Jacob Wrestles God…And Gets a Blessing

A danger when it comes to reading the Bible is when we unconsciously bring our own biography into each reading of scripture - and, there's no getting away from it. If we try to claim otherwise, we're fooling ourselves. We bring our own cultural limitations (and ignorance about the culture that is being written about), our own fears about God and ourselves, on and on and on it goes. This sometimes means that we miss the headline story because we've gotten all caught up in the footnotes.

When I come across the long and winding story of Jacob in the Old Testament, I am tempted to get lost. Jacob, whose name means something along the lines of "supplanter, one who seizes, circumvents, usurps" I bring a ton of baggage with me. And there is a lot of stuff in this story that provides us plenty of jumping off points to muddy the waters. My own family system is rife with some of the very issues that you'll notice emerging if you go to the book of Genesis and dig into Jacob's biography. Here's a brief and thoroughly incomplete recap of the story, in case you're in scroll mode and do not have 30 minutes to dig deep.

Abraham and Sarah, where I start when tracing the family tree of dysfunction, were early candidates for IVF, but since the technology didn't exist, Sarah took matters into her own hand and offered up her servant Hagar as an unwitting surrogate. When Ssrah's plan worked, Sarah was all kinds of mad and vindictive. Eventually, Sarah does conceive, as God had promised her and she has a son Isaac - who Abraham happened to not sacrifice on the altar in a way that pleased God (which is a totally strange story). Isaac marries Rebecca, and they have twins Esau and Jacob. And through this whole story, there are dynamics that trigger me. There is favoritism (Rebecca and Jacob, Isaac and Esau). There is trickery - calling a wife a sister again, Jacob steals Esau's birthright and his father's blessing with his mother as a willing instigator and aid. Jacob has to flee because Esau threatens to kill him. Jacob runs off and marries Rachel, but not before his faither-in-law tricks him into first marrying Leah, Rachel's sister - who has no trouble getting knocked up while Rachel remains barren. Then Jacob gets revenge on his father-in-law through more trickery and eventually heads back home where Esau appears to have forgotten the whole grudge thing. But Jacob puts his wives and children and servants at the front of the caravan to test the waters and save his own hide - as per usual. Along the way, there are some encounters with God.

Now, If I don't know better, I'm going to get all side-tracked by the family dysfunction. I'm going to bemoan the fact that all these generations later, families are still acting mean and ugly, playing favorites, withholding blessings, stealing from one another and making complicated marriages. Clearly, there are some things we could say about that and over the years I've said a lot more than really needed saying. But here's the thing: it's always the side-story, the human interest piece, never the frontline news.

And the frontline news is this...God is behaving distinctly NOT GOD-LIKE (at least as the people thought of gods who demanded sacrifices and lots of attention with a distinctly narcissistic air about them). In Genesis 28:13, Jacob has a dream and God says to him, "I am the Lord the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring and know that I am with you and will be keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

And Jacob responds by saying if this is all true, then he will return home and the Lord God will be his God and he will give one-tenth to God as a tithe. Notice that God did not ask for this, this is Jacob's response. Sort of like the things we tend to say after a spiritual high, after a baptism, or when God spares our life or something. But just notice this, this is all on Jacob, God's not asking for this stuff.

And, although Jacob does eventually return home, and maybe he did become a faithful tither, he also continued to to live up to his name - supplanter, seizer, circumventer, usurper tricky trickster with a penchant for putting his wives children and servants between him and perceived danger. And how does God respond?

In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with "a man" - frequently identified as God in disguise or one of God's angels. In the scriptures, he's "a man." It's quite a tussle and 'the man' is not getting the upper hand and Jacob won't let him go until 'the man' blesses him. Jacob, it seems, really wants those blessings! And don't we all?

Here is the blessing he received, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." 'The man' will not give Jacob his name upon request, but Jacob himself believes that he saw God's face.

So here's the thing. What we see in this scripture is this: all the stories are about what God does, and how he continues to work with us even when we are sneaky little you know whats. Although close encounters with God and his angels can dramatically change us, fill us with awe, and inspire us to make all sorts of promises, it seems like the heroes in the Bible were able to do all of this and still keep their clay feet. They were still fully imperfectly human.

I don't know why God has the system set up like this, but I love him for it. It enables me to breathe. It allows me to dare to imagine that even though I inevitably mess up, there is this really sneaky little dude in the Bible who also was quite a mess, and still God came to him in his dreams, and found away to wrestle with him in the dark of night...and both times, God was far more interested in letting Jacob know who he was and what he was about than he was getting Jacob to get his act together and start behaving like a man who is in awe of almighty God.

So if you are that person, the one who made the big promises but your compulsions, desires, lusts, insecurities, cowardice, greed, addictions, etc., took you in a different direction? So what? You were never the point; you are the recipient of the grace and mercy of a God who keeps showing up in weird ways and through crazy stories with one point: I am God; you are not and that is ok. I am here to love on you. No BUT’s or PS’s with hidden messages of shame and blame and threats. Just this. I am God. I don't know what you might want to do with all this. But I hope it loosens your chest muscles up a bit so you can breathe more freely. He's got you; he's got us.

God works through heroes, not the other way around.

3Then the people confronted Moses and said to him, “If only we too had died when our brothers perished in the Lord’s presence! 4Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this desert to kill us and our animals here? 5Why have you led us up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place without grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates? And there’s no water to drink!”

6Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the meeting tent and they fell on their faces. Then the Lord’s glory appeared to them. 7The Lord spoke to Moses: 8“You and Aaron your brother, take the staff and assemble the community. In their presence, tell the rock to provide water. You will produce water from the rock for them and allow the community and their animals to drink.” 9Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, as the Lord had commanded him. 10Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. He said to them, “Listen, you rebels! Should we produce water from the rock for you?” 11Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. Out flooded water so that the community and their animals could drink. 12The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t trust me to show my holiness before the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them.” 13These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites confronted the Lord with controversy and he showed his holiness to them. ~Numberes 20:3-13, CEB

These verses represent, roughly, the end of Moses’ story. Moses has quite a story. An Israelite adopted by his people’s oppressors (Egyptians), he is born into power. After witnessing the abuse of a fellow Israelite at the hands of an Egyptian, Moses kills the abuser, buries him in the sand, and forever flees the area. God later calls Moses to be the Israelites’ liberator- which involves going before the Pharaoh and demanding their freedom time and again (and when Pharaoh refuses, plagues are sent to punish him) as well as literally leading them out of Egypt (remember how he parts the sea?) and leading them to the Promised Land. 

Remember, the Promised Land is a permanent home with safety and security guaranteed. These people probably thought of the Promised Land the same way we think of heaven- a pleasant relief and an end to trials and suffering. It’s the promise of hope, thriving, and independence. Yes, Moses is probably the most heroic of all the biblical characters. 

Yet- the story of his adulthood begins with a murder and the end of his ministry is punctuated by punishment. Moses’ story is so biblical it’s almost Shakespearean.

While God fulfills his plan, through Moses, to lead the people to the Promised Land, Moses is not allowed to enter the land for two reasons. One is a bizarre story of rock and water. In route to the land, the people spend quite a bit of time in the desert and there’s a back and forth between them and God where they doubt and then God provides. This culminates in the story above where they’re thirsty and desperate and Moses, and his mouthpiece Aaron (Moses didn’t do his own public speaking- another conventional sign of leadership that just doesn’t apply when it comes to scripture…Paul, too, was a poor public speaker), go before God and pray for deliverance. God sends Moses out and tells him to gather the people and to speak to a rock, and water will flow from that rock. 

Moses does not speak to the people, he shouts at them, and then strikes the rock with his stick and then water comes out. God, at this point, tells Moses that because Moses didn’t trust God to show God’s holiness to the people, Moses would merely lead people to the land, but he would not enter it.

If you Google this story you’ll see a lot of things. Moses was supposed to speak to the rock rather than hit it. Some say Moses took credit for water coming from the rock and this showed pride when he says, “Should we produce water…” 

The Bible doesn’t say any of these things- nor does God. God doesn’t mention Moses’ frustration nor does God nitpick the fact that Moses smacked the stone as opposed to spoke to it. It would be rather odd if a lifetime of faithful service was ruined by one moment of frustration. 

No, the issue God has is that Moses didn’t seem to trust that God would provide (i.e., Moses and Aaron going and lying on their faces before God in total desperation). God demonstrating His holiness in the story is about God providing for His people- not about the details of how someone talks to a rock. (Remember- holiness is about being distinct, and set apart. Relative to the other gods of the Ancient Near East, a benevolent God who protects, provides for, and cares for His people is incredibly unique, distinct, etc.) God has provided for Moses, and the rest of the people, quite directly, over and over again, and in ways that few in the course of history ever see. For Moses to question if God’s protection has finally come to end is, on the one hand, understandable if you’re close to dying of thirst and hunger. On the other hand, it’s bizarre when God’s presence has always been so close.

There are two things going on here at once and we need to be able to see them both and hold them together simultaneously. 1. God accomplishes the mission he set out to accomplish through Moses. Full stop. He did not alter the plan regardless of the ebb’s and flow’s of Moses’ life. 2. God is holding Moses responsible for the attitude of his people in general. Despite the ways in which God shows up for them, they continue to doubt God’s loyalty. This is not just the problem of one person it’s become the problem for all of God’s people. And, remember, God is only known, on earth, through His people. If the Israelites die, God is not known. If the Israelites stop worshipping God, God is not known. This is not the situation we live in today. Now, God would surely find a way. The point is, in spite of that, the stakes were higher.

So what do we make of this? It’s complicated. God doesn’t seem to have a problem with Moses committing murder (at least, it doesn’t prevent Moses from being called), God does seem to have a problem with Moses’ inability to create a steadfast and loyal people, in the way that God is steadfast and loyal.

Moses ends poorly, in a way. But let’s not forget- in Hebrews 11 Moses is chosen as one of the all-time greats. They knew how his story ended, and his jersey still got retired. His story didn’t end with the end of his life, it carried on. We’re still talking about him today- thousands of years later…or, you know, however many.

We do a disservice to ourselves to look at one moment in his life and turn it into a morality lesson for kindy-gardners. He is both a messy character and a hero. There is no need to choose. There is no reason to judge him harshly, even the New Testament does not do that. And if we aren’t going to judge this man harshly, who both killed, and led almost all of God’s people astray all at once, who should get harsh judgment? 

The reality is, all of God’s heroes are messy. But let’s also remember the stories of God’s heroes are never stories about the heroes. They are the stories of what God chooses to accomplish through whoever He has chosen. 

And so here’s a possible takeaway: God’s story is about what God does. And I believe that should give us permission to focus less on ourselves, our failures, the ways in which we disappoint ourselves and others, and, instead, encourage us because we believe in a God who can accomplish whatever he wants, through whoever He wants, including you. No matter what it is you have done.

Your worry is not a problem for God.

Last week we began a series we’re calling, Heroes of the Faith: Why You’re Not As Bad As You Think. We’re going through the list of heroes that you can find in Hebrews 11 and, for the most part, in chronological order. This week we’re talking about Abraham. 

Here’s a little breakdown of events from Abraham’s story. This is a long story with a lot of juicy details- but I’m going to give you the broadest possible overview for the sake of a shorter (but still long) post. 

• In Genesis 12 God calls Abraham (then called Abram) to a new land and promises to make to bless Abraham and his many descendants (he currently is 75 years old with zero children). Side note: this is a significant promise to a nomadic people who are hunter-gatherers. Promising land is to promise security, home, longevity, and so on. It’s basically promising heaven.

• During his travels to the new land, Abraham and his wife, Sarah, pass through Egypt. Despite his standing before God, Abraham is quite afraid of what will happen to him in Egypt. Sarah, apparently, is quite beautiful. Abraham decides that the best way to save their skins is to tell the Pharaoh that Sarah is his sister as opposed to his wife so Pharaoh can be charmed by her beauty and spare them their lives. The plan backfires. Pharaoh is so charmed by her beauty he wants to marry her. God intervenes and sets plagues on Pharaoh- Pharaoh is upset and confused by Abraham’s dishonesty and sends them away. You’d think he’d learn his lesson, but this whole story happens again somewhere else a number of chapters later.

• Abraham and his extended family settle down and experience a great deal of wealth. There is a bunch of inner-family conflict, and Abraham conducts himself pretty well. In this section God re-affirms His plans for Abraham multiple times. In the second instance, Abraham voices concerns about this plan to God because he still has no children- and suggests that perhaps his heir will be a surrogate born from a “slave woman” Side note: I have no way of making this seem better than it is. We’re talking about ancient, primitive people here. God assures Abraham that is not how He will accomplish His plans and He assures Abraham that His plans will be accomplished.

• Abraham and his wife try the surrogate plan anyway, despite what God has said. Ishmael is born. There is conflict between Sarah and Hagar (the “slave woman”). Things are not looking good.

• God again comes to talk to Abraham and again affirms His promises- including the promise of a child. Also, Sarah laughs at God’s promise because she doesn’t believe it. God confronts her about this and she lies saying, “I did not laugh.” God responds, “Oh yes, you did laugh.” I guess my parents were right- God doesn’t miss a thing.

• God and Abraham have a debate about Sodom and Gomorrah (look it up if you want to know more- this would definitely take too much space for our purposes today).

• Abraham continues his journey and- you guessed it- when he goes through King Abimelech’s land Abraham tries to pull the whole “my wife is really my sister” gag again- with the exact same effect and consequences. Note that God says nothing to Abraham about His actions in either wife-sister story, but He is rather upset with the kings who take Sarah to be a wife.

• Abraham and Sarah have a son, Isaac, as promised.

• At last we find ourselves in Genesis 22. Here God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, who Abraham and Sarah have been waiting for this entire story. It says explicitly at the beginning of this story that God tested Abraham- so we know God has no intention of harming Isaac. I understand that doesn’t make this story any easier to swallow- but there’s not much else I can say about the test itself here without getting really far afield.

• Abraham, for his part, responds to God’s test by taking his son up on a mountain and creating an altar. He sacrifices a ram and names the place, “God will provide.” Angels from the Lord stop Abraham from sacrificing his son and God, again, affirms His covenant with Abraham.

What are we to make of a story like this? Does Abraham come across like the ultimate hero? 

On the one hand, Abraham's story becomes the classic hero's journey in this story with Isaac. He's called to a mission, young, but not yet ready, he experiences some really low low's, but ultimately comes out of all of this prepared to respond to the call that really matters. 

Now, that's a great Bible story. But, on the other hand, I think it can be a mistake for us to look at the stories in overview form because we miss the nuance and the details both of the people and of God. 

Imagine what God is thinking, in the moment, when Abraham presents Sarah as his sister when she's really his wife. Or when Abraham doubts God’s ability to accomplish His plans to God’s face. Or when Sarah laughs at God’s ability to accomplish His plans. Or when Sarah, despite her knowledge of God's covenant with Abraham brings Hagar in the mix to have a child. Or, even after God has brought them through tough times, and delivered a child, Abraham, out of anxiety presents his wife as his sister again, because he's afraid he's not going to get through it. 

Yes, God tests Abraham at the end of this story. But let’s not miss something really significant here. This is also fundamentally a story of God sticking by someone who he has committed to in spite of the fact that Abraham has done quite a bit of nonsense. 

Abraham's doubt is not really a problem for God. His anxiety does not pose a major problem for God. If it did, God could have or should have shifted plans far earlier.

For all these reasons, I believe this test at the end is God getting confirmation of what He knows to be true- as opposed to a desire to abandon His plan. We could look at it and say, Abraham grew up. Or we could look at it and say, yes, Gods choice was confirmed and vindicated. There is no new information here.

What we have, in Abraham, is not a hero whose faith is beyond compare. We have a little guy, so to speak, consistently afraid that the bigger guy is going to take his stuff. He schemes and acts out of his insecurities despite direct contact with God and His angels. Yes, he passes “the test,” so to speak, but his life was unquestionably messy and God stood by Him all along, offering not a word of condemnation, and voicing only support.

I sat through a bible study in my late 20's where someone said that the absence of fear and anxiety was the sign of Christian maturity. I'd say to that person, you might want to read the story of Abraham. 

God called him before he'd done anything and stuck with him when he did questionable things...because, at the end of the day, this fear and anxiety was not a problem for God. He had a plan, and He knew how He was going to accomplish it. Through Abraham, no matter how imperfect he may be. 

I would suggest the same is true today. God has a plan, and He is going to carry it out however He has decided to. Whatever your fears and anxieties about God are in the process, they are not a problem for God. He's not going anywhere. 

Bringing your best to God is fine, but it’s not the most important thing.

Yesterday, on Sunday morning, we started our series on Heroes of the Faith. We kicked off that conversation on Abel, the first “hero” on our list. I chose Abel because he’s listed as one of the heroes in Hebrews 11- which references all the “heavy hitters” in this department. But Abel is a different kind of hero than what we will see in future episodes. Abel isn’t a hero because of what he does, necessarily, but because he passes before his time. Abel is sort of the James Dean of the Bible.

Anyway, here’s the part of the story we looked at yesterday.

Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” 2Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

~ Genesis 4:1-7, NRSV

Along with David and Goliath, the Ark, Moses, and Jonah, this story is a favorite in children’s Sunday school classes. There’s a reason this is a favorite in Sunday school classes: it’s very easy to make it into a simple moral tale that gets children to behave. “Be like Abel, who brings his best for God. Don’t be like Cain, who cuts corners and commits murder.” 

The story, I hope you’ll agree by the end of this, is far more complicated than that. You see, it doesn’t really tell us why God has regard for Abel’s offering and not Cain’s. In Hebrews, it says that Abel brought the “greater” offering. Perhaps it was a larger sacrifice to bring it, perhaps it was of higher quality, we really are not so sure. God’s decision making process isn’t clear to us- and that’s part of what makes this story so complex. 

For His part, God is also confused at Cain’s reaction. Cain was angry and disappointed- and God doesn’t seem to understand the reason for this. To me, this is significant. It tells us something about what has come before. What it tells us is: this whole ordeal with the sacrifices is not as significant as we often think. If the type of sacrifice made was so important then God would be upset with Cain for not bringing “the goods” and God would understand Cain’s anger. But God doesn’t get it. I don’t know this for sure- but I suspect the reason has a lot to do with what comes next. 

God tells Cain, “If you do well, won’t you be accepted?” We tend to read that something like, If you do better, won’t you be accepted? But God has not been upset up until this point in the story. And, God goes on to say that the key thing for Cain is how he reacts to all this moving forward- that there is the possibility that sin will get its hooks in him and that this could mean trouble for Cain. ‘But what we also learn is that, from God’s perspective, sin has not yet happened for Cain. The sin lies in the future- sin is a mere possibility at this point and whether or not it happens is entirely dependent on how Cain deals with his emotions. What this implies, then, is that the sacrifice was not a sin.  The sin is what happens next. 

So I think God’s words here are not about criticism but about reassurance. Something like, “You know you will be accepted, right? But be careful how you react to all this because it looks like you’re going to get yourself in trouble.”

This is key information for us because we tend to read this story like this: Cain brought a bad sacrifice which shows us that he is evil and it makes sense that he murders his brother. 

What I think I see is: God showed favor to Abel over the sacrifice (yet still accepts both) and Cain, in his inability to cope with all this, is corrupted by sin and murders Abel. It’s an entirely different story. It becomes a Greek tragedy- Cain gets banished because he put too much importance on this exchange (we’ll say more about this in a minute).

So there’s a few things we need to explore to really get a feel for what’s going on. 1. Humans have always cared more about sacrifice than God. Yes, there is plenty of talk about sacrifice in the Old Testament. But sacrifice itself is always secondary to the community’s ability to provide care to all members of the community.God makes this clear in Micah 6:8, and it is also something Jesus stresses in the New Testament when he says that if two of God’s people are in conflict with each other then we leave the alter (acts of worship) to go settle differences. 

Jesus also reminds his followers that the Sabbath (day of rest) was made for humans and not the other way around. In other words, we don’t serve the day of rest, the day of rest exists to serve us. This is the same idea. If we prioritize the day of rest as an act of worship above the healing of God’s people (what Jesus was doing in this story) then we have gotten the story backwards: sacrifice is not more important than people. The wellbeing of God’s people has always been more important than acts of worship. This is true in the Old Testament, New Testament, and today. (And let’s me be super clear- there is no such thing as the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. They are the same God.)

Okay, thing #2: Why does Cain need to kill Abel? Well, here’s my hypothesis. Cain’s problem is that he views God’s love and acceptance as a finite resource. He doesn’t believe there is enough to go around. He has mistaken God’s attitude towards the sacrifice as being the same as God’s attitude towards people. For God, there is a difference. God can regard Abel and his sacrifice and not regard Cain and his sacrifice yet still accept Cain as one of his beloved children.

God’s love and acceptance are not finite resources. They are freely available. But there is some part of us that struggles to grasp this and, instead, lives like Cain, believing that we must compete for God’s love and affection because God must surely only accept a few. We want God’s pleasure and acceptance and we want to be seen as good little boys and girls who bring “the best” things to God because that’s what God likes. 

But this misses the whole point of the story: God was not particularly concerned with the sacrifice and is only upset to find out that Cain has murdered his brother and not come clean about it.  

And so we learn an entirely different lesson, as adults, than what was taught to children. We learn the importance of remembering that God’s love and acceptance are infinite. And it’s so important to learn this because, if we don’t, we end up in an endless competition for His pleasure where we will step all over each other in the hopes that we might become the good little boy or girl who stands out above all the rest. 

The hero in this story didn’t really do anything except the simple job of a farmer and, then, to die before his time. There was no act of greatness except for, perhaps, the refusal to compete for God’s love. 

Now that I think about it- that might be an almost super-human act after all.

Encouragement Makes People “Better”

Scott and I appreciate when one of you sends us a follow up email about our blog post but this latest inquiry really got to me. One of our beloved readers is under the impression that they have done something so bad, so naughty, so absolutely unforgivable...that any inkling of positivity as it relates to faith seems....out of the question. "How can I believe this? You just do not understand."

Oh sweetie, if you only knew how many others feel as you do. We hide our secret shames, we cover our haunting doubts with cynicism or relentless positivity. We long for certainty, which can get us into deep trouble - certainty is such an illusion. So many of us are lonely, coping with our self-condemnation in isolation for fear that we would never be accepted "if people knew...". And you know what? Sometimes that is true.

Elizabeth Strout, one of my favorite authors of all time, writes about people who do naughty, even unforgivable things. I'm not talking serial killers (ok, one murderer amongst her whole cast of characters); her books are profoundly impactful because they are centered around the ordinary atrocities of daily living. In her book "Olive Kitteridge," she introduces us to a character who I love (but would hate to have for a mom). Olive is harsh, critical and intimidating. There are consequences for her and those she loves as a result of her stern personality. In Strout's sequel, "Olive, Again" - Olive realizes that she has made a terrible, terrible mistake. Her relationship with her son is broken seemingly beyond repair. Her daughter-in-law quietly reminds her estranged son, Christopher, that Olive is a narcissist - further cementing the schism. And somehow, it sinks in: Olive is if not THE problem, A problem. She has failed to love the person she loves the most - her boy.

Clearly, Olive's parental missteps were injury by a thousand tiny cuts - not outright neglect, cruelty or abandonment. Boy can I relate. There is a biblical proverb that I once quoted to my son Scott every morning during a rough transition to middle school where he didn't know a single person in any of his classes. "A man who has friends, must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." (Proverbs 18:24). I emphasized the first phrase and unfortunately ignored the second part of the sentence.

Here is what I mistakenly communicated to my suffering son. Try harder. Oy vey (which literally means 'oh woe'). Again, I was wrong. Because, although it is true that there are skills that enhance our capacity to make and keep friends, I'm not sure this should have been my parental focus.

If I could turn back time, I'd do it differently. Instead of trying to instruct Scott through a suffering, I'd have tried to sit with him in the sorrow. This was a tough school transition, not a case of Scott needing to up his friend game. Instead of trying to rush him through his darker emotions of sadness, loneliness and anxiety - I wish I could have stayed with him in his dark place, at least for a little while. Maybe, after a long while, I might have tried to help Scott find some bright spots in his day and encourage him to look for the friends who 'stick closer than a brother'. But even this would only come later, after plenty of comfort and openness to hear the hard stuff.

Like Olive, I have regrets. Do you? Maybe not big and scary regrets, but the unsettling small, nagging mistakes we keep making over and over again, even when we know better.

I regret all the times when I used the scriptures as an instruction manual. I regret all the times I missed the point of this ancient book that I read each day. Today, I find it a marvelous work of wonder - a book that reminds me, and us, that there is a God who not only loves us but keeps showing us how to not only love one another but stick close too. In a recent message, Scott reminded us that God has unlimited resources to love, bless and care for humans. We are not competing for God's blessing!

I do not know why it is so hard for us humans, created in the very image of God, to grasp the depth and breadth of God's love...and our capacity to love others. But I find comfort in the universality of the struggle. We are not alone.

What can we take away from this great disappointment? Well, if we are going to follow God's lead...maybe we could be more gentle with ourselves and others. And yes, we can try. We can see what love looks like and imitate God's ways. But when we fall short, maybe we could remember Olive Kitteridge.

When Olive suffered a heart attack, Christopher showed up. Christopher loved Olive as best he could. And I could not help but think, wasn't the same true for Olive? She did her best AND it was not always good enough.

Olive learned two things as her life progressed. She learned to ask this question of others: "What is it like to be you?" and she learned to encourage folks with this sentence, "You are doing great!" Olive did not change a lot; but she changed enough. Could this also be true for each of us?

A simple question and one word of encouragement. We could start there this week. Ask someone. See what they say. Tell me what you learn.