Have you ever...?


"Every time it happens I am so amazed to see you
How you meet me at the depths of my pain
You're afraid of nothing and it fills my heart with romance
You would search the ends of earth for my sake." 
                                                                                        "David", Kendall Payne (2008)

Anyone ever played the game 'I have never...'?

Great game. Someone stands up in the middle of a room and makes a statement (e.g. "I have never been bungee-jumping") and then if you have done the thing they are describing you get up and swap places with someone else who has also done that thing. My most colourful memories of playing this game are predictably from my time with IFES in France where the whole experience was intensified due to having to navigate expressions you didn't quite understand - not to mention the horrors of grammatical traps and double negatives. It's not a great game to play if you're not speaking your native language. It's perilously easy to end up like my fellow non native French-speaking friend  -  stranded alone in the centre of the circle, slowly realising that your presence there equates to a declaration that you have in fact been engaged. Which you have - not - ever - been. Tricky.

They call the game an 'ice-breaker' because it aims to carve up some common ground between people who don't know each other very well. Depending on how competitive you are, to some degree while you are scrambling around trying to find a spare chair, you can make mental notes on the other people in the room who are also wearing socks, trainers, glasses - the other people who have been to Asia, learnt to play an instrument, or spent some time in A and E. On one level the game does indeed serve to demonstrate that the people surrounding you are not in fact aliens, but have lots of things in common with you.

Problem is, the things you have in common are sort of surfacy. Not sure any great relationships have been founded on the shared wearing of trainers (though it might depend on the trainers). Friendship really becomes a powerful vehicle in your life when the 'You ... too?s' are born not out of peripheral preferences ("Seriously? You like... prawn cocktail flavour crisps best too!") but out of the important stuff. Stress, struggles. Trauma, tears. Failure, frustration. Friends who can come to you - when you are weak - and say 'Me too....I have been that broken too', are friends that provide dynamite levels of comfort, reassurance and safety. You can be real with that kind of friend because they understand. You will want to trust that kind of friend. To hold on to that kind of friend.

So let's try some different 'Have you ever....?' questions.

Have you ever...

been completely misunderstood and misrepresented by your family and closest friends?

been so overwhelmed with stress and anxiety that sleep evades you?

been taunted with the all-too-attractive allure of sin when you're at your lowest ebb physically and emotionally?

staggered under the weight of sin?

felt like God must have forgotten you?

had people look down on you because you don't have the right pedigree, because you don't have the right background, because you haven't jumped through the right hoops?

cried because death has senselessly intruded into the lives of the people you love the most, leaving hollow, aching, emptiness?

watched while people who claim to know God use their position to hurt people rather than help them?

cried in heart-rending anger because the world is so stubborn in its darkness-loving?

been betrayed by your closest friends? Had your friends fall asleep on you when you needed them the most?

been publicly shamed and humiliated?

been ... ahem.... single when most of your friends are married?

been tempted to think that your circumstances mean you can't really belong to God?

been physically assaulted? Been threatened with physical assault? Been bullied?

cried because you feel so miserably, irredeemably alone?


Well, there's an ultimate, perfect - gentle friend who has come to you, who will come to you - in your weakness - and who can say 'Me too.' He knows. He understands. And the crazy, crazy wonder of it is he went through all of that - even though he was the one person who never should have had to - he went through all of that so he could be your friend. And you did not choose this friend. He chose you! He calls you friend.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you...." John 15: 13-15

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us THEREFORE approach his throne with  CONFIDENCE...." Hebrews 4: 15

Comments

Popular Posts