Lost Without Guidance
With this issue of 7 Prodigals, I’ve decided to try a new feature with the above VoiceOver or audible reading. Perhaps we’ll reach a few nonreaders or some who prefer to listen. I would love to get your thoughts. Thanks, John
In unfurling his story, his unkept heart hit the floor of my office with a thud. His tale offered a single ray of sunlight slicing along the outside edge of dusty blinds allowing me to peak into the chaos of his normal. There were worn boxers slung across an unmade bed, muddy boots, ticket stubs, and empty bottles strewn across an unswept floor, a blunt in a makeshift ashtray next to an open bag of chips, and keys tossed onto an unopened Bible under a fist-sized hole in the wall.
His narrative was all too familiar. His dad, wanting his best, demanded achievement, always focusing on the gap between his expectations and reality. His mom, longing to protect, would accept whatever he offered, lowering any standard to communicate love. The balance was sufferable until he hit puberty and his yearning for status and respect replaced the primacy of food and sleep.
In his transition from boyhood to manhood, he fought for his place as a contributing member of society. Help with his shoes or hair, or reminders to brush his teeth, once appreciated, now felt like condemnations of incompetence. “She thinks that I can’t handle the basic elements of life!”
“I KNOW MOM” became his new mantra.
His dad’s forceful attempts to motivate in the most public moments seemed to strip whatever respect he was gaining right off the bone.
“Just say, ‘Yes sir,’ and do it now!”
So, his thirteen-year-old brain defined respect and status, and determined how to pursue them for himself. If he couldn’t find them at home, he’d find them among peers. His well-meaning parents, seeing only rebellion, doubled down on their efforts, each moving to the poles of their predetermined and ever-clashing approaches – more discipline on one side and unconditional approval on the other.
In his mind, the harder he fought for respect and status, the more they stripped them away. They only saw an increasingly unreachable teen. He viewed his actions as reactions to them. They viewed their actions as reactions to him. Everyone felt out-of-control. Desperation ruled.
Grades plummeted. Rules were tightened. Authorities were involved.
Words that could neither be unsaid nor unheard were hurled through the shrinking house and across the lawn. Family secrets became neighborhood chatter.
Embarrassment proved a wicked and most destructive motivator.
Now he sits in my office.
It’s been almost two decades. His mom has cancer. He and his dad don’t speak.
He’s still chasing what his thirteen-year-old brain defined as status and respect the way his thirteen-year-old brain determined how to pursue them. He has a parade of broken relationships, lost jobs, arrests, and suicidal thoughts.
His church friends went a different route. They found religion. They pursued status and respect in a different community, where following rules and showing self-discipline, or at least discretion, earn position and authority. They’ve invited him in, but the closer he gets, the more anxiety and conflict he sees. They’ve claimed restoration while wearing a veil. It’s church, just as he remembers - the same chase, just a different route.
How could following Jesus be relevant?
He doesn’t need psychology or religion. He needs Jesus. He needs followers of Jesus who trust that Jesus loves him where he is and will call him to his potential. He needs people who understand that holding someone to high standards without strong encouragement and support or simply lowering the standards to make everyone feel accomplished leave one feeling unworthy and unvalued.
Read the Gospels. Jesus always acknowledged where people were. He accepted them, then challenged them to consider where they could be, and he offered them everything they needed to get there. He never saw people as failures. He didn’t assume people were short-sighted and selfish. Nor did he appeal to them with immediate self-interests nor consequences. He called them to long-term growth and rewards, to make contributions beyond themselves. He taught that stress is inevitable and it’s a sign of growth. He challenged worldly definitions of success, offering clear purpose and ways to realize it.
Jesus didn’t simply ask for a momentary statement or act. He offered life. He walked alongside those He called. He taught them, inspired them, challenged them to reconsider every aspect of life. He discipled them. He mentored them. What Jesus offers cannot be offered from afar. Jesus modeled walking through life with people, inspiring extraordinary expectations, while offering every form of encouragement and support along the way. Jesus had limited time, and He gave it to those He loved.
Today, church leaders and parents fill our time with everything but discipleship. We find our own respect and status in the busyness of our schedules. We’ve replaced discipleship with membership, losing the very essence of what it means to follow Jesus. We’ve made stories of young people, like the one above, commonplace. Pray the prayer, go under the water, and you’re on your own. Good luck!
If we aren’t making disciples, we’re asking adolescent brains to define and pursue status and respect on their own. Those definitions and pursuits lead to misguided habits which lead to misguided identities which shape misguided lives. We’ll praise the rule followers, giving them what they seek; and curse the rule breakers, pushing them farther away. In the end, we’ll have churches full of religious people who haven’t a clue how to disciple others and void of our beloved prodigals who are anywhere but church while blindly seeking what only God can give.