Your depression is a normal response to what you’ve suffered

Sometimes what makes most sense is actually true.  Isn’t it amazing the trust we put in the smartest and wisest professionals, yet we are more supremely confident in them when they say what we always felt made sense?  This article is about that.

As professionals or as pastors, we can count up our years of learning at university, college or seminary level (and for some of us that can be a 20+ year process), and we can look at our degrees and diplomas, and then at the end come to conclusions that marry up with what we always thought would have made sense in the beginning.  Yet it is so comforting to know that we looked at our knowledge in a scientific way, in the research we did over many years, all the books and articles we read, all the debates we had, together with our years of practical experience working with people, and in observing life, to have God prove to us a logic that cannot be refuted.  It was as it has always been.  And yet we know it is a deep truth because of all that we have learned.

Here is an astoundingly simple idea.  Isn’t it ironic that it takes us professionals to come full circle to agree with what God would’ve said in the first place?  This isn’t putting any of us down, because we really did need to make sure that what we thought made sense was actually true.  And it so often is.

Our depression is a normal response to the losses we’ve suffered.  Indeed, the exact amount of depression we suffer is commensurate with what we have lost and how that impacted us personally as far as we’re a unique and worthy person.  The trauma we have experienced amid life has had an equivalent impact on our mental health.  Is it any wonder that we suffer what and how we do?  We suffer what another person would suffer if they had experienced what we had.

At some point we need to get beyond treating the symptoms of our conditions and dig deeper in exploring the causes.  The symptoms are about what we are doing wrong, yet the causes are about what was done wrong to us.  The causes are about seeing ourselves within the bigger picture of all of what needs to be considered.  In reversing the focus, in looking at the causes, we get to see ourselves within the system of life, and within the systems that have impacted upon us, so we can see what we are responsible for, and what we are not responsible for.  For the things we’re not responsible for we can then forgive, and that is its own very redemptive journey to embark upon.

It is far easier to heal if we can see the whole picture, including seeing how if we put another person in our place that they would probably respond the same way we have.  We would look at their response and say it was normal, so why do we feel so guilty and ashamed, or weaker than we feel comfortable being, for responding the way that we have?  The most important factor in redeeming our healing is being able to see apart from ourselves, in order that we may have empathy for ourselves, by extending to ourselves the empathy we would give our friend if they were suffering.

Even though it is not unusual that we judge others harsher than we judge ourselves, especially in conflict where there’s a difference in opinions, it’s usually the opposite in terms of our mental health a lot of the time.  When someone else says they’re teary and they just can’t shake it, we feel sorry for them and we’ll encourage them and/or pray for them.  But then when it’s our turn to be depressed, we can feel we’re a burden to others, or we feel we’re sad for nothing, or that we’re making more of this than it should be, or that we should be grateful, or that we shouldn’t be feeling that way, or that this is too much and too hard.

But what we’re feeling is normal for what we are experiencing.  A big part of healing is coming to a place where we stop being so critical of ourselves.  And when we stop criticising ourselves, we stop criticising others.  What we extend to ourselves in terms of grace we’re able to extend to others.

We never need to feel guilty or ashamed for the depression we experience.  It is a normal response to what we have suffered.  Just knowing that helps us heal.

Photo by Halie West on Unsplash

You are the whole world to those who cannot afford to lose you

**TRIGGER WARNING**               This post is about suicide.

This is not an uncommon experience for me as a counsellor.  Obviously, I receive people into my care who are usually at their lowest ebb.  Nobody likes to admit they need to talk to a counsellor.  Few people will willingly engage with a counsellor for extended period, not only because of expense, because it is difficult work.  So this scenario I will paint here is something I’ve come to expect.  I’m glad it is also something that I have personally experienced, because it puts me in a place of empathy I otherwise may not have.

“I just don’t know whether it’s worth it to stick around.”  “When I get to that point....”  “I just don’t know if they need me.”  “I feel like an absolute failure.”  “What if I’m getting it completely wrong and just stuffing them up?”  These statements and more are common.

These statements are predicated on such care that prove the existence of a love just about nobody else will give.  Think of the odds of a loving father or mother being able to be replaced.  It’s just not going to happen.  Not by far!

During a session some time ago, I pondered with a father of young children the scenario we had both faced, and it was a salient moment.  A minute or two of silence as a full gravity of the moment was felt.  I have come to realise as I have reflected, together with experience I’ve had having known partners and older parents and siblings and friends who have been left behind, that the worst destruction occurs within the children left behind.  These are very hard things to say let alone write, because the last thing I want to do is to make anyone feel guilty, or to cause anyone to feel distress for how their circumstances have played out.  But there is an undeniable fact in the loss of a parent, particularly to suicide.  For children left behind, it is a devastating impact, but not just that, it is devastating over a lifetime.

As a father who has seriously contemplated his own value as a life to be lived on this earth, I get it.  I understand what drives us to sincerely question our existence.  It’s at these times that we lose our comprehension of how crucially important we are in remaining alive, in going the journey, in holding out hope, however painful the process of life may be.  If there is only one purpose we have in being here it is in being here for them.  Once we are gone, there is no coming back, and there is a missing out on thousands of experiences that without us fall flat.  And not just that, they don’t just fall flat.  These experiences take on a completely different meaning, every single one of them, and they are railroaded by one experience that young people so often cannot get past.

I don’t know how much plainer I can make it.  And I don’t know if this does any good.  But from one parent who has felt like a failure to another, I implore you to stick around.  Every single time you are dogged by emotions that are overwhelming, by thoughts that are confounding, by pain that is unrelenting, make yourself a promise now, before the next time, to pick up the phone and to call someone you trust, and if that person isn’t there, to keep on calling until you get the assistance you need.

The world cannot afford to lose you, let alone to those for whom you are the whole world.  You are never failing if you always want what is best for your children.  You, present in their lives, is the best thing for your children.

Here is a handy link to international emergency contact numbers.

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There’s no greed in the need to be seen

Lemn Sissay.  You probably haven’t heard of him, or maybe you have.  Hearing his story not only resonated with an unknown passion in my heart, it reverberated within the unquestioned nodules of my soul.  So anti-racist as to be racist, I had no idea, and yet what is buried deep within me, that which is intrinsically part of me, is a prejudice that I can only acknowledge.  We all have them.  And the only solution is to be honest, to face them, to admit that they exist, and then repent of them, for we cannot recant them.

Deep in the history of the life of Lemn Sissay (chancellor of the University of Manchester) lay the ruins of a rejected humanity.  And yet there, within the boy, as a child of the state, materialised a man who became a prophet for these times.  A boy who was ‘rescued’ by civilised white church English folk, who was then rejected by these same people — his only known family — who were not so much kind, as “kind of kind,” losing everything and being cast into a boy’s home as a 12-year-old.

Sissay’s story is the ultimate caricature of bigoted scapegoating.  The voice of institutional racism and abuse shines a light on the prejudices that a patriarchal, colonial society carry.  Oh, I know that it’s not a good idea to mention concepts like patriarchy or colonialism, but they’re the sins of the institution of our time.  This truth is sure:

the worst -isms are predicated on pretending to be holy
the most ‘pious’ of people are also typically the most predatory

How many swoon to the overtures of culture, where structures and institutions are worshipped, where Christ is nowhere to be found?  How many of us have ‘thrived’ in the cultures that have swallowed us into themselves by our accommodating of myriad compromise?  How many of us have had to ignore the wrong that goes on, just to keep the peace and to keep our place secure in the subcultures that have given us conditional abode?  It is a tyranny that all are subject to, and the very presence of this wickedness heralds all the more the need of Jesus of Nazareth.

The problem with this kind of society is what it does to the least of these.  Those who are not seen would be the first ones that Jesus would see as standing out from the crowd.  This Jesus of our salvation beckons to these to come close, and to hear his voice, as he may say, “There is no greed in the need to be seen.”

Indeed, every human being needs to be seen, to be noticed, to be cherished, to be held, and to be heard.  If every human being was to be established in such embrace, the love of Christ adorned and personal, there would be no brokenness, no violence, no rejection of God.  “Perfect redemption, the purchase of blood.”  As it is to be with us.

Everyone has a need of expression, just as everyone needs to be met at a gate called acceptance.  It is unfortunate that we often need to be affirmed by others in order to feel accepted, when the truth in all reality is, we are accepted by God already.  Having bypassed God, because we are met by the most broken versions of God’s image, of course we will feel that we are less than we are.

Isn’t it strange and indeed bizarre at the extreme that those who most pretend to have everything together are the most broken of all, because they’re deluded enough to think they do not need God?  So many of these are good churchly people, who feel God is so blessed to have them offer what they’ve got.  People who couldn’t be more wrong.  They turn God’s gift back on God imagining God wouldn’t be the same without them.

Every single one of us struggles in having never quite anticipated the truth of who we actually are.  We are a chosen people, and none are excluded.  Of course, again, I do not want you to miss this, that there are sects of faith in all matters of expression who have acted as if they are exclusively arranged as divine.  These could not be further from God.  The classic irony is that those who treat others with even the slightest disdain — and disdain with the best, most superior intent — are themselves disdained by God.  That’s your Christian snob.  The one who cannot know Christ.

There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God, whether you reject God or not, whether you feel utterly unworthy or not, whether you feel this discussion is discussable or not.  There is nothing we can change about how God feels about us in our mortal bodies, with minds and hearts created in his image, yet fallen by actuality, and by innate prejudice so needy of Jesus.  All who call on this Christ by name, truly, will be transformed in his kindness.  Their fruit will be kindness, with no credit to themselves.

There is a need to abide to the truth.  Every one of us must necessarily live according to reality, and when that reality is wrong, when there is nothing good about it, it needs to be discussed just as much as it would if everything was good about it.  Silence is anathema.  And those who silence the least of these will surely endure most punishment.

There is no greed in the need to be seen, and to be seen is to be heard, and to be heard is to be graced with the opportunity to use one’s voice.  There is no purpose in silence in the kingdom of God, because silencing voices comes from the enemy.  In using our voices, and having people turn toward us and notice us, and in their listening to us, we are known.

There is no greed in the need to be seen.  Greed exists, however, in denying a person their need to be seen.  There is no kindness in that, but God’s judgement.

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A narcissist’s genuine repentance – when the miracle happens

Contrary to popular opinion, narcissists are not beyond recovery, even if it is rare.  The intent behind this article is to challenge the hearts of those who are behaving narcissistically — if they’ll read it — and to encourage those who are in relationships with narcissists.  This is both in terms of believing they can recover, whilst balancing it with being realistic, because most of the time they won’t and therefore don’t.

One of the best ways to help a narcissist recover — if it is safe to do so, because a lot of the time it isn’t — is to help them face how they’re thinking and behaving, and the devastating impact it’s having on others; the overt and covert violence and/or betrayal that they do.  If you’re not safe enough to challenge them, that’s a death knell for the relationship.  That’s a prayer for a safe exit right there!

Realistically, so long as there is awareness a person can recover; that and the want of recovery.  Both things are required: awareness AND action. Without both of these, recovery is a pipedream, initially, and also futile, ultimately.  So many partners and so many others so dearly wish for those who are close to them to simply identify narcissistic attitudes and behaviours that always damage their relationships.

But anyone, if they have the capacity to be honest, can recover.  I love it how the AA big book tells it like it is in the chapter called, “How it works.”

I can tell you that there ARE narcissists who repent, because I’ve been to many AA and church meetings where I have heard testimonies, of how people, very often men, finally saw how much damage they were doing in other’s lives and in their own lives.  They saw and they were, for the first time in their lives, cut to the heart, just as those at Pentecost were in Acts chapter 2.  Such a revelation is the opening of one’s eyes, because the heart has seen the truth, and there are many examples of this, even if they are rare.

Of course, there are very many more dry drunks than there are recovered drunks who learn to feel their feelings.  Just as there are many drunks who cannot put the drink down.  There are far fewer drunks who put the drink down, who learn to deal with their feelings; to sit in the ugliness and feel them real.  It’s the secret to the spiritual life; to accept the inevitable challenges of our emotionality.

But this is mainly about the narcissist who genuinely repents — who not only recovers from the outer condition, observable in its manifest destruction, but who heals the inner person such that others are safe.  Still so few, I hear you say.  In all the AA meetings I went to I met dozens on this journey, which is not to say all addicts are narcissists (nor are all narcissists addicts), but they do tend to slide down the slippery slope that way.  The AA program, the Twelve Steps, and the Twelve Traditions help those in recovery get the log out of their own eye (see what Jesus says about this in Matthew 7:3-5).

Let’s look at some signs to watch for:

-            inward facing, noticing the three fingers pointing back from the outstretched arm normally pointing the index finger at someone else, there is a focus unlike ever before — suddenly they’re keen to see their faults and they resist pointing out others’ faults and assigning blame...

-            … and there is wonder in their eyes.  All suddenly makes sense like never before.  Suddenly the realisation they have more power and say over their own destiny — and others they care about (a malignant narcissist does not have the capacity to care) — than ever before, they know somehow that they are the ones who are responsible for change in their own life, and in this they sense freedom...

-            … to grow, to become transformed, and to achieve everything they felt was out of reach to achieve.  For starters, they are happy to look for their own fault in conflicts, and the penny drops; in blaming others there was no chance for peace, and now, with an attitude change, they have the power to broker peace...

-            … they, as they see their problems, are encouraged and they don’t mind admitting that they are recovering narcissists — that’s a game changer...

-            … and there is enduring change.  They add to one day, another.  Consecutive days to the completion of seven and there’s a week having lived in the light.  When one week is done, it’s not hard to add another one, and before they know it, the honest, self-accounting life is power for change to every corner of their existence.

The hard thing in this reality is the circumstance of ones who live in the company of those who never repent; who never get it; who never have their eyes opened, or for those who do, they just cannot sustain honesty for long.

It is rare for a full-blown narcissist to recover, and I understand just how some people don’t believe that any do.  But in situations where it does happen there is much glory to God, provided they give their lives to the living of amends.  The keys to recovery are having honesty to a fault, humility enough to look within, tenacity to feel feelings, patience to endure the day, the passion to live for others, and faith to believe that recovery is possible.

It is possible.  God can do the impossible.  I’ve seen it myself.  But, (and this is a BIG ‘but’), it’s a one in one-hundred deal.  This means, realistically, 99 out of 100 remain lost.

If you are a narcissist, and you wreak havoc, be the one in 100.  Be special, not for how great you think you are, but for how much God has done to open your eyes to cleanse you from within as you live a life of service from now on in.  The way we feel special in the right way is how we feel when we serve others and they feel loved.

If you are suffering at the hands of a narcissist, help them make the right decision by leaving the relationship, or ceasing to relate with them on their diabolical terms.  A truthful love is the only answer, for there is no other love.  The want for change, however, must come from them.

We need to pray for miracles, that the violent and the betrayer would repent, because not everyone can easily get out of those relationships.

Perhaps to finish some would say that those who recover from ‘narcissism’ never were narcissists in the first place.  I can live with that.

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The dark night when strength ends and God begins

We ultimately come face-to-face with opportunities in life where we intensely desire to more fully and completely understand hard realities; those things that happen against us, that cause us an enormous amount of pain, and indeed change the passage of our lives.  These excruciating experiences, the event and our recovery, transform us, and in many ways, we wonder the purpose in such transformations.

We look to God in the heavens, imagining that only this Lord of life knows.  Sometimes we wonder if God does know.  If God knew, and because God loves us, surely the Lord of our lives would give us some appreciative aspect with which to view the confounding mystery.

And yet we wait.  There is, of course, no limit to our prayers.  There is no limit to our asking wiser and knowledgeable others. There is no limit to the books we read.  We scour the face of the earth for a knowledge that escapes us at the time.  There is almost nothing we wouldn’t do to know the purpose of why these things happened, or more poignantly, where it is taking us.

Then we come across writings.  Perhaps it’s the mystics.  Certainly, Saint John of the Cross, among many others, indeed the mystics share this cherished tradition of lamenting and praising within the mysteries of life.

“In the dark night of the soul,
bright flows the river of God.”

Therein lies the secret of I’m sure the reason God draws us into the deep and dark and cavernous realities of life.  It was true of my own life.  Not until there was nothing left did God become real.  Oh, how deeply lost I was.  Cast into an oblivion that felt like it had no purpose at all but to crush me. There, deep in the crushing, “despairing of life itself” as the apostle Paul puts it, I came to acknowledge that my power had run out, that my way was no longer working, that all seemed futile.

There, amid the end of all things from an existential viewpoint, I stood in the valley of decision; to throw my life away or to run hard after God; to drown myself in sorrow and anguish or to hold out hope for another way; to decide something that had no return or to decide to do something concretely good.

It was a decision in prayer with God.  “I will take You on your word, Lord,” I said, “just please don’t fail me...” The fact is, deep in that dark night, with no sign of God present and active, we seriously doubt God’s omniscience and omnipotence and omnipresence.  We quickly forget, and yet perhaps we are in this place where we have never known.  That’s really where I was.

It’s not until we have really committed ourselves to God that God really shows up.  God knows that our faith is just a decision away, and this isn’t just about the initial point of faith, because faith is required every day, at all times.

The more we step forth each day in faith, the more God shows up.  This is not the truth of it, because there is more, but that’s how it appears.

As we press into this hard dark night experience, not knowing why, or how long it will last, we can decide in a moment’s inspired thinking in humility, to let go of our ideas and our strength, and to take one step forth in faith.

One decision, and we may meet God there as God joins us.  Only later, however, do we see that God didn’t join us, actually, we joined God.  Only afterward do we see this.

We do not choose God.  God chose us.

We only see God move when we expect God to move, that is, in the purity of faith.  This is how faith works.  This isn’t just a knowledge for newbies.  We can be in the faith for decades and still need to learn this.  We easily get to a place where we stop expecting God to move, and lo and behold God stops moving.  Moving forward is about acknowledging a basic thing; God moves when we expect God to move, when we are looking for God to move.  The key question, then, is always, “Where is God moving, and what is God doing, here, right now?”  The more keenly we watch, the more we will see, and the more we will see, the more we will believe.

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If you just feel broken right now...

I have had several friends over the past 48 hours reach out for prayer, for pastoral assistance, for a word of encouragement, or just simply to say that they feel broken right now.  This word is for them, but it may also be for you.  Partake as you please:

Dear Friend, please know how precious and dearly beloved you truly and sincerely are.  Know that, whether you believe or not, the Lord God conceived you in the divine thought well before you were conceived in your mother’s womb.  Whatever that divine conception looked like, there every fibre of your being was set up as unique as one being could be.  You are such a priceless being, there is no one like you, and you could never be replaced.

If you are feeling like you could be replaced, that you’re not that special, let me assure you that there would be many people cast into a world of pain if you weren’t here.  And in some ways, to call it a ‘world of pain’ is a colossal understatement.  If you were not around it would change the life direction of many lives, and even if it we’re only one life, isn’t that such a significant thing?  You are quite simply irreplaceable.

Perhaps you feel broken by the weight of a journey before you, or a journey behind you that still has not been reconciled, or maybe the present moment is unbearable.  It could be a triple-whammy of all three.  Please know that you are not alone, that there are hearts interceding for you right now.  Hearts who want peace for you and the return of your hope and joy.  Hearts who will stop at nothing less than praying for your full healing.

Maybe as you ponder these words or prayers, sobbing in mobs of tears, forlorn and stricken with untenable, mystical anguish, you are able to hold out a moment’s hope.  Surely that moment’s hope holds within it the prayer that says, “This, too, shall pass,” and “soon this shall all make sense.”

As you hold in your left hand a suffering that isn’t compensable, together with a hope that all things can be made new in your right, you come close to God and God comes close to you, because — whether you feel the Lord or not — the Lord God can never be far from those who are contrite of heart.

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The Bible’s empathy for a Christian’s despair

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.”

... far beyond our ability to endure... despaired of life itself.  What does this mean?  I wonder if anyone knows where this quote comes from.  Some will think it a trick question.  It’s not.  It’s a legitimate question when it comes to the difficult question, “does God give us more than we can bear?”  Does God?  Life certainly does!

So, who wrote these words?  The scribes of the apostle Paul, under his instructions.  It’s 2 Corinthians 1:8, the commencement of Paul’s “tearful letter.”  He had many chances to change his mind.  Did he change his mind?  No, he did not.  He retained the words.  To make the church at Corinth feel guilty?  To manipulate the church?  I don’t think so.  It is his factual reflection on the trials he had personally suffered.

We can only postulate that Paul felt these very things, and indeed includes the “we” presuming that the cohort suffered together to such a degree they regretted being alive.  Don’t worry, Paul, you join a very esteemed company of biblical heroes.

Job, for instance.  Chapter 3 verse 3: “May the day of my birth perish... and the night that said: ‘A boy is conceived.’”  There are several times where David is said to be that cast down in lament, he could seriously muse on what his son, Solomon, would pen in Ecclesiastes 7:1: “... the day of death better than the day of birth.”  I could go on, but I think you get the picture.  The Bible is littered with grief that welcomes death.

Where am I going with this?  One thing I will say as I skate around the edge of unmentionable issues is, beyond reprehensibly abusive theologies, there’s got to be no condemnation for the one who takes their fate into their own hands.  So many who have been left behind, to pick up the scraps of a life spent before its time deserve their redemption, to record awareness that they’re not alone.  Their loved one they still grieve is gone and there’s something awfully final about that reality, but grief is just the start of the challenges they face each and every day.  The least that is due this one is to rationalise the potency of the force that gets us to question our lives.

The suffering known to life that takes us deep into the grips of despair is potentially a reality for us all, and perhaps blessed are we to have been taken to the abyss and then to survive it.  It should give us heaven’s empathy, a divine compassion, for anyone else — not to mention the millions daily — who are there.  If there’s one gift, it’s seeing the uncompromising stand that the intransigent nature makes on us as it claims our lives for a time of obdurate despair.

The last thing that our world needs is people of the faith undermining the reality of despair in this life.  But what the world could really do with is Christians who ‘get’ despair, who are able to be a Jesus or a Mother Theresa to and for the sufferer.

The sufferer of despair is feeling something is never more real.  It takes its grip and it doesn’t leave, and the lived experience of despairing of life itself is something that is tragically all too common.  The least we can do is cry with those who have no tears left to cry.  In that, strangely, is a tangible hope.

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Wise as serpents among wolves, innocent as doves among sheep

The old book is chock full of hidden wisdom, from the narratives of Genesis right through to the mysteries of Revelation.  At each juncture God is found living and active, in and through the accounts, the poetry and the prophecy, making meaning for the people of faith, thwarting all who would contend otherwise.  There are the go-to places for biblical wisdom, namely Proverbs, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Job, and James in the New Testament, as well as places like Romans 12 and 1 Thessalonians 5.

Perhaps Jesus said too many wise things to be recorded (John 21:25), but we can resolve that he said one very powerful thing about wisdom.  When sending the disciples out, part of his instructions were:

“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore, be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves.”
— Matthew 10:16 (CSB)

Jesus knew his followers would be going out into perilous situations — that they desperately needed wisdom.  They would be innocent as sheep, venturing out into situations where they should expect to risk being ravaged.  Note the parallels between sheep and doves, and serpents and wolves.  These diametrically opposed concepts are crucial in the understanding of an and/both (rather than an either/or) world.

Wisdom first wrestles with the tensions, being able to hold disparate matters together.  The wise person transcends the sequestering allegiance of one political party or ideology as the be all and end all.  They see beyond sides, agendas and conspiracy theories.  They tussle with the dualistic, judgemental mind, seeking instead to perceive truth in the vast freedom between the extremes.  To be able to work with this Jesus wisdom, we must be able to hold shrewdness and purity together; one that trusts nothing with the other that trusts everything.

Innocence as a dove has the virtue about it that it protects us from cynicism, yet it is extremely limited in terms of discernment.  Shrewdness as a snake is necessary within a world where are there are wolves in every setting, yet it suspects wrong in everything and that’s an overcorrection.  We need both.

Having the serpent about us prepares us for encountering wolves.  Having the dove about us prepares us for encountering sheep.  And yet, wolves are thwarted more by shrewdly deployed innocence or innocence aided by shrewdness than they are by shrewdness or innocence alone, because evil has no answer for a godliness beyond fear, which is a pure faith.

As we take the counsel of Jesus on board, we begin to comprehend that a dove wisdom is purposed for situations with sheep, whilst a serpent wisdom is purposed for situations where there are wolves.  The shepherd must protect the sheep, so they need shrewdness to expect attacks on the flock when they least expect them to occur.  Whilst ever being watchful, however, innocence gives the shepherd the desire to be present in caring for the flock.

Such innocence believes the best about people, while shrewdness tempers naivete with a healthy dose of suspicion.  Nobody who is pure of heart minds being tested.  Indeed, they’re glad of the evidence of such protection.

Our job as believers is to recognise that we’re either strong in shrewdness and weaker in innocence — where cynicism is our snare — or we’re strong in innocence and weaker in shrewdness — where naivete is our snare.

Just as the hypostatic union was living and active in Jesus — being that he was fully divine and fully human at the same time [the ultimate and/both reality] — we also need a full measure of shrewdness with a full measure of innocence.

This is the Jesus wisdom we are to seek.  With only shrewdness we will see only the wolves and miss loving the sheep.  Our cynicism will fail others and God.  With only innocence we will miss the wolves and fail the sheep who will be eaten.  Our naivete will fail others and God.

We must be shrewd as serpents among wolves, innocent as doves among sheep.  Less than the fullness of both is a missing of the mark.

Photo by Nazar Hrabovyi on Unsplash