The Boy Who Roars

In the day care next door there is a boy who roars.

A myriad of bright plastic toys and huge picture books litter the floor in the office-turned-daycare, but without exception he will dress up in a stretchy ninja costume and roar at people. He bothers me. The roaring in itself is not so distracting. The kids who weep, scream, and laugh don’t disturb me, but the roaring boy makes me angry, sad, and afraid.

I roared when I was a kid and was pretty violent. I roared when I felt threatened, weak or scared because I thought if other kids feared me they wouldn’t hurt me. Maybe that kid roars for the same that reasons I did; he may just think he’s a lion. That is possible for a six year old. But I hit, scratched, and bit for the same reasons that I roared. I’m certain I would have been expelled if I’d gone to a public school. I’m even more certain that without Christ I’d have gotten worse.

Christian, from Moulin Rouge says, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” Whether or not it’s the greatest, it has certainly been among the hardest to learn. Since I was a kid I’ve been scared people would hurt me if I wasn’t powerful; so I’ve roared, argued, grown big beards, learned big words, and hidden in the back.

Living out of fear is not God’s plan for me (1 John 4:18). I’ve gotten better and am still improving. God is changing me (Philippians 1:6). He’s teaching me to love and to be loved. I learned as a child that Jesus loved me (John 3:16); I learned in high school that God’s love was unconditional (Romans 8:38). I learned in college that loving someone meant lowering defences (1 Corinthians 13:7). Now I’m learning to submit to God's love by loving the most unlovable person, myself (Mark 12:31).

It’s hardest to love yourself because you know what you’ve done. We know what we're like, but loving ourselves is an absolute must if we don’t want to roar any more. Don't be content to live in fear; God says we don’t have to be (Philippians 4:6). We don’t need to be powerful to be safe in the God’s hand. His love is sufficient to comfort, his strength sufficient to protect.

Baby Elephant by: wwarby

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. –Luke 12:32

An Insecurity Articulated

I want, with desperate passion, to matter. I want my life to mean something. I want to change the course of my neighbor's life by helping her get custody of her grandchild. I want to write and publish books before I turn 30. I want to be a teacher so that I can change the lives of my students by illuminating their minds, iron-cladding their confidence and unleashing their passions and potentials upon a world that expects ordinary. I fear and hate the idea of being remembered as ordinary, of being forgotten, of not building something that will still be around in 100 years. I crave significance like a smoker craves nicotine. I revel in the thought that I've improved the world. I find exhilaration in knowing I've been instrumental in preventing at least one suicide. I am deflated again by the memory of a suicide I could not prevent.

In school I never wanted to be an exemplary student because the students who focused on achievement were too busy to effect their environments. I always thought that the most studious, hard working students were being duped into irrelevance by allowing their self-worth to be attached to the points of a rubric. I always did my best to learn everything I could from a class without studying to pass someone else's test. I wanted to be smarter than the smartest students, and I wanted to show it by NOT getting A's, joining honor societies, or making Dean's lists. I wanted to show it by saving lives, enriching souls, and freeing spirits.

Whatever the best possible pursuit is, that is what I want to put my hand to. I want to master Tai Chi so that I can have a calm, powerful mind to counsel with, and a quiet power with which to defend the weak. I want to cook with the inspiration and cunning of James Beard, because I know that food is a universal language and I secretly hope that a perfect cup of coffee can change the direction of a man, family, or nation.

I have a friend who's story I have promised in writing never to publish. Though she goes unnamed, I will say that she brought the written word to a nation that had never known it, and brought a tribe of cannibals into the kingdom of God by putting the New testament into their language.

She is the most significant person I can imagine, and I strive to not live in the fear of being nothing like her. I fear insignificance. I fear an impotent life. I also know that a life of fear is likely to be a powerless, self-destructive life. I am therefore left to ask myself, what mindset can I take on, what cause will I champion, what is of real importance that I can pursue fearlessly and without insecurity? What should I be? The Pastor? The literature teacher? The Youth Minister? The Father? The brother? Author, business owner, CEO, lawyer, warrior, poet, counselor . . .

The people who have had the greatest shaping and illuminating impact on me are a Bible translator, several literature teachers, a youth minister, a Boy scout leader, a Tai Chi instructor, two parents, and a handful of authors.

What unifies these individuals is that they all performed their role as a service and worship to God, with the exception of one teacher and a few authors who glorified God inadvertently through their wisdom, integrity, and generosity.

My prayer is that God makes me like them. I want to speak with the words of God; I want to illuminate the world. I do not know how best to do it, what role to take or job to hold, but I rest assured in my [very Lutheran] belief that God will accomplish his work in spite of me. My role is to yield to the Holy Spirit's movement, to fall deeper in love with the God of love and to gush that love every day of my life until it kills me. Dead to my own ambitions, I can live without fear, knowing that my significance shall be eternal, and no consequence of my own action as Christ shows through me and carries unto completion the work began in me.