The untold story

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”- Maya Angelou

“I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. . . . And anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”- Elie Wiesel, political activist and concentration camp survivor

In Chapter 11 (“The Untold Story- I Used to be Matt Petrino: The Power of God in Your Story”) of Finding God in the Ruins, Matt Bays underscores the truth that eventually our untold stories begin telling our deepest secrets- without our permission.  As our untold stories begin revealing one broken chapter after another, the life we’ve always wanted becomes threatened by the life we’ve always feared.

Yet God uses what is available at the time to let you know that (1) your life has value and (2) you can instill that same sense of worth into other broken people God brings into your life.

When Matt was eighteen years old, he petitioned the court to legally change his last name from Petrino back to Bays.  Matt reasoned that getting a new name would give him a new life.  But this outward change did not change who Matt was on the inside.  However, because Matt Petrino was a survivor, Matt Bays could tell his story.  Likewise, Pastor Bays encourages us not to forget all we have overcome:

“It’s easy to ignore our stories or disregard their power to call the hurting, wounded, and abused out of their hiding places.  Looking back can be painful, especially if it feels as though you’ve read the broken passages too many times already.  But if you continue turning the pages and inviting others to read along, you will find the grace of God beautifully on display in your storytold.”

Today’s question: What untold story of yours can beautifully display the grace of God?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The person you were meant to be”

The untold story

Drawn into His love

“I imagine God is please when we allow the foolish things of this world to confound our wisdom- when we allow ourselves to be drawn into His love in the most peculiar ways.”- Matt Bays

Matt Bays begins Chapter 10 (“Me Encanta- The Love of God”) of Finding God in the Ruins by observing there are heavenly moments when everything aligns and we have no trouble sensing the presence of God.  So when pain comes, we may be too eager to punctuate our pain with an exclamation point-before that exclamation point belongs there.

Instead, we must understand our pain- be comfortable enough to put an ellipsis where an ellipsis belongs.  In The Circle Maker, Mark Batterson describes an ellipsis as a time of waiting during which we feel God is answering everyone else’s prayers but ours.  Pastor Bays offers his perspective on unredeemed pain and how we are drawn into His love:

“But for those things that have been left unredeemed, pain can be a lifetime mortgage. . . . Yet it will not be all that is me.  It does not complete me.  While it remains, God also will remain.  And I will find him in the ruins, among three thorns and three prayers for their removal.  He will provide his copathy and care. . . and laughter and love- especially love.”

Matt adds that at times it feels like God has invited himself into our pain, when what we really had been looking for was a invitation into God’s healing.  While we desire a God who heals our wounds, Matt states that “it seems we have a God who heals our hearts.”

Today’s question (from Matt): What does the phrase “sometimes it feels like God has invited himself into my pain, when I had hope to be invited into his healing” mean to you?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The untold story”

 

Drawn into His love

The words me too

It has been said that at the start of every friendship are the words me too.”- Matt Bays

“Friendship . . . is born at the moment when one man says to another, ‘What!  You too?  I thought that no one but myself . . .”- C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

In Chapter 9 (“Me Too- You Are Not Alone”) of Finding God in the Ruins, Matt Bays notes that the word glory often is defined as “the silent existence” or “the unspoken manifestation of God.”  The Greek word for glory, doxa, is used to convey God’s intrinsic worth or core value.  Pastor Bays applies this to our brokenness:

“So not only is the glory of God revealed in our brokenness, in the ruins of our lives, in those things we can’t figure out, get right, or seem to overcome, but his core value is at its absolute highest when we are at our absolute lowest.  The silent existence of God is alive in my brokenness, when his power is not simply present but ‘made perfect.’ ”

What, Matt asks, if God is calling us to something and for something that He needs us to make right in the world?  God’s glory, made perfect in our weakness, could bring what is dead in others back to life.  There still may be unanswered questions, but Matt doesn’t think we really are looking for answers anyway:

“I think we’re looking for grace- enough so we can manage the pain.  And answers are not grace; they’re just information.  Empathy is grace.  Company is grace.  ‘Me too.’ That’s grace.”

Today’s question (from Matt): When you consider C. S. Lewis’ quote, how are you this kind of person to people?  What are some ways you could take it even further?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Drawn into His love”

The words me too

The comfort of God

“Sometimes the comfort of God comes to us dirty, showing up when we least expect it.  I have often found God mixed into what many consider their greatest disappointments in life.”- Matt Bays

As Matt Bays begins Chapter 8 (“Love Sifting- The Comfort of God”) of Finding God in the Ruins, he notes that, from the day we are born, we measure pain and love.  At times it feels like the sifted sands of pain outweigh the sifted sands of love.  Until we come to the end of ourselves, we fail to realize that grace is all around us for the taking.

Perhaps, as author Robert Farrar Capon writes in The Romance of the Word: One Man’s Love Affair with Theology, we shouldn’t be so anxious to make the problem of evil go away:

” If God seems to be in no hurry to make the problem of evil go away, maybe we shouldn’t be either.  Maybe our compulsion to wash God’s hands for him is a service he doesn’t appreciate.  Maybe . . . evil is where we meet God (italics in the original).”

And when we meet God and the sands of love sift through us, healing begins to wash over us.  We experience copathy- compassion and empathy.  Pastor Bays observes those who truly love us are great at subtraction:

“I’ve often heard that a burden shared is divided by two.  But there are moments, in the company of those who care, when it feels like a huge minus sign has replaced the division sign and our burdens aren’t being divided at all; they’re being subtracted.  And subtraction is always better tan division because when things are subtracted, they disappear altogether.”

Today’s question: How have you found the comfort of God mixed into the greatest disappointments of your life?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “The words me too”

The comfort of God

Faith built on preference

“Faith built on preference is capable of producing only an incomplete theology.”- Matt Bays

As Matt Bays concludes Chapter 5 of Finding God in the Ruins, he reminds his readers of the Scripture verse printed on the page preceding Chapter 1:

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.”- Isaiah 45:7 (emphasis author’s)

Matt theorizes people skim past or ignore passages like Isaiah 45:7 because they prefer “celebration to suffering, resurrection to crucifixion.”  This is a faith built on preference.

Pastor Bays stresses the importance of honestly crying out to God in our anger, resentment, rage- even disrespect, trusting that God will love, accept, and forgive us.  When we can come to this honest place with God, we will feel the sharp edges of our pain softening.

Job and David were honest with God- and probably afraid as well.  But, Matt observes, they weren’t so scared they were unable to tell God exactly what they though.  Kara, a violinist at Matt’s church, expresses her understanding of an honest relationship with God:

“All of the good in my life has had a contrast, and that contrast is where I learn the great life lessons.  So when the contrast comes, I plop myself down in the middle of the pain, frustration, or unmet expectations and I wait on God.  When he shows up, I begin working to hear his still small voice so that I will know what he is trying to teach me.”

Today’s question (from Matt): If God pulled up a chair before you, looked directly into your eyes, and asked you to tell him the truth about how you feel (or have felt) about him, would you feel secure enough to be brutally honest?  If so, what would you say?

Tomorrow’s blog: “The comfort of God”

Faith built on preference

A theology of no more pain

“When our faith is built upon a theology of no more pain, we fail to hold dark and light together and cannot experience the fullness of God.”- Matt Bays

Matt Bays begins Chapter 5 (“Put Away the Glitter- God Wants You to Tell the Truth”) of Finding God in the Ruins by stating that God’s love isn’t glitter.  It then follows that if God’s love isn’t glitter, at some point we’re going to have to realize “that getting all of him is equally delicious and painful (italics author’s).”

Pastor Bays emphasizes that asking someone who has experienced horrific pain to minimize or summarize the experience is akin to “asking someone who’d been to hell and back to put a bright, red ribbon on a grenade.”  We need a God who sees our suffering and pain, and doesn’t turn away for a second- that we are never out of His sight.

Matt notes that if we are ever to find an honest place with God, we must cry out “Where are You?”  In our spiritual understanding of God, passages such as John 16:33 (“In this world you will have trouble”) must be given credence.  Rather than extracting any sort of darkness from our lives, we have the capacity to hold dark and light together simultaneously.  Richard Rohr describes this capacity in his book Things Hidden:

“God wants usable instruments who will carry the mystery, the weight of glory, and the burden of sin simultaneously, who can bear the darkness and light, who can hold the paradox of the incarnation- flesh and pain, human and divine, joy and suffering, at the same time, just as Jesus did.”

Faith built upon a theology of no more pain fails to hold dark and light together.  Such faith cannot experience the fullness of God.

Today’s question (from Matt): In what ways do you feel you might not be experiencing the fullness of God?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Faith built on preference”

A theology of no more pain

Worthless idols

“Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”- Jonah 2:8

In Chapter 4 (“The Age of Reckoning- Symptoms of a Deeper Problem”) of Finding God in the Ruins, Matt Bays notes that one phrase from Jonah 2:8 really impacts him- could be.  Pastor Bays interprets the phrase to mean that something is expected of us.  It’s asking for our help.

Eliminating worthless idols (in Matt’s case, alcoholism) requires discipline.  Matt describes the importance of discipline:

“Not many of us love the word discipline, but it is a critical prerequisite to our journey inward.  Discipline  expects something out of us we are not always sure we have to give. . . . If you did, discipline would not be knocking on your door.  It’s there to pinpoint what you’re lacking and then find a way, whatever it takes, to get that lacking thing inside you.”

Pastor Bays observes that when the foundational who we are is wrecked and we can’t seem to shake it off so we can get to what life could be, the temptation is to resign ourselves to that broken reality.  Fear keeps us from committing to true and lasting change.  We are afraid being pushed into alignment will be difficult.

In fact, a painful breaking must occur.  And our lack of knowing how to change is not a free pass to remain the same.  Susan Howard points out that internally we always will know the truth:

“We can never entirely silence the inner voice that always tells us the truth.  We may not like the sound of the truth, . . . but when we pay attention to it, it lead us toward wisdom, health, and clarity.  That voice is the guardian of our integrity.”

Today’s question (from Matt): What is the “worthless idol” you use to avoid real life?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “A theology of no more pain”

Worthless idols