The Hobo Within

I have often spoken to the children about learning to see (and then strangle) within themselves the person they THINK they are--that person whose motives are continually pure, who lives in a state of perpetual self-justification, who is always just a little misunderstood and maligned by the general riff-raff (i.e. everyone else).  That idealized self who deserves only the best of every situation, but somehow ends up with a raw enough deal to merit a heaping dose of self-pity.

It is as if they each have an inner defense attorney who comes marching out with excuses and blame every time they get in trouble.   

Nothing was ever his/her fault!  There were extenuating circumstances!  He was framed!  She was misrepresented!   It was self defense!

And so we end up with situations like, "I had every right to whop you on the chin, kick your cars under the couch, and tackle you to the ground because YOU LAUGHED WHEN MY BLOCK TOWER FELL!"

Grown ups have their own versions that sound almost as silly. And if the pattern of self-justification becomes a way of life, too often we see a person who careens through life with an over-developed self-esteem and an unformed conscience.

To prevent this unfortunate outcome, it falls to me as a parent to train my children to see themselves as everyone else see them--not as the airbrushed and idealized image in their heads, but as "real" people, possessed of selfish impulses alongside the good.    

They need to see that they are part of the hoi polloi who sometimes make bad choices and should repent for them, who sometimes say impulsive and hurtful things in anger and ought to apologize.

So, here at the Birmingham Child Development Center we spend a lot of time going back over hurtful words, reliving altercations, and reconstructing crime scenes, my hope being that the inner spin doctor in each of my children will be quiet long enough to allow some character development to happen.

I would say we spend a good 25% of our school days on this activity, and it is painful! No one likes to hear that they are wrong. And even when there is admission of guilt, it usually takes another 15 minutes to unravel the excuses as to why it was justified.

Unfortunately, it is also hard to schedule. I can't just say, "Elijah, you are allowed 20 minutes of sin and repentance here before lunch, but make sure you don't start until 11:45 because I will be patching up the relationship between Jude and Isaiah right up until then...".

So we end up running behind a lot:)

I am not trying to crush their little spirits by harping on them all day, but to me, heart issues are even more essential than scholastic achievement. More importantly, I know they are significant to God, because a soft heart, yielded to the Holy Spirit is the path to freedom.

Freedom from what?

From the grasp of of the inner tyrant. The Old Man. Yes, friends, I am one of the throwbacks that still believes in original sin.

And guess what. It doesn't just live in children. It is that force in all humans which is either vehemently denied or perversely celebrated. The cursed inhabitant that has been upon us since Adam.

You see, the problem I so often run into while trying to help my dear children with their heart issues, is that I also have a heart issue--an inner squatter who yaps incessantly about how no one ever listens and how if people really cared about me at all, they would read my mind and pull their weight and know that I just can't deal with one more selfish interruption--ever.

My "old man" (she calls herself Phat Sandra) sits on an enormous couch of self-esteem, eating bags of deep fried egotism and chocolate covered vindication, making up good reasons for everything I do--even things that would be wrong for other people. (Handy!)

She can spin the sin and make it win! (At least that's what it says on her T-shirt.)

Sprawled out in the command central of my psyche, amid piles of unheeded admonitions and smashed bottles of constructive criticism, she weaves her magic.

Phat Sandra is the first to hand me the justifications for my actions when I am accused, while at the same time finding fault with the accuser. It is actually a spin move--the "Defend and Deflect"--which can be used to not only get rid of blame, but actually makes the other person feel bad for making you feel bad! (I learned it very young, and I'm pretty much an expert at this point.)

She can see true greatness in others, and using only a magnifying glass, a twist tie, and my own insecurities she can ferret out their real, perceived, and imagined failings, bundle them into a stinking pile, and make me feel superior to them!

She can take selfishness, greed, laziness, or pride, and instantly find three people who have it worse and take it farther. Then, if there are remaining shards of guilt, she cleans them up with extenuating circumstance--organized and alphabetized for my convenient perusal.

She tunes my ear to the cultural cacophony--the constant clamor of voices telling me to find myself, love myself, and make sure my needs are being met. I am urged to be "who I am", to follow my dreams, respect myself and my choices, and not let anyone change me.

Then, because I am unsatisfied, lonely, and pretty much intolerable to everyone around me by this point, she leads me to the deep waters of self-pity.

Oh, self pity! That pool of endless delight! Which of us has not spent time there, floating on a raft made of hurt feelings and misunderstanding! We paddle around, feeling sorrier and sorrier for ourselves--and at the same time more justified in our responses. We make up soliloquies which we then deliver with dramatic eloquence to all the critics and haters in our heads.

They line the edges of the pool, wispy and quiet. The people who dared to challenge our agenda. There we put them in their place. They are inevitably left stunned and impressed. Repentant even. Changed! And of course grateful for the comeuppance. (Why can't real people react that way?)

There, in our heads, we find the respect we deserve. We are masters of the universe that ought to be. (The one where we are always right and everyone else recognizes that obvious fact.)

So what is the problem with letting go and living there? Phat Sandra makes me feel good about my choices. She loves me just the way I am! She doesn't judge me. She is endlessly interested and affirming.

The problem is that by the very standards I have set for other people, I stand condemned. I selfishly condemn the selfish, harshly decry the harsh, hatefully judge the hateful. But then I go farther. I selfishly condemn the good-intentioned, harshly decry the weak and needy, and hatefully judge the deceived.

Do I really want to be measured by the measuring stick I use on everyone else? Could I stand under the judgement I mete out each day in my own head on you..and you...and you?

Never. Nor is there any limit on the grace I give myself. Nor generosity in the meager grace I dispense to others.

And if I couldn't even withstand my own judgement, how could I EVER hope to stand before a Holy God?

LEST ANYONE THINK I AM BEING TO HARD ON MYSELF, beware. You are just the same. And look around at the rest of the world. Sweetness and light?

The biblical explanation for the problem of ubiquitous evil is the only one that makes sense, it's name is SIN, and we are all infected.

Why else would the planet still be groaning with violence and evil--even after we learned to "give peace a chance" and "what the world needs now is love" in the 1960s? 

Can it be that evil isn't caused by a lack of information? Or education? Or sanitation?

If we are all so inherently good and peaceful, why are we killing each other, abandoning our children, leaving our marriages, lying and stealing and cheating? Even the people who are trying to be good citizens are prone to laziness, self-deception, and pride. You know we are! Stop shaking your head and admit it!

(Why are my blogs always so cheerful? It's just my little gift to all 12 of you who have read this far:)

So, since most of us aren't struggling with the temptation to commit genocide, let's take it to where we live.

I love the quote from C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters where Wormwood receives this advice about how easy it is to trap a human into the sin of pride-fulness,

“Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble,’ and almost immediately pride - pride at his own humility - will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt - and so on.”

Oh, I camp out there sometimes! How often I will do something with a genuine desire to be nice, but then find myself thinking about it later, congratulating myself on the sheer awesomeness of the impulse, and wishing more people had been around to see it. (Am I the only one who does this????)

And how about that self-pity? It blinds us to the needs of those around us and is, at it's core, selfish.

Doing to others as they do to you on the highway, in the check-out lane, at the dinner table? Anyone? Anyone?

So, I (and you) and my children are the same. Same problem. Same cure.

Without rescue from myself, I will ultimately be consumed by self-deception and pride. The pathway to self-satisfaction will be littered with the corpses of the people I will use and discard in my never ending quest for gratification.

No one will ever be good enough. No circumstance, once obtained, will ever satisfy. (Hollywood syndrome) No one's love and sacrifice for me will ever go far enough or deep enough. In my quest to satiate my endless needs, I will create a monster that cannot be pleased with anything.

"Question authority and follow your heart" is the advice that got us kicked out of the garden in the first place, and it hasn't improved any since it's debut, no matter how many pop songs, Disney movies, and self-help gurus try to pretty it up.

I don't want myself or my babies deceived by that same serpent. The flicking tongue of the ultimate destroyer is still here, and I want them to recognize it when they see it--even if it is within.

And THAT is why I spend so much of my school day making my children look at their hearts in addition to their phonics.

Lord willing, they will eventually see their need for a new resident within--a new man. A last Adam to be the antidote to the first.

“For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. . . . The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:21–22; 15:45–47).

I need the same thing, and I am grateful for parents who led me to my Deliverer. Yes, I still live with Phat Sandra. But she is, by God's grace, smaller and quieter than when we first met. The duct tape stays on her mouth longer than it used to. And I don't feed her as much.

And although I can urge my children to see themselves through true eyes, that burden is not primarily mine. It will be the Holy Spirit's convicting work that changes their hearts for good, and He is better at it than I could ever be.

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Romans 8:2-6

"through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do (in that it was weakened by the sinful nature), God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; "

Galatians 5:16-17, 22-25
16 " So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want ... 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit."