Fifty ways....or just one: "Get thee behind me..."

"The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover

She said it's really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued
But Ill repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover

Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free..."
- Paul Simon

Okay, so this is a bit of a stretch, but "50 Ways to Leave your Lover" (I found myself replacing the word "lover" with "tempter") really was the first thing that came to thought when I read this email from a dearly loved friend (shared with permission, in hopes that, "if it helps even one person from feeling that way then it is totally worth it")  :

Kate,
My spouse has some prescription pills. Sometimes I open the container and think about taking them. I checked on the internet and the amount that is there is enough to apparently be lethal. There is one part of me that thinks I should take them and it promises me peace and happiness. Meanwhile there is another part that argues that I should not because ---- As I thought about it again today my students' faces flashed through my head. I can only imagine how they would feel, it would be awful. The unknown of what is beyond this place scares me, but staying here is also a bit overwhelming at times. I am only telling you all of this because I just don't think I should be contemplating death, my death. I just feel so unsatisfied.  Sometimes, I just want to wander away into the wilderness and never come back.

My friend's hope is that by sharing her email, through this post, it will "help even one person from feeling this way." And it is this hope that has encouraged me...just this once...to share someone else's cry for fellowship in Christ. With her urging and permission.

That said, this email reminded me of my own struggle with depression some years ago and those hideous, relentless suggestions that suicide could be the answer to all of my problems.   I remember feeling battered from within by a voice that sounded like my own (in my head) and used words to poke and prod, kick and hammer at my peace. 
 
My own freedom came with a persistent effort to follow Jesus' leadings in dealing with these kinds of thoughts.  But I am getting ahead of his story...and mine.

I was feeling so sad and helpless.  How could I be living on my knees in constant prayer...for myself, my family, friends, our community, the world... and still be facing the demons of hopelessness and self-destruction.

But somehow each morning I woke with hope that "today would be different...perhaps today my prayers would help me find my way out of the darkness.  One afternoon, while studying scripture, I found myself walking with Jesus toward John the Baptist by the river Jordan.  He is just about to experience the greatest moment in a young spiritual thinker's life...right?  John baptizes him, he comes up out of the water, the Spirit descends on him like a dove and a voice comes out of heaven saying, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased."

Does it get any better than this for a young man starting out on a healing ministry? 

Since this is where I'd always assumed this particular story ends, with the end of the third chapter of Matthew, I had never really connected it to the very next sentence.  But this time I was in the process of reading the Bible like a book so I just kept reading, and that next sentence stopped me in my tracks.  "Then was Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil...."  "Then", a word that means "following, right after, the very next thing".  Wow!

Now, I've written about this story before in the post, "Jesus the Carpenter", but not from this perspective of how it helped me find freedom and dominion.  You see, I had always thought that my struggle with depression and self-destructive behavior was an indication of my failure as a spiritual thinker.  But for the first time, while reading this story in the Bible,  I realized that it was "the Spirit", God, who led Jesus into the wilderness right on the heels of his anointing.  His wrestling with the temptations in the wilderness did not point towards his failure, but was the opportunity for him to exercise his newly realized authority as God's beloved son...a prince...a sovereign.

And in his forty day evolution as a spiritual commander-in-chief, the Prince of Peace, Governor, Counselor, he begins by reasoning with the voices...arguing his case, invoking divine law. Until finally he sees that the only reasonable response, in light of his divine commission is, "Get thee behind me, Satan."  The voice was body-less, it had no way to carry out its own plan.  It had no hands...it couldn't push Jesus off the pinnacle, it couldn't pull him off, it couldn't shake the pinnacle and send him flying off into the void.  All it could do was try to convince him to throw himself off.  

Now I don't know anyone who has ever read this story and thought that there was another "entity" out there in the desert with him.  The temptations...the suggestions...were from within.  Jesus' first step towards dominion was to see that the demon voice suggesting he destroy himself was not his own thinking.  Once he does this, he can speak to the voice with the dominion that came along with knowing that he was God's son...his beloved son.

At this point he no longer entertains the voice.  He no longer worries that this disembodied voice could in anyway speak with authority, or prove a threat to his life, identity, or mission, and he speaks to it with confidence and courage..."get thee behind me, Satan"

This story was the beginning of my dominion too.  I stopped thinking I was a failure because these suggestions/temptations were insinuating themselves as my thinking.  I started feeling the trust of my Father.  He was sending me into the wilderness...not as a punishment...but because He knew that I loved exercising my right to invoke His divine law of Love..to speak with authority. 

Today, it doesn't matter to me whether the voice once came as a screaming demon in my own thinking trying to convince me that I was a failure, in pain, confused, or sinful...or if the voice seems to pour out in the tears of a friend calling on the phone (or writing an email) asking for support in facing their own demons.  Just the mere fact that we have enough hope to pick up the phone and call for help, or reach out to a friend in an email is an indication that God is with us. That we sense that there is a different path towards freedom. And because of Jesus' example, I know that as God's beloved children, we are all endowed with the right to say, "Get thee behind me, Satan"...or insist:

"...Just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free

She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free..."

Whatever you decide to say, remember you are His child.  You speak with the authority of a prince or a princess.  And, as it says in Proverbs:

"The King's daughter is all glorious within..."

This is all that lives and speaks within me, within my friend, within all of us...glorious things...only glorious things...with Love,

Kate