Rehearsing Loneliness

Solitude can be exquisite…and also revealing.

I’d finally reached my planned lunch stop during a solo backpack trip one early autumn and plopped down on a beautiful rock outcropping that overlooked a fir-filled valley. Splendidly isolated, the rest was both welcomed and rewarding. I was accustomed to backpacking alone and rather preferred it that way…not typically recommended by hiking enthusiasts, there’s no shortage of dangers for a solo hiker. And yet, I was on a mission…a mission to get away and enjoy the silence, conquer the challenge, and perhaps hear from Adonai.

It was on that rock outcropping that the latter came…silence is different in a people-less place, especially after a challenging trudge over difficult terrain. As I sat in that silence, I noticed a lone pine, that for decades had somehow defied the conditions it was presented, growing impossibly through the rock, and gently swaying in the breeze. As I contemplated its uniqueness, quite unexpectedly, the still small voice of Adonai deposited three words in my mind…”you rehearse loneliness.”

All of us, no matter our history, learn ways to navigate our world. Some through a unique identity in some extraneous venture like career, sports, hobby, etc…identifying ourselves by a role we play. This, by self-design can serve as a distraction from our most base fears buried at our deepest depths…self-beliefs that we work hard to suppress and yet paradoxically, drive our very existence.

We create coping strategies that become so rote in our subconscious, that we become immune to the motivation that brought us there in the first place. For instance, if I find acceptance and applause through my identity as a person of excellence in my career, sport, philosophy, ideology…then I can more successfully ignore the seminal beliefs about myself such as, ‘I am a failure,’ ‘I cannot get it out,’ ‘I must be perfect and please everyone,’ ‘no one would love the true me’…and on it goes.

So, in order to cope with those root beliefs, we create strategies to navigate around them…at least…as much as possible…because at some point…life quiets…and what has been pushed to the back burner automatically reassumes its position at the front.

And so, it was this day on that rock…just as it is when I lay down to sleep most nights. We waste our lives running from what we believe will consume us, ruin us…and that we believe other people will rally around once they learn that truth about us. On that outcropping, Adonai revealed my strategy designed to hide my wretchedness… “you rehearse loneliness.”

For me, the isolation I experienced in childhood became the very strategy to avoid what I truly believed. You are a liability, you do not matter, your voice is of no consequence…you are unloved. My life has been a self-fulfilled prophecy…and likely, so has yours.

Dear Abba,

You see me. Your objective, however, is not to shame me in what you see. Being ‘poor in spirit’ is different than what I have made it. ‘Poor in spirit’ is not self-loathing. It is coming into agreement of my complete inability to self-atone and create my own shalom. In fleeing from my fallenness, not only do I serve the beliefs that govern me, but I also recreate the original sin…that I should be in charge of my life.

There is a place in that agreement with you that turns shame into gratitude…never, ever, ever will it be up to me to gain your favor or avoid your wrath…always and only ever is it Messiah Yeshua standing in my stead…life for life. This walk can never be about me trying to become better. God forbid!

Life and joy are only found in agreeing with the truth of my condition and then giving up the false quests of self-improvement, to utterly lose myself…also giving life for life…my life in exchange for Messiah’s. I do not ask that you silence my deepest beliefs born out of my personal history, but rather, that you teach me to be grateful and peaceful about my condition because of your forever provision.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end leads to death. We live in a culture that celebrates the self and looks to the self for salvation. Even for followers of Yeshua Messiah. Most often in the church today we come to Jesus for salvation and then spend the rest of our lives trying to save ourselves through the things we do for God.

Most of our life we are still trying to impress the Father or avoid His disappointment. On one hand, we eagerly embrace His salvation, but then contradict ourselves by trying to earn His favor.

The objective of our lives now, is not to change our self-beliefs or even to grow in holiness. That haverim…is about us, not Him! The objective of our lives is to grow in relationship with our rescuer and abandon our strategies all together, to abandon our attempts to manipulate His affections toward us and to merely rest in Him and what He has done. Now, having said that, I confess that I still pick up my personal history book and self-help book, metaphorically speaking, every day.

Will you join with me in agreement…we are not the way, the truth, and the life…and we must no longer aim at self-improvement as our way to the Father. That is not the Gospel. We all have negative self-beliefs. Laying them at the feet of the Master Yeshua merely means that changing those beliefs is not the goal of life…let us stop paying homage to them…we see them, we acknowledge their existence, but we do not serve them…by fleeing from them…or rehearsing them.

We are all in the same state of being haverim…hearing those thoughts are nothing but a cue…a cue to express gratitude toward our Saviour…let him be Saviour! Let him be Saviour from ourselves once and for all!!

Thank you, Adonai, that you call us to cease striving and learn to just be with You. We acknowledge that our consuming self-thoughts are not what we ought to serve, nor are they things we should unwittingly honor. Our objective is not to 'get better,' but rather to accept Your gift and simply 'be' with You!

Shalom,

James Mark (יַעֲקֹב מרק)