throughout the day: “I am _______ in whom God dwells and delights.”