Glimpses of Self

Fatherhood in one word is humbling. It has added pressures and revealed sin I have never had to address before. Life in the general seems to have this affect over time. When I was young I thought I was for the most part very good. This is typical of youth: because the previous generation has a track record that can be poked with holes, and because our lack of a track record can't, we think our lack of a track record preferable to theirs. Typical youths!

I remember reading Proverbs and just taking for granted I was the wise character from the start: "Yes, that sounds like me, me, me again." But it is not until we take aim and fire that we see how far we are from the mark. It is not until we are tested that we see our score. It's not until we have to actually do something, and face some annoyances, and struggle, and sweat, and bleed a little--that we see who we really are. And after I have undergone some of that by my thirtieth year, I have found the fool has been inside me all along.

Instead of having all of my needs met by parents, I am now responsible for providing for a multiplicity of needs. Enter Pressure stage left. I used to live for myself and feel pretty good about my morality; now, I live for these dependents of mine and see what you could call "room for growth." Children whine, diapers need addressing, the boys fight each other. Did I mention children whine? I telework most days of the week which introduces a new schema of challenges.  Free time or what is commonly called "self-care" is not at the cushioned levels I am accustomed to. So my wife sees me huff and puff and snap at children, getting done what has to get done but grumbling all the while. Anger. Petty frustration. Impatience. These are issues I never recognized in myself before, or if I did they were too small to merit much concern. Of course I was patient back then, nothing was bothering me! Now under some pressure these sins are prominent. And that is humbling. 

But I reason to myself, this is not really who I am. This is just a part of the season I am in as a young father, right? I am not that bad. You would be the same in my shoes! So I'd like to think. Several months ago my attention was brought to this C. S. Lewis quote from Mere Christianity: 

"Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in the cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light."

Fatherhood is a world of sudden provocations, disruptions, and inconveniences. Throw in the pressure previously mentioned and we begin to see who the man is without the guise. It is not that these things make me an ill-tempered man, they rather show me what an ill-tempered man I have always been. It is not what goes into a man’s body which defiles him, but that which comes out of him and what already lies in his heart that defiles him. It is not in the power of circumstances to break you; they merely afford a glimpse of the rats which have been in the cellar all the while.

People today, much like my younger self, have a hard time seeing themselves as wicked sinners because they seem to themselves pretty good people! And this is a recent invention. The majority of people throughout human history have understood themselves to be very bad people, and worthy of divine punishment at that. One of the reasons we are so different is we live in a world that masks many of the pressures people felt throughout human history. Civilization and its many blessings have a way of cloaking our depravity. Most of us don't go hungry. Most of us have indoor plumbing and air conditioning, and a standard of living that would transcend even the wealthiest in antiquity. 

But, even these modern blessings are an imperfect covering because pressures still come, and when they come we are reminded who we really are. We are not as good as we like to think. The guarded self we present to the world is not our true self. Hurt us, criticize us, take away some conveniences, introduce some unknowns, throw a few whiny and sick kids in there--and there it is! There we see that true, tainted self again. And it needs a Savior.

Hard as these glimpses of our self are to swallow, they are a mercy by which God makes us more like him. As time goes by, He introduces some deficiencies we were previously unaware of, and we need Him more. As we walk in that power we discover yet some more places that need to be re-made. Thankfully He does not show us it all at the start, but step by step with each reveal we are refined further into His image. By slowly learning more of who we are, we learn anew how desperately we are in need of Jesus, who if we will seek, will not fail to supply what we need.