Quite Quotable...On Our Right To Individual Freedom

From Timothy Keller and his book, "The Reason for God,"

For a relationship to be healthy there much be mutual loss of independence. It can't be just one way. Both sides must say to each other, "I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I'll serve you even though it means sacrifice for me." If only one party does all the sacrificing and giving, and the other does all the ordering and taking, the relationship will be exploitative and will oppress and distort the lives of both people.

At first sight, then, a relationship with God seems inherently dehumanizing. Surely it will have to be "one way," God's way. God, the divine being, has all the power. I must adjust to God--there is no way that God could adjust to and serve me.

While this may be true in other forms of religion and belief in God, it is not true in Christianity. In the most radical way, God has adjusted to us--in his incarnation and atonement. In Jesus Christ he became a limited human being, vulnerable to suffering and death. On the cross, he submitted to our condition--as sinners--and died in our place to forgive us. In the most profound way, God has said to us in Christ, "I will adjust to you. I will change for you. I'll serve you though it means a sacrifice for me." If he has done this for us, we can and should say the same to God and others."

When I went on an 8-day trip to Buena Vista, CO, two weeks ago, I had the extreme pleasure of being guided by a man younger than myself, but who seemed so much wiser. He was a recent Philosophy/Psychology  double major from Oklahoma State, on his way to finish out his senior year studying abroad in the Swiss Alps. His hair was even already prematurely graying--a true sign of his superior wisdom.

As he was leading myself and the group of high school students I was traveling with, we were tasked with hiking our sorry, out-of-shape butts up into some mountains found in the San Isabel National Forest. To keep my mind off of deadness I was feeling in my legs, I struck up a conversation with him, and we both soon realized we shared a same favorite author, Timothy Keller. We kept sharing our favorite quotes and messages we had listened to, all the while plodding upward and onward. Eventually, this young man asked me and the only other adult older than him, "What advice would you give to young men about marriage?"

I really wanted to be profound in that moment, but my blood pressure was so high, and my brain so pressed up against the insides of my skull, I truly had nothing to offer, other than something I had heard from a pre-marriage counseling session that I'm sure butchered. I doubt his future wife will have much (any?) thanks to give to me for the ninety seconds of rambling I bestowed upon this young gentleman.

Only after getting settled back into my home in Kansas City a week or so later did I come across this quote from Timothy Keller. I wished I could have shared it with him them, but I didn't. Though marriage is what our conversation in Colorado was about, and though I believe this quote has a PROFOUND impact on the way we view marriage, I believe this quote can have an even more profound impact on the way we see God and life.

In life, and again in marriage, I consistently find myself fighting for "my time." I feel like there are certain things, certain sequences of events, particular freedoms that should exist, and that I should be able to concretely hold onto, in any given day. As a father of two, and a husband of seven years, I have found it harder and harder to not get angry, or at the very least frustrated, when "MY" things/time/order is taken away and/or disrupted.

I think what this quote makes me reflect on, is how short I fall in exhibiting and living in real LOVE for the human beings around me. More often than not, I am a human falling short of the capacity and potential I have been given, because to be fully human means being able to love. And, like Keller said, for a love relationship to be healthy, there has to be a mutual loss of independence, or else one half of the love relationship will be oppressed and taken advantage of. Too often I care too much about my "right to _______", and miss an opportunity to experience a new level of profoundly changing love.