(Disclaimer: The spiritual experience of others is not a sound foundation for arriving at truth. The second hand knowledge that one acquires about others as it pertains to their experience with God should ALWAYS be seen as theirs. The experience of others is at best suspect or at worst a lie.)

My disclaimer does not say that the spiritual experience of others is not real or genuine. I’m of the opinion that one should experience…relate to God personally. I think the possibility exists that there are many people who are full of second hand anecdotes about God while having no personal knowledge of him. In other words there are a lot of people who have heard about God but have no personal experience with him.

The hardest thing about writing is picking up the pen and opening the vein. It’s the first sentence that is the chore. Once the words begin to flow I heal. I never get “writers block.” Probably because I am under no pressure to do it. But I do seem to always have “writers remorse.” Probably because the things I would write about are in this moment undone…incomplete…sad.

When my daughter was eighteen or nineteen she lived in a small village in Mexico with a young missionary couple. In those days her faith was so…reckless..so passionate. She once told me of a poor farmer whose cow had died. It apparently died in the middle of a dirt road that my daughter was traveling on. As the farmer and others lamented the death of the cow and how to move it someone came along, put their hands on the cow, and prayed. The cow was raised from the dead.

When she told me that story she was so fervent and excited that I didn’t seriously question whether or not the cow was in fact dead. I didn’t request an affidavit from a board certified vet that attested to the actual death of the cow. For me it didn’t matter if the cow was really dead or not. The truth of what happened on that dirt road in Mexico resides in the heart of my daughter.

I have learned that North America is full of people who are interested in knowing about God. They are interested in what the Bible or their religion says about God. I don’t think these people are especially interested in knowing God. I think what they want is a blueprint or instruction in how to live as painlessly as possible…..without turning to a life of crime or chemical dependence. People don’t want God…they want to be smart. They don’t want to know him….they want to be their own god.

I’m of the opinion that the Bible is full of “best practices” concerning life. I don’t think that a strict adherence to all the “thou shalts” and “shalt nots” guarantee a painless or easily managed life. In fact I have found the study of the Bible from an academic or clinical point of view to be profoundly dull. When I read anything I have to wear glasses. I have to view the words on the page through corrective lenses so that I can see what is written. It seems that I usually read words from the Bible through the lenses of my current circumstances. I “see” better when I don’t detach my heart from the words on the page. I’m not primarily concerned about what “it” says but I am desperate for what HE has to say to me.

For a long time I have lamented difficult circumstances as it concerns my children…all of them….but especially the adopted ones. I can’t understand why people choose as they do. There are/were four adopted children in my house. I saw myself as God’s tool of rescue for them. We brought them home one at a time. We supplied every need and gave them our name. Now that they are legally grown they have…..not done well. My complaint to God has been what was the point of this endeavor. What has been the point of all the pain and suffering of accomplishing the mission of bringing them here? Why the effort of reaching into a pit of human debris over there and plucking them out only to see them dive back into the same pit over here?

I have been asking these questions for a long time….years of time. My wife and I didn’t adopt babies. We adopted older children…kindergarten age kids and a fourth or fifth grader. The bounds of my personal brand of naïveté astound me now. I believed that if I loved them…accepted them…then they would grow into God-loving well adjusted people. As it turns out they aren’t either. I used to think that small children are resilient..able to bounce back…take a beating from their circumstances. I have learned that love was not enough. I needed something that I didn’t have that could serve to promote mental and emotional healing. I carried a smoldering anger that I was led to a task that was and remains impossible to accomplish. I don’t necessarily think that people are fragile but we all take our first breath as broken things. I believed that I could win their hearts…but I didn’t. I thought I could earn their respect and trust…but I didn’t. As it is now for the most part our relationship is cordial and superficial to non-existent and hostile depending on what day it is.

At some point my daughter left Mexico and went to Guatemala City where she currently resides. I think she’s been there for twelve years. Her first year or two there were difficult for her. She had difficulty with the language. She found it difficult to understand the people and their culture. She called me regularly to help her with whatever crisis was on her plate. Why won’t my car start? Why does my boss treat me like a child? I remember telling her the most important thing. The most important thing about what God has given her to do isn’t the thing itself. The most important thing was what God wanted to do in her heart.

Recently I remembered the most important thing. I began to realize that in my search for answers from an illusive God I had been searching for him while looking through the wrong end of the telescope. God spoke….finally. I didn’t hear a voice or have a dream or vision but he spoke….to me.

“You have questions.”

“I do. What was point of all of this for it to turn out like this?”

“The POINT was never about the thing I gave you to do. The point has always been what I want to do in you….the most important thing.”

“This feels like a spectacular failure….I rescued no one….I only relocated them. I feel cheated! I feel tricked! I expected more.”

“I know exactly how you feel. But you should know that nothing has ‘turned out’ yet. It was never your job to “rescue” anyone. In fact the opposite is true…I USED THEM TO RESCUE YOU. You are constantly before me…you are continuously complaining concerning my slowness….my deafness….my silence…my remoteness…as though I wasn’t trustworthy. The point is that I used them to change you…to keep you home.”

“I regret my behavior before you.”

“Relationships are messy….even ours and ours is real even if others aren’t supposed to trust it. You should perhaps ask yourself why it is that you continuously called out their names to me even though your perception was that I was…..not instantly responsive.”

“What is to become of them?”

“You don’t get to choose that…..I don’t get to choose that….they are doomed or free based on their own choices.”

To be clear this “discussion” didn’t happen at a point in time but over time. For whatever reason I asked myself what if it was never about them but about me…changing me? What if the “most important thing” applied to me too? I guess I thought that the process of living through the process of completing the task was the hard part followed by a lifetime of pleasurable ease and earned appreciation.

God did not use me to rescue my children. God used my children to rescue me. My children are from far away and God’s grace seems a bit excessive….extravagant…and maybe a little aggressive….but that’s just me.

*my youngest son is still at home and has currently not gone off the rails…..sorry buddy…..and thank you.