Letting Go of the Cape: Learning to Breathe

*My apologies for not getting this out earlier, but I’ve been dealing with some stuff that has prevented me from finishing writing this newsletter until now. The plan is to have these come out every month. So Lord willing they will.

A few weeks ago, I got to take a bit of a breather. My wife and kids were out visiting the in-laws in Minnesota for the week, so I took the advice of a friend and went hiking and camping at Wallace Falls here in the beautiful PNW. And as I began my hike my nostalgia kicked into overdrive.

You see, 13 years ago I was just beginning my life in vocational ministry. I was serving a delightful little church in Lake Stevens as a youth ministry intern, and one of my tasks was to plan a hike for our youth group. So I picked a hike to Wallace Falls and tested it to make sure it’d be fitting for our group. And that day I was struck by the extreme beauty of God’s good creation.

I was snapping pictures left and right with my crummy little digital camera, completely overcome with those ridiculous mossy trees that I had only seen in the movies. I was enraptured with this new beauty. But throughout the whole hike, I had one nagging thought - “This would be so much more beautiful if I was sharing this with someone else!” So, as much as I was enraptured by the beauty of the setting, I was equally occupied with the dream of what walking in this place with someone else might be like one day.

I had no girlfriend at the time and no real “prospects” either. And that was probably a good thing. I was still getting acquainted with one of the more significant wounds of my young life, and I would be in no place to share my soul with another person for quite some time. And yet, that desire to share was there.

So I impatiently waited until I was ready and until I could find someone else who was also ready. And… well… bada-bing-bada-boom, 13 years later I find myself with a beautiful wife, with three adorable children, and standing in the same spot that I was impatiently standing all those years before. And like before, I found myself wishing that I could share this spot with someone else.

Only this time, instead of dreaming of what it might be like to walk these beautiful grounds with a beautiful woman, I found myself wondering what it would be like to go back and share this space with that younger version of me who was here 13 years ago. If I could go back in time and stand next to that hurting young guy, what would I say to him?

I’ve been mulling over that question for a while now, and I don’t know that I have all that profound of an answer to it. But here is something. And maybe it’s something that you could hear today as well.

I think I’d tell myself that I can take a breath from time to time… that I don’t need to be Superman… that I can let God be God and let me be me.

I know that I haven’t necessarily taken that message to heart as much as I wish I would have by this point in my life, but I’m still in the process. And I anticipate that you are too. Here’s part of what this process has looked like for me over the years. Maybe you hear something in this story that relates to your own.

The Superman Complex

Superman has always twisted my heart up. In some ways, he’s my least favorite superhero. He just doesn’t add much to a plot. If the story writers kept his strength consistent throughout each story, every movie would be ruined with him in it. He’s got no real weakness, save kryptonite, which he just oh-so-conveniently overlooks every time it’s an issue. He’s the ultimate cheat code. His skill set makes for boring stories.

And yet… he’s still incredibly interesting to me and to many others. The internal processing that he has to work through is more intriguing than any of the other superheroes. The real concern with him isn’t “if” he can come through humanity, but rather “‘will he?’ Can he keep his stuff together? Or will he overlook something that will come back to bite him or his loved ones in the butt later” (*cough cough kryptonite cough cough). I resonate with that story, minus that whole laser vision and super strength bit.

A couple of years before that photo at the top was taken, I got my first tattoo. It was a tattoo of Superman’s crest on my right arm. It wasn’t a design that I particularly liked or would have chosen for my first tattoo, but it was incredibly meaningful for me. And the longer that I’ve been living with it and coming to know its significance, I’ve come to appreciate what it has revealed to me about myself.

I got it in the winter/spring of my senior year in high school after the older of my two brothers had got sent to prison. His crime and the subsequent sentencing were shocks to our whole family. It was completely out of the blue.

Our family didn’t make a bingo card for the year of 2007, but I can guarantee you that if we would have, one of us going to prison wouldn’t have made the list. It broke with the narrative of our family. And understandably, that event (coupled with a few other events surrounding it) left a permanent mark/scar/fracture in our family and in me personally.

All of the ways that we related as a family changed. Our roles changed. Our expectations changed. Our hopes changed. And one of the biggest changes that took place, which I have only recently come to discover, is that I emotionally took it upon myself to be the one responsible for fixing the damage of it all.

I, of course, knew that I couldn’t change everything, but I began taking stock of the things that I could change. I knew my brother didn’t feel worthy of being looked up to anymore, and so I and my other brother decided we’d fix that. So we both got the superman tattoo that he had gotten a couple of years prior, in the same spot that he had gotten it. We couldn’t let him give up hope in prison. So we tried to save him by showing him that we were continuing to look up to him.

But it didn’t stop with my brother. I saw that I needed to also be the savior of my parents. They were the success stories of some very difficult situations growing up. They were the “chain-breakers” in their respective family lines that were marked by abuse and faithlessness. They could have turned out far worse, but through God’s grace, they were now raising three wonderful homeschooled children who were faithfully serving the Lord. That was the narrative that we grew up within.

But when both of my brothers said that they didn’t believe any of that Christian stuff anymore, when one had a child out of wedlock, and when one went to prison on a significant charge, that narrative began to dissolve. And I saw firsthand the effect that those plot twists had on them. They began to age rapidly. They weren’t taking care of themselves. Guilt and shame invaded their souls. And as I looked at them, I knew that they couldn’t take another strike. I couldn’t be the nail in their coffins.

So, whether it was conscious or not (I’m not really sure), I took on the role of “Superman" for my parents as well. Whatever it took, I was not going to screw up. I was not going to be a failure. I was not going to be the final plot twist that would ruin my parents’ redemption narrative. No, I would be a success. I would bring good into the world. I would be someone that my parents could be proud of. And in so doing, I would give them a reason to have hope for themselves.

Now, that story is actually rather common in society. Many of us have a desire to make our parents proud that has grow too large to be healthy. But most of the time, when I meet people who have that same drive, it is usually because they feel a lack of affection from them or something. But that’s not my case at all… or at least not more than the average person's. They’ve been very supportive of me my whole life. They aren’t directly responsible for this.

No, as far as I can tell, my drive to not screw up was rooted in the thought that it was my responsibility to keep them alive - to give them a reason to keep on living. The point of succeeding and not screwing up was to give them hope to keep on living and trusting in God.

And as I look at my chosen career path as a pastor, I can’t help but think that it was at least partially motivated by that inner desire to save my parents. I mean, what better way to show that their redemption narrative isn’t really a tragedy than to have one of their sons become a pastor who preaches the Gospel and saves others in need of redemption?

Now, that’s not to say that I don’t also have gifts that have made it a natural fit for me, but as far as I know myself, I don’t know that I would have initially chosen to be a pastor unless I had that deep inner draw to save my family. I needed a push in that direction, and that desire certainly did that.

And to be clear, I’m so glad that it did. I love being a pastor, and I honestly have a difficult time imagining doing anything else. But at the same time, I also am finding that the unhealthy desire that led me to become a pastor has often made pastoral ministry more difficult than it has needed to be.

Each time I see a sign of my human frailty, I am brought back to that same place of worry that I am going to ruin myself and my family if I’m not perfect. Someone doesn’t respond well to a particular sermon, I forget to pay that one bill on time, I don’t respond to that one text just right, or I don’t connect with that one person in just the right way, and I am filled with a worry that this is the beginning of the end for me. The family historian will write the narrative of my life, and he’ll look at that time I preached that one sermon that went 5 minutes too long, and he’ll say, “And here’s where it all went downhill…”

Now, obviously, this is ridiculous. Everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. And to expect someone to never screw up is entirely unfair and unrealistic. Even Superman makes mistakes, and I ain’t him.

So, of course, I am going to get things wrong. I’m going to preach too long or too short from time to time. I’m going to preach too blandly or too controversially for some. I’m going to lead some people too strongly and others too weakly. I’m going to screw up.

Now, in the past, I have stressed about my mistakes and have worked really hard to make sure that I don’t make them again. And to a certain extent that is helpful. This blog and the rest that will come in this series are very much in keeping with that spirit. We’re all fumbling and bumbling through life, and there are lessons to be had from our mistakes. So let’s learn from them together.

But that’s not really the lesson that I am trying to learn and trying to share with you here. No, the lesson that I am learning is that I don’t need to be Superman. I don’t need to have that ever-present growth mindset. I don’t need to live under that kind of pressure. And neither do you.

Why? Because we are not God.

Spirit Empowered

This coming Sunday I am preaching on Pentecost - that day in the church year when we remember how the Holy Spirit indwelt the church and enabled them to carry out the task that God had given them to carry out. And as I’ve been sitting with the passage (Acts 2.1-21) this week, I’ve been struck by the way that the Holy Spirit chose to fill this infant church.

A mighty rushing wind fills the entire house where they are sitting, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them, and they naturally began to speak in languages that were quite unnatural to them. They didn’t do anything to cause it. They didn’t set themselves up for success. They didn’t act like Superheroes. They were just sitting there praying, breathing in and breathing out God’s good air, and he suddenly filled them with the power to then go do the things that he created them to do.

And I think there’s something to pay attention to there. They didn’t cause themselves to be filled with the power to do great things. God just did it. Just like how they didn’t choose for themselves what they were supposed to do with their lives, they didn’t make themselves strong enough to do it. God was responsible for calling them and equipping them. And wouldn’t you know it, but he did it in his own timing.

I think the same thing goes for us. None of us choose what we are meant to do in this life; that’s determined beforehand by God. And none of us really prepare ourselves to fulfill what we are meant to do in this life; that’s shaped just as much (if not more) by the situations God leads us through than the decisions we make for ourselves. From beginning to end, God is responsible for the success of our lives. So why try to be Superman? Why worry about things you can’t control? Why slave over trying to fix things that God hasn’t given us to fix? There’s no reason for that.

Instead, let us learn to breathe, let God be God, and let us be us.

““Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” (Psalm 46:10–11 ESV)