2 Corinthians 12:10 & 12, "Therefore I am well content with weakness... with distresses... with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong...And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Ever have one of those days that you just wanted to end? Where you wished you could just go to bed and wake up to something completely different? Better yet, did you ever look at someone and wonder how they never have those days?
Well here is what I know. Those people who you think don't have those days... they do. Everyone has those days, so if you think someone has a secret to avoiding them then you are wrong, or they are a liar.
My death coach (inside joke) Jim Spivey turned me onto the movie The Kid. In it Bruce Willis (Russ) meets himself at the age of 8. Russ is a very successful forty something Image Consultant. The 8 year old Russ has come through time crashing into the 40yr old Russ' life creating havoc. Eventually the kid is found asking him, "do I ever get anything right?" Russ walks his younger version through high-school, college, grad school, working his butt off to get to be a "high powered, affluent, chick magnet." But the kid doesn't see this image. He sees him as a "dogless, chickless, guy... with a twitch." The kid version eventually says, "I get what you do... I mean I do... you help people lie about who they really are so that they can pretend to be someone else."
It is a huge awakening for Russ to see himself as he really is. He has been slapped in the face with being the number one victim of his own profession. He is the biggest consumer of what he sells. He believes his own press clippings even though he knows he manufactured them himself.
What does this have to do with bad days?
Bad days are the 8 year old version of ourselves slapping us in the face telling us we are not Mr or Mrs Perfect. That we are mostly lies, pretending to be something we are not. They are there for us to question ourselves. And in questioning ourselves, we then have a choice to find the truth in Christ, or go deeper into the lie. Russ & the Kid later encounter the older version of themselves and surprised that they "are not a looser." But they are not a looser until after they allow the past to stop shaping them. In spiritual terms there is a death to the past. There is a death to ego, and then what God has planned is allowed to come out. Russ was exhausted by his bad day and in response opened up to other possibilities of life. He let go, and that was the opening God needed.
So here I am... still wallowing in my bad day. Still trying to embrace the feelings. They are my feelings. They are here for a purpose. But I am doing something different in light of the above. I am going to soak in them. I am going to explore these ugly feelings. I am not here to reject them. I am not here to pacify them, overcome them, ignore them, or turn them off. Perhaps I am not here to even understand them. And yet, to even write these words brings a sense of peace.
I am running into myself so to speak. Not withdrawing or introverting... but taking a good hard look at the truth. The 45 year old version of myself says I am a rock solid, man of God, moving mountains with faith, and teaching mankind to do the same. The 8 year old version says, I am a scared child, powerless to stop or change anything. The feelings... the bad day if you will, is knowing the 8 year old version is right.
It's ok to be powerless, to be vulnerable, to be afraid... it's the truth. It is in this weakness that God is strong. Stop in those feelings. Explore them, search them, because you will find the presence of God hid there.
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