One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World (3 page)

The idea that there is an unconditional love that relieves the pressure, forgives our failures, and replaces our fear with faith seems too good to be true. Longing for hope in a world of hype, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the news we have been waiting for all our lives: God loves real people like you and me, which He demonstrated by sending His real Son to set real people free.

Jesus came to liberate us from the weight of having to make it on our own, from the demand to measure up. He came to emancipate us from the burden to get it all right, from the obligation to fix ourselves, find ourselves, and free ourselves. Jesus came to release us from the slavish need to be right, rewarded, regarded, and respected. Because Jesus came to set the captives free, life does not have to be a tireless effort to establish ourselves, justify ourselves, and validate ourselves.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose. Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one. Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary. Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail. One way to summarize God’s message to the worn out and weary is like this—God’s demand: “be righteous”; God’s diagnosis: “no one is righteous”; God’s deliverance: “Jesus is our righteousness.” Once this good news grips your heart, it changes everything. It frees you from having to be perfect. It frees you from having to hold it all together. In the place of exhaustion, you might even find energy.

No, the Gospel of grace is
not
too good to be true. It is true! It’s the truest truth in the entire universe. God loves us independently of what we may or may not bring to the table. There are no strings attached! No ifs, ands, or buts. No qualifiers or conditions. No need for balance. No broccoli in sight! Grace is the most dangerous, expectation-wrecking, smile-creating, counterintuitive reality there is.

Grace is a bit like a roller coaster; it makes us scream in terror and laugh uncontrollably at the same time. But there aren’t any harnesses on this ride. We are not in the driver’s seat, and we did not design the twists and turns. We just get on board. We laugh as the binding law of gravity is suspended, and we scream because it looks like we’re going to hurtle off into space. Grace brings us back into contact with the children we once were (and still are)—children who loved to ride roller coasters, to smile and yell and throw our hands up in the air. Grace, in other words, is terrifyingly fun, and like any ride worth standing in line for, it is worth coming back to again and again. In fact, God’s one-way love may be the only ride that never gets old, the only ride we thankfully never outgrow. A source of inexhaustible hope and joy for an exhausted world.

So what are we waiting for? Scoot over, and let’s take the plunge, once again, for the first time.

NOTES

CHAPTER 2

HOW I ALMOST KILLED MY MOTHER

I was sixteen when my parents kicked me out of the house. What started out as run-of-the-mill adolescent rebellion in my early teens had, over the course of a few short years, blossomed into a black hole of disrespect and self-centeredness that was consuming the entire family. I would lie when I didn’t have to, push every envelope, pick fights with my siblings, carry on, and sneak around—at first in innocent ways; later in not-so-innocent ways. If someone said “black,” I would say “white.” Nothing all that terrible by the world’s standards, but given my Christian context and upbringing, it was pretty egregious. Eventually, everyone involved reached the end of their patience, and looking back, I can’t blame them. It’s not as though my parents hadn’t tried every other option. Private school, public school, homeschool, counseling, interventions—you name it. Anything they did just made me want to rebel more. Eventually, my lifestyle became so disruptive, the fights so brutal, that my parents were forced to say, “We love you, son, but if you’re going to continue living this way, you can’t do so under our roof.”

After they kicked me out, I dropped out of high school. I thought it was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and it may have been—but not for the reasons I surmised. Those first two years, I floated from one friend’s house to another’s, doing odd jobs, just barely making ends meet, pursuing freedom with every ounce of my being, somehow convinced that without parents and teachers looking over my shoulder, all my problems would be solved. They weren’t. The opposite, in fact. When I turned eighteen, I was finally able to get an apartment of my own, which turned up the volume considerably on my South Florida–style debauchery. I would get a job, do something stupid, get fired. My parents would bail me out, and then I’d go out and do it again. I put them through hell! I wasn’t happy, not at all, but I did learn quite a bit about myself, my family, and, ultimately, about God. In fact, it was the beginning of my personal crash course in one-way love.

A TALE OF TWO SONS

The Bible is positively saturated with the message of one-way love, a number of instances of which I will be unpacking in these pages. We’ll read in bewilderment as Christ comforts a broken-down prostitute. We’ll see him excoriate those oh-so-punctilious keepers of the salt mines, the Pharisees, who would bar the weak, weary, and wounded from their personal spiritual bank account. We’ll hear him speak his Father’s words of mercy as he answers the humble whispers of a traitorous loan shark. We’ll squirm as he probes our sense of right and wrong, our love of conditionality, with questions like, “Do you resent my generosity?” Then we’ll see him purposely subvert the rules so that we might learn that mercy trumps them all. In fact, before we continue, let’s take a step back and look at what may be the most famous picture of one-way love in the Bible—the parable that hits extremely close to home for me, the parable of the two sons, traditionally called the parable of the prodigal son.

And [Jesus] said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!’” (Luke 15:11–17)

The prodigal son may have left his home voluntarily, but I’m not so sure he and I are all that different. I made it very clear to everyone around me that I couldn’t wait to get out on my own and live the life. The prodigal son is more direct. He goes to his father and says, “I want my share of the inheritance right now.” In those days, a son did not get his share of the inheritance until his father died, so he was essentially saying, “Dad, as far as I’m concerned, you’re dead to me, and since you won’t oblige and kick off, just give me my share of the inheritance now.” Unloving, entitled, disrespectful, and rude. Sound familiar?

I know what my dad would have said, and as a father, I know what I would say if one of my sons asked me to give him his inheritance. This father knows how reckless and self-destructive his son is being, and he knows his son is going to squander whatever he gives him. So what does he do? He turns everything we think we know about raising responsible children on its head and gives the boy what he asks. We read that and think,
What an unwise father. If this father had been steeped in the proverbial wisdom of the Bible, he would have never made such a foolish mistake.
But the father knows something we don’t. He knows that in order to win the heart of his son, he has to risk losing him altogether by giving him something even more dangerous and reckless than what he asked for. He has to give him grace.

Sure enough, the son goes out and blows his inheritance on women and wine. When he finally wakes up and finds himself in a pigsty, he takes the only option left to him—namely, to get up and sheepishly return to his father. On the way back home, he rehearses his speech:

Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants. (Luke 15:18–19)

Of course, his father has been waiting for this moment, and when, from a distance, he sees the bedraggled boy coming, he feels such great compassion and love that he runs out and embraces his son. Then, in a radically undignified manner, the father falls in the dirt and hugs his child’s legs. The son launches into his groveling speech, but before he can get the lines out, the father clothes him in the best robe and puts a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. He restores his lost son’s status before the son even has the chance to say or do
anything
. The son brings nothing to the table; it is a one-way transaction. Why? Because the father already has one son who thinks he’s a hired servant. He doesn’t need another.

Note that the father never once says, “I will welcome you back only if you detail for me all the mistakes you have made, so I can determine whether you’re truly sorry and ready to be part of the family again.” Think of that! The father doesn’t demand anything from this son, who has put him through so much pain. He does not insist on emotional, financial, or legal consequences. He doesn’t drag the boy into court or make him stand up in front of the local religious leaders and do penance. Instead he rewards him. He gives him the very opposite of what he deserves. The father knows that his son is already acutely aware of his guilt and shame—the boy knows what he has done—what he needs is to be forgiven.

Brennan Manning, an author who knew a whole lot more about one-way love than I ever will, summed it up this way:

My message, unchanged for more than fifty years, is this:
God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.
It is the message of grace.… A grace that pays the eager beaver who works all day long the same wages as the grinning drunk who shows up at ten till five. A grace that hikes up the robe and runs breakneck toward the prodigal reeking of sin and wraps him up and decides to throw a party no
ifs
,
ands
, or
buts
.…

This vulgar grace is indiscriminate compassion. It works without asking anything of us.… Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover. Grace is enough.… Jesus is enough.
1

Needless to say, in our everyday lives, bad behavior and poor performance are rarely met with this kind of response. Punishment and reproach are much more common—and reasonable. People need to be held accountable for their actions! There must be consequences! “We are not doormats,” we tell ourselves. The truth is, we are much more comfortable with conditionality, with two-way relationships in which we love those who treat us well and punish those who hurt us, than we are with anything resembling unconditional love. Regardless of how much we may want others to be merciful with us, when the tables are turned, we find it virtually impossible not to judge. Yet we also know that those times when we’ve caught glimpses of grace have been transformative—maybe not immediately, but eventually. During those rocky teenage years I experienced both.

A TALE OF TWO LUNCHES

My parents were well loved in our community, and their friends could see the heartache they were going through with me. I remember two separate instances of people caring enough to ask them for permission to talk with me one-on-one to see if maybe they could get through to me. The first time was early on, when I was still living at home. Their friend picked me up after school, brought me to Burger King, and read me the riot act.

“Look at all that God’s given you. You’re squandering everything. You’re making your parents’ life a living hell, acting so selfishly, not considering your siblings. You go to a private school. You have this remarkable heritage. Shape up, man! Snap out of it.”

Of course, he was 100 percent right. In fact, if he had known the full truth of what I was up to (and what was in my heart), he would have had every reason to be even harsher. But in the first five minutes of this guy talking to me, I could tell where it was going, and I just tuned out. As far as I was concerned, it was white noise. I could not wait for it to be over and for him to drop me back off at home.

This first friend was the voice of the law. He was articulating the standard that I was falling short of—what I should have been doing and who I should have been being—and he couldn’t have been more correct. The condemnation was entirely justified. His words gave an accurate description of who I was at that moment. But that’s the curious thing about the law and judgment in general: it can tell us who we are, it can tell us the right thing to do, but it cannot inspire us to do that thing or be that person. In fact, it often creates the opposite reaction than the one that is intended. It certainly did for me! I don’t blame the man in question—he was trying to do the right thing. It’s just that his methods completely backfired.

The second experience happened about a year and a half later, and by this time I was out of the house. This man called me and said, “I’d love to meet with you.”

And I thought,
Oh no, another one of my parents’ friends trying to set me straight.
But I didn’t want to make things any worse between my parents and me, and the free meal didn’t sound too bad either, so I agreed to get together with him.

Once we were at the restaurant, he just looked at me and said, “Listen, I know you’re going through a tough time, and I know life must seem very confusing right now. And I just want to tell you that I love you, I’m here for you, and I think God’s going to do great things with you. Here’s my phone number. If you ever need anything, call me. If you want to tell me something you don’t feel comfortable telling anybody else, call me. I just want you to know that I’m here for you.” And then he switched the subject and started talking about sports. That guy—the second guy—is still a friend of mine to this day. He will forever be marked in my personal history as an example of amazing grace.

Even though it took place almost twenty-five years ago, I still think about our conversation all the time. I think about it because in so many ways, I’m still that kid. I haven’t graduated from my need for grace, and I never will. I still want what I want when I want it, and while it may not happen quite as often, thank God, I still hurt the people I love. I wake up to the same demands that you do. I live with the same anxieties and insecurities. I know from personal experience, as you do, that the weight of life can be crushing. And even though I spend hours every day thinking and talking about grace, I struggle to believe too. But it is inside the pressing context of everyday life that one-way love becomes more than a theory, more than an idea, more than something that churchy people talk about on Sunday. It is there that one-way love becomes that which breathes life and relief into our weary, scared bones.

CONTROL FREAKS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

There is a reason why the story of the prodigal son has held people’s attention over the centuries more than any other parable. Yes, it is a beautiful picture of God’s one-way love, but it is more than that: it is a beautiful picture of God’s one-way love for an unloving and actively hostile person. The parable is grounded, in other words, in the reality of the human condition. It does not flatter the listener. It paints us as entitled brats who disrespect our fathers and pursue our selfish ends at a cost to both ourselves and those who love us. But remember, the Gospel only sounds good to a heart that knows it is bad. For people who think they’re good, grace is frustrating. For people who know they’re not, grace is freeing. I know
bad
is a loaded word, so let me explain.

The Bible has a lot to say about human nature. It talks about men and women being made in the image of God, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14), capable of great acts of love and charity. And this is true, without a doubt. Each and every day I am blown away by the amazing and sacrificial work being done both in my immediate vicinity and abroad. I thank God for it!

But the Bible also talks about our fall from grace and posits the unpopular doctrine of original sin, the notion that no one is righteous, that no part of us is free from selfishness and sin, and that the condition is sadly hereditary (Rom. 3). The great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once referred to original sin as “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith,”
2
and what he meant is simply that our histories, both global and personal, bear out the Bible’s claim that our basic nature is fatally compromised. I’m afraid to say this applies just as much to Christians as it does to non-Christians. In fact, in my conversations with the believers I most admire, the ones I consider to be almost saintly, humility is always the thing that most stands out. And by humility, I mean the sense that, as they have grown older, their understanding of their need for God’s grace and forgiveness has deepened rather than abated. Sin, it would seem, is comprehensive. There is no part of us that it does not touch. Our minds are affected by it. Our hearts are affected by it. Our wills are affected by it. Our bodies as well. This is at the heart of Paul’s internal struggle that he articulates in Romans 7, when he says, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (v. 19). If you can relate to that sentence, then this book is for you.