This is mainly about a dialog that I had with Jesus which started with my watching The Winning Season. Spoiler alert — Wikipedia begins to summarize the plot with the following: “Bill Greaves, a divorced deadbeat dad, is estranged from his teenage daughter Molly. His friend Terry is a high school principal who gives him a job as the coach for the girls’ varsity basketball team.”
I had watched about 1/3 of the way into it when I got up to go to the bathroom, and I had decided to find something else to watch when I got back.
Let me say that I am a divorced, single dad of about 25 years. A single mom friend of mine once lamented to me that all of the good ones (single dads) disappear so quickly. A pastor/rector friend of mine once put it bluntly that single dads are a pariah in the church. The assumption is that you caused the divorce. What is wrong with you? And, if you have a limited amount of time with your child/children and want to do something fun, then you are a deadbeat dad.
The hard part of it is that to some extent it is true. We have sins which easily entangle us (Heb 12:1) “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. (NLT)” I don’t know about you, but for me, it is a lifelong process that started before I married.
Looking at the same thing only differently, there are the times where we make choices between what we understand, and trusting God, with pretty much the same results (when we are slowed down by trusting our own understanding over God’s leading). Prov 3:5,6
And so the single dad’s life can be filled with accusations, some of which are true. One way of looking at it is that Matt 7:3-5 applies. You may be receiving an accusation of a speck in your eye, when you can see a log in theirs (but still there is a speck in your eye that needs to be removed). Or it can be the more common application, that I needed to go to the Lord with every speck that I saw in my ex-spouse’s eye.
And then, at least for me, I misinterpreted ignorance for maliciousness. My ex didn’t understand my need for respect. She thought that any difference in the way that I thought from the way that she thought was my problem. Shaunti Feldhahn had not done her research at that time ( Short summary — Longer, detailed version ) So, several years into the divorce, I realized that I was attributing malice to her lack of respect. Again, a perspective that Shaunti Feldhahn somewhat brings is when men ask the My Fair Lady question of “why can’t a woman be more like a man”, we are asking to understand her, by leaning on our own understanding. Similarly, feminism, has sort of defined where men thinking differently as being immature, or defective.
And so, many times I would read the Psalms to help me to pour out my heart to God. But, as I was hurting, and lonely, afraid that I was defective, and afraid of the power that I gave women to define me. And I should also say afraid of my own sin (and afraid of Jesus’ reaction to it, since His desire was for me to walk free of it). Starting again, but, as I was hurting, and lonely, afraid … I would run across passages like Ps 68:6 “God makes a home for the lonely; He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.” Oh was I longing for my son and I to be in a home, a family, again. And oh, did it seem like I was dwelling in a parched and desolate land.
God does use adversity, and lack to guide the wayward sinners back to His path. Hebrews 12 speaks of that.
4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,
NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
14 Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
To the single dad, probably single mom too, there is so much in those verses. It is so easy to blame the other person. And it is easy to blame God, because we almost can’t take the path of leaning on our own understanding, as the discipline will not seem joyful but sorrowful.
Just a side note, there is another verse that the Lord brought me to 10 years or so into my single parent journey. Isaiah 30:20 “And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.” When He first gave me that verse, I got really excited, ask I was hoping to see Him in visions” What He has given me is the ability to sometimes see Him in scripture and in the every day.
[Side note: ThriveToday offers a great course on seeing what God sees, called Godsight. https://thrivetoday.org/skill13/ , it was very enjoyable for me, as it was exploring with others God peeling back veils. I did the full course as a “habit builder” course, i.e. Zoom online with others, about 20 years into being a single dad, and about 5 years after being led to Isa 30:20. I highly recommend the course, along with their podcast topics, and free resources.]
So, all of this leads up to Jesus being able to say to me, without condemnation that I needed to “embrace” my “inner loser”
I recognized that I wanted to point out that I didn’t end up as an alcoholic. And I did hard work to try to understand my son, and my ex-wife. But, that wasn’t where Jesus was. I prioritized work too often. It may have been that He had a less stressful, lower paying career that I missed. I felt good about my ability to provide. But, that was coming more from self-accolades than anyone else.
At one point, 15 years ago, I was frustrated at my lack of success in looking for a wife, and asked the Lord for the same help that he gave Adam, that He would bring the woman to me. Someone who was bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, who could see me, and understand me. The Lord responded that He would, but that I would have to take risks. Being still single 15 years later, I have to conclude that it was my fault rather than His. I may have not taken the right type of risks. Or maybe I just ran away. Or maybe I still wanted to control the outcomes.
At this point, I do say that I still have an inner loser to embrace. It makes me glad that He loves mercy (Mic 6:8) “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you? But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (NKJV) I put this in the same boat as Gal 6:1. He may be directing it to us, but He is also conforming us to the way that He thinks and acts. As for Gal 6:1, you can see that Jesus does this first, with us, and we are called to depend on Him, so that we can do it for others. “Brothers and sisters, even if a person is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness … ” (NASB20)
Embracing … think about that word slowly, and ask Jesus for His perspective … my inner loser is what He does. It is an embrace with a look to restoration, and a well worn path of gentleness [Side note:, I mistyped gentleness as gentlemess, and had a really hard time knowing which one was better 😉 ]
In that conversation in the bathroom with Jesus, I continued, addressing Him. “I bet that for every sin, You knew 150 ways that I could have escaped that sin. And I bet that for every mistake that I made, you probably have 250 things that I could have learned from it, above and beyond anything that I did learn.”
I was right, and He acknowledged it, but I was also off target, even in being right (understanding truth). The way that happens is that I stop with understanding the truth, without getting to know Him who is “grace and truth” (Jhn 1:17)
So, embracing my inner loser is a place of fellowship with Him. He is already embracing my inner loser.
And, He embraced my inner loser all the way through to the end of the movie (and beyond, of course.)
Jesus Day by Day 