Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning (affiliate link)

I’ve discovered over the years that my wife is full of good information, but I don’t often listen quickly enough.
I recently started listening to the audio version of Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning (affiliate link), which is one she read in high school.

I’ve been through it twice in the last week now, and I’m sure it’s one I will be going through many times, because I realize that the book speaks to something I clearly don’t live out of easily: my identity as Abba’s child – Daddy’s boy, if you will.

No matter how much I think I’ve taken in the message, I find a hesitancy inside me. The issue, as weird as it sounds in the context of worship, is that I actually don’t love myself very well. I think the idea that finally made it sink in deeper this past week was this: when Jesus tells you to love “the least of these” – i.e., the poor, the unlovable, the broken, etc. – oftentimes the VERY least of these people, and the hardest to really love, is yourself.

I know many people are bound to question the value of self-esteem, which Manning places high value on. Believe me, the negative reviews on Amazon were completely predictable. They denounce it as heresy, humanistic, “New Age”, dangerous, etc. What continues to boggle my mind is how people can be so disconnected from anything that makes them human. These same people consistently tell us to beware of our emotions, as if God screwed up in giving them to us. I see these same types of reviews showing up around any book I’ve found helpful toward bringing emotional healing.

Done ranting for now. Back to the topic…

I’ve noticed something important about self-esteem though. As my wife can attest, I am a very harsh and critical person at times. It may not be obvious on the surface, but I’m actually extremely hard on and critical of myself. I went through counseling and EMDR therapy in the past year and we actually spent a fair amount of time addressing this very issue and I’ve noticed as sharp increase in my ability to be nice to other people and truly love them and accept them right where they are as I’ve been able to love myself and raise my own self-esteem. This shouldn’t be that hard to deal with. After all, part two of what Jesus called the sum of all the law and prophets was to “love your neighbor as yourself.” I’ve been struck by how inescapable that law is. I don’t know for sure that loving yourself well automatically means you will love others well, but I can say for a fact now that you will never love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself first.

I supposed that’s where I tie this back to leading worship. I haven’t led worship since going through this book yet, but I can feel a difference in my approach to Jesus already. There’s less hesitancy, and more willingness to be really honest with him and with myself. I’m sure there’s more healing to come.

The other part of the book that has struck me is Manning’s focus on the importance of being alone with myself as a regular practice. The truth is, I have to admit, in a very raw place in me, I have to fight a deep, guttural terror when it comes to being truly alone, because that sinful, empty part of myself is pretty sure there’s going to be nothing there. I think Manning called it a form of practical agnosticism. I guess I must not be alone in this terror because most of the negative reviewers also had plenty to say about how worthless meditation and solitude and quiet contemplation are. Anyway, it’s still something for me keep pressing into and working on.

I’ve said all I have to say for now. What about you? Do you think you really love yourself well? Do you really think God loves you like a Daddy loves his child? Really? How would it affect your worship if you did?

Photo by И. Максим, Creative Commons license

This is probably too obvious to state, but it turns out your view of Jesus shapes how you worship him. I’ve had the benefit of growing up around people who emphasized relationship with Jesus above everything else, and yet I still find subtle ways in which I don’t treat my relationship with Jesus as if it were real. It still sometimes feels like I’m relating to an idea  or a historical figure, not a person I can really know right now.

My wife and I are currently helping to lead a small group, where we’re going through John Eldredge’s “Beautiful Outlaw” (affiliate link). This is not my first time through the book, but I have to admit it has taken several times through to really sink in. It’s like wading into water – it starts out light, almost too shallow, and suddenly you’re in up to your neck. I think the genius of the book is in asking people to step back and consider what they’re reading when they read about Jesus. It took a few times through to appreciate that Christians almost never do this – at least most of them I’ve met. For some reason, people tend to dissect and look for the deeper meaning without considering that they’re reading a real story about a real person. Honestly, you’d be even better off if you would at least read it like you would read a novel and simply take it at face value.

On to the point though. How we think about Jesus matters, and I think it really matters that you remember his humanity. Consider this excerpt from Chapter 5, entitled “The Most Human Face Of All”:

“One of my favorite Christmas meditations comes from this passage by Chesterton (he is speaking of Bethlehem, and what it held in its foothills that fateful night):

The strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity.

Savor that passage for a moment. The manger Mary used as a bassinette held something more human than humanity?

Do you think of Jesus as the most human human-being who ever lived? It’s true. The ravages of sin, neglect, abuse, and a thousand addictions have left us all a shadow of what we were meant to be. Jesus is humanity in its truest form. His favorite title for himself was the Son of Man. Not of  God— of man.”

And yet, how often do we think like this in worship time? This seems to be under-emphasized in most of the worship songs I know. This is not to under-emphasize Jesus’ glory, and the fact that he was God and man at the same time, but I think our current culture has swung a little too far in downplaying his humanity, and that fact has deep consequences in our worship. If you don’t believe God actually loved us enough to come down and truly be human – to grow in a womb, be born, go through childhood, and grow into manhood, I’m not sure what we’re doing here. It’s important enough to keep pressing into and contemplating and acting on.

The book goes on to emphasize Jesus’ personality – his playfulness / sense of humor, his fierce intention, his extravagant generosity, disruptive honesty, his scandalous freedom, his cunning, humility, and the one I think I love the most – his trueness. Having covered these topics, Eldredge devotes the rest of the book to what it means to really love Jesus the way he wants to be loved, which as a worship leader, I think is my most important job.

He includes this prayer as a help:

“I renounce every limit I have ever placed on Jesus.

I renounce every limit I have placed on him in my life.

I break all limitations, renounce them, revoke them.

Jesus, forgive me for restraining you in my life.

I give you full permission to be yourself with me. I ask you for you— for the real you.”

He recommends praying that prayer more than once, and I couldn’t agree more. I should be praying it every day, and probably a lot more.

How about you? How do you think of Jesus? Is he near or far? Knowable or unknowable? How do you think he actually wants to be worshiped?