The “long answers” for all of these questions are obviously tied to the book itself. The reason I included the questions at all is that some of the content can be “slippery.” The words sound familiar, and that familiarity can make it easy to rush past the question with tired answers, and to miss what might be new to those of us who adopted tired answers too easily before, and could stand to think about things in fresh ways – to find love in new ways.
1. Think about the piece of smooth shell Pete rubbed on his lip during the hike with his father. Where did you find comforts as a child? Where do you find comforts now? How do you feel about those comforts and what they say about you?
There are ways where it seems kids have a better ability to take care of themselves than adults do. This ability has something to do with kids not being tied up with labels and evaluations of their desires. While adults have perspective enough to know that a given desire may pass or may be tied to temporary conditions, there are certainly times where adults ignore their immediate realities in favor of the “long view.” Adults are able to chart a line from peak to peak, without having to rise and fall into every valley. But if a person ignores the valleys long enough, if they ignore the hurts and discomforts and cries for consolation consistently enough, a chronic ache can develop. So can a “splitness” of self. To me, it seems that admitting the pain – allowing for valleys – and accepting appropriate comforts, is an important part of staying present, staying healthy, and developing intimacy with God.
2. What pet name or descriptive phrase do you live as though God has for you? How did that description get planted into your heart?
One of the most pleasant themes in my marriage has been learning who my wife really is, as compared to the version of her I concocted from childhood assumptions about what a wife should be. Likewise for me being a husband. I am who I am, not the role I play.
The pet names we put into God’s mouth present the same opportunity. The names we pick are a reflection of our concocted assumptions about God. Exploring our true names with God are a way to learn a relationship with the actual Lord. And the more we develop intimacy with God, the more we can deconstruct and jettison the errant assumptions we’ve picked up and built with along the way.
3. How do you feel about that description?
In my small group, we do confession like this.
A) Here’s what I did wrong.
B) Here’s the sin in that.
** Here’s the pivot point enabled by the Cross **
C) Here’s the truth of who I am, and how I want to be. The audacity of professing a truth that contradicts a sin is exhilarating. I suggest a similar recipe for interacting with the names and descriptions we put into God’s mouth to describe us. A) Here’s the name. B) Here’s how that doesn’t agree with what I know to be God’s true perspective of me. C) Here’s how God really sees me, and I want to live into that name.
4. How has that description helped you in your life?
Dumbass helped me because it gave me a way to steal permission to sabotage myself rather than truly risking. It allowed me to be a thoughtless rebel. It allowed me to be selfish and cruel. It allowed me to be a perfectionist – in the sense that I was never good enough, and therefore never had to risk opening myself to experiencing God’s delight in me (or experiencing his silence when I desperately wanted his applause). As I closed myself from accepting praise from God, I closed myself to receiving it from anybody else, either. To that I added a refusal to accept comforts or admit the value of my pain, which forced my childish self to “steal” comforts both physical and relational.
5. How has that description worked against you?
The rewards from my pet name were also the cost.
6. How have your experiences with Christianity reinforced that name?
I didn’t learn selflessness from Christianity, in the sense that I loved myself and was willing to lay down my life or desires for others. Instead, I learned a form of codependent self-abasement, where I pridefully rejected comforts or my own voice as though I didn’t need them. I believe it’s common, especially in Evangelical circles where the focus is so often “them” based, for people to make the same selflessness vs self-abasement error that’s been so familiar in my life.
7. What name would you most love to hear God use to draw you to him?
This has to do with deep personal truth. Don’t read “relativism” here. I’ve heard plenty of time that my identity is “child of God.” This is most certainly true, and the migration to a self-concept as child of God is an enormous human adventure. But the children of God also have names – we are known individually, and we are created uniquely. While it is very helpful to ask “what would Jesus do?” for me it has also been wonderful to ask “what would Pete do?” What would the me who lives in awareness of God’s love and that love’s ability to define me do?
So, for the sake of knowing who I am in Christ, for the sake of living in communion with him, it is important for me to have some idea of what name draws my heart toward my Father most sweetly.
See the previous chapter’s discussion questions here.
See the next chapter’s discussion questions here.
