If you want to know what I was like as a kid, picture Hiccup from the movie How to Train Your Dragon, and that about sums it up. I was a shy, quiet daydreamer with the physicality of a string bean. Instead of listening to class lectures, I doodled pictures in the margins of my notebooks. My report cards throughout elementary school said the same thing in different ways: “Jesse’s a creative kid, and he’s doing well in his classes, but he struggles to pay attention.” Fourth grade was my first year of school in the United States. Having spent half my life growing up in Slovakia, a tiny country sandwiched in the heart of Eastern Europe, I was an outsider stepping into a foreign culture. I don’t remember much about that first year, and most of what I do remember revolves around recess (playing tag football and four-square, exchanging trading cards, feeling awkward around girls, etc.). But I do have a vivid memory of a sheet of paper that hung on the back wall of my fourth grade classroom – a sign-up sheet with the words “Author’s Chair” typed across the top. And I will always remember that classroom as a place where something that was buried deep in my soul stirred, shifted, and woke up for the first time.
My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Fales, was a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a loud, hearty laugh. She noticed early on that I enjoyed the writing assignments that she gave to our class. I would scribble words rapidly without pausing to think, stringing sentences together like my life depended on it. Mrs. Fales had decided that every Friday would be “Author’s Chair” day. Any kid who wanted to could sign up to read something they’d written aloud to the rest of the class. She encouraged me to sign up, and it was with great nervousness and anticipation that I scrawled my name on that paper.
I still remember settling into the “Author’s Chair” chair and staring out at my classmates, who sat cross-legged on the carpet and stared back at me. I still remember the first story that I shared. It was called “Cyber-Dimension,” and was about ninja-style warriors who wore armored suits, lived inside the internet, and battled evil robots. I still remember the excitement that I felt as I told the story and realized that my classmates were enjoying it. All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so awkward anymore. Something in my cheesy tale had resonated with my classmates and connected me to them. I wasn’t alone. I had cracked open the closet of my weird ideas, and my classmates had affirmed what they saw there.
After that day, I signed up for Author’s Chair every single week. My fifth grade teacher continued the weekly story-sharing ritual. I wrote a story about some of the students in our class crash-landing a plane in the Sahara desert, struggling to survive, descending into madness, and then taking down a criminal mastermind who they happened to run across. Later, I wrote a story about some of the students in our class getting shipwrecked at sea, struggling to survive, and then taking down the same criminal mastermind who they happened to run across again. In sixth grade, I wrote two books about secret agents who saved the world with the help of a crime-fighting rabbit. My classmates took turns checking out the books and writing reviews on the back pages. With the encouragement of Mrs. Fales, I had discovered that I loved telling stories, that I was good at it, and that the stories I told connected me to a community. I wasn’t a paid author, and I hadn’t been published (thank goodness!). But I felt like I was, and I felt like I had.
Have you ever had a teacher who saw something in you that you didn’t see in yourself? Someone who affirmed a talent or passion in you and challenged you to bring it into daylight? Someone whose attention and affection made you feel valuable and capable? Words are incredibly powerful things. With words alone, we can shred someone’s self-esteem to the point where they wonder if their life is worth anything. With words alone, we can build someone up until they know in their bones that they are beloved. Hopefully you’ve had people in your life who have affirmed your unique personality, gifts, and dreams like this. But what about God? When you think about your Creator and hear his words, do you sense condemnation or affirmation? Do you feel built up or torn down? You may believe without a shadow of a doubt that you’re loved by your family and friends. But if you’re anything like me, believing that you are loved by God can be the hardest thing in the world.
I love the apostle Peter. He’s my favorite character in the Bible. He’s also different from me in just about every way – reckless, headstrong, outspoken, and muscular (hauling loads of fish into a sailboat day in and day out was the ancient precursor of P90X). Chosen to be one of Jesus’ disciples, Peter loved his master fiercely and vowed to protect Jesus at all costs. He must have swelled with pride when Jesus foretold that he would become the leader of the early Christian church (Matthew 16:18). And yet, when soldiers arrested Jesus and dragged him off to be tortured and hanged as a traitor, Peter fled the scene with the rest of the disciples. Not only that, he denied ever knowing Jesus three times to save his own skin. In one of the most heartbreaking passages in the entire Bible, Peter made eye contact with Jesus from a distance as his master was being brought to trial by the Jewish authorities. Afterwards, he ran off and wept. He had failed his friend in the most miserable way possible.
Peter’s sorrow resonates with me on a deep level. Throughout my life, I’ve yearned to love God with reckless abandon. I’ve made numerous promises to follow him. I’ve worked hard to get to know him and to live like he wants me to live. And yet, over and over again, I’ve let him down. I’ve chosen to turn my back on him when it mattered most. I’ve wrestled with fear, doubt, selfishness, and addiction, making some horrible choices that have hurt me and those I love deeply. I’ve betrayed the God who I claim to love. Like Peter, I’ve run from Jesus, terrified that I might turn around make eye contact with him. If I did, what might I see in his eyes?
But (praise God!) Peter’s story doesn’t end there. Jesus was beaten and killed, and after three days he busted out of the grave – not as a disembodied spirit, but as a flesh-and-blood human being. While fishing with his friends, Peter saw the resurrected Jesus standing by the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and was so overcome with joy that he jumped out of the boat and flailed his way to the shore. After they had shared a meal, Jesus gave his friend some astonishing news: the mission that he had foretold for Peter had not changed. A traitor and a turncoat, Peter was still the man that God had chosen to lead and protect his people. With a track record of failure and absolutely nothing to offer, Peter was given a second chance.
The pages of the Bible reveal that each and every one of us has, like Peter, betrayed the Creator of all things. We’ve chosen to rebel against God’s design for our lives by doing things that we knew were selfish, foolish, and hurtful. Even those of us who claim to be “born again” believers have continued to reject God’s commands and wound the people we love. Addicts to sin, we find ourselves doing stupid things out of habit. In his letter to Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul made this confession: “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?” (Romans 7:15, 24). While we often try to deny it, we’ve screwed up big time. We deserve condemnation.
And yet, and yet, in spite of our broken promises, failed attempts, and sorry excuses, we have been affirmed. Later in his letter to Christians in Rome, Paul wrote: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Those of us who have received God’s offer of forgiveness have been accepted by God without a hint of disapproval. Elsewhere, Paul wrote: “For our sake, he (God) made him (Jesus) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Not only are we not condemned, but we are given a new status before God – a status that is based not on our performance but on Jesus’ faithful obedience. Now, when God looks at us, he doesn’t see the mess that we’ve made of our lives. He sees the self-sacrificial love of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ, for us. Because of Jesus’ death for our sins, we have a new identity. More words from Paul: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
If you’re anything like me, that last verse is both incredibly comforting and difficult to stomach. My gut instincts kick in, and I find myself saying, “Yes, but…” Yes, I am a new creation. But it doesn’t feel that way. Yes, I have been given the righteous track-record of Christ, which I could never hope to earn or deserve. But I am still so very unrighteous (I hope you heard that last bit in a surfer dude voice, like I did). I believe that I have a new identity, but I feel like the same selfish knucklehead that I’ve always been. God gave me a mission, and I’m still messing it up. How can I possibly be a new creation?
Several days ago, I watched a 2010 remake of the classic western film True Grit. In the film, a young girl named Maddie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld) enlists the aid of a U.S. Marshall named “Rooster” Cogburn (played by Jeff Bridges) to track down the man who shot and killed her father. Rooster is a grizzled law officer who is looked upon by his community as a has-been. Once a feared keeper of the peace, he’s now a trigger-happy, penniless old man who spends his days swigging booze and sleeping in a broken-down shack. Starry-eyed and full of hope, Maddie sees Rooster as the seasoned hero who can avenge her father’s murder. As the two journey through the wilderness of Arizona, Rooster develops an affection for Maddie and begins to tell her tales from his past. Once, he tells her about how he charged seven outlaws with the reins of his horse held between his teeth, firing with both of his revolvers. When Maddie shakes her head in disbelief, Rooster tells her: “You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he don’t have time to think about how many’s with him; he thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of the wrath that’s about to set down on him.”
However, slowly and surely, Rooster lets Maddie down. He spends the money that she pays him on booze, and admits that his wife left him because of his perpetual drunkenness. Eventually, he gives up on the mission altogether, refusing to help Maddie anymore. While fetching water at a creek, Maddie stumbles across her father’s killer and is taken hostage by his posse. The leader of her captors threatens to execute her if Rooster doesn’t turn tail and head for home. Through a telescope, the outlaw sees Rooster riding away slowly over the brow of a hill.
But then, minutes later, Rooster is back, facing four of the outlaws on horseback across a grassy clearing. While Maddie watches in astonishment, the elderly U.S. Marshall places the reins of his horse between his teeth, draws both revolvers, and rides across the field straight at her captors.
I won’t tell you how the story ends, because it’s too good to spoil. If you haven’t seen it, you need to. But I will say that in an incredibly beautiful way, Rooster becomes the hero that Maddie had always hoped he’d be. A broken man burdened by regret, he risks everything for the girl he’s come to care about, a girl who looked beneath his smelly, drunken exterior and saw something noble – a beating heart still capable of “true grit.” Taking Rooster as he is, Maddie helps him recognize what he can become.
I am deeply moved by this story, and the story of Peter, because in both tales I have seen the love of God that I so often struggle to believe. It’s a love that takes me just as I am, with all of my hang-ups and reservations. And yet, at the same time, it’s a love that looks forward to what I can become – a love that calls me into a new identity and a new mission. Yes, I’m still a knucklehead. But in a deeper and truer sense, in the eyes of my God, I am already a new creation. By the power of the Holy Spirit, I am being remade into the likeness of my Savior. When God looks at me, he sees the person that I will one day become. Looking at a shy, skinny fourth grader, he saw a beloved son with stories to tell. Looking at a recovering sinner, he sees a warrior capable of great courage and great love.
I’ve felt like Rooster Cogburn numerous times throughout my life. Again and again, while I lay in the ruins of my poor choices, wallowing in guilt and mourning my mistakes, the Savior seeks me out. Gently and patiently, he stands me on my feet, brushes me off, places my revolvers back in my hands, and tells me, “I’ve still got a mission for you, and you’re still the man for the job.” I can’t be the man that he wants me to be in my own strength. God knows I’ve tried. But there is a promise that runs deeper than my doubts: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus” (Phillipians 1:6). Amen and amen.
Words for Wayfarers 