How to Let Someone Else be the Hero
ROMANS 7:17-18 (the Message)
“But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it.”
So the kids had superhero day at school last week. Charlie wore his “Batman in a wheelchair” t-shirt which is amazing and empowering and makes him roll a little faster in his wheelchair by sheer osmosis. Cora was a unicorn and Jonas was a dragon (because those are superheroes to them).
Here’s what I noticed as we strapped on wings and caps and multicolored everything…they all just assumed they were the hero. They never thought twice about it. Who wants to be Robin when you could be Batman?
No one ever assigns oneself the role of sidekick. It just doesn’t feel natural.
And yet…the thing that kicks me in the gut when I think of my own sins that keep on washing back on my shore no matter how far I throw them out to sea is this: I am the sidekick, the servant, the beloved, the one in need of rescuing and I only make it harder when I think I can do it all by myself. The first thing the life guard will tell you if you’re drowning and sensible enough to listen is to “stop struggling” so they can get you to dry land.
Dr. Jekyll says as he laments shackling himself to his alter-ego Hyde,
“If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.”
More often than not our efforts to save ourselves only end in hardship and tears and a sense of defeat, when what we really needed to do was lean back and float. I hate this. I hate that trust is often more powerful than action. It feels passive in a way that makes my skin itch. But trust IS active. Faith is so much harder than disbelief. Cynicism and self-reliance feel safer in a way because if I fail, it’s all on me. But to have faith in someone other than myself opens up all the avenues of ways I can be hurt. What if the hero lets me down? I suppose this is where you have to make sure you pick the right hero. Pick the perfect one who has already saved all those other weird and wonderfully inept people in the Bible and who if you look backwards at your own story, has already done the heavy lifting there too.
I’m going back to the Jesus Storybook Bible one more time for you because I want you to feel the magic here in the introduction:
“No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne – everything – to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is – it’s true.”
Cheers to all of us this week as we do the bravest thing I can think of: let the Savior do the saving.
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A big thank you from Jamie on The Mom Gene!
