Wednesday, May 10, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Bearing fruit
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
What fruit? Not what I’d want to eat, not on some days.
Some days I just want to beat somebody up. So I stomp around the kitchen and clean things, or I throw my blankets around and make the bed, or go outside and take the trash to the dumpster, walking as hard and fast as I can. Pound, pound, pound. I have not yet broken my fist pounding on a tree.
Perhaps this is what Henri Nouwen is talking about:
How are we healed of our wounding memories? We are healed first of all by letting them be available, by leading them out of the corner of forgetfulness, and by remembering them as part of our life stories. What is forgotten is unavailable and what is unavailable cannot be healed … by lifting our painful forgotten memories out of the egocentric, individualistic, private sphere, Jesus Christ heals our pains. He connects them with the pain of all humanity, a pain he took upon himself and transformed. To heal, then, does not primarily mean to take pains away but to reveal that our pains are part of a great pain, that our sorrows are part of a great sorrow, that our experience is part of the great experience of him who said, “But was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into the Glory of God?” (Luke 24:26). – from You Are the Beloved
Just reading that calms me down. My emotions might be strong, but God is stronger. God made me, and he installed in me a shadowing of his own emotions. My anger and sadness are “part of a great sorrow,” and the joy of my healing is part of a great gigantic grace, God’s grace, which fills the world up and beyond the sky.
Paul’s temper sometimes got the best of him too. Barnabas could usually calm him down. Like a good assistant coach, he tore Paul away from his enemies and walked him back to their home, whispering in his ear. Paul did not come easily.
Because there arose NO LITTLE dissension and debate by Paul and Barnabas among them …
These debates were about circumcision as a mark of salvation, and Paul would not yield. His emotions got in the way of agreement, but they also kept the argument open. James Dobson offers an alternative when he distinguishes between firmness and anger as he talks about parenting. But anger generates adrenalin, and adrenalin feels good, because it makes you feel strong and righteous … well, self-righteous, anyway.
“Firmness” does not give me that rush of energy. But it’s much more effective in moving another person toward agreement and acceptance. Quietly put up a wall, and he can’t get over it, under it, around it. Yell and scream, and he gets to yell and scream back.
So in lieu of biting someone’s head off, I do some cleaning instead, and wait for God’s firmness to settle down around me and become mine. Or after a few moments, I just let the anger go. My “issues” almost never amount to much. Not like circumcision, or any other mark of salvation that others judge me by.
Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned.
 (Acts 15, Psalm 96, John 10, John 15)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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