Whispers

I recall a game we used to play when we were kids called Telephone. We'd sit in a big circle, and one person would whisper something into the ear of the person sitting next to them. Then that person would turn and repeat what had just been said to the person sitting next to them, and so on and so on... until we'd gone all the way around the circle. The person sitting next to the original whisperer would tell the group what had been said to them. Without exception, the words of the last person and the words of the first person were never the same. In fact, I can't think of one single time we played that game where the ending was even close to the beginning. In fact, most of the time it was hysterical how different it was.

I celebrated two years in recovery recently. And I got to share parts of my story last week with a childhood friend I hadn't seen since high school. She called me up for lunch, and it was great fun seeing her and catching up. But it was clear that God had a bigger purpose in mind than just reminiscing.

I've thought a lot since that visit... about what I was like during the time period so long ago when she and I lived around the corner from each other and played... about how much can and has happened in the span of a couple of decades... about how differently life turned out than I thought it would... and about how differently it could have turned out, for the worst, had Jesus not turned it all completely around.

It is so easy--SO DANG EASY--to become complacent, tired, spiritually lazy, etc. When I left my friend that day, I was on a Holy Ghost high because I realized it had been, literally, 3 months since I'd focused my thoughts and conversation on Jesus so intently. Not that I've forgotten Him entirely. I've just been...well, busy. But more than that, I'd fallen into a sleep and I didn't know it. It took seeing my old friend again and recognizing that God was doing something to wake me up.

I've done lots of praying and meditating with Jesus and it has occurred to me that for so very long, my relationship with Jesus was a lot like that old game, Telephone. Bits and pieces, picked up here and there, from this person or that sermon or this song or that book, passed along but nothing really solid. It was a vicarious faith, which really isn't faith at all. 

A relationship with Jesus is a living, breathing thing... it's something that is more real, more alive, than anything you have ever or ever will know. I can explain faith to you, but I can't understand it for you. Jesus is someone who must be experienced, personally, by each and every one of us. Of course we can share, and should, with each other. But until we turn our thoughts, our wills, our feelings, our choices, our actions, over to Him, each and every single day, then our walk with Him will be no more accurate than the words spoken at the end of the circle in that game; it'll be just like those whispers, only pieces of the truth, but never the whole thing. It will not match the original, and that just isn't good enough.

If faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed, then I choose for my faith to be in the one true God, in the REAL LIVE Jesus. I won't settle for the scraps given to me by people who don't really know for themselves, who are only passing along what may or not be true. I want the real deal.

And that is really what recovery and living an honest, authentic life is all about, isn't it? Notice I did NOT say a "perfect" life. Someone who is being honest and real will make mistakes; they just won't be defined by them, and they will do all they can to learn from them and move on.

It just never gets old to me how much I do NOT think about my past. I hate that I wasted so much time doing the same old things over and over again, almost getting it but not quite... That truly sucks, I must say. Plus, what's the point of lingering in cemeteries with ghosts and old stories and wounds once you've examined them for their worth? Isn't it better to let it go and move on? I think so. In the Bible, Jesus doesn't waste time discussing wrong answers with people who screwed up. What's the point of having a struggling golfer hit another 5,719 balls with the wrong grip, incorrect stance or faulty swing? No, Jesus instead pointed out truth. Then He'd say, now go forth and get'er done. 

I'm quite certain kids today still play the Telephone game. I know adults do! We are all guilty of it... settling for sloppy seconds, incomplete stories, half truths... But a half truth is a whole lie, is it not? Let's not settle for mere whispers uttered by others. Instead, let's go straight to the horse's mouth, so to speak, and seek to hear Jesus' voice directly, at full volume. 

Go hard or go home.