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Mable celebrated her forty-seventh birthday. Birthdays, like anniversaries, tend to stir up the “way back machine,” and so it did for Mable as she spent most of her morning reflecting on her life. While there were many highlights and bright spots, there was also this low-grade sadness as Mable thought about where she came from and how she had gotten to where she is today.
She could not help but think about the years ahead of her while shrugging off the temptation of depression as she did the math in her head: forty-seven, plus forty-seven, equals ninety-four. According to her accounting, her life was more than half over, and she wondered if the next half would be like the preceding one. She had dreamed a dream of how her life would be different, only to awake to realize it was just a dream. Like many women I interact with in counseling, Mable has been affected by the three most important men in her life, all of whom have shaped her to varying degrees.
The combination of these three men has affected her to the point of bitterness and unforgiveness. They have also hindered her from finding the fourth man, the only one who can make her whole.
Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28).
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned (Romans 5:12).
Every person’s goal is to find wholeness (completion) in Christ. This idea is the teaching in Colossians 1:28, where the word “mature” could be read as “complete.” The graphic below illustrates how we come into the world incomplete, born in Adam broken and in need of restoration, which comes through regeneration by the power of God (John 3:7). Mable came into the world incomplete, broken, and needy. She was born as a living, breathing deficit, an empty love cup. There was something wrong with her that only God could fix.
Christian parents understand a child’s lack of wholeness. They realize that their most important job as parents is to cooperate with the Lord by leading the child to Christ (John 14:6). While providing food, clothing, and shelter is vital to their wellbeing, they are subordinate to their primary job (Matthew 6:33). The father is the leader in this parenting adventure. Though only Christ can redeem, the dad is the primary shaping influence in a child’s life. It is his job to set a Godward orientation in the home. Perhaps, a time of reflection for us dads would be beneficial.
As you can see in the graphic, Mable’s circle regressed rather than progressed. The word regression can mean heading toward a less developed state of being. Mable came into the world incomplete, and after eighteen years with her parents, she was worse off than when she came into the world. Her parents did not help her to Jesus. They became a liability to her instead of an asset. They obstructed her path with poor parenting practices. Like Adam, they chose selfishness over cooperating with God in the salvation and sanctification of their daughter (Genesis 2:16-17, 3:6).
By the time Mable transitioned to her teenage years, she had checked out as she counted the days until she could leave her home. Disappointed by Adam and disappointed by her parents, she was looking for someone else to give her what she craved. Whenever you increase a person’s Adamic tendencies, as Mable’s parents did, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to want a relationship with God or to think about God as the one and only solution for their problems. If her parents had a desire to know and love God most of all (Matthew 22:36-40), which would have been evidenced by their authentic modeling of the life of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1), the chances would have been more significant for Mable to look to Jesus first, rather than choosing fallen replacements.
Because she was worse off as a teenager than when she came into the world, her heart’s compass pointed in the wrong direction. Specifically, she was looking for boys to fill the void in her life and rescue her. Mable began noticing boys when she was fourteen. It would be more accurate to say they took notice of her because she was an attractive teenager. Not knowing and understanding the love of God, while being unwittingly pushed away from God by her parents’ poor example, finding love through boys made sense to her. Her “parental problem” also made her easy prey (2 Timothy 2:22). Adam disappointed her. Strike one. Dad disappointed her. Strike two. Mable was desperate not to strike out in the game of life. The solution was for her to find the right guy.
She met Biff in college. He was different from all the other men she had met, especially her dad. Biff’s job was undoubtedly made easy because of Mable’s dad. Though she was Christianized, it did not diminish her blindness to Adamic and parental influences. She was also blinded by her selfish desire to be loved by someone. Anyone. Within six months of meeting Biff, they were having sex, though she rationalized it as someone finally loving and wanting her. It never crossed her mind that if a man would crawl over God’s Word to get a woman in bed and defraud her, he had character flaws.
Mable’s thoughts were a mess as her desires ran wild. The fires of lust were raging with no possibility of abating (Song of Solomon 2:7)—until their first year of marriage, which officially extinguished the fire. Mable was left looking at the charred remains of her poor decision-making. Biff was not what she had made herself believe him to be. He was just like Adam and her dad—a big disappointment. The three primary men in her life pushed her farther from the Lord. Mable’s natural regression was complete. Rather than finding wholeness in life, her soul’s void could not have been wider.
This juncture is where we must guard our hearts. The temptation could be to make Mable a full-fledged victim in our story. Mable is not unique. She is representative of every person born in Adam. She is a victim, like we all are, of the fall. But she is a culpable victim or a sinning victim. This tension is where Mable must guard her heart if she wants to pull out of this lousy life pattern that was born out of self-serving and angry reactions. Her sourness toward life could exacerbate her problems. If she chooses to play the victim card, she will continue her entanglements in the same sinful choices that Adam, Dad, and Biff have made.
No matter how far you are from God or how you got to where you are, the process of finding God is the same. If she lets unforgiveness, bitterness, self-pity, anger, self-righteousness, or self-reliance rule her heart, the lifelong disappointment will continue. At any point in her life, she could have chosen Christ over selfishness. Rather than changing her life course, she pursued self-fulfillment through ungodly means. How she thinks about and reacts to her current situation could further enslave her, or it could be the impetus that slings her back around and toward the Lord. The only way for this to happen is if she gives up her pursuit of trying to satisfy her cravings by self-reliance.
Mable cannot trust Adam. She will not trust her dad. She does not want to trust Biff. But she is still tempted to trust herself, not realizing that she is no different from the three men in her life. Thinking we are different from the other fallen people in our lives is a common mistake people make. We are all cut from the same Adamic cloth. Adam’s, Dad’s, and Biff’s mistakes are no different, in essence, from the ones Mable has made. All four of them have chosen an anti-God path.
Yes, she is a victim. And yes, she is culpable. Now, it is up to her whether she wants to do something different from her three leading men. God is calling her to do what they would not do for her. She is in a place where she can break away from them by choosing a different path, by choosing a better man than them (Hebrews 3:1-6). The good news is that she has the prerogative to choose Christ. There is no excuse not to accept Him (Romans 1:20-21). She cannot plead ignorance. Her temptation will be to play the victim card—a mask individuals wear to justify why they won’t follow the Lord.
The real question is whether we believe our past and present circumstances are more significant than God’s empowering grace, which He extends to anyone who calls on Him for help. Some individuals find this truth difficult to understand and apply. The truth of being fallen while living among fallen people can be challenging to practicalize. You can gauge how well you accept this truth by how you talk about what has happened to you. Either your problems rule your thoughts, or Christ does. The men in Mable’s life have been more significant to her than Christ. As you pull back the curtain of her heart, you begin to see why this is so: sinful desires have captured her.
There are things she wants, and she is determined not to be happy until she gets them. She believes she is justified in craving a particular kind of life. She intends to continue to change contexts and relationships until she finds utopia (a place that does not exist). True happiness comes through Christ alone, rather than the mirages of happiness that we fixate on in our world. Our sense of entitlement keeps us focused on those things, and we see people as the most significant hindrances to getting what we crave.
The gospel’s counterintuitive message cuts against the grain of proud hearts. Nobody can keep you from Christ if you want Him. The deep, dark secret in Mable’s heart is that she does not desire Christ more than she wants her idea of happiness. This idol keeps her ensconced in a victim’s mindset—a card she knows how to play well. She does not perceive how what she did to Christ transcends anything anyone has done to her. The stunning reality is that Christ is willing to love her anyway, despite her sins against Him (Romans 5:8). Freedom comes when we realize that what we did to Christ is far worse than what anyone has done to us. These believers are stunned by the Lord’s incomprehensible love for them.
The Lord never asked you to manage every opinion, but He has called you to surrender your identity fully to Christ. The fear of man is a counterfeit master. It promises peace but delivers chaos. It offers belonging but breeds bitterness. The only safe place to stand is in the shadow of the cross. So ask yourself, what does it mean for you to live fully in Christ? Let these truths reshape the way you see yourself, your relationships, and your purpose.
Rick launched the Life Over Coffee global training network in 2008 to bring hope and help for you and others by creating resources that spark conversations for transformation. His primary responsibilities are resource creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.
In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology and, in 1991, a BS in Education. In 1993, he received his ordination into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master’s University. In 2006 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).
