Radically

When I first started dialectical behavioral therapy I wondered how I could possibly reconcile the Eastern influences with what I know to be true. I had a closed mind - not only because of everything I mentioned in the last post, but also because I didn't believe that a secular-yet-zenish program would have any truth to offer me.

And yet...

The one principle of DBT that I struggle the most with is also the one that challenges me to a deeper understanding of my relationship with Christ.

The first time my therapist introduced the principle of Radical Acceptance, I didn't know whether I wanted to cry or rage. I HATED it. Passionately.

I'm supposed to accept life as it is? Totally? Completely? Are you kidding me?

I sat in my skills group a few weeks ago watching a video about Radical Acceptance for the second time. All of a sudden I was struck by something - this is where I need to be with God.

• Freedom from suffering (and from sin) requires acceptance from deep within of what is... Doesn't it just? Sin is what is. The reality that we are sinful beings who are separated from God as a result of our choices is something we must accept. Deeply. If there is any doubt in our minds that we are sinful and desperately need God, we will never truly accept His hand on our lives. Freedom comes when we not only accept who we are, but also when we accept who He is. Which leads to the second... Acceptance is the only way out of hell.
• Pain creates suffering only when you refuse to accept the pain. How many of us fight against the life we've been given? How many of us, deep down, believe that God should have done something - anything - different to prevent all the hurts that life throws our way? How many of us, deep down, believe that things weren't supposed to happen the way they did? Most of us I would say, perhaps all. And when we focus on what "should have been" we lose sight of the reality that God has ordered everything according to his PERFECT will. Our pain has a purpose. Our trials have a purpose. Our heartache has a purpose. As hard as it is to understand, God meant for our lives to be the way they are... AND He means to change them.
• To accept something is not the same as judging it good. Just because a tragedy is part of God's plan does not mean it is good. It just works together for the good. Rape, murder, abuse, death... we do not have to approve of these things in order to accept them. They are the reality of life in a fallen world, and they are part of what has to be because we are sinful. Our sin not only makes these things possible, it makes them inevitable. We can't rise above our circumstances until we accept that they are what they are and only God can lift us up out of them.
• Acceptance of reality as it is requires an act of choice. Now, we could delve into one of the greatest theological debates of all time - free will vs. predestination - but both those spiritual extremes are a too-simplistic explanation of our relationship to Christ. God and God alone is responsible for our salvation, but we are not passive participants in God's work in our lives. The call of the Holy Spirit is a call to action.
• You have to turn your mind and commit... OVER and OVER and OVER again. Again, I don't want to stumble into the territory of "once saved, always saved" and losing your salvation, but... the Christian walk requires a daily (and sometimes hourly) renewal of our commitment to God. It requires a continuous need to die to ourselves and live for Him. It requires waking up in the morning and saying, "I accept your Lordship over my life." It requires staring in the face of temptation and saying, "I am no longer your slave." It requires a constant working out of our salvation. Every moment. Every hour. Every day.
• We are to cultivate a willing response to each situation. Our response to the various bumps in the road should be, "yes LORD!" rather than "why me?" Willingness involves giving over control of ourselves to the working of the Holy Spirit in and through us. We cannot radically accept Christ if we are not also radically willing to accept Him. Too often we act out of willfulness instead.
• Willfulness is giving up... trying to fix every situation (on our own)... refusing to tolerate the moment. Willfulness is telling God, "I can't" instead of saying, "YOU can." Or we say, "I can do this without you." We try to do things on our own and then when we fail, we often refuse to allow God to step in and pick up the pieces. Or even worse, we try to argue with God about what should have been... and think we can avoid our struggles completely if God would just cooperate and do things our way.

I'd love to be able to say I've seen the light and I not only "get" these principles, I live them out every day of my life.

But I don't.

Radical acceptance is about as easy for me as threading a camel through the eye of a needle. I fight against it at every turn. My therapist calls it treatment-interfering thinking/behaviors. My God calls it rebellion. I'm still fighting God for Lordship that was never mine - and could never be mine - to begin with.

And at times I am desperately willing... and then it gets hard, and harder... and I want to give up because it hurts.

Accepting God radically, totally and completely...? Sometimes it hurts. Who am I in the face of His holiness? Why would He bother? How could I be valuable enough for God to lay out a plan specifically for me? And if God is wrong to choose me, He obviously must be wrong in His plans for me. Or not.

Life is what it is... but more importantly, God is who He says He is.

Our LORD.

Radically.