Waiting and Dealing with Our Parts
“"For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate."
— Romans 7:15
ADVENT WEEK 2: STILL WAITING
With two candles lit, we symbolically feel the light getting brighter as the coming of Jesus nears. I pray each of us continues to be aware of our waiting.
We work to avoid waiting. Waiting does a work in us, but it is slow and invisible, so we lack appreciation for it. Just this week while traveling I had several opportunities to wait.
What does it look like to become the kind of person who waits well? How many of us want to become that person? Waiting reminds us we are not in control. It is good for us. Do you believe that? I don't, not really, but I want to. Waiting asks us why we are in a hurry, forcing us to face our deeper beliefs and sometimes our bad decisions.
So, as we look to celebrate the birth of Jesus, let's be excited so we feel the waiting, and let's reflect on it, and let's allow God to do his work in us through it.
PARTIALLY MATURE
Having just finished a 10–part series on spiritual maturity, I had cause to reflect on the topic repeatedly. During the time of those posts I read a few books on Internal Family Systems (IFS)*, which gave me a helpful framework for understanding myself (and all selves).
I think the IFS framework explains one of the reasons why we can seem mature in some situations and immature in others. It is why the idea of maturity is nuanced and ongoing in each of us. Am I spiritually mature? Are you? Do we ever "achieve" Christlikeness? You may experience me in one situation as kind and engaging, non-anxious, and Spirit-led and in another as petty, vindictive, and mean. How is that? I'm sure we could all give a Biblical answer–fleshly, quenched the Spirit, not taking thoughts captive...–which would be true, but I find that often the known answer stops us short of digging deeper to figure out what was happening in us to be so lost in that situation. For this reason, I want to elucidate this. Hopefully it will help you, but I find that writing it out helps me so bear with me on this one if you already get it.
PARTS
Have you ever said something like, "...part of me feels..." or "Part of me wants to do that but another part of me does not..."?
This idea of us being parts fits with a psychological (and Biblical) understanding of the human self. We have been formed since birth and each of us has experienced different events some of which were more impactful than others. Often these events are traumatic, and they force us to dis-integrate to survive. So, when my parents got divorced at age 13, I suffered. I made some vows and took on some beliefs. That helped me to survive, while also preventing me from growing in a healthy direction in significant ways. Thus, a part of me got stuck as a hurting 13-year-old kid.
Fast forward 17 years...I'm a 30-year-old man with a wife and three kids living in Kazakhstan. That 30-year-old Duke is learning and growing and leading and serving and falling and failing and blowing up and doing the best he can but coming up way short and yet fully experiencing God's grace and mercy. Yet that 13-year-old Duke is still stuck until Jesus reaches in and heals him. Jesus can do that in myriad ways. I've seen healing come through different types of prayer, various kinds of therapy, spiritual direction, small group Bible study, time alone, a touch of God's Spirit, and more. I've also seen one part stuck from one event need multiple layers of healing. The point is until this part of me gets that healing, that part will still find times to take control. In those times I will act in unhealthy, immature, sinful ways that hurt myself and those around me. Now, at age 55, how many parts do I have that need healing?
The process of awareness and healing will continue until I die, which means I'll still be acting out in unhealthy, sinful ways until then. Once again, I'm sharing this to give a framework I think is helpful for explaining why we do the things the Apostle Paul calls acting in the flesh.
CONFESSION
With all of that said, I don't want to be accused of denying sin or making excuses for sinful behavior so let me say it explicitly. We are still responsible. Each of us is both victim and victimizer. Acting out of our hurt is sad, but when we hurt others, we must acknowledge it, confess it, and deal with it. We can't just make excuses, blame others, and move on. Doing that brings a second wave of harm to our victims and damages our own souls as well. When we confess–speak the truth– we open ourselves for healing and help others to be free. God calls us into this life of confession and repentance for our good and for the good of those around us.
CONCLUSION
Living things grow. We will each be growing until we die. One sign of that growth is the deep healing of our wounded parts. This healing is one of the roads towards spiritual maturity or Christlikeness. Without it we are stuck in behaviors that will hurt ourselves and those around us.
May we each be part of communities that encourage us towards deep healing and freedom at every level.
* IFS books which I referred to earlier in this letter:
· Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies by Alison Cook PhD, Kimberly Miller MTh LMFT - Note that this is the only one of these books written from a Christians perspective. Dr Schwartz, the author of the three books below, is the originator of IFS, but he is not a Christian. I think all four books are helpful.
· No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
· Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz
· You Are the One You've Been Waiting For by Richard Schwartz
“A part is not just a temporary emotional state or habitual thought pattern. Instead, it is a discrete and autonomous mental system that has an idiosyncratic range of emotion, style of expression, set of abilities, desires, and view of the world. In other words, it is as if we each contain a society of people, each of whom is at a different age and has different interests, talents, and temperaments.”
― Richard C. Schwartz