But sadly, that wasn’t all. His compliment aroused a very old and very personal ogre that hibernates deep within my psyche, occasionally awakening to wreak havoc upon my moments of merriment. No sooner had Steve made his kind comment than my ogre spat out its interrogating curse, “Why haven’t you done more with your musical talent? We both know, you could have done so much more with it over these many years!”
Surprising, isn’t it, how something intended as a simple and sincere compliment could so easily arouse this demon of self-doubt in me? And surprising, isn’t it, how vulnerable we are to the judgmental scripts that can rise up out of our past decisions and actions?!
“Be kind,” Johann von Goethe (1749-1832), the German philosopher said, “for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” I suspect that whatever great battle Goethe was referring to has different warfronts for each of us. But for many of us, at least in moments of vulnerability, self-doubt lies at our personal war’s core.
Fortunately for each of us, “Now,” that is, this very moment, always holds the potential to “outmaneuver” anything in our personal history. Right here, right now I can choose to see Steve’s compliment as something that propels me into the future rather than drags me into the past. This emancipating idea lies at the heart of Jesus’ story about the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32 NRV) in which we’re told about a young man who “came to himself,” that is, realized that his past didn’t have to define his future. Period.
Whether we read the Bible or not, we all long to experience what this story offers: the grace of “now.” Living in the grace of now doesn’t change the past. It does something better. It puts the past in the past so we can still learn from it--but it no longer has power over us. That was then. This is now.
The warfronts and battles of our past vary for each of us. But there is one conquering hope that delivers us all. Hope first casts regret to the past. And then leads us forward with a renewed sense of purpose.
ReplyDelete